{"article":{"id":218424,"heading":"Offical response to allegations of censorship of Demoracy Now at KPFK.","author":"Jim Lafferty","created":"2008-06-20 22:16:48","modified":"2013-11-11 00:53:46","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:53:46","article":"

Dear Indy Media




Once again the “conspiracy mill” is working over time. No one censored Amy Goodman and her interview with Ralph Nader on KPFK. Ralph Nader has been, and will continue to be, a frequent guest on KPFK. (In fact when I mc’d the kick off event for the Nader\/Gonzalez campaign in California, I made a point of saying I wanted to arrange a debate with Nader and all the other presidential candidates on KPFK… including the Democrats and Republicans if they would show up.)

KPFK is the middle of a fund drive. The plain truth is that Amy’s show has not been brining in nearly as much money during the fund drive as have other shows. And we really need to do well during this drive… not an easy task with the economy in the toilet! So during her second hour we scheduled another program that has brought in more money than Democracy Now during this drive. She understood, since she wants the best for KPFK. (Indeed I pre-empt my own program, The Lawyers Guild Show during the fund drive for programs that raise more money.)

KPFK is committed to carrying Amy Goodman and following the campaign of Ralph Nader, and other third party campaigns. In fact we will be increasing this sort of election year programming.

So in the future, if who ever posted the false and malicious posting on Indy Media would bother to check with us before jumping to untrue and unflattering conclusions, we would all be better off. Certainly KPFK would.

Regards,

Jim Lafferty

Interim General Manager <\/p>\n","contact":"jlafferty@kpfk.org","link":"","address":"","phone":"818 985-2711","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/plain","summary":"Offical response to allegations of censorship of Demoracy Now at KPFK.","numcomment":2,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/","filesize":null,"article_url":"\/news\/2008\/06\/218424.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":218445,"heading":"Thank you for your rebuttal","article":"Thank you for your rebuttal on the newswire. It is most welcome, however it should be addressed to hymie the person who posted the article<\/a>. The LA Indymedia editorial staff only administrates this web site and is not the author of the article. \r\n

\r\nla.indymedia.org is an open forum. Provided free to the local community. Unfortunately there are some people who abuse this. In order to preserve the forum, LA-IMC has some adopted guidelines. Postings that are racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-gay, threats, insults, profane, slanderous, pornographic, advertisements, propaganda, ultra-nationalist, and the like are hidden by the staff. \r\n

\r\nArticle in question KPFK Listener Outrage at Censorship of Ralph Nader<\/a> by hymie does not appear to meet any of the criteria for it to be hidden. The editorial staff does not make any judgment on the content of an article being true or false. \r\n

\r\nThank you for your understanding. And thank you for your rebuttal and participartion in this debate on the future of independent media in Los Angeles.\r\n","author":"LA-IMC","parent_id":218424,"mime_type":"text\/html","created":"2008-06-21 20:15:30","modified":"2008-06-21 20:15:30","fileurl":""},{"id":218453,"heading":"Hymie","article":"Jim Lafferty said:\r\n\r\n"So during her second hour we scheduled another program that has brought in more money than Democracy Now during this drive."\r\n\r\nAnd it was just coincidence that on the one day during the entire fund drive that Nader was on Amy's program that KPFK preempted her program? Just one day. Just that one day? Not the next. Not the one before. That one.\r\n\r\nAnd you didn't do it two days. Just one. You didn't need the additional money that you would have got on that second day of cutting Amy's program. KPFK had plenty and didn't need any more in its fund drive.\r\n\r\nI don't believe your story. I don't believe in coincidence. And in your practice as a civil rights attorney and head of the Lawyers Guild chapter, I never saw you either buy such a claim when raised, such as to negate the element of intent in a civil rights case. \r\n\r\nIn fact, I think I once heard you on your show make the very same argument that you too did not believe in coincidence, in response to a similar claim. \r\n\r\nAnd if raising money were your objective, why did you cut Amy's first ten minute headlines? I can think of no better way to piss people off and guarantee that they don't contribute than to cut Amy's headlines. \r\n\r\nIt's 9 a.m. in the morning, and people are ready to start their day as they do every weekday with the latest facts from Amy. And what did they hear? Another pitch about some book. I was pissed as hell. \r\n\r\nThose are the most important ten minutes in the entire KPFK broadcast day, and you cut them for the purpose of raising money?\r\n\r\nI don't believe that one bit.\r\n\r\nThe fact is that if you had run her first ten minutes, listeners would have known that you were cutting Nader. Someone didn't want them to know that.\r\n\r\n\r\nI noticed your heading, "Official Response ..." As head of the Lawyers Guild, like most if not all members of the Guild and most KPFK listners, I don't think you ever believed an "Official Response " to anything.\r\n\r\n\r\nFinally, you said someone could have contacted the station. No one at KPFK ever returns calls to anybody, to my knowledge. On the old KPFK web users forum before you cut them off, there was a long and old thread about no one ever returning calls, letters, email, etc. or responding to posts in the forum.\r\n\r\nWhy don't you turn the listener web forums back on? The fact that KPFK turned them off and refuses to them back on s where listeners can criticize does nothing for KPFK's credibility and this response here.\r\n\r\nJim, you did a good job imitating some of the civil rights defense attorneys you have heard in your response, but, on th merits, your claim is no better than theirs.\r\n","author":"hymie","parent_id":218424,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2008-06-22 09:24:22","modified":"2008-06-22 09:24:22","fileurl":""}]}