2. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica wants to sell off one of its radio stations. Reality: Absolutely untrue.... the Pacifica National Board has passed multiple unanimous motions declaring that no station is for sale."

REAL REALITY: Such motions and votes are meaningless. The dominant board members have a public relations incentive to give such a unanimous vote until they finally make a decision to sell; and they have discussed sale, secretly, and more than once. In 1997, Schubb himself told his Local Advisory Board that although selling stations was once taboo, it could now be openly discussed. And who would be discussing it but the Pacifica management? One such discussion was disclosed only as a result of a misdirected e-mail by board member Micheal Palmer, who proposed the sale of KPFA or WBAI. He was subsequently promoted to chair of the Pacifica Finance Committee and Treasurer of the Foundation.

More to the point, Tomas Moran, one of the five directors suing the Pacifica Board, has tried since 1999 to get the Board to place a no-sale clause into the Pacifica bylaws. The Board majority refused to put forward his amendment.

3. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica wants to water down or mainstream its programming by tilting toward the Democratic Party. Reality: The National Board has no direct authority over programming and has not made any directives or suggestions to any staff about the content of such [sic]."

REAL REALITY: Schubb's statement glides over the well-known fact that board control is not normally exercised by direct intervention, but rather by bringing in managers like Mark Schubb, Garland Ganter and Utrice Leid who will carry out the desired policies by firing dissidents and putting suitable people in their place. But the statement is also false in asserting that there is "absolutely no interference from program management." Schubb himself was present at a meeting called by the Pacifica management on September 14, 2000, where Schubb and others gave Amy Goodman detailed criticisms of her programming and style in a clear illustration of "interference from program management."

Dissidents believe Pacifica is being mainstreamed for many reasons, and the Democratic Party establishment has played a well-documented role. Schubb's assertion ignores the strong connection of former Pacifica chair and Clinton appointee Mary Frances Berry to the Democrats; it also ignores explicit pressures from above.

For example, in May 1997, the late WBAI Program Director Samori Marksman complained to the WBAI local board of pressure on Democracy Now! from Pacifica Executive Director Pat Scott. Scott told Amy Goodman to "go easy" on Clinton and to tone down her coverage of East Timor. Management was disturbed when Goodman interviewed Nader on the floor of the Republican Convention in 2000. Pacifica then claimed falsely that she had brought Nader in under the cover of her press credentials, and used that to deny her press credentials to the Democratic Convention.

4. Schubb: "Myth: KPFA in Berkeley was shut down by Pacifica after programmers were yanked from the air because they criticized Pacifica management. Reality: Not true." [Schubb gives a long version of the patience Pacifica management exercised before calling in the police, all necessary "in defense of its federal license"--a seriously biased account that recycles an earlier one by Marc Cooper].

REAL REALITY: Schubb's statement that the difficulties began "after KPFA's manager was not renewed by Pacifica" ignores that a popular manager was fired as part of a long series of hostile interventions. Schubb's version is also contradicted by hard evidence: Pacifica ordered equipment to reroute KPFA's transmitter one month before the disruptive events that allegedly caused the takeover and shutdown. Plans for the shutdown had been discussed at the highest levels, as is shown by the misdirected e-mail message from a board member, sent the day before the lockout, which says, "But seriously, I was under the impression there was support in the proper quarters, and a definite majority, for shutting down that unit and re-programming immediately. Has that changed?"

The notion that the takeover was needed to protect the license is also false. In 1954, KPFA broadcast a conversation between four marijuana smokers who could be heard smoking pot in the studio. The California State Attorney General seized the program, yet KPFA did not lose its license. In 1964, the Pacifica Foundation refused to sign a FCC-demanded anti-communist questionnaire without losing any licenses. KPFA went off the air in 1974 for a month due to a staff strike without losing its license. In 1975, the FCC cited WBAI for obscenity. Pacifica management took the case all the way to the Supreme Court and lost without WBAI losing its license. In 1977, disgruntled WBAI staff occupied the station's transmitter and locked themselves in the station for six weeks without WBAI losing its license.

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