by Eileen Sutton

In January 2000, the Pacifica Network News was rocked by a strike from freelance reporters across the Americas, Europe and Asia. The impetus was management's implicit censorship of then PNN News Director Dan Coughlin by reassigning him after he broadcast a story about political turmoil at the network.

PNN reporters struck within months of the Berkeley crisis (1999 - see timeline) because management altered and censored news stories and public affairs programming. Pacifica had repeatedly silenced programs in mid-broadcast and ousted signature voices such as Polk award winner Larry Bensky. Striking reporters say the censorship now engulfing WBAI in New York is but the latest attempt by Pacifica to keep listeners in the dark about the ongoing corporate reorganization of the network. Before the strike, many reporters received a substantial portion of their income from PNN. Though not formally represented by a union, they are a group of journalists with the same employer, who were compelled to withhold their labor in order to try to prevent the destruction of Pacifica as an independent news source.

The striking reporters are calling on management to publicly renounce censorship throughout the network and to reinstate the editorial independence of each station's news and programming divisions. Other demands include the rehiring of former News Director Dan Coughlin.

Support for the strike is coming from individuals such as Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Michael Moore, Katha Pollitt and Michael Parenti, and from organizations such as Project Censored, Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting, The Institute for Economic Democracy, Media Alliance and Z Magazine. In addition, the strike has met with widespread union support.

But the strikers haven't stopped reporting the news. Their initial production of a weekly half hour newscast—"Free Speech Radio News"—went daily in late May, timed to put maximum pressure on the Pacifica National Board during the spring fund drive. Building on its overwhelming success, FSRN announced that a second month (through most of July) of shows is in the works, made possible by enthusiastic financial support from listeners and community stations, including KBCS in Belleview, WA and WMNF in Tampa, FL. "The concept of a progressive, alternative news voice remains viable, and it's every bit as marketable as it ever was. There are people in our audience who want to hear these stories and who want to hear these voices," said Vicki Santa, WMNF's station manager.

Former veteran "Pacifica Network News" (PNN) host Verna Avery-Brown is anchoring the broadcast. When she resigned from PNN after eleven years, in December of 1999, citing among many reasons a serious rightward drift in PNN's coverage, Avery-Brown was the only African American, national news anchor in public broadcasting. To date, 35 community stations nationally are carrying the daily cast. Most of these are Pacifica affiliate stations, and most have cancelled Pacifica Network News (PNN) to run FSRN.

Since the strike began, supporters of an independent Pacifica have barraged management with letters, emails and phone calls demanding that it negotiate with the strikers. Several affiliate stations cancelled their contracts with PNN. Other affiliate stations have twice organized a nationwide "Day Without Pacifica," to express their anger at continuing censorship and declining news quality. Last fall, Pacifica's Executive Director Bessie Wash promised a written response to the strike demands and has yet to deliver it.

For more details about the broadcast, including MP3 files and the entire FSRN archive, visit the strikers' web site at:

http://www.fsrn.org

Email:
pnnstrikers@igc.org

The cast is also aired through the Independent Media Center and globally on shortwave through Radio for Peace International. FSRN is produced out of Washington, DC, San Francisco, CA and Tampa, FL. Aaron Glantz is the producer, Randi Zimmerman is Headlines Editor.