Protesters Take Aim at KPFK, Host’s Statements

About 40 demonstrators carried placards and chanted slogans in front of public radio station KPFK-FM (90.7) for two hours late Monday afternoon, protesting what they characterized as KPFK’s censorship, as well as statements by Marc Cooper, a major on-air personality, about Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death row in Pennsylvania for the slaying of a policeman in 1981.

“Free press, free speech, free Mumia” was a frequent chant, as protesters reacted to a Jan. 6 article in New York Press by Cooper--host of a daily show from 4 to 5 p.m. on KPFK and the syndicated show “Radio Nation” (Fridays at 7 a.m.)--which was the focal point of Monday’s demonstration. While arguing against the death penalty--”even for the guilty”--he wrote, “If I go to one more lefty event, and see one more ‘Free Mumia’ poster, I might just have to switch sides. . . . What collective affliction has overcome my fellow pinkos?”

John Martinez, a former volunteer producer-host of “Radio Chicano,” an arts and public affairs show that was dropped by the station last fall, and a spokesman for the Los Angeles Coalition for Free Speech Radio, which organized the protest, said that the free speech argument does not prevail in this case, calling Cooper’s attack on Mumia “biased [and] vicious.” A long list of other complaints not tied to Cooper were outlined in a Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship letter dated Jan. 24 to Mary Frances Berry, chairwoman of Pacifica Foundation, and distributed during the protest.

Martinez said the protest was timed to coincide with the opening day of an on-air fund-raising drive at the Los Angeles Pacifica outlet. It was part of a nearly yearlong fight by grass-roots community groups, which has included at least seven staged protests, against the Pacifica network and KPFK over programming and on-air dissent, he added.

On Tuesday, KPFK General Manager Mark Schubb called the censorship charges “ridiculous,” and dismissed the protesters as “just a tiny faction.”

“Any time any person is dropped for any reason, their response is to glue ‘censorship’ to it. Freedom is unprecedented [at KPFK]. If someone loses a show, most often it’s because no one’s listening to it.”

The protesters have a long list of what they deem to be censored programs as well as a “gag rule” they say the station has in place against reporting on the Pacifica turmoil, which limited on-air coverage to Associated Press reports. Schubb countered the charge, saying at the height of the Pacifica protests last summer the station opened phone lines for listeners to call in and discuss the issue.

While protests last summer at Berkeley involving sister station KPFA-FM erupted in sit-ins and arrests, Monday’s demonstration at the North Hollywood station was noisy but peaceful.