of the Current Direction of Pacifica
by Vic Chaubey
[email protected]
The Nation magazine is a big supporter of the current direction of Pacifica. I do not think they are objective and it would not surprise me if they support the firing of Amy Goodman. It has been rumoured that David Corn will take over Democracy Now! if Goodman is ousted. I believe we need to hold the Nation magazine accountable for their alliance with Pacifica. As result of their alliance with Pacifica I terminated my subscription to the Nation magazine (this happened in 1996). Nation magazine to me is just like Pacifica -- one big lie (complete fraud). Any magazine that has Marc Cooper in it cannot be taken too seriously (he is a dishonest journalist). It is time that we hold Nation magazine accountable.
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| The crowd on the Brooklyn Bridge including fired producer Janice K Bryant, front. April 28, 2001 © Copyright, Diane Greene Lent, 2001 |
Editor's note: Katrina Vander Heuval is a member of the Council on Foreign
Relations just the same as Tom Brokaw, John Chancellor, Leslie Gelb, Catherine
Graham (deceased), Marvin Kalb, Jim Lehrer, Anthony Lewis (recently retired
from the New York Times), Dan Rather, Diane Sawyer, Garrick Utley,
and Mortimer Zuckerman are. This would explain why the Nation doesn't
take any different attitude than the other press in the United States.
(See True Democracy, Summer, 2001 edition -- section on the Council
on Foreign Relations.)
by Lyn Gerry
The Nation Magazine is not what you'd call a neutral party in the Pacifica crisis. It dominates quite a bit of airtime, most prominently at KPFK. For this piece of good fortune, it owes the present regime at Pacifica. (Understand that I am considering the present regime to have begun in 1994 with the tenure of Pat Scott as Pacifica CEO; it was during this period that large scale bannings and purges began at many stations, as well as concerted attacks on the unions, and on the independence of Local Station Boards.)
The Radio Nation program is a weekly infomercial for the Magazine, which by the way is a for-profit entity. It was billed as a co-production with Pacifica in the pages of The Nation Magazine when it debuted.
Another little known fact is that Alan Sagner, a Democratic Party fundraiser who owns a financial interest in The Nation served as Chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPR) Board which was responsible for setting aside their own Inspector General's report upholding the charges of listener-activists that the Pacifica Board improperly closed meetings and interfered with the ability of Local Advisory Boards to perform their role. This was during the drafting of the "Five Year Plan," the blueprint for the centralization of power and the mainstreaming of Pacifica.
Though much hay was made about the persecution of Pacifica by Gingrich-ites, it is the President who nominates the members of the CPB Board, and the President at the time was Clinton.
(more on that can be read about at http://www.radio4all.org/fp/cpb.htm)
KPFK airs:
Nation Contributing Editor Marc Cooper - 4-5 pm 5 days a week
Radio Nation featuring Marc Cooper - 7-8 am Friday, rebroadcast on
Sunday
(Radio Nation features interviews with Nation Magazine editors
and contributors - Radio Nation also airs on KPFT)
Nation Contributing Editor Jon Weiner - 5-6 pm, 2 days a week
Former Nation Contributing Editor Saul Landau - 3-4 pm, 1 day a week
Additionally, Pacifica has recently begun producing the weekly 1 hour David Corn Show, featuring The Nation's Washington Editor, David Corn, as a national show. Corn also is regularly featured as a commentator on Pacifica Network News (PNN). Corn's bio (http://www.thenation.com/directory/view.mhtml?handle=corn_david), incidentally, notes that he is a frequent guest on television and radio talk shows. He has been a panelist on CNN's Capital Gang, and he is a regular on C-SPAN, MSNBC, Fox News Cable and CNN. He has appeared on ABC News, CBS Morning News, Fox Television News, The McLaughlin Group (NBC/PBS), Crossfire (CNN), Washington Week in Review (PBS), Equal Time (CNBC), Tim Russert (CNBC), Tribune Television and other shows and networks.]
Finally, other Nation Editors and Contributing Editors are regularly featured on other shows at KPFK, particular during morning and afternoon drive times.
All these shows are during drive-time, the peak radio-listening period. Of note, in light of the latest Westhill Partners Public Relations initiative as exemplified by the Bessie Wash letter in the Village Voice, is that no people of color host public affairs shows at KPFK between 6 am and 7 pm, and that with the exception of 1 hour once a week, no women other than Amy Goodman host public affairs shows at KPFK during these hours.
These shows listed above represent well over a quarter of weekday daytime public affairs programming at KPFK.
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