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Pacifica death spiral

August 17, 2009 By dev Comments are Off

Marc Cooper on the continuing nosedive of “alternative media” bastion Pacifica Radio, and what this disaster says about the “media reform” movement. “If it can’t bring itself to scrutinize the squandering and trashing of the $500 million Pacifica network (the market value of its licenses), then why should we trust this movement to offer serious analysis of the rest of the media?” Indeed.

Marc also highlights the unsavory role of Amy Goodman, one of the true charlatans of today’s radical left. After helping foment the takeover of Pacifica by a faction of extremist wackos in the late ’90s:

[Goodman] struck a sweetheart deal with the new mgmt made up of her pals. Democracy Now! which was created by the network was privatized and handed to Amy as her own personal enterprise with a guarantee of well over a 1/2 million dollars a year in no-bid contracts from the network. Since then, Democracy Now! has raked in millions, literally, in foundation grants and other donations and is sitting on a pile of cash as the network from which it was born, and which it helped boycott while it was still part of, is now quickly evaporating into the ether. But, you know, Amy is a saint.

I should add that as a board member of Jews for Racial Economic Justice (JFREJ) in the mid-’90s, I appeared twice on WBAI, the NYC Pacifica affiliate, co-hosting installments of Beyond the Pale, JFREJ’s sister radio program. Beyond the Pale’s hosts have now taken to welling up with tears (I kid you not) over such piffle as Caryl Churchill’s play Seven Jewish Children. The Beyond the Pale website also urges us to “Support the Free Gaza Movement.” Every time I see that my former comrades are now voluntarily allying with an organization dominated by antisemitic nutjobs such as Cynthia McKinney, I have to do a double-take. The downward plunge continues.

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