WILLIAM MANDEL: If you think that I am going to cooperate with this collection of Judases, of men who sit there in violation of the United States Constitution, if you think I will cooperate with you in any way, you are insane.

UNIDENTIFIED: In 1946, 1947, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, set up through a special committee on communism, blueprinted the postwar witch hunt. It blueprinted the blacklisting of entertainers. It blueprinted the purge of government officials and of labor unions. One has to recognize that one of the evils about the use of the FBI as a political police lies in the fact that there’s been a mushroom growth since the war of extralegal and extraconstitutional methods for purging and destroying people in ways that do not require the surveillance of the criminal courts.

PAUL ROBESON: Because of my political views, which I certainly did not expect in a democracy, that I’ve been prevented from exercising my craft. On the other hand, I have never separated my work as an artist from my work as a human being. I’ve always put it even more strongly, that, to me, my art is always a weapon. It’s got to be good art.

LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI: A poet can be an orator. He can use a soapbox style to make himself heard over the static. But try to mount the box without the soap. The poet must be the real barbarian, descending on society, moving continually downward, not upward, in it, and saying what he hears with his ear to the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED: And if you have strength here, which you have, to stand with the administration and say, “We want free speech on campus,” you can have for the rest of your lives the strength to stand up whenever you say — whenever you see something you don’t like.

CHE GUEVARA: [translated] Revolutionary people are not normal people. That, I can assure you. The revolutionary makes the revolution, but the revolution makes the revolutionary.

CHRIS KOCH: Comandante Guevara was dressed in pressed military fatigues and polished black boots. During the conversation, he was in constant motion, lying on his side, shifting to a squatting position, back to his side, resting his head on his hands and puffing constantly on a cigar. Constant motion.

CHE GUEVARA: [translated] The revolutionary achieves higher levels of conscience.

MALCOLM X: You don’t have a peaceful revolution. You don’t have a turn-the-other-cheek revolution. There’s no such thing as a nonviolent revolution.

UNIDENTIFIED: What is it that made them decide that today was a beautiful day on which to die? What force within them generated that?

ROSA PARKS: The time had just come when I had been pushed as far as I could stand to be pushed, I suppose. I had decided that I would have to know once and for all what rights I had as a human being and a citizen.

AMY GOODMAN: The sounds of the kinds of voices you hear on Pacifica Radio here on Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman.

Pacifica Radio, the nation’s only independent, listener-supported radio network and home to Democracy Now!, is currently engulfed in what many describe as the fight for its survival. For over half a century, Pacifica has been at the forefront in providing news and programming on the critical issues of the day, that are all too often ignored by media outlets controlled by corporations with vested commercial interests in preserving the status quo. Pacifica has consistently covered popular movements, such as those for civil rights, antiwar, anti-nuclear, gay and lesbian rights, radical environmentalism, against police brutality, and the movement to stop corporate globalization.

Yet current Pacifica management and board practices have alarmed many supporters of the network. From the August 1999 lockout and installation of armed guards at Pacific’s first station, KPFA in Berkeley, to what death row prisoner and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal recently described as the coup on Wall Street at WBAI, where people have been banned and fired in the last few months, people see an orchestrated campaign by the Pacifica board and management to alter the political content of Pacifica programming. But members of the board and Pacifica management argue that Pacifica serves a tiny listenership, and that in order to survive and grow, the network needs to become more professional and to reach a larger and more diversified audience.

Last week, New York Congressmember Major Owens was interrupted on air at WBI radio while discussing Pacifica, and the program on which he was a guest was canceled. As a result, a few days later — actually, it was last Thursday — he went to the floor of the House and made this statement. This is Congressmember Major Owens of Brooklyn.

REP. MAJOR OWENS: Mr. Speaker, tyrants in control of totalitarian countries like China, Serbia and Iraq consider control of the airwaves an absolute necessity. They ruthlessly enforce censorship of a kind few of us can imagine in America. On last Monday, however, I had the weird and frightening experience of being gagged by a radio station manager in my own home city of New York. It started with a routine request that I call in for a phone interview on a show hosted on radio station WBAI by Ken Nash which focuses on union and labor news and features. The name of the show, which commences at 2 p.m., was Building Bridges. As the ranking Democrat on the Workforce Protections Subcommittee, I welcome the chance to appear on shows related to working families or unions.

It is important to note that radio station WBAI is a nonprofit station. It runs primarily on contributions solicited from a mass of diverse listeners. Since last December, this station has experienced considerable turmoil internally, and long-term producers and hosts have been fired or locked out of the station. Like many New Yorkers, I am concerned about the present and future of this vital outlet for free speech on the radio. Without knowing all of the specific tensions and confrontations within the station, I have indicated my interest in working toward the resolution of the problems hampering the continuation of the unique and robust programming of WBAI.

It is important to note that I am presently seeking ways to get more avenues opened for radio free speech in my city, in general. Five low-powered Haitian stations have been shut down. The survival of WBAI is vital for the entire movement seeking more access to the airwaves. The bully monopolies of commercial radio provide the continuing roadblocks to these stations. My knowledge of the reputation of certain recent appointments to the board of Pacifica Network, which is the parent nonprofit institution responsible for WBAI, leads me to conclude that there is a clear and immediate danger that attempts will be made to sell WBAI to a commercial owner. Such a sale would mean the loss of a vital voice for working families in New York City.

My beliefs and point of view are considered heresy by station manager Utrice Leid. Without explanation or apology, she shut down the microphones and proclaimed that she had to intervene because it was her job to allow only the truth over the airwaves. The following is a summary of the statement I would have made had I not been censored and shut off.

The situation at WBAI has implications far beyond this one station. Freedom of speech over the airwaves via radio, broadcast television and cable television is presently quite limited for the majority of Americans, and they are not aware of this. We have a problem of great magnitude that is not being appropriately addressed. The WBAI arrangement and structure offered one model to be emulated. As a listener-supported station with a very diverse set of programs, procedures and guests, WBAI represents the optimum use of radio in the services of ordinary people.

When I attended the memorial service of the late Samori Marksman, who’s a former WBAI station manager, last year in the great hall of St. John’s Cathedral, I saw at that funeral a more diverse assembly than I have seen anywhere in New York City. Folks from all races, religions, income levels and political persuasions were there. There were intellectual snobs, who support programs broadcasting esoteric operas, mingling with radical, grassroots political activists. Indeed, as a politician, one immediate reaction I experienced as I contemplated all of the diversity and the solidarity that was at that funeral, I felt that some of the powerful people in powerful places would see WBAI as a threat and seek to detroy it.

WBAI represents radio freedom of speech that does not make profit for anyone. There are those who see profits being made via WBAI and other Pacifica stations. There are others in powerful places who feel that only commercial stations should exist; or if there are public stations, they should be indirectly controlled by corporate grants and benign corporate advertisements.

Some of the persons who have recently been appointed to the Pacifica board represent such powerful commercial interests. In my opinion, WBAI is an endangered station as long as such business predators are on the Pacifica board. Persons far removed from the original ideals and philosophy of the founders of the Pacifica chain are not likely to promote the original intent of this very well-conceived system.

A basic question which must be tested as soon as possible in the courts is: Who owns a nonprofit entity, and who has a right to sell a nonprofit radio station? Does the original charter or licensing by the FCC permit any group of trustees or directors to treat Pacifica and WBAI as if they were commercial entities?

While the Pacifica turmoil is raging, I strongly urge WBAI to seek to preserve its freedom by exploring the necessary steps to become independent of Pacifica. As a nonprofit entity, WBAI should use the university structure as a model. It should elect a broad of trustees through a voting process utilizing its contributors and supporters as the voters. The trustees should be responsible for basic business operations, while the producers and staff should be given a role similar to the faculty of a university. Basic freedoms similar to academic freedom and tenure should be conferred upon long-standing producers and long-term paid and unpaid staff participants. We want to preserve WBAI in New York City.

AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Major Owens of Brooklyn, New York, speaking two Thursdays ago on the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.

And you are listening to Democracy Now! Again, today, a debate about the state of Pacifica and its future. We’re joined from the Washington studio at WPFW by John Murdock. He’s chair of the governance committee of the Pacifica board. And we’re joined in the studio in New York at WBAI by Juan González, the former co-host of Democracy Now!, who resigned until John Murdock and others on the board resign.

John Murdock, welcome to Democracy Now!

JOHN MURDOCK: Thank you for having me, Amy. I look forward to the opportunity to talk with you and with Juan. I want to let you know that I’ve wanted an opportunity to come on the air and chat with you for quite some time. I’ve listened carefully to your reports on the issue of Pacifica and have wondered when you would in fact give an opportunity for other voices to be heard regarding this issue.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I appreciate you joining us right now. First, why don’t you respond to what Major Owens had to say?

JOHN MURDOCK: Major Owens had a lot of things to say. But one thing that I think should be noted is that the executive director of the Pacifica Foundation has met with Major Owens, and they have had discussions, and that we have advised Major Owens, as we have said publicly many times, that there is no plan, intent, design by anyone on this board to sell any of the Pacifica stations. The Pacifica stations are indeed a treasure, and everybody on this board values the stations and believes that they should remain a network that is committed to the original mission of the Pacifica Foundation.

With regard to the issue of the organization and structure of the foundation, I think that it’s important to have a dialogue among all the people who support the mission of the foundation to discuss how we can improve the communications among the board, the staff, the local advisory boards in each of the listening areas and the listeners That’s an important dialogue. It’s a dialogue that the board attempted to begin in September by putting out a draft of proposed bylaw changes, and has continued to work by establishing a process for public meetings for public comment on the bylaws, the policies and procedures of the organization. So I think there does need to be some discussion about how we move the foundation forward to improve the dialogue and communication among all of its constituents.

AMY GOODMAN: John Murdock, chair of the governance committee on the Pacific board. We have to break for stations to identify themselves. When we come back, Juan González will be joining us, as well. But, John Murdock, I understand that WPFW, where you’re doing the broadcast from right now, has chosen not to play Democracy Now! today, with the subject being the debate on Pacifica. So I’m wondering if when we go to the break, you could ask them if they would reconsider and they would play the program.

JOHN MURDOCK: Amy, I’m in a small booth here and at the microphone, so if I have an opportunity at some point, I’ll be happy to chat with someone about it —

AMY GOODMAN: OK.

JOHN MURDOCK: — find out what the story is.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break for a minute right now. You’re listening to Democracy Now! Back in a minute.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: You are listening to Democracy Now!, the Exception to the Rulers. I’m Amy Goodman, as today we talk about the state and future of Pacifica, the only independent media network in this country. Before we do that, let’s just take a listen for a second to what WPFW is playing right now.

AMY GOODMAN: — press outlets like The New York Times continue their relentless attack on him. Here is someone who, at his super rallies, has had the largest number of people coming out, who are paying to hear what he has to say.

AMY GOODMAN: That actually is a speech that I gave at Cal Tech in Pasadena last November. So, unfortunately, it sounds like I’m censoring myself here. Well, I’m hoping that WPFW will change its mind and play Democracy Now! today, because it is really critical to have a dialogue about the future of Pacifica today. John Murdock is with us, chair of the governance board of the Pacifica board. And Juan González is with us. You last perhaps heard his voice on January 31st, when he resigned as co-host on Democracy Now!, saying he wouldn’t come back until members of the board resigned. But, John Murdock, let me ask you about this issue of censorship, that has been such an important discussion that has been going on for a while now within the network. For example, how do you feel about not being heard where you’re broadcasting from right now, at WPFW?

JOHN MURDOCK: I’m in the PNN studios right now, not in the WPFW studios at the moment. But I think it’s interesting that, in fact, one of your shows is being aired. You are being heard on the air in Washington, D.C. I can’t speak for the station program director with regard to why they decided to do that.

AMY GOODMAN: That issue, though, of censorship, of gag rules around the network, people being told what they can and cannot say, has come up at the board. I was down in Houston for the national board meeting last weekend, and it was something that when you had the listener comment period and also just the discussion among board members, it has come up. What is your attitude to the issue of gag rules and taking off programs when a local station doesn’t want to air them, like today?

JOHN MURDOCK: It is fundamental to the mission of Pacifica that the voices of the communities we serve be heard. In order for that to happen, we have to make sure that the access and the organization by which people gain access to the microphones is balanced and that it’s fair. One of the things that we cannot tolerate on Pacific air is hate speech. We cannot tolerate on Pacific air any self-promotion, any marketing, any endorsements. We also cannot tolerate on the air the infringement of people’s basic rights to privacy, any discussion about personnel issues regarding someone’s employment. In many of the instances that you are alluding to, the conduct of the persons on air violated one or more of those fundamental concerns that we have — and should have — as an organization. And I’m sure you’ve got to support, Amy, against going to people’s personnel issues and dealing with either hate speech or vitriol against persons who don’t have access to the microphone.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let me give an example of a censorship that has gone on. This is just 30 seconds. You know, at the end of the program every day now, because of what has happened at WBAI, with the people who are banned and fired, I end the program by saying, “From the studios of the banned and the fired, from the embattled studios of WBAI, from the studios of our listeners.” And this is what now goes out on WPFW every day when I sign off the program. Well, we’ll play that in a minute. But why don’t I go to a live person in the studio right now? What happens is, when I say that, they —

JOHN MURDOCK: Well, Amy, let me just make a comment about that, though. You’ve had a couple of technical issues, and I know the folks here are working very hard to try to address these. This is an example of part of what the foundation board is trying to correct by making improvements financially in the kind of equipment we have, so the people who are here this morning working hard to try to make sure that your show is heard all over the country and on all of our affiliates can do their jobs and do it well.

And the reason that I understand that the ending to your show is not played in Washington, D.C., is because it gets into this fundamental privacy issue of personnel. So, what you are seeking to do is to get people to start asking about personnel issues for individuals who have grievance rights through their union. You are — have a responsibility to the community, not to advance the interests of a limited number of people who may be your friends, who maybe you support their interests as — on personnel issue. You have an obligation to make sure that you are reporting on issues that are of concern to our community. There are procedures for people in Pacifica to deal with personnel issues.

AMY GOODMAN: As I said, Juan González is also in the studio with us here. Juan, welcome back to Democracy Now!

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Thank you, Amy, for this opportunity to visit this issue. And I want to commend John Murdock for wanting to publicly debate and discuss some of the pressing concerns about the future of Pacifica. It’s something that few of the — unfortunately, few of his fellow board members or top administrators are willing to do. And I would welcome the opportunity over the next year or so, since I know the Pacifica board has talked about having town meetings, for debates to occur in various cities, so that listeners could personally have a chance to hear both sides of the question of what is going on at Pacifica.

But in terms of some of the specifics that Mr. Murdock has mentioned, I think that I wish it were just a question of some personnel problems at individual Pacifica stations. But the reality is that this is a far bigger issue than just some personnel changes. And I think that those who attempt to isolate what has occurred at each of the individual stations and try to deal with either personality conflicts or changes of programming would be missing the forest for the trees.

The reality is — and I did not even fully understand, when I resigned on January 31st, how long this change in Pacifica has been building up, because I didn’t really know the history of some of the other stations. Since then, I have learned some of the history of what’s occurred at some of the other stations. I thought it started with KPFA a couple of years ago. Now I’ve learned from people in Houston, when I was there, and also from folks in L.A. that even at the Houston station and at the Los Angeles stations, there were periods of, in effect, modern-day purges of people that occurred in KPFK back in 1995, and actually in Houston even earlier, where, in essence, what has been occurring systematically at one Pacifica station after another is a squashing of dissent on the air, as well as of people on staff who might disagree with some management policies.

Now, I have worked for many years in corporate media. And I understand that in a corporate capitalist operation, there is total dictatorship. The boss decides. The boss rules. The boss tells you what to do, when to do it. And if you don’t like it, you’re out. I always imagined that Pacifica was a different type of organization. It was an organization that really cared about expressing dissent, both not only internally, but on the airwaves, and that also that this kind of dictatorial, authoritarian approach to management did not — was not welcomed. I’ve discovered, unfortunately, to my dismay, that Pacifica is very — not very different, and, in fact, in some places, even more authoritarian than some workplaces. I, at the New York Daily News, for instance, have a lot more freedom to criticize my boss and the owner of the newspaper than some people at some of these Pacifica stations have to criticize their own management, so that that has been an enormous surprise to me.

And I think that the trend — and I know John Murdock has only been on the board for a year, and maybe he hasn’t fully studied some of the history of some of the stations. But I think that if he were to analyze and hear both sides, even he would be surprised at the trend that has been developing at Pacifica. For instance, Verna Avery-Brown, who was for many years the anchor of the PNN news, said, when she — after resigning, in a speech, she said that “I left when I realized the majority of the board members were too timid, too uninformed or too conservative to give a damn to step in and make the necessary changes. I left because the Pacifica I had fallen in love with no longer existed.” Or take Frank Stoltze, who was the news director at KPFK in Los Angeles. He resigned, somewhat over a year ago, and he, at the time that he resigned, said that — he cited, in part, repeated breaches of journalistic ethics. And Stoltze says that he regrets not having resigned at the moment that KPFK management began interfering with his reporting on the Pacifica crisis. We’ve had examples in Berkeley. Respected national reporters like Larry Bensky and others have been ousted. And, of course, we’ve had the situation here at WBAI.

And in many of these places, the basic due process rights of any employee — of any employee — were just ignored or violated. You’ve had instances of, for instance, Robin Urevich in Los Angeles, who — because she wrote an article in another newspaper in Los Angeles talking about what she felt were the crisis situations in the station there, she was banned from the station, even though she never said anything on the air. It was in a separate publication that she was writing for. Now, I don’t understand how you can justify. And I’m not saying that you, Mr. Murdock, participated directly in those things, but the management people that you are responsible for did them. And how you can justify that at a free speech network is just — it’s mind-boggling.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s give John Murdock a chance to respond. Again, John Murdock is the chair of the governance committee of the Pacifica board.

JOHN MURDOCK: Thank you, Amy. I appreciate the opportunity to respond to that. First of all, Juan, as you well know, the Pacific Foundation employees and staff are members of a union. And they have the rights as members of the union to pursue any grievances, any issues regarding their employment, any issues regarding their relationships with the managers and more senior staff through a due process that was negotiated and bargained for by them through their union. So, to the extent that you consider yourself an advocate for people who you have termed “the banned,” you seek to overtake the role of their own union. Now, I happen to personally think that if these issues need to be dealt with, they need to be dealt with through the union. And those persons who have the grievances are the ones that ought to be heard on this issue, not yourself.

Now, with regard to your resignation on the air, I was stunned when you resigned on the air, Juan. I was stunned because never once did you ever pick up the phone and try to communicate with me or, to my knowledge, anybody else on the board about any issues or concerns that you had. One of the things that I think has got to change here — or, actually, there are several things, but one of the things I think has got to change here is that our on-air news persons and our on-air persons, like yourselves, need to stop reporting on yourselves, and let independent media let folks who have some objectivity, who are interested in whatever issues are going on, be the ones to report about these issues. It was a very balanced piece that was done in The Nation about a year ago, that had, I think, some very healthy and worthwhile comments and criticisms about the foundation and things that Pacifica needs to do, but also pointed out that many of the things that the board is trying to do are really fundamentally important to the long-term survival of the mission that was established 50 years ago, and which, despite all of the accusations you’re throwing around, a board of persons has worked hard with the staff, with the stations, with the local advisory boards, through disputes and hard times, to continue to keep alive.

Now, one of the things that has to happen is this: The level of vitriol, the level of hatred and anger has got to go down. Part of the reason that many of the board members are unwilling to come out into the public and talk about these issues is because they have been attacked on websites. In KPFA — in the situation with KPFA, one person had a rock thrown through their window. There were shots fired into the station. I myself had been the subject of attacks in a campaign where people have gone into my offices and have attempted to disrupt my offices. That is not how you promote free speech. And I am shocked that you are not on the air today saying that that kind of behavior has got to stop. We need a dialogue. And I am reaching out to people on the local advisory boards. I’ve been on the phone with the heads of two of the local advisory boards and made it clear I’d like to meet with those local advisory boards. We are community radio. And we need to work as a community to resolve the issues, not by fighting with one another, though, and calling each other names and saying, “You don’t have the right to participate, because we don’t think that you fit the mold.”

AMY GOODMAN: Juan González?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, yeah, there are several things I’d like to respond to. First of all, Mr. Murdock began by raising the issue that fired employees anywhere have the right to union representation and to address their grievances through a union procedure. It’s interesting that you raise that, since you work at a law firm, that, basically — reading from the webpage, the webpage of your own law firm, it says that Epstein Becker & Green provides a full range of traditional labor law services. Among them are countering union organizing campaigns, representing employers in NLRB union representation, and counseling employers in effective techniques for lawfully maintaining a union-free workplace. So, your firm doesn’t specialize in counseling employees about how they may be able to defend themselves in the workplace.

But to go on to some of the other issues that you raised, first of all, the issue of whether I personally raised to you directly any of my criticisms before my resignation, the fact is, as I tried to explain to you in a Houston board meeting, when you first raised these issues, that I, for quite some time, have attempted to let the board know — remember, I was working for the — I was working for Pacifica on Democracy Now! And therefore, I did not feel that it was my — as an employee, it was not my responsibility to go directly to the board first. I went to the supervisors that were over me. And initially — well, first of all, I was invited to speak at the board more than a year ago. And at that time, I did raise to the entire board, with Mary Frances Berry chairing the meeting, one, what I thought were the contributions of Democracy Now!, and how I was hoping that the board would be able, through dialogue, to try to remedy some of the conflicts that had gone on. I, at that time, actually thought that the board was disposed to do that, although I admit that Mary Frances Berry didn’t seem to be paying much attention to anything that I was saying, but the other board members did. Subsequent to that — subsequent to that, I wrote a long, detailed letter to the program director at the time, Steve Yasko, raising criticisms of what I felt were the main problems that were occurring at Pacifica and with regard to Democracy Now! I also met with two board members, now the current chair, Mr. Acosta and Mr. Palmer, in March of last year to raise criticisms that I thought were occurring. I didn’t feel it was my responsibility to go to each individual board member to raise my concerns. And then, subsequently, I also met with Steve Yasko, the national programming director, just in January, again raising criticisms.

So, over a year and a half, I raised criticisms privately, never saying anything on the air, because, in fact, on Democracy Now!, when I was there, the only time we covered any conflicts here was over the KPFA situation more than a year ago. Since then, this show has not really had an extended discussion on the issues. So that I think that there was ample opportunity on my part to be able to raise privately. When I felt that the things had gone too far, that’s when I resigned. And that’s when I decided to organize a campaign to remove the board and yourself.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, we have to break for stations to identify themselves again. When we come back, the larger issues of the board, the possible change in bylaws and what that could mean for the sale of stations or from people on the board personally profiting from that sale. I also want to say that we did invite the executive director of Pacifica to be on the program today, Bessie Wash, but she was unavailable. You are listening to Democracy Now! We are looking at the state and future of Pacifica. Our guests are the recently resigned co-host of Democracy Now!, Juan González, also a columnist with the New York Daily News, and John Murdock, who’s chair of the governance committee of the board of Pacifica. Stay with us.

[break]

AMY GOODMAN: You’re listening to Democracy Now!, Free Speech Radio. I’m Amy Goodman, as we talk about the state of Pacifica and its future. And we’d also like to hear from you. You can send us email at mail@democracynow.org. That’s mail@democracynow.org. Our guests are Juan González, former co-host of Democracy Now!, who resigned until members of the board resign, complaining about the corporate direction of the board. One of those members is joining us in the Washington studio at WPFW, where, unfortunately, they’re not playing today’s program. John Murdock is with us, who is chair of the governance committee of the board of directors of Pacifica and also a partner with Epstein Becker & Green in Washington, D.C. Juan, when you resigned, you talked about this, quote, “corporate direction” of the board. I want to get John Murdock’s direct response to that. Can you explain what your concerns are on the board today and its members?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, the concern is that the board in recent years has increasingly been — the positions have been filled increasingly with people who, to a large extent, it seems to me and to many others — because there are thousands of people around the country, actually, who are involved; it’s not just a few folks involved in questioning the direction of the board — but the folks who seem to be, in the name of creating a larger, a broader audience and and being more relevant, because they say that the old Pacifica is irrelevant, that in the name of trying to become more relevant in the radio world today, that they are attempting to dilute programming to dull the edges, the sharpest edging of reporting that Pacifica does. For instance, they talk about PFW, the Washington station, and the Houston station gaining increasing audience, but they don’t explain that the reason they gained increasing audience is they’ve increasingly gone to a music format. Now, everyone knows you can increase audience by playing music most of the time.

But the reality is that the stations within the Pacifica network, like KPFA and WBAI, who consistently attempted to get political news and cultural news and debate and have talk shows that dealt with and also news shows that dealt with pressing social issues, those are the two stations that raise the most money for the network, that have had the highest audience ratings, and that, to this day, that’s still the reality. Now, true, the Washington and the Houston stations have gained audience, but it is at the expense of reducing the amount of airtime that they deal to the pressing social and political issues facing this country and the American people.

AMY GOODMAN: John Murdock?

JOHN MURDOCK: Thank you, Amy. Let me make sure it’s clear I’m speaking for myself as a member of the board; I’m not speaking for the board. But I want to respond to quite a few things that Juan said. The first one, though, that caught my attention was that Juan didn’t feel it was his responsibility to pick up a phone and call me. And I thought to myself, you know, it’s funny. I’ve heard my name. My name has been heard on the air at WBAI and on Democracy Now! at least several times, and I have been characterized as a partner in a union-busting law firm. And I thought to myself, you know, where’s the balance in this? And why is it that I had to ask for an opportunity to come on the air and not get that opportunity until a year later? The interesting thing about it is, the firm that I work for also represents unions. It represents unions in health and welfare benefit matters. Obviously, there is balance. There is balance there. But, Juan, I am no more culpable for what all the litigation is and all the matters are that are handled by my firm than you are culpable for every article and editorial in the commercial media outlet that you get paid to work at, which has a fairly conservative editorial board. I take responsibility for my actions. And I take responsibility for the commitment I’ve made, and indeed a tremendous amount of time, at personal expense, to invest in trying to make Pacifica a better place.

Pacifica is community radio, and you don’t have the right, and no one has the right, to dictate who is appropriate for the board in terms of whether or not they meet your political litmus tests or they meet your social litmus tests. The board is here to provide oversight to make sure that the organization, at the community level, is able to function and provide an outlet for people in the community to have access to the airwaves and to be able to speak out on issues that are important to them. In the Washington, D.C., area, what is broadcast is an intelligent, challenging mix of programming dealing with social issues, dealing with ethnomusicological issues. And it’s important to the people in this community. It may not be what’s important to you, Juan, in your community. And I don’t have the right and don’t want to dictate what’s on the air in your community. As a member of the board, I don’t dictate what’s on the air at all.

Now, one of the things that I do think we need to do as an organization is we do need to review our bylaws. We need to review our policies and procedures. And I think that’s something that should be done through a dialogue between the board, between the station staffs and station managers and the local advisory boards. The local advisory boards are the conduit through which the community has an involvement in how these stations operate. And I do think that a tremendous amount can be done to improve that.

But I want to say something also that I said at the last board meeting. What’s going on at Pacifica now, as you noted, Juan, is something that has occurred over a long period of time. It is not something that is your fault. It didn’t occur because you did something. Nor is it my fault because I did something. There’s no one person we can look at and say, “This is your fault.” But all of us who are here today have a responsibility. And the responsibility we have because we’re here today is to reach out and try to resolve some of these issues, not to take the position you take, which is, “Well, I’m not going to play at this until you go away,” because that’s not community. Community involves reaching out and working through your differences. You cannot have a healthy, successful community in which you are going to preclude the involvement of people because you don’t like them or you don’t think you can work it out. Pacifica’s mission is about reaching out across differences, showing one another how varied we are, and nevertheless having a peaceful, safe environment where folks can say what they want to say, within reason, obviously, as long as it’s not hate speech, and people can feel that they’re not going to be attacked because they have a particular point of view.

Now, an example of that is this: I drafted a set of suggested bylaws for discussion. I was very clear about that. Instead of most people getting back to me and saying, “Here are my ideas,” do you know that within two days there was a website out there vilifying the undertaking? That’s not how you foster dialogue. Now, I don’t agree with everything you say. And, Amy, I love your show, but there are times when I sit and I cringe. But, nevertheless, we all have to work together. And that doesn’t mean we have to like each other. It doesn’t mean we have to like what our views are. But we have to find a way to create a cooperative environment.

AMY GOODMAN: You talked about the community boards being the conduit of the public. Unfortunately, at BAI a few weeks ago, when the local advisory board attempted to meet here, they were prevented from doing so, and nine members of the board and the public who were here were arrested. But, Juan González, on the issue of the bylaws?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yeah.

AMY GOODMAN: We only have a few minutes, a national show where people want to know —

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Yes, yeah. I mean, the main points I want to make, first of all, in terms of the advisory boards that you mentioned, the reality is that several of the advisory boards are suing the board of Pacifica right now in court in California, precisely because the board, in changing its bylaws to make itself a self-perpetuating board rather than have board members that were representative of the different stations of Pacifica as chosen by the local advisory boards, that that is one of the fundamental governance issues that’s at play here, that you’ve got three separate lawsuits from local advisory board members, from listeners and from some of your own board members, who say that you’ve illegally changed the bylaws. And again, this happened when you were not there, but you’re along with it. That’s one issue.

Secondly is the issue of the question of the selling of the stations. If, as you and several others continue to say, that there is no intention to sell the stations, why is it that the proposed bylaw revisions, that you have proposed, that you wrote, still make it possible for a committee of the board, the executive committee of the board, to sell anything but the substantially — all the assets of the corporation, which means you could sell some of the assets of the corporation, which means you could sell one station or two stations and still be legally within those bylaws as you have written them?

JOHN MURDOCK: Well, let me respond to both of those, Juan. I think those are both interesting points, and they’re worthy of some discussion.

One of the things that you’ve neglected to point out is that the overwhelming majority of the people who are on the national board are people who were nominated by the local advisory boards. So, when you look at the composition of the national board, you are looking at a board that is largely made up of people who came from LABs in each of the five areas. So, that is just a complete misrepresentation of the facts.

Secondly, with regard to the issue of a sale, the board has said, openly, publicly, on its website, in board meetings, there is no plan to sell any of the stations. Now, when I first joined the board, there was a proposed amendment to the bylaws against a sale. And the matter came up before the board for a vote in September. I actually voted for that. A lot of people abstained. And the very people who were most adamant about wanting it voted against it because they weren’t happy with all of the language. Nevertheless, there is nothing in the draft of the bylaws that I put out that facilitate the sale. In fact, Juan, if you look at the current bylaws, the bylaws that have existed for years, there’s nothing in those bylaws currently that prohibits a sale. So the language I drafted provided greater safeguards than currently exist.

And since it was a draft, and I said it was a draft, obviously, you and others, if you were concerned about that, could have reached out and communicated, which is what Pacifica is about, and made some suggested changes, because that is what we need to be doing. You don’t just get up and say, “I don’t like your draft. I’m not talking to you.” What you do is you say, “What? I don’t like your proposal. Let me counter it with something else.” That’s a dialogue, Juan. We need to have a dialogue. And I’m hoping — I’m hoping that there are people who will sit down and take the time to write a letter or to do an email, to you or to me or to other people, and to say, “Look, we want a dialogue. Let’s stop all the fighting,” because that is not going to foster any kind of unity and success for Pacifica. No one on this board wants to sell any of these stations.

AMY GOODMAN: Juan González, you, me and other people, and hopefully members of the board or management, will be out in Los Angeles on March 23rd at the First Baptist Church on Westmoreland to discuss the big issues of Pacifica. But you are advocating a boycott of Pacifica. Many people are supporting you. Many people are saying, “Well, that could bring down Pacifica.” How do you defend yourself, that that could hasten the sale of stations?

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, I don’t believe that that will happen. Unfortunately, I would have liked to believe that what John Murdock is saying about dialogue would lead to results. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the board of Pacifica is very much like the Israeli government. It’s trying to create a reality on the ground while it continues to pay lip service to negotiations, because, otherwise, they wouldn’t continue to fire people without — you know, without any kind of — talk about lowering the vitriol. Firing people like Bernard White, 20-year veteran of the station, in the middle of the night is not the way you conduct negotiations or discussions about the future of Pacifica.

I think that the campaign against Pacifica, against the Pacifica board, has to cut off its funds, because that’s — the Pacifica board depends for about 85% of its revenue from listeners. And we have at the Pacifica Campaign — and we know that they’re attempting to scare staff by saying that they’ll be laid off — we’re prepared to, if anybody is laid off, to help raise money to supplement their income until such a time as the board is out. But we believe that the funds have to be cut off.

Mr. Murdock, I wish that what you were saying, the words, matched the practice of the board. But the words do not match the practice of the board. And this is a fundamental fight over democracy at the only independent media outlet, radio outlet, in the country, network in the country. This is a much broader issue than just a few people being fired at any particular station. And, unfortunately, I’ve reached the conclusion that the board, as it is now constituted, is not — is open to talking, but is not open to changing.

AMY GOODMAN: John Murdock?

JOHN MURDOCK: Juan, I think that’s unfortunate, because what you’ve just expressed is that you’ve given up on the fundamental mission of Pacifica. You’ve decided that the community cannot exist as a whole, and therefore that it must be divided. And that is not something that I am going to allow to happen. So, I will continue to reach out. I will continue to invite you and others to dialogue, to talk, to try to work through and figure out ways to make changes where changes need to be made. And I will —

AMY GOODMAN: John Murdock, if people want to get in touch with the board or with you, where can they call or go on the web?

JOHN MURDOCK: People are welcome to email me. Many people have. I’ve communicated with probably upwards of 1,500 to 2,000 people over the course of the last six months by email.

AMY GOODMAN: Very quickly.

JOHN MURDOCK: JMurdock@EBGLaw.com. I’d be happy to take people’s comments there. Thank you very much, Amy, for having me on the show. I really want to — want to thank you. I’ve enjoyed doing it. Juan, thank you. And look, Juan, I hope we get a chance to talk more.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: OK. Yes, and if you want to reach the Pacifica Campaign, you can reach us at www.PacificaCampaign.org, or you can call us at 1-800-797-6229. That’s 1-800-797-6229.

AMY GOODMAN: And if you want to email us at Democracy Now!, that’s mail@democracynow.org. That does it for the program. Democracy Now! produced by Terry Allen, Kris Abrams; Anthony Sloan, our engineer; Errol Maitland, our technical director. From the embattled studios of WBAI, from the studios of the banned and the fired, from the studios of you, our listeners, I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for listening to another edition of Pacifica Radio’s Democracy Now!