Pacifica

• KPFA in Berkeley
• KPFK in Los Angeles
• KPFT in Huston
• WBAI in New York
• WPFW in Washington, D.C.

Pacifica is even more liberal than NPR just as nieken mentioned above. In fact I have heard one host mention that NPR was part of the conservative media establishment!

One can learn a lot about the drawbacks of communal living by watching the crisis that come up on a regular basis, such as the one currently going on at their New York station WBAI. People fired overnight and locks changed -- it seems to point to what Marxists never want to talk about, the paranoia that seems to set in over time.

The programming can be tedious at times as the people who call in seem to still be living in the 60s. However there are some good shows, such as Democracy Now! and Off the Hook.

Recently, during the few months that I spent out in the big room (thus the lack of details) major changes happened within Pacifica, and at WBAI. Amy Goodman no longer works at WBAI, and Democracy Now! is no longer recorded there. Goodman and many others including Dan Coughlin, Mark Dunston, Reggi Johnson, Joyce Jones, Ryme Katkhouda, Bob Lederer, Ayana Maitland, Errol Maitland, and Bernard White are now broadcasting and distributing programming from www.wbix.org (WBai In eXile). This programming includes Democracy Now!, Free Speech Radio News, Wake-Up Call, and a lot of other good content.

One example of what makes this sort of broadcasting so special is Off The Hook from November 30, 1999.¹ The show is composed almost entirely of a live report of the WTO protests in Seattle by Amy Goodman. It is some of the most amazing radio I have ever heard. The www.2600.com web site has a brief description of the show, as well as mp3s and Real Audio files of the show.

1. http://www.2600.com/offthehook/1999/1199.html