Andrea Langlois et al - Islands of Resistance - Pirate Radio in Canada

60 • islands of resistance
interviewed Carol Denney, cofounder of Free Radio Berkeley, for the
then forthcoming book, Seizing The Airwaves, 5 I began by asking her
the question that had eluded me, “Why micropower [pirate] radio and
not community radio?” Her initial response, “Gosh, I wish it didn’t
just break my heart to answer that question,” vividly expressed the
anguish she, and many others in the region, felt about the July 1996
hostile takeover, evidenced by the removal of programmers at Berkeley’s
KPFA — the first independent, listener-supported, licensed radio
station in North America — followed by the lockout of programmers
and a substantial restructuring of its schedule.
Launched in 1949, after World War II, KPFA was initiated by Lew
Hill, a pacifist, conscientious objector and anarchist. According to the
San Francisco Bay Guardian, the station was “founded as a voice of
dissent.” 6 It encouraged public debate on contemporary political and
social issues and artistic endeavours. This unique radio concept was
so successful that KPFA eventually grew into a network of five stations
known as Pacifica Radio, and sparked the movement toward the
creation of campus-based community radio stations throughout the
States and Canada. However, over the ensuing decades, KPFA increasingly
mirrored the power imbalances that were being challenged by
the politically-charged civil rights, feminist and antiwar movements.
The resulting instability at the station was compounded by a gradual
series of conservative infiltrations onto its once very liberal board
of directors. This takeover shifted the objectives of the station’s programming
toward a new format that would increase its appeal to the
well-heeled segment of its audience at the expense of its more radical
programming. As Carol Denney lamented:
KPFA is what we used to call our community radio station... They are
still predominantly a listener-supported station, but it’s fairly clear
from the programs that they’ve axed recently, and the volunteer programmers
that they’ve not only axed but blacklisted, that they want a
kind of middle-of-the-road station. They see that as more lucrative. It’s
all about demographics now. 7
Ironically, one of the programs that was axed was called “Freedom is
a Constant Struggle.” During my interview with the host of that program
(also published in Seizing the Airwaves), former Black Panther
and prison rights activist, Kiilu Nyasha, accused KPFA of being “disingenuous”
with her when they invited her to attend meetings to dis-