- send letter to John Murdock via Act For Change
- Amy Goodman speaks on the Pacifica Board and Epstein, Becker and Green

Subject: [EMMAS] flanders interview with amy goodman
Date sent: Tue, 6 Feb 2001 14:37:28 -0800
Send reply to: emmasdance@cs.pdx.edu

LAURA FLANDERS INTERVIEWS AMY GOODMAN ON RADIOFORCHANGE.COM
WBAI and Pacifica: Independent Media in the Balance
Laura Flanders interviews Amy Goodman of Democracy Now on the role of independent media, the situation at WBAI, and the future of Pacifica. Goodman was interviewed live on KWAB/RadioForChange.com, Friday, February 2, 2001. _____________________________________________________________

Laura Flanders here with you on RadioForChange.com. We're going to talk with Amy Goodman in just a moment about Democracy Now. She's been signing off her daily broadcast "From the embattled studios of WBAI in New York," we'll find out why.

Let me give you something to think about from Subcommandante Marcos of the Zapatistas in Southeast Mexico. Many of you are very familiar with the Zapatista movement and maybe you are familiar with a message from Subcommandante Marcos in 1997 on the power and importance of independent media. We at RadioForChange consider ourselves part of the independent media, you'll probably agree that we're pretty independent from most of the conventional wisdom that you'll hear on either side of the commercial dial. Subcommandante Marcos wrote as follows:

By not having to answer to the monster media monopolies, the independent media have a life's work, a political project, and a purpose to let the truth be known. This is increasingly important in the globalization process. Truth becomes a knot of resistance against the lie. Our only possibility is to save the truth, to maintain it and distribute it little by little in the same way that the books were saved in the Farenheit 451 by the group of people who dedicated themselves to memorize books to save them from being destroyed so that ideas would not be lost. In this same way independent media tries to save history, today's history, tries to save it and tries to share it so that it will not disappear. Moreover it tries to distribute it to other places so that this history is not limited to one country, one region, to one city or social group. It is necessary, not only for independent voices to exchange information and to broaden the channels but to resist the monopolies spreading lies. The truth that we build in our groups, our cities, our regions, our countries will reach full potential if we join with other groups and realize that what is occurring in other parts of the world also is part of human history.

That was Subcommandante Marcos making several points that we iterate over and over again here on the Laura Flanders Show. We have information that we need to distribute and have few mechanisms to do it. Information that connects us with the people that we work with, the communities that we work with, and also puts us in the context of the globe and with our colleagues around the planet who have similar concerns and work on similar issues. If you want to find the reading from Subcommandante Marcos you can in the new collection of his writings, Our Word is Our Weapon is out now from Seven Stories Press, a really beautiful publication with pictures of the Zapatista uprising therein. But I think that the Subcommandante comments about media are very on the mark and very pertinent to the mission of our next guest Amy Goodman and Democracy Now. The mission being to go, as Amy puts it, to "where the silence is" and to report. To go to where the mainstream, where the corporate media won't. And to bring people the information that breaks that isolation we've talked about.

Amy Goodman might be feeling a little isolated these days but probably not, she has many, many thousands of fans all across the country. We've described Amy, a former colleague of mine, as the glue of the progressive movement. I don't know how she likes to be referred to as glue but we're going to find out. Amy welcome to RadioForChange.

Amy Goodman: It's great to be with you Laura.

Laura Flanders: How do you like being referred to as glue, what holds the movement together?

AG: Well, I hope it doesn't just mean "stuck."

LF: No, definitely not [laughing]. Well we're going to talk about your signing off your show for the last few days as "From the embattled studios of WBAI." Can you tell us what you mean?

AG: Right. I've been saying, "From the embattled studios of WBAI, from the studios of the fired and the banned, from the studios of our listeners" and then I say I'm Amy Goodman. I used to say "with Juan Gonzalez for another edition of Democracy Now." But, well, it's just a very difficult workplace right now. I do speak as a worker and a member of AFTRA -- as a Pacifica national programmer -- and then here in New York at WBAI our union is UE local 404, that's United Electrical. We're working in a hostile workplace and it has happened since Christmas weekend right before Christmas when Pacifica management came to WBAI in the middle of the night and they changed all the locks and they prevented us from coming in.

They installed the new general manager and at 1:50 in the morning of December 23rd she went on the air and announced "I am the new station manager, there is no coup, there are no SWAT teams it's just me." And she said there would be no changes in programming, but that was not to be the case because five hours later, early on Saturday morning of that Christmas weekend, program director and long-time program producer of WBAI Bernard White got a knock on his door at around seven in the morning and a messenger was there with a letter. It was just a letter of a few sentences, and it said you are terminated from your job at BAI, if you try to come you will be considered a trespasser, your possessions will be sent to you in the mail. This is a man who has been at WBAI for almost 20 years. He's a beloved broadcaster here, a member of the community.

An hour later up in Harlem, Sharan Harper was at home. She is the producer of Wake Up Call, the program that Bernard hosts and I cohost. It's a local show in the morning at WBAI. Sharan Harper got a knock on her door, and it was again the messenger with a package for her. And in that package was a letter that said you've been terminated as a producer of Wake Up Call -- as I think it's called a production assistant - it will be considered trespassing if you come to the station. Your possessions will be sent to you in the mail. So within two hours, two major programmers were out, Bernard and Sharan.

We headed to the station on Saturday that Christmas weekend, we tried to go in as producers, we were locked out. There was a selective lockout except for people who were on the air at that moment. The programming required so much more than being actually on the air. Police were called in. There were hundreds of people outside. They told us that we would be arrested for trespassing if we entered. And since that time we have been in lockdown mode. All the locks are changed. We were not given the combination for the front door. There are guards here.

It has to say the least created a very chilling environment. Because coupled with the firings, which by the way started in November with the ouster of our long time general manager Valerie van Isler -- coupled with those -- have been a series of bannings. We don't know who is next. We don't know why people are banned. We don't know why the people have been fired who've been fired. We just learn as they come to the door and the guards turn them away that they are banned.

Among them Janice K. Bryant who is my colleague on the morning show, Wake Up Call. She's been a long-time producer. Wake Up Call is really the flagship program. It's the largest block of time, three hours in the morning from 6:00 to 9:00. It airs just before Democracy Now which listeners in Boulder and Denver may hear on KGNU and that airs live your time at 7:00 in the morning. But we are on at 9:00 and the three hours before that are the Wake Up Call show and almost everyone has been taken out of that program.

LF: Now you've said that this is a union struggle, that there are union members involved in this situation as I understand it who've lost there job, was there any due process in those firings?

AG: There was no due process in those firings. Sharan Harper was not only the producer of Wake Up Call, but she was our union steward. This is very serious that she to this day, it has never been explained to her why she was fired. Interestingly enough while Pacifica management in Washington fired her -- Bessie Wash the executive director of Pacifica - Bessie Wash came on the air shortly after that and did an interview with Utrice Leid who was installed as the new general manager replacing Valerie. And Utrice Leid asked Bessie Wash, "Are these firings irrevocable?" And Bessie Wash was very clear, she answered twice, she said, no, you can rehire them. She said Utrice Leid could rehire the programmers but that she has not chosen to do that so they remain fired and the banned list grows whenever management feels like banning someone. So it's a very chilling environment. United Electrical in our meetings has issued two statements about the situation condemning a union busting environment. The kind of chilling actions that are taking place here that are a threat to us all.

LF: Well let me give listeners an idea of what kind of chilling Amy is referring to. On the 24th of January and I received this via fax, a memo was sent to all programmers and staff by Utrice Leid the general manager of WBAI saying, "discussion on air by any programmer or staff member of station business, station policy, personnel issues or meetings regarding these topics or other confidential matters will result in immediate suspension and/or dismissal." She went on to say that facilitation by on air programmers and staff of such discussions on the air similarly will result in immediate suspension and/or dismissal.

Now I don't know how many times this memo has been heard by the listeners of WBAI, but the question of gagging the discussion of internal station business has been a critical question across the Pacifica network with people on one side saying well it only makes sense because you don't want to have all this dirty laundry being aired on the station and turn away listeners and others saying this is a community station owned by the listeners they have a right to know what's going on. Where do you stand on that issue, Amy, and how is the so-called gag order holding?

AG: I think it's very important not to confuse internal business with major changes in policy. And that is a discussion which must be had with the whole community radio listening audience. And I know from experience covering foreign policy issues when a country says this is an internal matter. I think that policy at the highest level of Pacifica must be discussed because this is a more than 50 year institution, begun in 1949 by a guy named Lew Hill who was a conscientious objector when he came out of jail because he refused to fight in World War II. He said there has to be a media network that is not run by corporations that build a drumbeat for war because they profit from war, but a media network that is run by journalists and artists. And so Pacifica was born. Now we're five stations -- Pacifica KPFA the first station in Berkeley, KPFK in Los Angeles, in Houston and Washington, and WBAI in New York. Now there are major changes that are taking place at the highest levels. And this goes to what happened in the last few days with Juan Gonzalez resigning for the time being as co-host of Democracy Now.

LF: We're going to bring Juan Gonzalez on in the next segment of this program. And we're going to go to a break and be back with more from Amy Goodman.

You should know listeners that Media Alliance, an organization that we've had on this program before, headed up by Andrea Buffa in the Bay Area, is sponsoring an e-mail action on the Working Assets activism site, ActForChange.com. And if you want to send a message to a representative of the Pacifica Foundation Board, you can, courtesy of this radio station and Working Assets.

Save Integrity of Pacifica Radio Network http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=10666
Concerned Pacifica listeners should e-mail John Murdock of Epstein Becker & Green and tell him to resign from the Pacifica Foundation Board. From Media Alliance and Working Assets.

If you go to the Web site associated with the home page for this program, go to my page, go to ActForChange.com you will find a way to send an e-mail. Check it out during the break and we'll be right back with Amy Goodman.

[break]

LF: Amy Goodman on the line with us from Democracy Now, For those of you who are unfamiliar with Democracy Now, Amy, tell us a little bit about what your mission is, what you do and the job you serve for the community you work with.

AG: Laura as I was saying coming out of the Pacifica mission which is to bring out a diversity of voices, it's a nonprofit network, the only independent media network. We don't take advertising or corporate underwriting. We have a huge responsibility to keep the airwaves open for, as you were saying, what I think is the majority-representing the voices that are locked out of the mainstream media. The corporate media broadcasts the voices of a minority elite fringe, just continually brings us those voices to kind of manufacture a consent around that minority opinion. I think the voices that are left out are the majority of people in this country and around the world. Democracy Now is trying to bring out those voices in conversation.

In a debate in 1997 we aired nationally the commentaries of Mumia Abu Jamal from prison, from death row. With the death penalty being so controversial - we're the only industrialized country in the world to have it - we think it's important to hear from people on both sides of the bars on criminal justice issues and in general. Well, when we aired these commentaries, the minute before we go on at 12 stations, in Pennsylvania [Mumia Abu Jamal is on death row in Pennsylvania] as well as on the other stations around the country, that public radio network, Temple University network, dropped us, the whole contract with Pacifica. They said it was quote inappropriate to air Mumia Abu Jamal's voice. Well in a free democracy we don't think it's inappropriate to air anyone's voice we think people can make their own decisions and that it's important to hear different points of view especially when we're talking about the prison industrial system.

So that's the philosophy of Democracy Now. Our slogan is "the exception to the rulers," to go to where the silence is and say something, that we are not on bended knee to power. We did an interview with President Clinton on election day when he called about 40 radio stations in New York to get out the vote. He thought he could just go on the station, because he did on most of them, and it would be a platform for power because who was going to dare challenge the president of the United States? I mean that's our job and you know it well because you were an expert at doing it this way as well, Laura. And that is we are not here to applaud politicians, we're here to challenge them. And I do think that the reason we are under so much pressure now at Pacifica -- the programmers, the most successful shows - is precisely because of their success, because we are penetrating into the national conversation. There is pressure from our own organization so people within are saying who is on our board and can we get union activists and social justice organizers, people who embody the spirit of Pacifica for the last 50 years to represent us at the highest levels of our organization. Otherwise, we're in trouble.

LF: We've got a caller. Jan from Denver calling in with a question. You're on the air, Jan.

CALLER: Hi, I would like to say that Democracy Now and the Laura Flanders Show are the only two sources of information that I really look forward to it makes me feel not so alone in this cold cruel world that we seem to be launching under W. A lot of people that I know are very confused as to just how did the board members since this is a community-supported radio station, take over? How did they get their toe hold? How did they end up with the authority to do these kind of firings?

AG: The board changed the bylaws a few years ago and it became a self-selecting board. That means, each board member that comes on, those members can select the next board members. But now what's of great concern are the proposed bylaws that have just been put out and they've been written by a law firm and their representative on the board John Murdock. The law firm is Epstein, Becker & Green. And this is one of the largest anti-union law firms in the country. Not said by the opposition but they themselves say on their web site that they work to maintain "union-free workplaces." This is of grave concern to us because the by laws allow for a number of things including that the whole board would no longer have to vote on the sale of a station.

LF: Amy Goodman thank you so much for being our guest.

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The Laura Flanders Show can be heard from 8-11am PST and 11am-1pm EST on RadioForChange.com. For more information, visit RadioForChange.com or lauraflanders.com. To learn about Working Assets and Media Alliance's campaign to save Pacifica, visit ActForChange.com