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Aug 13, 2004

Staff and volunteers at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, Calif., are accusing the station's recently elected Local Station Board of micromanagment and unmerited attacks on staff. (Related Berkeley Daily Planet article.) In a letter to listeners, Interim General Manager Jim Bennett warns that "[t]he progressive politics that are sometimes put forward on the air will not flourish in a repressive mode of trying to get certain agendas rammed through." Pacifica's bylaws, enacted last year, provided for the creation and election of LSBs. Meanwhile, Pacifica pointed out that three of its stations have weekly cumulative audiences that put them among the top 30 in the country.
In The Nation, Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media?, concludes the funding of PBS's Tucker Carlson and Wall Street Journal shows resulted from "naked political pressure" by "crybaby conservatives."
A University of Wisconsin study finds that media ownership by national conglomerates doesn't reduce local news coverage -- in quantity, at least.