KPFT Notes

Women working for peace, putting together broken lives, pursuing dreams, building a more humane and just world. Do you know these women? Can you tell their stories?

If you have a radio or television program about women building peace, enter it for this years IAWRT Radio and Television Awards.

The competition is open to all women producers/journalists/directors making Radio and TV programs, so please spread the word to your colleagues, freelancers, companies and broadcasters. Your mobilisation will enrich this competition.

This year’s Awards will be presented at the IAWRT conference in Nairobi, Kenya, from 29 September to 3 October 2007.

All around the world women are struggling to build a peaceful society and to keep life going, often in regions and countries torn by years of war. The IAWRT Awards want to concentrate on their stories, the stories of women fighting for peace and a better society, the stories of women building peace in the aftermath of war. But we also want the personal stories of women trying to build a life for their families, pursuing dreams, articulating visions of peace, charting the lives and territories of women to create a more humane and just world. And last but not least we welcome documentaries expressing the drive for peace through art and cultural work.

The winner in each category will be a woman responsible for an outstanding documentary about women. Those are the two absolutes in these awards, the documentaries must be made by women – about women.

More here.

The Texas Governor today has commuted the death sentence of Kenneth Foster, mere hours prior to his scheduled execution.

This is an all-too-rare action on the part of Texas governors and is the first such action by the current one.

We are proud to be the station that has consistently taken a stand with the Texas and national death penalty abolition movements against the state-sponsored killing of any indivdual.

As is said: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Here’s to vision.

Peace,
Duane Bradley
KPFT General Manager

This is part two of KPFT co-founder Ray Hill’s thoughts on KPFT’s earliest days. You are encouraged to come by KPFT (419 Lovett, Houston, 77006) to pick up your own copies of the KPFT Voice, in which this appeared, to distribute. Enjoy.

Wherefore KPFT?
A history and remembrance of KPFT in its earliest years: Part 2

By: Ray Hill

Ray Hill, programmer of the “Prison Show”, (airing Friday nights from 9-11 pm), provides the second in his series on the origins and direction of KPFT.

Last time I began the story of pulling together a ragged crew of political misfits to press for an idea whose time had not yet come but we pressed on anyway. We told others that they were missing so much with the media they had and for the most part they humored us more than saw our dream of a Pacifica radio station in Houston.

1970 was a different time. FM frequencies were available for the asking, especially down in the non-commercial part of the dial. We secured 90.1 and celebrated the day the construction permit came in the mail. Frank Martin was found. He was a real radio engineer who knew what Pacifica meant and dreamed of the trouble we could stir up with a station like that in Houston. We were a strange set of sound revolutionaries seeking a way to get our ideas and voices into the broadcast air. Soon there were musicians. They too had dreams but no way to get heard in commercial media or the available Christian and University radio stations. All together we were a good sized and determined crowd. We had meetings with music sometimes and concerts with speeches sometimes. We were a kind of gypsy/hippy evangelist movement to build a radio station (NOTE: at that time we blended into the stereotypes of the era, while it sounds strange now, then we did not seem too different)

There were “underground radio stations” trying to create a market with alternative thinkers and music but that was not working economically. One of them, KFMK let us use their studio and frequency to broadcast what we were talking about when we said we were building a different radio voice. I did my first KPFT radio show in their studio. It was in the attic space atop the Herman Professional Building. After going as high as we could on the elevator, we then took the stairs and had to climb a ladder to where the studios were a space without air conditioning. Sweating and doing radical radio. Oh how wonderful it seemed at the time.

Soon we were inside the old meeting space for Lone Star Number One Oddfellows Lodge building out our studios. They had changed name of the building after being bought by an insurance company but I had done degree work in that space when I was Grand Chief Ruler of the Junior Oddfellows Lodge of Texas. So I felt right at home but not for long.

We built our studios downtown and our transmitter at the base of a tower in a field off Clark Road in North Houston. We got the clearance to test our broadcast chain before officially going on air. There were several alternatives in sound tones or white air we could push into the atmosphere to test the signal but we chose to send Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles out for three days and nights to announce our coming alive in the radio darkness of this broadcast market.

Larry Lee, station manager, operating his own board started our broadcast life with a talk show asking people to call in and tell us what they wanted us to do with the station now that it was a reality. He did not get many calls from the listening public but the insiders rushed out of the station to find phones to use in an effort to help him use the time. (Hmmmm . . . Doesn’t that sound a lot like The Managers Report still?) We had put a lot of thought into how we were going to use the station and we had a rabble of volunteers who wanted to do shows but we did not have enough to use the full 24 hour broadcast day.

Initially none of us had a polished on air sound nor were we always prepared to fill our time with material. KPFT was seriously amateur radio.

I had a previous engagement to go to prison about that time expecting to stay for the next 160 years but with the right unit assignment and the best radio available in commissary I could keep my sanity in a strange place by listening to KPFT.

I read about the first bombing of the transmitter and was listening when the second bomb reduced the broadcast signal to white noise. KKK member/organizer Louis Beam was caught on his way to California to silence other Pacifica Stations. They found explosives and maps in his car that he planned to use finding and blowing-up KPFK’s transmitter. He was sentenced to 10 years of federal time for that and I discharged my 160 (reduced to and got out before he did. He is still around. I saw him not long ago at Almeda Mall near a Christian bookstore.

Next time: getting out and doing radio, Freedom is always worth the struggle.

KPFK’s Georgia to step down as general manager

By Sean Mitchell, Special to The Los Angeles Times
August 29, 2007

Eva Georgia, the controversial general manager of KPFK-FM (90.7), will resign, effective Oct. 31, according to a statement issued by Greg Guma, executive director of the Berkeley-based Pacifica Foundation that oversees the Los Angeles public radio station.

The resignation was announced Monday in a memo that reaffirmed earlier statements of support for Georgia by the Pacifica national board in the face of two pending lawsuits against her claiming sexual harassment and racial discrimination and a recent petition demanding her removal signed by 18 current program hosts and staff members.

Georgia could not be reached for comment, and Guma’s statement gave no reason for her stepping down except to say, “[B]eing the general manager of a progressive community radio station . . . [is] a tough and draining job.” He praised her “innovative leadership” and initiation of programming “more relevant to the needs of the Los Angeles area’s diverse communities.”

Georgia, a native of South Africa, was appointed general manager in 2002, in the wake of a tumultuous internal dispute throughout Pacifica, provoked by charges that the antiestablishment network was leaning toward the mainstream and away from its historic advocacy for minority communities — charges that were disputed and continue to be disputed by some producers, staff and financial supporters.

As a self-described “out-gay black woman,” Georgia became an instant symbol of strong minority representation at the station, but her tenure was marked from the beginning by charges of a heavy-handed management style and abusive behavior, along with questions about inappropriate personal spending. Critics decried her use of limousines to travel on business for a station dependent on listener contributions and the fact that she took a five-month paid vacation last year to return to South Africa.

When the Pacifica national board met in Los Angeles at the end of July, a group of 18 program hosts and staff, including Ian Masters, Roy Tuckman, Lila Garrett and Don Bustany, calling themselves the Committee to Strengthen KPFK, read aloud a petition asking for a “change in management,” citing, among other issues, declining audience numbers, lack of maintenance of the KPFK signal and “mismanagement and unaccountability.”

Georgia’s supporters, including Pacifica National Board Chairman Dave Adelson and Lydia Brazon, a director of the local KPFK board, disputed the declining audience numbers and offered unequivocal support for the general manager. In an interview with The Times, Adelson referred to Georgia as “far and away the strongest manager in the network.”

The national board subsequently issued a statement of praise for Georgia, and Guma sent out a public warning to the attorneys representing litigants in suits filed against Pacifica, saying that the suits were opportunistic and their charges baseless. The two lawsuits are awaiting trial.

It remained unclear why Georgia decided to step down now after weathering the storms of criticism with the official backing of the executive director and the national board, to whom she reports.

“When Greg Guma rhapsodizes about the GM’s accomplishment, we are impressed by his imagination but bewildered by his lack of information,” Garrett, host of KPFK’s “Connect the Dots,” said Tuesday. “And if she’s so great, why are they letting her leave?”

Brazon, the local board member who was on the search committee that recommended hiring Georgia in 2002, underscored that Georgia “was not being terminated.”

“All the directors were hoping she would stay,” Brazon said. “But she needs to be free to clear her name. She has long preferred that we go to court” in the lawsuits “and not settle.”

A notice on KPFK’s website says the station is now seeking applicants for an interim general manager, to begin duty Nov. 1 until the position is filled permanently. Meanwhile, elections will be held this fall to determine the makeup of the local board, with candidates representing the various factions now vying for control of the station and the type of programming it chooses to air.

This is part one of a series that appeared in the KPFT Voice. It’s a great take by KPFT co-founder Ray Hill on KPFT’s earliest days. I’ll be posting part two tomorrow.

Wherefore KPFT?
A history and remembrance of KPFT in its earliest years: Part 1

By: Ray Hill

According to media wizard Marshall McLuhan, radio is the warmest most human form of the media. In that regard KPFT was born more than founded. There were three fathers, one mother and a whole village of nurturers as I recall. This article launches a three part series on that birth. There are others who may submit their experiences and versions but these are mine, flawed as they may be:

The atmosphere: Houston in the late nineteen-sixties was a hot, sweaty, socially adolescent yearning for a grown-up experience. All the media was plastic and artificial. Its superficiality was stretched so thin everyone could see reality below the sugar coating between the commercials but it never really reached the surface. I recall knowing Dr. Martin Luther King was coming to Houston but the newspapers and all the radio and television stations had a forced blackout on that news. Only one of several Black community newspapers and Space City News Weekly gave advanced notice of his coming and his appearance schedule. That combined circulation would reach less than ten percent of the population. All the media would cover his being here but almost none would cover his coming before the events.

There was a civil rights movement and the beginnings of an anti-war movement but one only heard of them in short crime stories when a demonstrator got arrested or sentenced. The news was about the rich getting richer and how wonderful the politicians were and those pictured were white and mostly male because they made a difference in our controlled information world. If ever there was a place that needed fresh media it was Houston, then.

Cracks in the shell: Dr. King came and we got the word out with wheatpaste posters, hand distributed fliers and some brave souls riding around neighborhoods with sound systems in the back of pick-ups. Some were arrested but punished lightly in courts the morning after, later to be recognized by name, with applause, at the rally. Space City News reported incidents of police brutality but the papers were gathered up by the cops and destroyed as quickly as they were put out. The funerals of those killed by cops were attended by hundreds who feared the same fate but had no other way to express their outrage except following the hearses and blocking traffic for hours. It was said that the biggest parades for freedom in Houston, Texas were those long funeral lines.

We had a kind of kamikaze electronic media team. It was informal and random but we learned that by calling the radio talk shows on AM commercial stations and quickly mentioning taboo topics like racism, homosexuality, women’s equality or anti-war topics, the other callers would get into a rage of hostile comments beyond the control of the hosts. At least that way we could get things stirred up and stop the silence. The other way was to subject ourselves to “public affairs” programs on radio and television where our ideas would be presented in a stacked deck atmosphere designed to make us fools. Those with substantial training in wit competition did well; others went down in flames to be congratulated later by their friends and allies for their sacrifices and courage.

Coming Out: It was after one such excursion that I learned of plans to build a Pacifica station in Houston. I was allowed to appear on Ray Miller’s Channel 2 public affairs show: The Last Word starting at Midnight, Sunday morning. The topic was homosexuality and to get on I was to debate a preacher, who thought I was a sinner; a psychologist, who thought I was sick; and a cop, who thought I was a criminal for being gay. (I was a criminal but he knew nothing of my career as a burglar). I won all three debates in the first 15 minutes of the hour show and used the remaining time to propagandize my point of view. As the controlling clock reached 1:00 AM, host Ray Miller asked me to give his program back so he could end it and take the station off the air to give the vacuum tubes a rest.

Several people in the broadcast audience had seen the first few minutes of the show and having never seen or heard a defense of gay people rushed to the station to greet me as I left the studio. One of those people was Larry Lee. Larry waited for me to work my way through gay men, lesbians and their parents desperate for something positive about their lives. After all others had left he stepped forward and asked me to join a small group of people hoping to build a Pacifica station in Houston.

I had no idea what he was talking about and wondered if he was under the influence of some of the stuff Dean Becker is trying to legalize these days but he was cute and I always have some time for a handsome man.

I later met Don Gardner who was working with him and I would bring a young Debra Danburg (whom I knew from Human Sexuality class at the University of Houston) into the fold.

Those are the parents of KPFT!

How to do it: Larry had been an awarded editor of The Daily Texan, the student newspaper at The University of Texas. Don Gardner knew about music. From the very beginning music/talk each played a part of the dream. Debra and I were the lackeys. My income from the burglary business usually paid for the postage to mail solicitations for pledges and Debra’s allowance usually fed us all. We put in staff hours and kept the office open (donated space Larry secured from some liberal supportive of the idea who preferred to remain anonymous). We held meetings at Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, First Unitarian Church and in the Student Center at the U of H. We passed out fliers at political meetings and concerts. We had fund raisers at Anderson Street Fair and other friendly venues. Between 1968, when we started and 1970 when we got a transmitter we were never sure it would happen. I mean really happen.

More next time….

Ray Hill is a veteran KPFT programmer, host of The Prison Show (which airs Friday nights from 9:00 pm to 11:00 pm) and longtime gay rights and inmate rights advocate.

This year, The Pacifica Foundation, the parent organization of this station, is holding elections to seat boards of directors in each of the foundation’s five signal areas. The nomination period has begun and continues through September 25.

Pacifica Foundation radio stations across the country will feature a one-hour on-air forum with Local Elections Supervisors.

On these programs, Local Elections Supervisors will speak to listeners about elections, the close of nominations in one month, the date of record for new members and much more.

The KPFT forum happens Wednesday at noon during Open Journal.

Please note the date of record for members is coming up August 31. Your membership must be on file by August 31 to qualify to run and vote. Please cast an informed vote.

Here are the dates and times for the Fall Concert Series:

1. Sunday, October 14, 4:00 PM

2. Sunday, October 21, 4:00 PM

3. Sunday, October 28, 4:00 PM

4. Sunday, November 4, 4:00-6:00 PM, with only a one hour sound check from 3 to 4 PM because of a concert on the Main Stage by jazz diva Diane Schuur and the UH Jazz Orchestra later that evening.

5. Sunday, November 11, 4:00 PM

6. Sunday, November 18, 4:00 PM

The performances will take place on the small stage near the restrooms and the concession stands. Points to consider:

• Deadline for proposals is this Thursday, August 30 at 12PM (noon).

• Please include the dates that you prefer (1st,2nd and 3rd choice).

• Our grant does not include a performer honorarium in the budget. So solicit your business contacts to co-sponsor your proposal if you would like to pay your performers.

• Important dates to consider: Halloween-Oct. 31; Dia de los Muertos-Nov. 1 & 2 and Thanksgiving-Nov. 22.

• Take into account that it gets dark earlier in the day during November.

• Performers that would like to perform at the Series are: Radiobox, Dan Ennis, Volitilrock, Houston Civic Symphony and two bands represented by Leslie T. Travis.

• Proposals that are approved will be scheduled on a first come basis. So don’t hesitate, send them in today!

Bring your proposal ideas to me at the station between 10 AM and 6 PM or leave it in my box during off hours. If you can’t come to the station by Thursday, email me at eddie@kpft.org and be sure to call me to confirm that I received it. Also, if you have any questions call me at 713-526-4000, ext. 316 or at 713-906-2682.

Eddie Garcia
KPFT Events and Outreach Coordinator

Thanks to Anna Nunez for this…

Join the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights with its members and partners on Tuesday, August 28, 2007, – in a national day of action to expose and continue denouncing the devastating humanitarian crisis being visited on immigrant families, workers and communities by U.S. policies and actions in border control, immigration law enforcement and services.

Please call your Congressional delegation, urging them to take immediate action to stop the migrant deaths and disappearances at the border and to end all immigration raids and a moratorium on the detention and deportation of all immigrants.
Take Action for Immigrant Rights!

Please call or fax your Congressional delegation (two Senators and one Representative) to demand an investigation into the horrific numbers of migrant deaths at the U.S.-Mexico border and to call for hearings to end immigration raids and immigrant detentions and deportations.

To find your Congressional delegation’s telephone and fax numbers, open link below and then click on your state, then click on your two Senators’ and Representative’s name to find their district offices numbers:

English: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

Español: http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/index.es.html

Call or fax your Senators and Representative

Tell them to stop the repressive ICE and Border Patrol operations and to change the immigration policies that are terrorizing and violating the rights of immigrant families, workers and communities.

In your voice make an urgent call for:

* Socially just legalization that protects and expands the rights of all immigrants, keeps families together, provides access and options to permanent residency and citizenship

* Stopping the deaths of migrants at the border and demand a Congressional investigation into the root causes of the humanitarian crisis being caused by immigration enforcement and services

* Ending the militarization of border and immigration control, which deliberately cause the deaths and disappearance of migrants on the border

* An end to all immigration raids

* A moratorium on all immigrant detentions and deportations

* Restoring and expanding the due process rights of all immigrants

* Uphold the labor rights of U.S.-born and immigrant workers: Repeal employer sanctions and all employment verification systems, including Social Security no-match letters

* Protecting and expanding the civil, labor, and human rights of all immigrants and refugees

Raise your voices and take action as part of the growing movement calling on Congress and on all people of good conscience to stop the raids and the jailing and deportations of all immigrants.

Immigration Policies Are Causing a Humanitarian Crisis

Over 200 deceased migrants have been recovered from the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona in the last 11 months; about half of all migrant dead are recovered in Arizona alone. Migrants are dying and disappearing in the desert and mountainous regions of the border as a result of deliberate U.S. policy called “prevention through deterrence,” forcing migrants to risk their lives in order to reunite with their families in the U.S. or find work to survive.

An average of two migrants who have died from dehydration and exposure to the natural elements are found every day on the U.S. side of the border. Border community groups estimate that for every deceased migrant recovered, at least ten others are missing.

Since 1994, when the current strategy was implemented, over 4500 migrant dead have been recorded deliberately caused by the U.S. government’s failed border and immigration control policies that force migrants through the most deadly and isolated desert and mountainous regions of the border.

The Department of Homeland Security is using immigration law enforcement strategies that destabilize and traumatize immigrant communities everywhere and are causing horrific migrant suffering and deaths on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Operations involving ICE and Border Patrol agents, as well as other law enforcement agents, have led to a widening assault on migrant communities, where neighborhoods, stores, and workplaces are targets of indiscriminate immigration raids, and where jailing and deporting of thousands of documented and undocumented immigrants occurs on a daily basis.

Starting in September, the U.S. will have enough jail space to imprison as many as 31,000 immigrants per day. The Bush Administration will also dramatically increase the resources and funding to jail and deport immigrants, increasing its law enforcement personnel with thousands more ICE and Border Patrol agents who, in collaboration with local police, will be hounding immigrant families, workers and communities to fill private and public jails with space exclusively meant for immigrants.

We are asking you to call or fax your Congressional delegation (two Senators and one Representative) demanding an investigation into the migrant deaths occurring on the U.S.-Mexico border and to hold hearings on impacts of immigration raids and immigrant detentions and deportations.

The August 28 national day of action will add to the growing movement calling on Congress to stop the raids, jailing and deportations of all immigrants.

Please call on your Congressional delegation urging them to hold hearings and investigations into the policies and strategies causing the migrant deaths and the mass violations of the rights of immigrants as a result of raids, detentions and deportations.

ANNOUNCING THE ACTIONS: NNIRR will hold a national telephonic media conference on Monday, August 27, 2007, at 10:00 AM PST to announce local and regional actions being organized as part of the August 28 national day of action against anti-immigrant repression. Starting on the national day of action, Tuesday, August 28, 2007, we are asking you to organize:

* Calls and faxes to your Congressional delegations demanding an end to the anti-immigrant repression, including stopping all immigration raids, immigrant detentions and deportations and holding Congressional investigations and hearings on the migrant deaths at the border and the anti-immigrant repression (See model letter below).

* Picket-lines and protests in front of the ICE/DHS offices and detention centers and other public officials calling for accountability and end to the repression.

* Local media conferences, forums and vigils on the humanitarian crisis at the border and interior to expose the migrant deaths, the raids and deportations, which are at the center of the repression against immigrant communities from the border to the non-border areas where we live, work, worship, study and play.

Make calls and send faxes to your Congressional delegation demanding:

o Congressional hearings and investigations on the official U.S. policies and strategies of border and immigration control that are causing the deaths of hundreds of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border every year, including untold suffering as families are divided and communities traumatized by deportations.

o An end to immigration raids,

o A moratorium on all immigrant detentions and deportations, and

o Socially just and fair legalization that protects our civil, labor and human rights

The Pacifica Foundation announced today that, after five years as General Manager of its Los Angeles station KPFK-FM, Eva Georgia has decided to resign effective October 31, 2007. In a motion adopted recently, Pacifica’s National Board of Directors expressed its appreciation of Georgia’s “innovative leadership” and cited her successes in the areas of fundraising, programming, and staff diversity.

In releasing the resignation news, Pacifica Executive Director Greg Guma described Georgia as a forceful and creative leader. “Her vision, technical skills, and ability to anticipate change have helped KPFK make significant strides,” he said. “Being General Manager of a progressive community radio station isn’t easy. In fact, it’s a tough and draining job. With that in mind, I’ve reluctantly accepted her resignation. But Eva has made a great contribution, and she will be difficult to replace.”

When Georgia was hired in 2002, KPFK had a significant debt, signal problems, only one daily newscast, and little staff or volunteer diversity. Since then, the debt has been eliminated, studios have been added and rebuilt, more daily newscasts – including one in Spanish — have been added, and the mix of staff and volunteers has evolved to better reflect the demographics of Southern California.

According to the National Board, Georgia’s tenure has resulted in programming that is “more relevant to the needs of the Los Angeles area’s diverse communities,” along with successful fundraising efforts, and increased membership.

Before joining the Pacifica staff, Georgia managed an AIDS/HIV prevention program in Long Beach. But what made her an exciting choice was more than a decade of journalism and radio work in South Africa.

In Capetown, she had developed and managed a newspaper on behalf of the Atlantis Development Forum, as well as personally launched Radio Atlantis, an FM station that recently celebrated 10 years on the air. She left that station in 1997 to start Cape Talk 567, a progressive commercial radio station.

In the early 1990s, she also helped launch a release from prison campaign with the South African Clothing and Textile Union (SACTWU), negotiating with the judicial system for the release of workers incarcerated due to a rent Boycott and protests against apartheid.

In November 2005, she received a Courage Award from the San Francisco-based Colin Higgins Foundation, named for the acclaimed US screenwriter. The awards are given annually to people who become leaders in the face of discrimination.

Earlier this year, Georgia was handpicked as part of a special International Presidential Campaign recently launched by President Mbeki for her outstanding skills in radio broadcasting to help support the development and mentoring of upcoming talent in South Africa.

In the coming weeks, KPFK’s Local Station Board will seek and review applicants for Interim General Manager in hopes of recommending a temporary replacement by the time Georgia departs. The search for a permanent General Manager is expected to take several months.

Tune in this week at the end of Open Journal for Survivor to Survivor, a series produced by Surviving Katrina and Rita in Houston for this week’s Katrina anniversary. It should air around 12:52, Monday-Thursday.

Current reports former KPFT PD and current KUOW PD Jeff Hansen is being blasted at his Seattle digs for “dumbing down” programming. Though I can’t weigh in on Ken Vincent’s criticisms, it’s good to see the flak KPFT PDs receive follows them long after their Pacifica tenures (just kidding, Jeff!).

The next Pacifica National Board meeting, previously scheduled in New York City, is being moved in Berkeley. Among many factors, NYC bookings in late September have proven nearly impossible to find.

If you’re a television viewer, you may want to note the following: KUHT is playing The Anti-Americans (a hate/love relationship) tonight at 10. Description is as follows: “Why does Europe hate us? It’s a question that comes to mind for many Americans when they see polls proclaiming that one out of two Europeans sees America as playing a mainly negative role in the world. This program not only explores this pointed query with disarming humor, but also provides powerful insight, told from the ‘other’ point of view.” For digital cable customers, earlier in the evening, the Sundance Channel is airing Guerrilla Girl tonight at 8.