An Observation About KPFA and The Use of the Air

You are brave to write this and we are cowards not to comment on it and demand that KPFA do something about it. I have heard about sexual harrasment of female staff as well. If you are on the inside, you know. And you are absolutely right: if this had happened on BART or somewhere else, it would be taken as news.

KPFA 'won't get involved'? Then they are criminals themselves.

Dennis Berstein got suspended for a month by the concerned listeners for barely saying the name of Nadra Foster . Not all kpfa is rotten and hopefully things seems going in the right direction for once. B.E. ticker is a parasite. good ridance

How many hundreds of thousands of dollars have the settlement sexual discrimination / harassment suits against Dennis Bernstein cost the station and the network? Many hundreds of thousands of dollars... how many exactly? And yet he's still on the air.

As KPFA's manager, Larry Bensky used his position to ban programmers from the station for airing dirty laundry.

When the situation is turned around, he then justifies airing grievances over the air.

Larry wants it, and has it, both ways, whenever convenient to ones' own self-serving interests.

INSTEAD OF THESE POWER TRIPPING FACTIONS WHERE ARE THE VOICES AND UNITED FRONT OF THE VOLUNTEER STAFF/COMMUNITIES OF COLOR???? THEY ARE THE ONES THAT NEED TO TAKE BACK CONTROL OF KPFA AND HAVE IT TRULY BE THE PEOPLES AIRWAVES...SCREW ALL THESE POWER HUNGRY WHITE LIBERALS!

Divisive race politics won't fly here. People of color were fired when the Morning Show was canned. This isn't about race or ethnicity. It's about rationality and professionalism v. irrationality and Bolshevism.

I'm pretty darned sure that it's not about Bolshevism.

What it is about is power.

And why the layoffs of some due to lack of money merit bringing a radio station to a virtual halt when the beating and arrest of others doesn't.

Making a choice to describe a layoff as an assault. When you won't describe an assault as an assault.

If that is rationality and professionalism in progressive media, we're in big, big trouble.

The entrenched station staff and their management union CWA 9415 have run roughshod over democratic and union rights. They lied about the layoffs and pretend they are defending union rights. Tell that to Nora Barrow Friedman. They have contempt for the unpaid staff which included getting their handpicked manager Lemlem Rijio to de-recognize the UPSO. This was supported by the "union" members BET and the rest of the "Save KPFA" crowd who want to get rid of elections for the foundation and appoint their buddies for life. Lemlem before she left was allowed by Arlene the ED to appoint BET to the morning show to carry on his shenanigans and given wide space on the fund drives to whine about the station being shutdown if people didn't contribute. This lie that KPFA cannot run with less than 21 full time paid staff and what is being exposed the longer this goes on is that this is all about saving their own jobs and not saving the radio station and network.
The fact of the matter is that if there were real "Bolsheviks" at KPFA these NPR wannabe corporateers and charlatans who really want jobs for life at a community radio station would have been gone long ago. KBOO in Portland and many other community stations run quite well without the "professional" type staff at KPFA.
In fact, using their methodology and stereotypes of Bolsheviks, they would be the Bolsheviks. They treat the Executive Director like a fool and idiot, the union president and the managers of the news department put their fellow "union members on the air after they are laid off for them to attack the foundation and Arlene helps them thinking that they can be reasoned with. This flagrant violation of the rules and the bylaws are business as usual at KPFA. This is like a school teacher telling a class that is completely out of control to behave themselves and then trying to reason with the bullies to do the right thing. The wrecking operation at KPFA is being carried out by the entrenched staff and local management along with their corporate union is so far successful but they may overplay their hand. The Executive Director along with her brain trust are in way over their head and they don't even know it.

Photograph of that "real" Bolshevik Mark Mericle

"How many hundreds of thousands of dollars have the settlement sexual discrimination / harassment suits against Dennis Bernstein cost the station and the network? Many hundreds of thousands of dollars... how many exactly? And yet he's still on the air."

Good point, Sexual Harassment Sucks; in another thread, someone cited the legal expense w/r/t Nadra Foster as a reason why that situation was still relevant. If I remember right, Mr. Bernstein's allegations involved Noelle Hanrahan, the journalist who brings us commentary from Mumia.

Even if dennis bernstein had problems with Noelle Hanrahan there was nothing sexual about it . So stop lying. Many great women have great respect for him . SO SHUT THE FUVCK .

sexual harassment at the station is alive and real. Blaming Nadra for KPFA's legal bills....wow....that's just low all around. It's about more than race and much more about class.

check it:

As a member of the Reggae Kollektive, a longtime contributor to API programming (via "Inside/Eastside" in the 90s, APEX, KPFA API Specials, & Kalayaan Kru), I support the demands I just read here from HKR, but I think that it should be made clear who needs to be held accountable. Are the targets really Engelhardt & Anderson, or the cabal of so-called Concerned Listeners (now using the name "Save KPFA") which supported the recently fired General Manager and her allies within the Staff, particularly Paid Staff? Brian Edwards-Tiekert and Bonnie Simmons of CL/"SaveKPFA" have been two of the people who have benefitted most politically from the disenfranchisement and disinformation campaigns against Unpaid Staff, particularly UPSO and the Collectives representing Communities of Color like BAY NATIVE CIRCLE, LA ONDA BAJITA, and more.

Real Change, in terms of Fulfillment of the 1999 Transformation Proposal (agreed to by Management during the 1999 LOCK-OUT), has only been seen concretely in the giving of airtime to HARD KNOCK RADIO before we re-entered the station in 1999 after the LOCK-OUT, after which every bureaucratic device available seemed to be used to kill any other Community-Based proposals for Programs which would have brought NEEDED AFFIRMATIVE ACTION for under- or un-represented Communities of Color and Youth.

Many committed UNPAID STAFF members (for example, All of the KPFA DJ's are NOT paid for their MUSIC SHOWS) have been left out when it comes to the DISTRIBUTION OF RESOURCES including budgeting and training, as well as being left out of organizing. It was a hard fight to ORGANIZE STAFF OF COLOR in 1999- I know, because I was an organizer who gave up weeks of paid work time & job opportunities to fight to save the station through the UNITED API STAFF & KPFA PEOPLE OF COLOR COALITION. We need to fight for much more than HARD KNOCK RADIO. The AIR SCHEDULE must be changed to make room for NEW TALENT as well as VETERAN PROGRAMMERS/DJs who have been relegated to Graveyard Shifts or the Substitute list. Changes have to reflect smart strategy, in terms of developing programming flows which attract and hold younger audiences, like FRIDAY NIGHTS do on KPFA.

YES DB is a god to women and none are allowed to speak ill of him hence they be struck down by lightening. Sorry but I would put Noelle there any day over chauvinist DB & J Crew.

ANND Don't Try To Make this About Race lets check YOURSELF at the door. Just because there was 1 woman of color let go doesn't mean this WASNT about race/class. Aimee has a military background and her politics are not necessarily in favor of the local communities of color and was always about political ladder climbing.

Big Potato, you must be referring to Catherine Austin Fitts. Have you looked at the Solari website? They advocate a portfolio mix of precious metals (presumably futures) and government bonds. While the latter is vanilla, with risk determined by currency denomination (Ms. Fitts would be the liar if she wasn't excited about QE2, while gov-d lacks sex appeal w/r/t interest rates, she still takes a fee to park peoples money in AAA), the former...well, I'm sure I don't have to explain to you Big Potato the issues endemic to the commodity market, esp gold.

If Ms. Fitts enthusiasm for the gold standard sounds familiar, its because many Right-wing movements advocate that as a panacea to fractional reserve banking et al. Now you don't think that Ms. Fitts, as a savy businessperson, would talk up her support for 9/11 conspiracies as a means to bring in clients? I'm interested in your thoughts, you sound like a rather savy bloke.

Race is also a cultural attitude. Many african people talk white like obama or aimee allison . Been black dont make u black anymore. look condalizza rice and colin powel. being ethnic is what is important.Many people hate dennis berstein because he dont talk the regular white shit like B.E. sticker . Race before everything a is cultural attitude today . About Catherine Austin Fist she is a business woman and a smart one , but she is mistaking about the the gold bubble.The safest asset today is the dollars. For the last 75 years all world bank reserve were stocked on dollars . The dollars tank all the system tank.

Catherine Austin Fitts has a lot of youtube videos on where she's interviewed by Alex Jones. That isn't necessarily bad by itself. He also invites Cindy Sheehan on a lot, as well as Willy Nelson, and they are both okay. Jones himself advocates an economic philosophy that is self-contradictory, or bound to fail. Basically, Ron Paul, alex Jones and the like act like they are the libertarian 'true' free market capitalists, and that once we do away with big-government control like the federal reserve, or corporatist monopolies, then the system will work great. They don't realize that monopolies and concentration of power are the natural result of this type of economy.

So Fitts (a whistleblower under Reagan) wants what? It's nice to hear her inside knowledge about corruption, but I'm not sure how she fits at KPFA.
Likewise, it's sort of weird to hear the 9-11 truth emphasis at the Los Angeles Pacifica station, on some shows. Yes, there was undoubtedly a lot of foreknowledge about what was going on, and coverup of how the government responded that day. But it isn't that exceptional in 20th century history. Most of the colonized countries in central america, Asia, Africa have suffered secret intervention and horrible violence and civil wars, and we don't have movements to get the truth out, really.

>>As KPFA's manager, Larry Bensky used his position to ban programmers from the station for airing dirty laundry.
>> When the situation is turned around, he then justifies airing grievances over the air.
>> Larry wants it, and has it, both ways, whenever convenient to ones' own self-serving interests.

Indeed.

So why is he featured on Indybay in a main story, glowingly?

"a dean of Bay Area alternative journalists, it would probably be Larry Bensky."
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/10/17/18661599.php

Awful.

Peter M. may be a good photographer, but that shouldn't automatically make a completely uncritical write-up of Bensky front page news.

The truth is the truth is the truth is the TRUTH! The more it is denied the more apparent it becomes...the self serving serve themselves and disregard their own actions, Pacifica rules, or union law. That is because what is important is what serves their own self serving interests. No purpose but their own purpose. Sad. Period.

@jULIANA You are correct. It is scary to live the truth of your convictions and to live it out loud. That is because retaliation is a basic part of their response to any one who questions what the entrenched and their core elitists well paid off staffers are pushing. Some people have families to support-

Copenhagen anyone??? -this insensitivity to a strained budget by the former KPFA TREASURER is also indicative of a weak, foundering character, self serving, self righteous, self important and elitist is the mindset here. It is clear we have the spiritually blind leading or trying to lead while stealing from the company they purport to support.

It is only more apparent that they have no respect for rules, union law, themselves others, women of any color and it is this that reflects in their on air presentation. vapid, stale, boring and bland. They whine---layoff me off?What??? That only happens to the unimportant masses-ya' know the under classes. Volunteers ? They exist to do our bidding, after all we are "paid staff' the "professionals" the "big boss man and wo-man" the "Almighty Massa". I think you get my drift.

A joke. Any Morning Drive Professional Personality in this market, which is a media carnival anyway, can buy and sell KPFA, Pacifica, the entire chain AND its minuscule budget. KFPA/CL'ers, Elitist/Entrenched cliquish, unprofessional and inexperienced the applause has gone to their over ambitious, narcissistic little heads. Their ignorance is woefully apparent, what they are shouts so loudly I can not hear who/what they claim to be.

If the amount of money they receive is in their minds somehow an indicator of talent and worth, which it is most certainly is not, they are at the bottom of the list of the fiscal list of big monied "talent". HAH! IF they had talent and a set of working balls they would not fight so hard to stay entrenched; they would have the confidence to get another self supporting respectable gig instead of trying to trump up a case for stealing KPFA to maintain their own "I'm on the radio- hip", comfortable, lifestyle at the expense of community radio in America and the world despite all the suffering poor masses it affects.

Radio like television mirrors the soul .

And what fool is trying to knight and empower Larry Bensky with the title of "Dean"? Dean of what, whom and where? No-not in my free and equal world. Bensky is NOT NOT not a woman friendly person-he will eliminate your work and relegate you to his personal slave in a New York minute if thinks he can get away with it. He did not get away with it in my case. But sadly, there's no telling how many women he has chased down and run away from news, just to to support his flagging ego? He gets away with plenty, and operates with impunity. Dean indeed.

I worked with Bensky on "CountDown 2006" petty and small minded in interaction and with regard to the rights of women workers? Oh Please! Believe me on this one, he is no "Dean" implying respect and power? No-not to him goes this title-and he knows it. Women who worked with and are RIGHT NOW still working with him will confirm on the Q.T. that they also have had to get him straight.

I am being kind when I say, I won't bother to mention BET, he is too green to rate a mention...but I could-should I so choose.

I agree with you Maggie! I live in Oregon and listen to KBOO whenever I'm in Portland or Corvallis. I listen to community radio a lot, all day when I'm working as my work is boring. KBOO only pays the station mgr, program mgr and two news directors. From what I hear it's not hard to get a show. All the drive-time AM shows are call in shows and pretty well done; even if you disagree w/ the topics you can call in and almost always get on the air. Every day is a different announcer and different theme, they are all volunteers.

I used to love KPFA but it's starting to sound so 'canned' to me. Everything has changed, including DemocracyNow which used to be hard-hitting news from around the world. I would rarely call it that today, and turn it off after the headlines.

You all in CA are sharp, energetic and sophisitcated and I'm sure the final outcome of this will be good; even if KPFA goes under and you create something else.

To Anon: None. But this is typical:when you can't win on the facts, you go personal. But, if you had the courage to put your name down, instead of sneaking around, anon, and make it a direct public accusation against me, I'll sue your ass, from border to border border. But you won't and you know why. By the way, when Nadra Foster, got her ass handed to her, were you one of the cheerleaders in KPFA's ruling click, that tried to put your hand over the camera so we couldn't film the KPFA management inspired police beating. Why did the professional KPFA news dept not report the beating of Nadra Foster, a black woman producer/mother in KPFA's basement? Becuase they forgot, or because the cop-callers in KPFA's prior management, boosted the KPFA News budget $55,000 in the first year, on their way to busting the budget? Calling the cops into KPFA for a police bating against a black producer should have been the end of prior management:all of it, manager, interim program director, now back in the union—the whole crew. That's when, KPFA staff should have been on the air screaming for justice. But, instead, they defended the management, and went silent, except for a few. The KPFA news didn't forget to directly and falsely try and implicate JR and the Block report in the murder of journalist Chauncy Bailey. . ..Now the current ruling staff-management click, is trying to pick it up where their heros in the cop-calling priror management left off, by getting rid of Hardknock radio and Flashpoints, JR, Full Cirice, Guns and Butter, Davy D. That's their alternative plan. bust the station, and pay for it with the end of radical, cutting edge programming. I've already been threatened with firing, sued, censored, preempted, had toast put in my mailbox, besides losing 60% of my budget, and then I had my friend and colleague, Nora Barrows Friedman run out of the station—a young single mom, who learned arabic to report from palestine, and nearly lost her life doing it—Run out, but not before, she was verbally worked over by KPFA's ruling click, for, can you imagine, going public about her salary being cut in half. And, after beating her up verbally and running her out, some of the same on-air vocalists, you hear now, conducted a public campaign, to support the cop calling management, that wildly expanded their budgets, and busted the station budget in the process....Beleivem me, anon, i'm just getting started on telling the real truth abot KPFA. part two is on the way. In Struggle, Dennis Bernstein Dennis Bernstein Flashpoints/Flashpoints.net

Wow I've just come across this news, and though I've not had much to do w KPFA in the past, I certainly won't in the future.
DB thanks for posting your view. That video made me sick to watch, you can hear Kris Welch (What's that show she has in the late morning?) nonchalantly speaking as the police are beating Nadra Foster, I can't believe it. White people calling the police to arrest a black person at a community radio station in, of all places BERKELEY CA, as a way to settle their differences? Just what kind of offering is that to the community?