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National Lawyers Guild Letter to KPFA On The Morning Mix

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REMOVAL OF MORNING MIX FROM DRIVE TIME PROGRAMMING

The recent removal of the Morning Mix radio program from the 8:00 AM time slot on KPFA has raised some concern at the San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (“Guild”). We write this letter because KPFA and its free speech mission, are important to the Guild and to many activists that either work with, or are represented by, Guild members.

The Guild views KPFA not as simply another movement organization, but as a key part of the information commons. In that sense, KPFA is similar to a public utility — it is for the public benefit. KPFA policies on openness and actions regarding access to its airwaves affect all of us striving for a better world.

Like KPFA and Pacifica, the Guild was created with a particular mission: it was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association’s exclusionary practices and political orientation, and the Guild was the first integrated bar association. KPFA was launched in 1949, three years after pacifist Lew Hill created Pacifica. The aim of the station has always been to promote cultural diversity, to promote pluralistic cultural expression,  to contribute to a lasting understanding among diverse constituents, to maintain freedom of the press, and to create a forum for various viewpoints.

At KPFA’s core is the concept of pacifism or non-violence. Non-violence is often mistaken for being simply the absence of, or opposite of, violence. Instead nonviolence is a systematic framework of both conceptual principles and pragmatic strategies to reduce harm and promote positive peace at the personal, community, national and global levels. Contrary to popular belief, non-violence requires boldness and courage. Moreover, it is easy to fall astray from the path of non-violence in the pursuit of financial stability or in response to political pressure.

With this framework and history in mind, we raise our concerns about an uncomfortable pattern of events that have transpired at KPFA that appear to be the antithesis of non-violence. We do not list these concerns to cast blame, or to impose our set of values on another organization. We list these concerns because our collective silence could be perceived as approval or consent. We consider individuals and organizations on both sides of this debate as both friends and allies. It is in the spirit of a friend and ally that we speak about the recent decisions at KPFA, and seek to build trust through transparency.

The Morning Mix was unique within the KPFA lineup because it was hosted by a diverse group of community volunteers with programming important to community members. The Morning Mix often reported on local political movements that were under-reported elsewhere. One such issue is tar sand extraction and transportation by rail to refineries. Andres Soto, one of the hosts of the Morning Mix, and a Richmond resident and activist, often reported on this issue. He frequently reported on Chevron’s efforts to refine tar sands in Richmond which will have a direct impact on the people of Richmond and surrounding communities. Across the nation, we see a growing movement on this issue, and the Guild has recently received reports of brutal arrests of people who oppose tar sands. Instead of supporting this excellent reporting done by Andres Soto on this issue, KPFA has essentially silenced him by eliminating the prime time Morning Mix program. It is doubtful that the new paid host from LA will report on local efforts to oppose refining tar sands in the same way.

We could go through other hosts and programs on the Morning Mix, and discuss how each is connected to a local community and movement, however the point is that KPFA’s actions have actually decreased the diversity of speech on its airwaves.

As a community-based radio station dedicated to pluralistic expression, it would seem that KPFA would wish to avoid even the appearance of decreasing diversity, or of favoritism, or of bias. Gentrification of a neighborhood transforms it by displacing local residents, which in turn erases local character. Defenders of gentrification support the transformation, claiming that it increases public safety. Some at KPFA have described the removal of the Morning Mix as a ” move towards professionalism”. However we fear that “professionalism”, like “public safety” is pretext. The unqie character of the Morning Mix came from its local voices, accents, topics and perspectives. KPFA erased this local character with a single paid host out of LA.

Another reason put forth by by KPFA management is that the LA program will allegedly bring in more revenue. Although people can and do argue about interpretation of financial figures, the financial documents produced at the KPFA Local Station Board show that the Morning Mix was pulling is weight during fund drive. Thus, KPFA’s reliance on a specific interpretation of its financial figures, when there are other valid interpretations,  is a factor that creates the appearance of viewpoint bias. For example, the KPFA financial documents do not take into account the expenses incrred by having paid hosts. Thus, the financials purport to measure programs in terms of revenue generated, and disregard specific costs incurred by having paid hosts.

Moreover, and this point cannot be emphasized too much, KPFA can not and must not base all of its programming decisions on finance alone.

Although this letter was prompted by the removal of the Morning Mix, in the course of drafting this letter, we have learned of complaints that KPFA management has silenced specifically black programmers and/or failed to provide support for critical black programming or programming on critical local issues relevant to black communities. We are concerned that the removal of the Morning Mix, a show frequently hosted by black local hosts, is part of this pattern. We understand that KPFA is filling the Morning Mix time slot with a show hosted by a person of color, however the show is not produced locally, and does not have as close a connection to Bay Area black communities, and that features voices of black programmers, and not assume that programming by or for people of color generally will necessarily cover these issues.

KPFA, as part of its mission, must be ever vigilant of protecting diversity of viewpoints. Removal of the Morning Mix has narrowed the range of speech on its airwaves.

KPFA appears to promote radio programs that would prefer to talk about global economics, rather than race and the local displacement of black and immigrant families. It is an agenda that appears it would rather talk about gender discrimination in the boardroom, but not talk about the impact of gender, race and poverty on the young girls caught up in sex trafficking on Bay Area streets. It is an agenda that appears it would rather solve problems abroad, rather than those at home.

The Guild is an organization dedicated to human rights over property rights, and our collective conscious is touched when KPFA – a radio station dedicated to promoting diversity – consciously or unconsciously engages in viewpoint suppression. The allegations may be uncomfortable, however we in the Guild believe that it is through transparency and discussion of diverse viewpoints that this situation can be resolved.

In solidarity,

Sharon Adams, Vice President

National Lawyers Guild, Bay Area Chapter

August 12, 2014

NLG letter re Mix & KPFA

 

 

Chevron, the Richmond City Council and the Morning Mix

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Chevron’s freedom to pollute vs. Bay Area residents’ right to breath

by Daniel Borgström

Chevron ToxicoOn Tuesday, July 29th, I went to the Richmond City Council meeting where the council was to make a decision on a proposed expansion of the Chevron Refinery. The City Planning Commission approved the expansion, but with conditions that Chevron didn’t want to accept. So Chevron appealed it to the City Council.

It was held in the large Richmond Auditorium to accommodate an expected crowd of Bay Area residents (and paid-by-Chevron speakers), 15,000 of whom were sent to the hospital following the huge refinery explosion in 2012. Chevron mobilized several hundred employees to attend the meeting, wearing blue and white pullover shirts, and waving signs saying “A Modernized Refinery” and “Richmond Proud” — slogans from Chevron’s PR campaign. The blue & white shirts made their supporters very visible, and at first it appeared that they overwhelmingly outnumbered people of the Richmond Progressive Alliance (RPA).

The RPA was indeed outnumbered, but not as badly as it had at first appeared. Judging from the amount of applause that speakers from each side received, I could tell that there were a sizable number of people there to support the RPA or who supported their position.

For the past two decades, the RPA has been standing up to Chevron, which has always dominated Richmond. At this hearing the RPA called for the City Council to affirm the Planning Commission’s conditions to impose environmental standards and limit pollution.

There were about 80 speakers. A friend and I stayed only for the first two hours. Most of the speakers during this time expressed concern about air quality and health problems; these included Asian community members who had been hospitalized as a result of inhaling toxic fumes during the refinery fire. Some of the refinery’s critics wore signs saying: “I’m not paid to be here.” — that was in reference to reports that Chevron supporters at the previous meeting had been paid to attend. A reporter from KPFA found a woman with a clipboard checking off names of Chevron’s acolytes. The clipboard lady of the previous week was also at this meeting. Another KPFA reporter got a photo of her.

The people sitting around us included people from both sides. Interestingly, several times I noticed some of the people in blue and white applauding speakers who pointed out the environmental hazards created by the refinery. That surprised me; I didn’t know what to make of it, or what it might imply.

Canadian activists block highway to Chevron refinery to protest Chevron’s participation in the Pacific Trail Pipeline and the destructive gas fracking it proposes using to supply the pipeline to the coast.

Canadian activists block highway to Chevron refinery to protest Chevron’s participation in the Pacific Trail Pipeline and the destructive gas fracking it proposes using to supply the pipeline to the coast.

We left at about 8:30 p.m., before the city council made its decision. Afterwards I heard the news, that the council acceded to Chevron’s demands. Mayor Gayle McLaughlin and Vice Mayor Jovanka Beckles abstained over the failure to fund the hospital which had treated people during the 2012 Chevron fire.

Richmond has been a company town throughout its existence. First it was a Standard Oil town. When Standard Oil was broken up, it became a Chevron town. During the 1980s and 90s it spread less money around, probably because of corporate tax breaks making it less tax wise, and that made an opening for the RPA. When the RPA made gains and Chevron realized they’d lost control, Chevron began a campaign which included spreading money around as part of a “community benefits” agreement — one way that Chevron gets nonprofits on their side.

It left me wondering if Chevron might’ve also invested some of its PR budget money in KPFA, encouraging the clique who run the station to take Andrés Soto off prime time. Andrés had been a very effective show host of KPFA’s Morning Mix; and an RPA activist with Communities for a Better Environment. He often focused on news about the Richmond refinery and its environmental effects — the 2012 refinery explosion and resulting pollution which sent 15,000 people to hospitals, as well as the hazards of the dirty crude which was being brought into the town in railroad tank-cars. He was also tuned into Chevron’s affect on Richmond politics and talked about who is in Chevron’s pocket. Andrés Soto’s show is hardly something that Chevron would care to have broadcast across Richmond as they try to reclaim it as the company town it was before the rise of the RPA

Ann Garrison and Steve Gilmartin contributed to this article.

To read more from Daniel Borgstrom:
http://danielborgstrom.blogspot.com/

Andrés Soto’s program, now titled “Afternoon” can be heard from 3:30-4 pm on Thursdays at KPFA, 94.1 fm, or streaming at kpfa.org.  His program was cut in half and given a more obscure time slot when the Morning Mix was taken off the air..