Scab News Replaces Democracy Now!
and
Pacifica Contracts with Non-Union, VOA-Connected Service

by the Democracy Now Staff via an IMC stringer Tuesday, August 28, 2001

What follows is from the Democracy Now! staff -- reporting that Pacifica has contacted with an off-site, non-union news agency (Feature Story News) to replace the first segment of Democracy Now!

We have just learned that Pacifica has contracted with an off-site, non-union news service to replace the first segment of Democracy Now!

This comes after National Programming Director Stephen Yasko and Executive Director Bessie Wash suspended the Democracy Now! Staff without pay -- for broadcasting off-site. We left WBAI after two attacks -- one physical, one verbal -- yet management repeatedly refused to allow us to broadcast from an off-site location.

In the daily segments which began last Friday and replace Democracy Now!'s headlines, the anchor announces that she is reporting "from the Pacifica newsroom." This is false. The news service is called Feature Story News, and is provided from a remote location.

This is the first time Pacifica has sub-contracted out an entire daily newscast. In addition, they have tried to pass it off as a Pacifica production. Feature Story Newsí clients include Fox News and Voice of America. (Voice of America is the radio propaganda arm of the U.S. government. Its broadcasts are forbidden by law to air in the U.S.)

Editor's note: The U.S. government has other ways in which it controls what is provided in the United States.

As we seek protection from a workplace that our union has declared unsafe, we are appalled that Pacifica is blocking our broadcasts and that we have been suspended without pay -only to be replaced by a non-union "content-provider," whose politics are anathema to community radio.

All we are asking is that we be able to produce and broadcast "Democracy Now!" from a safe and secure location until the problems at WBAI are adequately investigated and resolved, and that our suspensions are revoked and our pay reinstated.

Listeners have for years given us their trust, and their money, to produce the only independent, nationally broadcast, grassroots newsmagazine in this country. We owe them no less. We implore you to take immediate action, and restore us to every Pacifica station and affiliate.

Signed,
Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!
Kris Abrams, producer of Democracy Now!
Brad Simpson, producer of Democracy Now!
Anthony Sloan, engineer of Democracy Now!

cc: AFTRA
 
 

Pacifica Contracts with Non-Union, VOA-Connected Service

by Lyn Gerry
Tuesday,  August 28, 2001

New revelations in the ongoing Democracy Now! crisis. Of particular note is the information that the Feature Story News Service, the scab,  has ties with Voice of America, a propaganda service of the US Information Agency (USIA).

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)  Director Robert Coonrod, who has openly supported the Pacifica takeover, and National Public Radio CEO Kevin Klose are both former executives of USIA broadcast operations (Radio and TV Marti and Voice of America, respectively).