User:Uncle G/Pacifica Crisis

The Pacifica Crisis was a conflict involving the Pacifica Foundation, and its staff and volunteers at various of its radio stations including KPFA and WBAI, from roughly 1995 until 2002, events coming to a head in 1999. It comprised a gag order, several radio presenters being fired live on air, one being arrested on air, the firing of producers and other staff, two lockouts, a protest rally, the creation of alternative outlets on the Internet and a "Take Back Pacifica" movement, lawsuits, the eventual replacement of the Foundation's Board, and a committee hearing by the California State Legislature. At its height, there was a mass protest in the streets of Berkeley attended by thousands of listeners, after presenters and staff at KPFA had been arrested en masse and broadcasting from the station had been shut down.

At issue for the Foundation were control of its facilities, its responsibilities as a broadcaster, and an intended change of strategic direction for the Foundation. At issue for its opponents were gag orders, and peremptory dismissals for violating them, at a radio service that was primarily known at the time for being a bastion of free speech; and the lack of accountability, communication, and transparency of what had become in their eyes a self-appointing Foundation Board.

Lockout at WBAI, the "Christmas coup", and a hearing in Washington D.C.
A similar series of events played out the following year at WBAI, which was rapidly dubbed the "Christmas coup". Station manager for the preceding decade Valerie Van Isler had been given, on 2000-11-28, a choice between losing her job by the end of the year and transferring to another job in Pacifica's national office, which had by that time been moved to Washington. She chose not to transfer, and on the Friday before Christmas, 2000-12-22, she and two other staff were locked out of the WBAI building, the locks changed by a locksmith who was accompanied by the Foundation's executive director Bessie M. Wash. The two others were a union steward, Sharan Harper, who was also a program assistant on the station's morning program, Wake Up Call; and the program director, Bernard White. Her replacement as station manager was Utrice Leid, who was at the time a producer at WBIA.

As at KPFA, protesters gathered outside the station, with famous names present including fellow WBIA radio host (of Building Bridges: Your Community and Labor Report) Mimi Rosenberg, and Al Lewis. A security guard was posted on the door, with a list of people who were authorised by Pacifica to enter the station.

Rosenberg herself was soon to be fired by the new manager Leid. Leid stated that Rosenberg had been fired for "reprehensible conduct"; Rosenberg issued the public statement given in further reading as. This set off a chain of events that led to further firings by Leid, and the involvement of Congressional Representative Major Owens, which led to a hearing in the Rayburn Building in Washington D.C..

Ken Nash, the remaining host of Building Bridges, was conducting a live telephone interview in that show with Owens that Leid attempted to intervene in, in order to debate points made by Owens. When her actions were objected to by Nash, she fired him, and the telephone connection to Owens was lost. Accounts differ on the details: Leid stated that Nash was also playing a recorded interview with Rosenberg that was critical of Pacifica, that Nash elbowed her in the neck, and that the confrontation lasted less than a minute, all of which was reported in the Washington Post; Nash stated in a letter to the editor of the Post in response that no such interview was played, that no physical contact of any kind occurred, that the claim that it had was first made a fortnight later, and that they were together in the studio for 7 minutes.

Owens hearing himself (on his own radio) being replaced by music on-air partway through the interview, and abruptly being on the end of a dead telephone line, was motivated to convene a forum to discuss the crisis at Pacifica and its radio stations. Several current and former board members and Pacifica employees testified, including KPFT host Jacquelyn Battiste and former WPFW local board member Marialice Williams, one of the plaintiffs in the 1999 class action suit.

Amy Goodman, co-host on Wake Up Call, was then fired from that program by Leid on 2000-03-13, having been suspended for several weeks prior. Wake Up Call's news anchor Robert Knight had been fired, for covering Pacifica in the news, a month earlier.

Juan González, Goodman's former co-host on another Pacifica networked program that she worked on, Democracy Now!, had already resigned on-air back in 2000-01-31, giving a six-minute speech in which he urged listeners not to contribute in the forthcoming fund drive. He stated afterwards that he had been inspired by the announcement by Leid, made on Wake Up Call (which at the time immediately preceded Democracy Now! in the schedule) the previous week, that the Pacifica gag order was back in effect at WBAI.

Goodman complained about a campaign of harrassment by management, with whom she was in conflict over the crisis and for other reasons. In 1999, she had been required to give management notice of her outside speaking engagements, and to provide the topics of at least three of her five shows a week ahead of time. Management had refused to issue her with press credentials for the 2000 Democratic Party's national convention because, it claimed, she had abused her press credentials at the 2000 Republican convention to gain access for Ralph Nader; Nader himself in contradiction asserting that he had simply walked in. In response to the "Christmas coup", she had taken to signing off her shows with the line "From the embattled studios of WBAI, from the studios of the banned and the fired, from the studios of our listeners, I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening to another edition of Democracy Now!". She had been instructed by Steve Yasko, Pacifica's director of national programming, to stop doing that; and when she refused she was warned in writing about "deliberate insubordination".

Leid shortly thereafter relocated Democracy Now! from the main studio to a less well-equipped facility, with Yasko explaining that the main studio was for Pacifica's own shows; and on 2000-08-10 a incident occured between Leid and Goodman, where Goodman began photographing WBAI staff who were going through Bernard White's personal belongings, and Leid took the camera from her and after refusing to return it pushed Goodman out of the way to return to her office. In response to this, Goodman relocated Democracy Now! to the studios of Downtown Community Television, stating that she no longer considered WBAI a safe working environment. Pacifica in response in its turn, stopped broadcasting Democracy Now! from all except one of its stations, and continued not to for just under the next six months.