Pacifica Radio

The Pacifica Radio Foundation owns the licenses for and manages the affairs of five listener supported, noncommercial FM radio stations in the United States: KPFA in Berkeley, California (inaugurated in 1949); KPFK in Los Angeles, California (1959); WBAI in New York City (1960); KPFT in Houston, Texas (1970); and WPFW in Washington, D.C. (1977). Pacifica also funds and promotes news and public affairs programs for its own and nearly 100 affiliated community radio stations, most notably Democracy Now and Free Speech Radio News. The organization's main contribution to U.S. journalism has been the consistent airing of perspectives of the American and global political left that are often excluded from or marginalized by mainstream broadcasting.

World War II–era conscientious objectors created the Pacifica Foundation in August of 1946. Pacifist Lewis Hill, nephew of an Oklahoma oil millionaire, had worked as an announcer at a news radio station in Washington, D.C., following his release from a conscientious objector camp in 1944. Hill saw radio as a way to rescue organized pacifism from its sudden marginalization following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 and the consequent U.S. entry into World War II. He envisioned listener support or “sponsorship” as a means of establishing a funding base independent of advertisers or educational institutions, the latter the most common source of support for nonprofit broadcasting.

Pacifica launched KPFA in Berkeley in 1949 largely through volunteer labor. The focus of the station was primarily cultural, including commentaries by movie critic Pauline Kael, Zen scholar Alan Watts, and beat poet Kenneth Rexroth. Although the station broadcasted political commentaries, most notably Hill expressing opposition to the FBI and the Korean War, news and public affairs programming took a backseat to culture until the arrival of Elsa Knight Thompson in the mid-1950s.

Thompson, a journalist who had worked at the BBC in London during World War II, pushed to build a news and public affairs department at KPFA. She produced many path-breaking programs, including a lengthy 1958 broadcast on the civil liberties of homosexuals that is generally recognized as the first gay rights radio documentary. In 1960 Knight Thompson took a team of reporters to San Francisco City Hall to provide live coverage of hearings held by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. When subpoenaed witnesses denounced the committee in testimony and students rioted outside the hearing chambers, the KPFA team turned the broadcast into a widely distributed radio documentary.

The opening of Pacifica stations KPFK in Los Angeles and the acquisition of WBAI in New York City accelerated the foundation's emphasis on news and public affairs. KPFK's Terry Drinkwater, later to join CBS, produced a provocative interview in 1959 with notorious anti-Semite Gerald L. K. Smith. In October 1962, WBAI producers Richard Elman and Chris Koch, the latter an acolyte of [Page 1038]Knight Thompson, interviewed a disgruntled FBI ex-trainee on his experiences with the bureau. For three hours WBAI listeners heard Jack Levine disclose anecdotes of racism and anti-Semitism at the agency, as well as revelations of J. Edgar Hoover's alleged distaste for trainees with sweaty hands. The FBI retaliated by producing a dossier of nearly everyone in Pacifica and handing it over to the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. The senators subpoenaed members of the Pacifica board while the Federal Communications Commission stalled the renewal of Pacifica station licenses. Only the resignation of a Pacifica board member once associated with the Communist Party enabled the foundation to survive the ordeal intact.

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