5. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica carried out a 'Xmas Coup' this past December in its New York City station WBAI. Reality: [Schubb states there was a December 23 call by "'dissidents' and some staff" to occupy the studios; "In response," the top management dismissed the manager, installed Utrice Leid, and Leid "requested that the locks be changed at WBAI to thwart the planned takeover..."]

REAL REALITY: The changing of the locks at WBAI was carried out at night on December 22 by Pacifica Executive Director Bessie Wash and now-interim general manager Utrice Leid--one day before Schubb's alleged occupation threat. This takeover was planned well in advance during secret negotiations with Leid. (Weeks before Leid was tapped to seize the station, another staffer, who publicly declined due to staff resistance, had been asked by Pacifica management to replace WBAI's general manager, Valerie van Isler.) Despite criticism of van Isler, many in the WBAI community--staff, LAB and listeners--were opposed to her unilateral and sudden removal by Pacifica national the night of the 22.

Although Leid announced there would be no program changes, within hours and days of the midnight coup, veteran staffers, paid and unpaid, were fired and banned from the station. Security guards were installed, and access to the station was, and continues to be, restricted. Leid has also banned the Local Advisory Board from meeting on site. Arrests occurred when they tried. A vicious on-air campaign of racist character assassination by Leid and her loyalists continues to this day. False charges of violence against the resistance movement have also been alleged by Leid and Pacifica management.

After a month of open, on-air debate following the take-over, Leid imposed a gag rule which she now uses to censor only her detractors--including US Congressman Major Owens, cut off in mid-sentence. Leid has also fired and banned many of WBAI's most prominent radical, as well as female, voices. To date, over twenty staff members have been purged, while the progressive content of the station has been dramatically reduced. Leid also pre-emptively censored the WBAI Local News recently, preventing coverage of New York City Council investigations into WBAI. This news censorship is the first at WBAI in recent memory, and continues the ugly practice of news censorship around the network in recent years by Pacifica management as it has tried to colonize and reprogram each sister station (see "Chronology of Censorship," www.savepacifica.net/strike). As Leid has proclaimed: "WBAI is not to be the station of the left." [April 30, 2001, WBAI staff meeting]

6. Schubb: "Myth: Pacifica and KPFK muzzle open on-air discussion with a 'gag rule'. Reality: Not true...no gag rule."

REAL REALITY: Schubb's claim that there is no "gag rule" is based on the contention that the ban on discussion of supposedly "internal issues" on air is standard practice and is therefore not gagging. But there is a double deception here. First, although Schubb justifies his policies on the grounds that programmers are "speaking 'at' the listeners with no rebuttal," his gag rule also applies to discussion initiated by listeners. In a February 28, 1996 memo, he informed station personnel that they would be expelled permanently if they failed to hang up on callers who raised Pacifica issues or even announced community meetings to discuss such issues. Volunteers who answer pledge calls during fundraising have also been told that discussion of Pacifica matters is forbidden in the phone room.

Schubb's gag order extends even to the outside activities of interviewees that displease him. Last October, after participating in a demonstration in support of Democracy Now!, Cliff Tasner, a campaign finance reform analyst, was told that his interview on KPFK was cancelled because of his participation in the protest. In an e-mail exchange with Marc Cooper, Cooper explained to Tasner that "the first rule of politics is that you reward your friends and punish your enemies."

The gag order of course does not extend to defenses of Pacifica's management and denunciations of opponents of that management. Thus on May 22, as part of an on-air fund-raiser, Marc Cooper spent some fifty minutes in a diatribe against those boycotting Pacifica and KPFK--"saboteurs," "self-appointed commissars," knuckle-heads," ding-a-lings," all suffering "delusions" as they interfered with "our mission-driven programming." (Cooper should check out Schubb's 1998 advisory to staff to aim their political message at the "center," in order to increase their market share, noted under 9 below.)

Second, the alteration of Pacifica's policies, programming and purposes are not merely internal issues. They are matters that the communities that support Pacifica have a right to be informed of, and discuss. Those at the top of Pacifica have known from the beginning that traditional constituencies would object to Pacifica's new direction, as evidenced by a July 1995 memo from the Pacifica executive committee:

At the October, 1994 National Board meeting, the Board mandated that the station managers re-configure programming to better serve core listeners in each signal area, to develop more relevant and professional programming and to, thereby, increase the audience. We were mindful that this would unfortunately inconvenience, if not distress, some staff, board and audience members. It will mean that there will be many alterations to current and long-standing practices at the stations.... If there are indications that actions are being taken collectively or individually to countermand the policies, directives, and mandates of the Pacifica Board, the Board will take appropriate steps.

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