2.3 (July 2002): 306-311
© 2002 National Communication Association

Pacifica Radio and the American Left

Warren Bareiss

Jeff Land. Active Radio; Pacifica’s Brash Experiment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. 179 pages. $16.95 (paper).

Matthew Lasar. Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000. 320 pages. $19.95 (paper).

The “American system” of broadcasting, in which privately owned stations sell audiences to advertisers via programming, is so overwhelmingly dominant in the United States that other options are hard to imagine. Robert W. McChesney (1993) examines how corporations developed—with the blessings of federal regulators—not only the dominant system, but also its corresponding ideology. McChesney provides a useful term, “ideological closure,” to explain how sponsors, networks, affiliates, and ratings companies have crafted a rhetorical framework that makes alternatives to commercial media seem “un-American” at best, and downright subversive at worst.

But what happens when individuals deliberately attempt to develop a very different broadcasting system, one in which the dominant commercial system is held in contempt? Both Land and Lasar chronicle the founding and subsequent development of Pacifica Radio, a small network of stations developed by Left-wing intellectuals who recognized the mechanisms by which sponsorship severely limits the range of political discourse and creativity in commercial radio. Pacifica’s founders—led by eloquent idealist Lewis Hill—initially envisioned a radio station that would promote and exemplify pacifist ideals, particularly among the working class, through open discussion representing all points of view. Pacifica’s founders believed that free discourse among divergent opinions was a viable means of preventing war. Despite numerous setbacks and changes in philosophy, KPFA was established in Berkeley in 1949.  The network eventually added four more stations in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, and Washington, D.C.

Land and Lasar provide an immense amount of historical, contextual material in order to explain not only how Pacifica developed, but also why Pacifica was a revolutionary concept, given the overwhelming ideological constraints imposed by the commercial broadcasting system. As such, both books are about more than a handful of rebel stations; they are cultural histories illustrating daunting struggles of the American Left during and following World War II.

Both authors precede their discussions with different yet complementary discussions contextualizing the roots of Pacifica. Land begins by tracing concepts of democracy and the rights of the individual in John Dewey, William James, Walt Whitman, and Mahatma Gandhi. Although little direct connection is made among these philosophers and the founders of Pacifica, Land demonstrates how Pacifica was constructed within an established tradition wherein equitable communal life was equated with pacifism and the promotion of individual thought and creative expression. Land also provides a brief, albeit dense, analysis of how U.S. broadcasting became the purview of corporate sponsorship, commercial dictates, narrow formats, and tepid programming. In doing so, he illustrates the difficulties faced by Pacifica founders in not only challenging the established industrial order, but also in finding and developing an audience that rejected the status quo in radio broadcasting.

Lasar, on the other hand, dedicates his first three chapters almost entirely to the history of the American pacifist movement prior to, during, and just after World War II. While he also begins with a discussion of Gandhi, Lasar quickly moves into an illuminating history of conscientious objectors during World War II—several of whom would later develop KPFA. (The story of CO camps is worth reading in itself.) This contextual information is thoroughly refreshing in its approach, weaving the lives of Pacifica founders into the wider story of the American Left during the war years. Lasar carefully delineates differences among pacifists and liberals, as both sides would ultimately define Pacifica’s initial identity—the former attempting to bring pacifist ideas to the masses, while liberals tried to provide an alternative to consumer-driven pop culture.

Lasar also provides much more information than does Land about individual personalities and programs heard on Pacifica. Choosing a handful of prominent early programmers, Lasar convincingly demonstrates the depth of political dedication shared by Pacifica personnel as well as deep differences among personalities and goals that sometimes wreak internal havoc among Pacifica stations.

Sadly, neither account of Pacifica Radio provides an unbroken story of the network’s evolution beyond the 1970s. Land traces Pacifica’s development from its origins to a major change in tone and direction known as “free speech radio.”  Following the shift, Pacifica no longer promoted pacifism through dialogue, but instead actively took a stand against anticommunism and later against the Vietnam War. It was during the war that Pacifica reached its zenith of popularity to date, becoming a major voice in the anti-war movement. Land’s account of programming during the 1960s and 1970s—ranging from the development of free form to the infamous “seven filthy words” case—illustrates a distinct move in favor of individual programmers’ autonomy. While acknowledging the courage of program producers and the social benefit of programming for Latinos, African Americans, women, and other marginalized groups, Land also points out that Pacifica strayed far from anything resembling a consistent unifying principle.

Land’s account ends with a drastic reduction in Pacifica listeners and funding following the Vietnam War. The postwar years were marked by a feudal system of disjointed programs fueled by identity politics. Without an overarching philosophy, beyond that of providing an open forum for whoever wanted to express themselves, Pacifica had become less a venue for discussion to work out differences than a place to promote particular concepts and identities—a development that Land seems to lament but never explicitly condemns. This, in fact, is the central conundrum described by Land: How could Pacifica balance the rights of individual programmers with any kind of vague organizational purpose regarding programming consistency, responsibility, and quality?

While Lasar covers much the same ground regarding Pacifica’s evolution from pacifist to community/alternative radio, he provides a much more detailed analysis regarding how the shift was less a rational choice on the part of Pacifica personnel than a reaction to hostile regulatory maneuvers and the direct pressures of anticommunism. The shift from radical dialogue to the emphasis on the individual’s right to speak, Lasar points out, was the direct legacy of Pacifica management’s arguments made before HUAC hearings in the 1950s and 1960s. Again, the dialectic between communalism and individuality is raised, this time by Lasar, who argues that Pacifica’s immediate defense against McCarthysim laid the groundwork for individualistic and group-based programming of the 1960s and 1970s—along with the ultimate dissolution of internal consistency and resultant friction and chaos.

Ultimately, Lasar reveals that Pacifica never really was a setting for all points of view to be discussed as its founders had claimed. After all, Lasar explains, the unstated goal from the early days was to present divergent views, but always within a framework of pacifist ideology. Seen in this light, Pacifica’s later identity-based programming was a more honest, albeit feudal, form of programming than that practiced by the Pacifica’s first generation of programmers.

Lasar, himself a former KPFA programmer, adds a new closing chapter to his original version published in 1999. Here, he describes in personal and painful detail how KPFA burst apart in the spring of 1999, essentially because a wedge had developed between management and programmers (although lines between the two were blurred). While the chapter adds little to clarify why Pacifica has failed to balance individual and organizational goals, its firsthand discourse helps the reader appreciate the emotional and personal ties that Pacifica personnel and listeners feel for “their” stations—despite the lack of agreement about what Pacifica is.

In the end, both books leave the reader with a sense of deep frustration. Although it is easy to agree with Pacifica’s founders in their critique of commercial broadcasting, Land and Lasar give us little reason to expect that Pacifica provides a viable alternative model. After all, why is Pacifica radio so often and so deeply wracked by internal conflict? Lasar’s explanation is that a lack of opportunities in other broadcast venues causes a crush for time and space at Pacifica, which in turn leads to frustration and conflict. Land, on the other hand, implies that Pacifica has fallen prey to identity politics with firm lines drawn and cross-communication severely hindered.

Neither explanation is really satisfying, and this is the most serious weakness in both books. Neither Lasar nor Land provides much insight into the organizational forces that simultaneously pull Pacifica together and tear it apart. This oversight occurs because neither author addresses identity politics from the perspectives of the insiders. As a reader, I would like to know what producers of specialty shows were thinking as they fought amongst themselves while the overall structure of Pacifica crashed around them. Did they perceive connections between their agendas and the well-being of Pacifica overall? How (if at all) did they conceive of Pacifica’s “community” of personnel and listeners in general? Organizational theory, particularly the work of Anthony Giddens (beginning, for example, with Giddens, 1982), would help the writers to better understand and explain how conflicting perceptions are reflected in social structures, which simultaneously create and destroy Pacifica radio.

I would also like to have seen much more discussion of Pacifica’s expansion during the 1970s. KPFT, in Houston, and WPFW, in Washington, D.C., are barely mentioned by Lasar and not at all by Land. Similarly, there is virtually no discussion in either book of the relationship between Pacifica and other non-Pacifica community stations that proliferated in the 1970s.

Even so, both books are important contributions to broadcasting history. Our sense of Pacifica radio—and alternative media history in general—tends to be wrapped in a romanticized, and often just plain wrong, lore of broadcasting. Both books clarify important issues that are sometimes misconstrued within that lore. For example, Lasar convincingly argues that Lewis Hill’s suicide in 1957 was most likely the result of excruciating arthritic spinal pain rather than his displeasure over the conflicts at KPFA. Both books also clarify the distinction between early Pacifica radio and what would later be termed “community radio.” Both authors adamantly argue that Pacifica was not founded by members of the American Communist Party. Indeed, most of Pacifica’s early programming steered clear of Party rhetoric beyond occasional guests’ discourse heard during current affairs broadcasts. Finally, both Land and Lasar clarify that KPFA was not intended to be commercial-free during its fledgling days; rather, sponsorship proved more burdensome than useful, and the initial concept of limited sponsorship was soon dropped altogether.

Yet even while their addition to broadcasting history is significant, these books have a much wider relevance. Through their examination of Pacifica’s ideology, rhetoric, programming, personnel, and relationships with federal investigators and regulators, Land and Lasar make important contributions to American history in general by providing highly detailed examinations of the Left’s sole broadcast network.

Warren Bareiss is assistant professor of media studies at Austin College in Sherman, Texas.

References

Giddens, A. (1982). Power, the dialectic of control and class structuration. In A. Giddens and G. Mackensie (Eds.), Social class and the division of labor; Essays in honor of Ilya Neustadt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

McChesney, R.W. (1993). Telecommunications, mass media, and democracy: The battle for the control of U.S. broadcasting, 1928-1935. New York: Oxford.