Staff, listeners struggle for justice inside KPFA

nicole-sawaya-at-nadra-foster-beatdown-full-face-082008-by-weyland-southon, Staff, listeners struggle for justice inside KPFA, Local News & Views The San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper warmly welcomes you to our newly redesigned website. Explore and come back often, as we’ll be posting stories daily. 

We’re leading off our website relaunch with an array of news and views about the foment at Berkeley-based KPFA, one of the nation’s most powerful radio stations and the first to be sponsored by its listeners, since police brutalized and jailed Nadra Foster, a KPFA apprenticeship graduate, 12-year unpaid programmer and Black single mom, inside the station after they were called by management, claiming she had been banned for briefly using a KPFA copier and phone.

Minister of Information and Bay View Associate Editor JR Valrey had the courage to cover the Nadra Foster story beginning the next day in Block Report Radio segments on KPFA’s flagship investigative news program Flashpoints, broadcast weekdays at 5 p.m. A new twist is the retaliation by KPFA on the Tuesday, Oct. 28, Evening News by picking up a story in the Sunday Oakland Tribune that made the ridiculous suggestion that JR may be implicated in a conspiracy related to the murder on Aug. 2, 2007, of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey. Read JR’s response, A journalistic critique of the Chauncey Bailey Project, and his coverage of the murder: My two cents on the engineering of media around the murder of Chauncey Bailey; Investigating the assassination of Post Editor Chauncey Bailey, Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3; and One on one with Yusuf Bey IV: Part 1 and Part 2. The publication dates appear at the end of each story. Much of this coverage was broadcast on KPFA’s Flashpoints.

Controversy stirred up by the management-induced police brutalizing of Nadra Foster evoked many strong statements from KPFA staff and listeners. These headlines by many of your favorite writers tell a story you don’t want to miss: The need for a Black public affairs show at KPFA, KPFA staffers release no-confidence statement, Lame-duck appointment of embattled KPFA manager, From Amy Goodman to Nadra Foster: Implementing alternatives to police terror, On the question of Pacifica and racism, KPFA’s Nadra Foster, Nadra Foster and the mission of KPFA, Pacifica patrones reject peace, use police to sustain their power, Open letter to the KPFA staff, paid and unpaid, KPFA’s racist hypocrisy: Once again it has come to pass …, What really happened to Nadra Foster: an eyewitness account and Police terrorize Black KPFA programmer in the station. Watch Arrest of KPFA programmer Nadra Foster by KPFA/Pacifica management and go to www.blockreportradio.com for more videos and to http://mediajusticekpfa.blogspot.com for updates – and get involved as the struggle continues …