Active Radio: Pacifica's Brash Experiment

From Publishers Weekly

To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the independent Pacifica Radio Network, Land, a media critic and activist, recounts the network's history in a tight, accessible narrative. Land details how Lewis Hill and other pacifist conscientious objectors formed the Pacifica Foundation in 1946 to take their agenda beyond "ivory towerism" and to resist the "mediocrity and exploitation" that they believed defined commercial radio. After the FCC, in an era of intensified regulation, denied their idealistic AM application, Pacifica began to broadcast on FM via KPFA in the California Bay Area. Despite the network's populist intent, the station initially merited the sobriquet "Highbrow's Delight," offering classical music, intellectual roundtables and poetry alongside controversial politics. After its first decade, Pacifica expanded to New York and L.A., and as the countercultural movement gained momentum, the young network embraced the folk revival and became embroiled in a series of censorship trials over broadcasts of Ginsberg's Howl and George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." In 1962, the year longtime commentator Pauline Kael resigned in protest of Hill's domineering management of KPFA, Pacifica's New York outlet, WBAI, aired a former agent's then-shocking expose of illegal FBI activities, a story no other network would touch. WBAI was also a leader in Vietnam coverage, sending one of the first American correspondents to Hanoi and broadcasting Seymour Hersh breaking the My Lai incident. Land acknowledges that Pacifica, like most progressive organizations, endured passionate disagreements about everything from socialist theory to air time for classical music. But unlike Matthew Lasar's Pacifica Radio: The Rise of an Alternative Network (Forecasts, Nov. 23), Land is less concerned with such internal divisions than with Pacifica's larger role in American culture. For Land, Pacifica embodies the power of the First Amendment, exemplifying the salutary effects of the "disruption of convention encouraged by vigorous public dissent."
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Radio station KPEA began broadcasting from Berkeley, CA, in April 1949. By 1980 it had grown into the Pacifica Radio network, with stations in Los Angeles, New York, Washington, DC, and Houston and had earned a reputation for political activism, cultural discussion, and innovative programming, serving as the model for both public radio and television. Land, director of the -ISM (N.) media and diversity project in Durham, NC, covers Pacificas history and the philosophical beliefs of its founder, Lewis Hill. Land is unflinching in his presentation of the networks financial problems, internal conflicts, and court battles and also highlights Pacificas innovations, including reliance on listener financial support, talk radio programs, experimental formats, and aggressive news reporting. Lands work is not necessarily the final wordMatthew Lasers Pacifica Radio and the Rise of Alternative Radio (Temple Univ., 1999) has just been publishedbut it is engaging reading. Recommended for communications and media collections.Stephen L. Hupp, Swedenborg Memorial Lib., Urbana Univ., OH
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.