Analysis A Sad Victory By Paul DeRienzo The news, apparently in the form of a letter from WBAI General Manager Don Rojas, that he will be undertaking a "comprehensive review of all the station's fund-raising activities," after the second dismal showing of a WBAI fundraising marathon in as many months is a victory of sorts, but nevertheless a sad victory, for listeners and supporters of

What’s going on with Pacifica? By Paul DeRienzo It’s hard to answer the question without some background on myself and WBAI and Pacifica radio. I was born and raised in the New York City region within easy listening distance of WBAI. As a child I fell in love with radio after I got a small AM transistor radio in the mid 1960’s. I would huddle under the covers after bedtime and tune in my

Report on Tuesday, March 18, 2003 WBAI LAB Meeting It was a convention of the entire WBAI Unity Caucus tonight at 120 Wall St. as the Local Advisory Board met to discuss their differences on diversity. For the most part there was only one real difference, everybody on the LAB vs. LAB chair Miguel Maldonado. Forgive me if I leave anyone out, but here is my list of who attended: the meeting began

Interesting story form an insider at the February 15 anti-war rally in New York City. Alan who runs the Rock Against Racism sound system and a company called Metrosound put in a bid to do the sound for the anti-war rally. He is a close associate of Leslie Cagan and has done the sound for countless events organized by Cagan. Alan also does the sound for the annual Cures Not Wars marijuana

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What happened at the demonstration? What role did Pacifica play? Here's the story as confirmed by two eyewitnesses and two others close to the action. The coverage of the 2/15 rally on 1st Avenue was "sold as a media collaboration," involving Democracy Now, Downtown Community Television, Free Speech TV and other major international progressive media outfits. Organizers had lined up several dozen

Is Black Washington Pacifica’s enemy? That was the question raised in an article by Askia Muhammad, long time broadcaster on Pacifica station WPFW in Washington DC. Muhammad referred to a “Berkeleyite faction” of broadcaster and their supporters associated with another Pacifica station, KPFA serving the Bay Area in Northern California, and the original station of the 50 year-old Pacifica

The following information was posted for informational purposes only. Former Pacifica law firm Epstein Becker and Green reports that they are entering into arbitration with Pacifica's new lawyers to settle EB Pg. B12 LENGTH: 144 words HEADLINE: Security firm sues radio network for nonpayment BREACH OF CONTRACT BODY: falls church, va.-based Decision Strategies LLC [DS] has sued

Just a note to of clarification on the previous article "The Last Straw." I believe that Kamau Khalfani's speech was based on a serious lack of knowledge, not just of Jewish history, but of the potential impact of carelessly chosen words when spoken on a large and powerful radio station. But I do not think that he is an anti-semitic person. Despite the powerful reasons that exists for mutual

The Last Straw The “Dissidents” and Anti-Semitism at Pacifica By Paul DeRienzo Background: During the early morning hours of December 26th, 2002 listeners to a weekly radio show on Pacifica radio station WBAI in New York City were shocked to hear the host descend into an anti-Semitic rant that included some dangerous and slanderous comments. It would take more space than I have here to

Murdock's letter was #1) stolen from his computer, #2) was about a station swap - not sale (considering the absolute inability of WBAI to pays its own bills and the station's ridiculously small audience not an unreasonable idea to broach, an idea that was raised many times in the past by people throughout the political spectrum, including by current WBAI pro-Valerie and Amy staffers to deal with

The Problems with Pacifica (part 1) By Paul DeRienzo It’s been almost a year since the so-called “dissident” faction took control over the Pacifica network. A deadline is looming when elections for a new Pacifica national board of directors, based on a new set of by-laws, must be held or last year’s settlement with the former board of directors will be thrown back to the courtroom of Alameda

Here are some thoughts that I've developed on the issue of conspiracy theories. There has been some controversy at Pacifica over Michael Ruppert and his view that the Bush administration had advance warning of the 9/11 attacks. Today Ruppert was interviewed by Gary Null on these issues and here are main the points of disagreement with the anti-conspiracists the we share. 1. Despite the fact

Coming soon: The REAL "strike" at Pacifica Network News. Or how to stiff a stringer.

It was a year ago yesterday that flight 587 crashed on takeoff in Queens. The tragedy occurred in the morning as Santiago Nieves and I were gabbing on the WBAI morning show as we did every weekday. Almost to the day it was two months after 9/11 so the sight of the burning wreckage and the magnitude of the devastation left New Yorkers more shocked and jittery than ever. I remember one caller, a

Jumping ahead to the spring of 2001. I'm walking along 1st Avenue in Manhattan past the construction site associated with the Theater for a New City or TNC. The TNC was started by Crystal Field who made her name as an originator of the Manhattan Halloween parade, which can attract throngs of costumed revelers. The TNC also produces various small plays, usually financed from city, state and federal

There are so many anecdotal stories stemming from last year's Pacifica civil war, here's one that really clarifies the situation at WBAI. First some background. How did I get to be news reporter in the morning at WBAI? I had actually been a half time news reporter for WBAI snce 1992, that after being a volunteer reporter since about 1986. It all began when I was called by East Village radical

Another word on the so-called Unity Caucus that's threatening WBAI with the specter of sectarian domination, cursing the station and the network with another decade of dead-last rating and total irrelevancy. LAB member Mimi Rosenberg seems to have a big interest in WBAI despite the fact that the show she shares with Ken Nash has virtually no audence. Its called "Building Bridges" but it should

As the specter of war in Iraq seems to dissapate for the time being where is Pacifica. It's obvious that the nations largest community radio network has lost its way and is unable to mount a serious role as anti-war leader. The provincial divisions between the 5 stations and particularly between Bekeley's KPFA and the other 4 is crippling what could have been a true national media alternative to

Pacifica is seemingly devolving into utter chaos. The idea of creating local boads to oversee management and on air content is totally in contradiction with founder Lew Hill's mission. It seems that the current leaders of Pacifica have risen to prominence by promising certain cliques that they will be guarenteed control of ther station, but the management folks really can't deliver. This is

Already running on reduced staff because of the various boycotts and internecine feuding that had broken out among WBAI staffers and producers only a few of us were on hand on the 9/11 as we confronted the biggest news story ever covered by WBAI, arguably the biggest story in the history of Pacifica. Officially I was the morning news reporter and the 9/11/01 was supposed to be the New York

At about 5:30 PM we had to leave and I walked over to the still smoking edge of what had been the twin towers.

WBAI was one of the few stations still on the air because we transmit from the Empire State Building and not the World Trade Center antenna.

It's been more than year since the disaster at the World Trade Center. At the time I was morning news host on WBAI's morning radio show and was just signing off when the engineer pointed out the smoking hole in the side of the first building that was hit. Our studios on the eastern end of Wall Stree were only about 6 blocks away and the first sign that something was wrong came as a blizzard of