System/Policy

Cost of democratic safeguards is steep, Pacifica discovers

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Pacifica’s transition to a listener-elected board of directors carried an unexpectedly high price tag, and network executives are exploring cheaper alternatives. Last year the radio network enshrined its democratic principles in bylaws that empowered its staff and members of stations to elect Local Station Boards. Those boards in turn vote for the network’s national board. The bylaws were a crowning achievement to activists who spent years wresting Pacifica from an unpopular board, which had begun appointing its own members and installed a top-down governance style. But the additional governance costs have shocked some Pacifica leaders, who ask whether the cash-strapped network can sustain them.

System/Policy

Radio that’s representative: Listeners control vote for Pacifica boards

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Pacifica Radio is emerging from bitter years of factional struggle with new bylaws that may make it the world’s most democratic media organization. The bylaws, which escaped legal challenge and won approval by a California judge Sept. 15, entrust listeners, volunteers and staff members to elect boards at Pacifica’s five stations. Those boards will oversee station matters such as spending, programming and hiring top managers, as well as appointing a national board of directors to run the network. About 90,000 of Pacifica’s listeners and 700 of its volunteers and staffers are eligible to vote in the first election under the bylaws, estimates Carol Spooner, secretary of the network’s interim national board.

Public Media Policybase

Pacifica Foundation Bylaws, 2003

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After an all-out legal and public-relations war for control of the five-station Pacifica Radio chain and its national network, the winning activists established one of the most complex and democratic governance systems in broadcasting. AMENDED AND RESTATED BYLAWS OF PACIFICA FOUNDATION
A California Non-Profit Public Benefit Corporation
ARTICLE ONE IDENTITY AND PURPOSE
SECTION 1. NAME SECTION 1. NAME

The name of this corporation is the PACIFICA FOUNDATION, and it shall be referred to in these Bylaws as the “Foundation”. SECTION 2.

Public Media Policybase

Pacifica Foundation By-Laws, 1999

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These are the bylaws of the governing body of Pacifica Radio, originally adopted Sept. 30, 1961, with revisions through Feb. 28, 1999. See also Pacifica’s bylaws in 1955, early in the nonprofit’s history. ARTICLE ONE
IDENTITY
NAME: The name of this corporation shall be PACIFICA FOUNDATION, and it shall be referred to in these by-laws as “The Foundation”.

People

With Abu-Jamal coming on, WRTI drops Pacifica

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The prospect of radio commentaries by a controversial death-row inmate “accelerated” Temple University’s decision to pull Pacifica news off WRTI, the university said. In a memo to Pacifica News Director Julie Drizin, Temple Vice President for Public Relations George Ingram said he was canceling a half-hour news feed and the one-hour Democracy Now to make room for additional jazz and university-related programming. But he also said: “Quite frankly, the decision was accelerated by the news Democracy Now would air the Mumia Abu-Jamal radio commentaries. . .

People

Pacifica reporter found murdered in Los Angeles

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Michael Taylor, a reporter for Pacifica station KPFK in Los Angeles, has been murdered. Friends believe the execution-style shooting may have been related to Taylor’s involvement in developing a micro-power radio station.

Public Media Policybase

FCC v. Pacifica Foundation et al., 1978

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438 U.S. 726

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION v. PACIFICA FOUNDATION ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
No. 77-528. Argued in the U.S. Supreme Court, April 18-19, 1978, and decided, July 3, 1978. See full text and citations on FindLaw.