Dateline — Berkeley, Calif.

Besieged foundation goes on the offensive

The pacifica foundation, the besieged owner of Berkeley radio station KPFA, has apparently stumped its critics with the release of a plan to transform KPFA into a high-end minority media outlet.

After a maelstrom of public protests incited by the firing of KPFA’s popular general manager, Nicole Sawaya, and culminating with the arrest of 80 protesters, the Pacifica Foundation may have stolen the opposition’s thunder with a strategic policy shift.

“While we cannot both adhere to the letter of the demands and keep KPFA afloat,” announced Lynn Chadwick, Pacifica’s executive director, “we are ready to implement a plan which, in the spirit of the protests, will make KPFA once again the most progressive voice in the nation.”

In a lengthy statement released to the press on Saturday afternoon, Pacifica announced that it would reorganize operations at its flagship station with an eye towards “establishing an updated model of progressive politics in the media … that is truly democratic.”

According to Chadwick, the audience of listener-supported KPFA consists primarily of white males over the age of 50. The plan outlined by Pacifica calls for an overhaul of the station’s hiring practices in an effort to up the number of minorities working on-air and behind the scenes at KPFA.

Programmers will also be required to develop shows that appeal to “a more racially and economically representative demographic.” Pacifica hopes to retain current listeners by simultaneously funding programs that cater to the tastes of the San Francisco Bay Area’s middle-class progressive community.

But protesters, some of whom are still camped in front of KPFA’s locked and boarded-up offices, believe Pacifica’s latest gambit is nothing more than a marketing ploy.

“They’re using diversity as a smoke screen while they proceed to censor one of the few remaining independent voices of dissent,” claims Garth Robeson, a station volunteer.

While Robeson and like-minded KPFA supporters are scrambling to discredit Pacifica’s latest initiative, some community activists are beginning to express optimism about the fate of the embattled station.

Ruth Ellis, director of the Oakland-based economic empowerment agency REACH, believes that if the community holds Pacifica to its promises, the station would better serve underrepresented communities.

“Despite their best intentions, KPFA has not changed with the times,” says Ellis. “I’ve heard a lot of talk about community radio, but how big is that community, and who belongs to it?”

Even if Pacifica is able to align itself with minority interests, the fate of KPFA will ultimately rest on its ability to balance the often competing needs of white liberals and the disenfranchised.