While more and more of Pacifica’s listeners are growing dissatisfied with ‘their’ stations, there’s not much they can do to reclaim them. Since Pacifica’s sacking of black anti-Semites in the mid 1990’s was mistakenly seen as a racist act against blacks, rather than an anti-racist act against bigots, the radicals who fought so hard to remove Pacifica’s old board came primarily from the race-obsessed section of Left. This sector of the Left gains control of organizations by threatening to call its opponents racist. In left-wing groups like Pacifica, he who attends the most meetings wins, and no one is willing to attend meetings like a fanatic for the cause. When the race-obsessed leftists are lengthening already long meetings with discussions on how to achieve gender equity and adequate representation of historically oppressed minorities on the speakers list, you can be sure no one who disagrees with them will make the mistake of attending an organizational meeting twice.
Pacifica’s internal problems will almost surely destroy it over the long run, but that’s no reason for conservatives to cheer, not when tax-funded FM stations in major metropolitan areas are hijacked by bigots.
If there’s one small blessing in the whole Pacifica crisis, it’s that things haven’t yet degenerated to the Pacifica of the early 1990’s, when Nation of Islam lieutenant Steve Cokely claimed Jewish doctors were inoculating babies with the AIDS virus. There’s still time to nip the new wave of bigotry in the bud; listeners appalled by the new Pacifica do have options.
Pacifica’s five stations receive more than $1,200,000 of taxpayers’ money every year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the same group that funds NPR and PBS. In 1992, Congress required the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to report on the quality, objectivity, and balance of the public broadcasting programs it funds, and take this into account when making grants.
Fortunately, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has established an e-mail address – [email protected] — and a toll-free phone number – 1-800-272-2190 – to take comments on taxpayer-funded public broadcasting. When large numbers of complaints are received on the balance and objectivity of a program, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is compelled to investigate.
