March 7, 2000 | Garland Ganter, manager of Pacifica's country-and-western music formatted station KPFT, has been
appointed interim national program director for Pacifica. Ganter, along with KPFT chief engineer Bob Cham, was brought to Berkeley last
summer to close down the station's local programming and occupy KPFA under armed guard. Substitute music programming was piped in from Houston to KPFA's transmitter (the ISDN link to KPFA's transmitter is
still in place, and could be re-activated at any time by Pacifica, thereby silencing KPFA's community based, free-speech programming again). Ganter was present when KPFA's Dennis Bernstein was confronted
by guards in the control room. He ordered KPFA off the air, and authorized "citizens arrests" of 56 people, including the entire KPFA news department. (Charges were subsequently dropped against all
those arrested.) Pacifica has not had a national program director since June, 1998, when Gail Christian's resignation was accepted by Pacifica management (Christian was kept on under undisclosed
terms as a "consultant" for about another year). Pacifica now has just one nationally distributed daily program, "Democracy Now," in addition to the half-hour daily newscast,
which is now being struck by more than 40 of its freelance reporters after news director Dan Coughlin was removed and long-time anchor Verna Avery Brown quit in protest. Both program continue under threat of
censorship or removal should they broadcast material about the ongoing Pacifica crisis. Since Pacifica moved its satellite transmission operations to Washington, D.C., from Berkeley, there have been
frequent service interruptions and other technical difficulties. KPFT, under Ganter, has abandoned virtually all community based public affairs programming (one hour a day, Monday through Friday).
It has no local news department, running BBC news a few times a day. Most of KPFT's air is a :"sounds of Texas" country and western format. The station's listenership has increased 25 persent since
it started its overwhelmingly commercial music format, and public affairs and community broadcasting were abandoned. It, along with WPFW, which has a similar programming day (with light jazz and blues as its
music) were cited as success stories by Pacifica staff and board members at the recent Arlington, VA, board meeting.. |
