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Canceling Pacifica Network News through a questionable process
Canceling Pacifica Network News through a questionable process
The Pacifica Foundation has been
embroiled in controversy surrounding its labor policies, and
specifically charged with illegally holding closed meetings,
rewriting contracts to weaken union power, and dismissing concerns of
staff, especially unpaid staff. Many KOOP programmers are concerned
about these issues. However, many also feel that the process by which
Pacifica Network News was removed from KOOP was exceptionally
sloppy.
Paul Odekirk pushed for Pacifica Network News (PNN) to be removed from KOOP without due process, and set up a show of his own creation to take its place in the schedule. Given that Paul is a Community Board (CB) member which elects the Board of Trustees (BoT), it's not surprising that the BoT placed a lot of emphasis on Paul's wishes. With the excuse that they feared a lawsuit if they didn't make a decision at the last minute (when most observers believe no lawsuit threat actually existed), four of the six board members made the decision to cancel PNN via telephone on 10-1-97, without the input of the station's General Manager, much less any members or volunteers/programmers.
We firmly believe that KOOP was not at risk for being sued by Pacifica for airing PNN. KOOP's former general manager (Jenny Wong), who was the station's primary contact with Pacifica, can verify this. (She could have verified this for the Board of Trustees members at the time had they bothered to contact her about it, and they should have, considering that Jenny had been KOOP's liaison with Pacifica.) The Board either truly believed that there was a threat of a lawsuit (in which case their judgement is extremely questionable), or they were using it as a smokescreen to justify their action (in which case their trustworthiness is suspect).
After the tensions that lead to the removal of the Pacifica Network News (PNN) from KOOP, many programmers and volunteers at the station became concerned about KOOP's relationship with Pacifica as well as the way in which the decision was made to stop running PNN. At the BoT meeting following this decision, fully 18 people attended to support attempting to reestablish communication with Pacifica regarding the News show and the future relationship between them and the station. The Board tabled the issue until their next voting meeting. At the next meeting, a handful of volunteer/programmers pressed the issue of contacting Pacifica, but the Board took no action and has still not to this day.
Furthermore, after getting PNN kicked off of KOOP, Paul Odekirk immediately moved to form a News & Public Affairs Collective to produce the KOOP Evening News. It is not surprising that Paul would become a key beneficiary of the cancellation of Pacifica. In addition, although KOOP programs must be approved by the Programming Committee (PC), Paul managed to get the BoT to directly approve the new show, completely bypassing the PC. (Here's yet more evidence of why the CB and BoT then moved to wrest control of the PC for themselves.
Although many programmers share the board's concerns about Pacifica's labor relations problems, we still feel that Pacifica's misdeeds do not give KOOP the right to act without due process ourselves.