What is happening to Pacifica Radio?

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly; Hillel Aron (laweekly.com, 3-21-14)

KPFK is the L.A. affiliate of Pacifica Radio, which Lewis Hill began in Berkeley in 1949.

Left-wing Pacifica Radio is sliding into the abyss

(Illustration by Ian Keltie)

On March 13, after weeks of rumors, Pacifica Radio's board of directors voted to fire its executive director, Summer Reese, during what was essentially a conference call. 

 

But nothing is as simple as all that in the oldest and oddest public radio network in the country.
 

"We desperately need adult supervision.” 

- [CIA mole and longtime KPFK radio host] Ian Masters

 

Four days later, Reese sent an email to the entire Pacifica staff announcing that she was not recognizing the board's authority: "I want to assure you that I am in possession of a signed and valid contract for three years of employment from the board of directors and that I fully intend to complete that contract."

 

And so it was that Reese marched to the Pacifica national office in Berkeley on March 17th, bolt cutters in hand, removed a padlock placed on the front doors over the weekend, and essentially occupied the building.

 

When newly appointed Interim Executive Director Margy Wilkinson showed up, Reese and 12 of her compatriots -- including Reese's mother, a longtime anti-war and civil rights activist -- refused to let Wilkinson, her husband, and two of her allies pass.

 

"You're all going to be personally liable -- and I'm going to enjoy your houses!" Reese shouted at them, according to former board member Sasha Futran, who backs Wilkinson. More

• LA Sheriff candidates to be quizzed about "mass incarceration"

"At Berkeley" (new film)

CC Liu, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Frederick Wiseman (zipporah.com); KPFK.org

"At Berkeley" is a documentary film by Frederick Wiseman about the University of California at Berkeley -- the oldest, most prestigious, and most radical member of California's ten-campus public university system.

Berkeley is one of the finest research and teaching facilities in the world, excelling most of the world's private institutions while rivaling Ivy League schools. This film shows the major aspects of university life with particular emphasis on the administrative efforts to maintain the academic excellence, public role, and the economic, racial, and social diversity of the student body of America’s premiere public university.

(Mandy Whittles) "Berkeley in the Sixties" documentary of the student movement in Berkeley in the 60's. Uploaded for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only.

 

Berkeley in the Sixties

All of this is taking place in the face of drastic budget cuts imposed by the State of California, big business (represented by its hand selected Board of Regents), and competing colleges. The goal of the film is to show how a major American university is administered and to suggest the complex relationship among its various constituencies -- students, faculty, administrators, alumni, the City of Berkeley, the State of California, and the federal government.

 

In a more abstract way, the film looks closely at Berkeley’s intellectual and social mission, its obligation to the state, and to larger ideas of "higher" education. It illustrates how decisions are made and implemented by the administration in collaboration with its various constituencies. Tickets

Rave review (The New Yorker)
Jordan Moore (Nov. 13, 2013)
Frederick Wiseman, one of our greatest and most prolific documentarians, always delves deeply into his subjects. And for his latest, "At Berkeley," that’s truer than ever. He found one of California’s great treasures, U.C. Berkeley, such a rich subject that it required a four-hour film. It is receiving some rave reviews, including one from astute film critic David Denby of The New Yorker. Laemmeles is proud to open the movie at the Music Hall, Beverly Hills.

 

REVIEW (Oliver Lyttelton, The Playlist, indiewire.com) Over the years, veteran documentarian Frederick Wiseman has covered what sometimes feels like almost [every] kind of institution and every aspect of life in America (and occasionally, life abroad too). "Titicut Follies," "Juvenile Court," "Zoo," "Racetrack... More

Environment: "A Fierce Green Fire" (film)

Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; First Run Features

From the Academy Award-nominated director of "Berkeley in the Sixties," AFGF is narrated by Robert Redford, Meryl Streep, Ashley Judd, Van Jones, and and Isabel Allende.

Spanning 50 years of grassroots and global activism, this award winning Sundance documentary A Fierce Green Fire brings to light the vital stories of the environmental movement where people fought -- and succeeded -- against enormous odds. From halting dams in the Grand Canyon to fighting toxic waste at Love Canal, Greenpeace to Chico Mendes, climate change to the promise of transforming our civilization, this film is "nothing less than the history of environmentalism itself" (Los Angeles Times).