[PEN-L:9680] Selling KPFA Today?

[Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

www.sfgate.com
Foundation Denies KPFA to Be Sold
City Council backs station workers
Charles Burress, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, July 28, 1999
©1999 San Francisco Chronicle

URL: http://www.commondreams.org/


A proposal to sell Berkeley radio station KPFA is expected to come today
before the policy-making body of KPFA's governing Pacifica Foundation,
sources told The Chronicle last night.

But Pacifica spokesman Michael Fineman said that Mary Francis Berry,
chairwoman of the foundation's board, ``emphatically denied'' last night
that sale of the 50-year-old radio station is ``an option being seriously
considered.''

The reports of the station possibly being put up for sale coincided last
night with a packed emergency meeting of the Berkeley City Council, which
voted to support locked- out KPFA workers, to demand that Pacifica reopen
the station and restore regular programming, and to call for the resignation
of Pacifica's executive director, Lynn Chadwick.

The Oakland City Council, meanwhile, adopted a resolution calling on
Pacifica to end the lockout and remove armed guards from the station.

KPFA, the flagship station of the five-station Pacifica network, has been
shuttered for two weeks in the growing battle between the station and its
governing foundation over local control.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources close to the crisis told The
Chronicle that Pacifica's seven-member executive committee will meet by
phone today and is expected to vote on the sale. The executive committee is
drawn from members of Pacifica's 14-person board of directors.

Three sources said a majority of the committee appear inclined to support a
sale. Unconfirmed reports said options could include re-establishing KPFA at
a less-desirable spot on the FM dial with a nonunion staff.

The Chronicle attempted to get in contact with the 14 board members last
night and reached four of them. Three acknowledged that the executive
committee will meet by phone today but said a confidentiality agreement
prevents them from confirming or denying consideration of a sale. The fourth
refused to speak at all.

Rabbi Aaron Kriegel, a board member from Los Angeles, said the committee
today will a discuss ``a proposal to solve the Pacifica crisis.''

Board member Rob Robinson of Washington, D.C., said the full board engaged
in a ``stream of consciousness'' during a phone meeting yesterday that left
matters uncertain for today's meeting.

Reports have surfaced in recent weeks of a bitter division on the board,
with a majority apparently unsympathetic to what they view as recalcitrant
protesters in Berkeley. Numerous demonstrations have all been directed at
Pacifica.

Fears of a sale have been swirling for two weeks, after an e-mail to Berry
from board member Michael Palmer was accidentally leaked. Palmer wrote that
he was under the impression that ``a definite majority'' in ``the proper
quarters'' supports ``shutting down that unit and re-programming
immediately.''

Palmer said cash-strapped Pacifica could possibly realize $65 million to $75
million on the sale.

©1999 San Francisco Chronicle  Page A15


---------------------------------------------------------------------
Sam Husseini				sam@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Institute for Public Accuracy		Tel: 202-347-0020
915 National Press Building		Fax: 202-347-0290
Washington, DC 20045			http://www.accuracy.org
Sign up on IPA?s list, e-mail subject line "subscribe" to ipa@xxxxxxxxxxxx
If you are a journalist, please include your name and outlet in the message.



-------------------------------
Robert Naiman <naimanr@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Preamble Center
1737 21st NW
Washington, DC 20009
phone: 202-265-3263
fax:   202-265-3647
http://www.preamble.org/
-------------------------------