Project Censored Editors to Host Morning Radio Program

KPFA listener sponsored free speech radio in Berkeley has announced a significant change to it's popular drive time public affairs program, the Morning Show. The new format will experiment with a team of rotating hosts to include Project Censored's Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff, editors of Censored 2011: The 25 Top Censored Stories of 2008-09.

The current edition of The Top 25 Censored Stories includes: Number 14. Increased Tensions with Unresolved 9/11 Issues.

http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/14-increased-tensions-with-unresolved-911-issues/

This is potentially significant because KPFA is part of the Pacifica Radio Network with high power FM stations in NYC, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Houston and Berkeley and affiliates in more than 160 cities.

--Dr. Peter Phillips is professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and President of the Media Freedom
Foundation. He is the long-time director of Project Censored, a unique investigative news project that enlists students and faculty from more than thirty colleges and universities to expose media censorship and under-covered stories. Mickey Huff, is associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College and the new director of Project Censored and a Media Freedom Foundation board member.

For more on the ongoing battle to rescue the Pacifica Radio Network from the Democrtatic Party: http://www.betterbadnews.com/

Another Step in the Right Direction

All these steps are having a cumulative effect. People are waking up.

BRAVO Peter Phillips,Mickey Huff and Project Censored!

Project Censored @911blogger: http://911blogger.com/search/node/%22project%20censored%22

Where did you learn about

Where did you learn about this development?

Project Censored editors

The IndyBay Media Activist Forum reprinted this KPFA press release.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/12/17/18666946.php

This is incredibly good news!

This is incredibly good news! Bravo! The former Morning Show team was headed by a likely cognitive infiltrator, who is now suing the radio network using Bush 2004 attorneys. This is a major right move!

Morning Show

This may not last.

I am posting here only as a KPFA listener and not as an insider. What I say here is true only to the best of my knowledge.

These changes to KPFAs morning programming have come about because of the layoffs of the two Morning Show (7-9 AM) hosts Brian-Edwards Tiekert and Aimee Allison. The Morning Show with Edwards Tiekert and Allison was one of the most popular shows on KPFA.

The layoffs of the two Morning Show hosts is being challenged by the union and could possibly be reversed. The union contract only allows for the elimination of positions, not individuals. By laying off the two Morning Show hosts but continuing with the Morning Show, the claim is that Pacifica executive director Arlene Englehardt has violated the contract. If Englehardt had wanted to eliminate the Morning Show she could have done so but would have had to have allowed Edwards-Tiekert and Allison to have bumped other station employees with less seniority and taken their positions as long as they were qualified to carry out the duties. Englehardt did not do this.The union has challenged the layoffs on that basis and could prevail. The union has so far as a first step only called for Pacifica management to act in good faith. I doubt that this will have any effect. I am waiting to see what action the union takes next.

What is very significant is the fact that the Morning Show with Edwards-Tiekert and Allison was the biggest fund raiser of all shows on KPFA. They regularly raised three times the amount of money that it took to produce the show. This clear fact demolishes any claim by Englehardt that Edwards-Tiekert and Allison were laid off for financial reasons. Brian Edward- Tiekert has claimed that Englehardt layed them off because they disagreed with her about station financial matters and that it is personal.

At great issue in all of this is control, local vs. national. Many KPFA listeners and staff want local control over KPFA. Arlene Englehardt, as director of the national network, has taken a great deal of control over KPFA and its programming. There is great resistance to this among KPFA listeners and staff. It is Englehardt who has created the new morning programming at KPFA including this new show with Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff. The union challenges to the layoffs and the deep desire for local control over programming may well reverse all of the changes that Englehardt has created.

Where do I personally stand on all of this? I am caught in between. I am strongly with the faction that wants local control over all of KPFA affairs. Pacifica national management has interfered before and caused great trouble at KPFA. I believe that KPFA staff and management know what is best for KPFA. I also, as a committed Truther, want to see more airing of our issues on KPFA. There is and has been inside KPFA much resistance to any 9/11 Truth programming being allowed on the air. Aside from the wonderful and extraordinary Guns and Butter we are not able to get our truths out there on the air. I want to see that changed and welcome the presence of Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff on the air. That said I feel that local control over KPFA station affairs is paramount and that the core integrity of KPFA must survive. This would of course mean that the Morning Show with Edwards-Tiekert and Allison be restored and that this brief window in which Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff could appear could well be closed. This would of course very unfortunate and undesirable. Whatever happens I personally have little control over it and am just an observer. No point in hollering at me.

Thanks for the information

Has anyone accused Peter and Mickey of being scabs yet? I hope not.

Perhaps there is another slot they could find their way to on the station.

I hope that you and yours are well.

The truth shall set us free. Love is the only way forward.

You are welcome

I have not so far heard any ill-will at all directed towards any of the new program hosts. I don't think that anybody sees them as the bad guys. Amazingly, considering the deep resentments involved, the currently ousted faction has really been very civil.
Who knows how this all plays out. I think that it is inevitable that it will all end up in court. It is my guess that if it does that Arlene Englehardt will be sent packing. That would be my personal wish.
If that happens what will happen after that? Certainly the Morning Show will be restored as it was with Brian and Aimee as hosts. But what will become of the of the programs that Englehardt created? She has actually done some good things. She caused the Al Jazeera network to be aired on KPFA at 6 AM. As I understand it this is the only place that Al Jazeera is being aired in the entire country. That is a good thing. She has brought on Project Censored which I am guessing that many KPFA listeners support. Will these shows survive? The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind.
KPFA is about many people wanting to get their issues on the air and most of them believing that their issues are way more important than anybody elses issues. What will result will be a great World Wrestling Federation pile up (otherwise known as democracy) and only Allah knows the outcome of that.

I hope that you and your as are well also.

Just another listener

It's kind of funny to be having this discussion so "far away" from KPFA, but the little I am able to find out about the situation is so filled with vitriol and name-calling that maybe this is a good place after all.

I live 80 miles away from Berkeley and don't pretend to understand much about all the infighting and politics, so I can just give my take as a longtime listener and supporter. First, as regards 9/11 and gate keeping. I have tried for years, and I know this is true of other listeners also, to get some talk about 9/11 "truth" on any of the KPFA news programs, which includes "The Morning Show" and the Sat and Sun morning programs, and have always been shut out and ridiculed whenever I've tried to call in about it. I think the "professional staff" are dedicated to keeping 9/11 off the air. Another example: KPFA regularly reports on upcoming community events, e.g., a "community calendar", and is always ready to announce any event anywhere nearby that could conceivable be called "progressive", "liberal", or moderately leftist. But they have never, to my knowledge, announced a 9/11 event, such as the annual 2 day 9/11 film fests in Oakland that hundreds attend each year.

It seems to be the paid, professional staff who all feel this way. You won't ever even find them mentioning "9/11", but they will refer disparagingly to "the people who have bizarre conspiracy theories and snake oil salesmen" or the like sometimes when they might make some mention of conflicts at the station.

On the subject of "local control" I am not sure that bloozgeetar has it quite right, but I really don't know. Here's my take on it. The "professional" (paid) staff have been against the whole idea of having "local board" elections, saying that they, the paid staff, know what is best for the station, and they seem to try to have complete control of what their shows cover. It's not so much that there are so many hours that they control, but it covers the KPFA News, morning and night, news programing from 6 am - 11 am (before the layoffs), and the noon hour, all pretty prime time stuff. The faction(s) that favor local control, which include many (but I'm sure not all) of the volunteer workers who do a wide variety of programming covering music, politics (Guns and Butter), alternative medicine, "gender" programs, Hispanic issues, and so forth, seem to want what has taken place, more or less, wanting the paid staff to be "taken down a notch", whether laid off, having less control over the programming , or whatever. I don't know enough to know if these factions are actually in collaboration with the Pacifica management or not, and maybe if they are they wouldn't say so for political or legal reasons, but they seem to be on the same wavelength.

I really wouldn't mind the "professionals" controlling what they cover, in general. I think they do a great job., EXCEPT they have this blind spot (or worse) about "9/11 truth" and other "deep politics" issues, like the assassinations of JFK, MLK, RFK, and Malcolm X. I don't want them to talk about it constantly, but at least let some light in once in a while. Basically, they are on the same wavelength as Chomsky and others for whatever reasons, and it laying off a couple of them is what it takes to change things, I'm in favor of it. I would have preferred that whoever runs the station (and I don't even know who that is or if it's a concept that makes sense) would instead have just told them that they should change their behavior if they want to keep doing their shows, but maybe it doesn't work like that.

By the way, an exception to what I've said about the paid staff is Dennis Bernstein, whose 5 pm show "Flashpoints" sometimes discusses these issues. And people who know nothing about KPFA should listen to it sometimes. Lots of great stuff. You can listen real-time online at kpfa.org or download archives of all the programs.

bloozgeetar, Tiekert referred

bloozgeetar, Tiekert referred to we in the Truth Movement as "far-out conspiracy people". He fits all the characteristics of cognitive infiltration described by David Ray Griffin. His hiring of Bush 2004 campaign attorneys is extremely troubling. If he was that dedicated to the financial health of the station then why sue it? He's using the union banner to further muddy the waters. Try Googling Tiekert and before these recent KPFA troubles, you will find next to nothing on him....curious wouldn't you say for someone in radio? The entry of Project Censored people is exactly what the morning show needs. Where are your stats on the show's pledge draw? I thought Flashpoints did better than The Morning Show and another high pledge draw is Guns and Butter's Bonnie Faulkner, who is an "un-paid" programmer. Read Cognitive Infiltration and you may recognize in Tiekert some of the glaring similarities to internal disruption modalities employed by cognitive infiltrators.

There's much more to the KPFA story than can be covered here. Try: http://www.voicesforjusticeradio.org/candidates.htm

You may be right ...

... about cognitive infiltration re. Tiekert, but we should consider that he may just think like other people like Chomsky, Cockburn, Matthew Rothschild, and a whole slew of others that we would expect to be allies in 9/11 truth, but instead are "gatekeepers." I believe a lot of it has to do with an unfortunate but too common pair of beliefs they have, basically (1) that they think the important thing to focus on is the fundamental reasons for oppression, empire, etc., i.e., capitalism/imperialism, and that looking at specific events like assassinations or 9/11 is some kind of distraction from that, and (2) that they're afraid of looking ridiculous and/or endangering their careers by following up ideas that their peers think the same way about. (What doesn't quite hold water about my idea number (1) is that the same people will spend an hour with a guest who has written a book about Bush's poor use of the English language or other "distractions" without seeming to worry much about whether they are wasting time on non essentials. So I'm not so sure I can really explain their behavior in a benign way.)

But Tiekert, like the other gatekeepers above, has done a lot of good work. I've listened to many hours of his interviews with economists and political thinkers where he asks very incisive questions and really gets to the heart of what they have to say about things, and I mostly agree with his politics (left). You've got to give him credit where credit is due. As I said in an earlier post, for me the perfect world solution would be to keep him doing what he does so well but at the same time force him (somehow) to give some air to 9/11 and other issues and be a little less arrogant about how he confronts ideas he disagrees with. But, as I also said earlier, if the only way to get some 9/11 truth on prime time is to fire him, then I reluctantly feel that that would be the way to go.

Tiekert

I have not heard Tiekert refer to us as "far-out conspiracy people" but I have not heard everything that he has said and have not heard every one of the Morning Shows. I am ready to accept that he said it. Tiekert referring to us as "far-out conspiracy people" is not enough evidence to convince me that he is engaging in cognitive infiltration. Lay out your case for me and I will read what you have to say carefully. I am not going to research your claims. You show me your evidence. Who are the lawyers that he has hired? What other evidence do you have to support your assertions?
And I guess that I have no stats on the Morning Shows pledge draw so you have a good point there. I am just taking their word for it. I have heard that stated quite a number of times on KPFA and have so far never heard anybody contest it. Go here http://kpfaworker.wordpress.com/ and scroll down to " Pacifica Replaces Union Workers With Political Allies" . They say it there. As often as I have heard it said I think that if it wasn't true somebody would have said so by now. That is all that I have to go on. If you have any reason to believe that it is not true I would like to see it.
As far as Tiekert using the"union banner" I at this point do not see that. I actually heard that union information from Philip Maldari who is the union steward at KPFA and who I trust implicitly. It sounds solid to me. Again if you have information that would refute it please present it.
As I have suggested I am well aware that there are many people at KPFA who believe that we are all nuts. Brian Edwards Tiekert is one of them. That does not automatically equate to him engaging in cognitive infiltration. It probably just means that he doesn't believe us. I have no real good idea what to do about it except to keep up what we are doing and believe that with enough effort that minds can be changed. I recently heard an interview on KPFA in which the person being interviewed, as a way of proving our craziness, said with great authority that Alex Jones is the leader of the 9/11 Truth movement. Aside from bashing my head against the wall there was nothing that I could do. We are up against some serious ignorance here. And I myself do believe that it is a matter of ignorance and not deliberate suppression.
And I fully agree that Project Censored is a great addition to the morning line up on KPFA although they would only very occasionally talk about 9/11. I would very much like to see it remain somewhere on KPFA but again realistically I know that may not happen.