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Pioneering Broadcaster Larry Bensky Retires from KPFA
Award-winning broadcaster and journalist Larry Bensky is retiring from Pacifica Radio's KPFA after thirty eight years of working for the public radio network. The last program of his acclaimed weekly talk show, Sunday Salon, will air Sunday, April 29th at 9am on KPFA Radio 94.1FM or online at kpfa.org.
Award-winning broadcaster and journalist Larry Bensky is retiring from Pacifica Radio's KPFA after thirty eight years of working for the public radio network. The last program of his acclaimed weekly talk show, Sunday Salon, will air Sunday, April 29th at 9am on KPFA Radio 94.1FM or online at kpfa.org.
Bensky will continue to do live national broadcasts for KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network, for which he has won many accolades, including a George Polk award for gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Iran-Contra hearings. His career will be celebrated at a public event on June 3rd, where he will speak about his life and times with Pacifica historian Matthew Lasar.
Perhaps best known as national affairs correspondent for Pacifica Radio from 1987-1998, Bensky covered numerous national and international events for Pacifica, including the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, the confirmation hearings for four Supreme Court justices, the 1990 elections in Nicaragua, and numerous demonstrations and protests in Washington and elsewhere. Most recently, he anchored Pacifica's live coverage of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Larry Bensky has won the prestigious George Polk award and five Gold Reel awards from the National Association of Community Broadcasters.He won the prestigious George Polk award and five Gold Reel awards from the National Association of Community Broadcasters. Before his work for Pacifica, Bensky was one of the original "underground" newscasters and talk show hosts on "alternative rock" stations KMPX and KSAN in San Francisco. He has also been a political activist since the 1960's, working with nuclear disarmament and anti-war groups in New York, Paris, and San Francisco.
Before and during his broadcasting career, Bensky has been a print journalist and editor, including positions as managing editor of Ramparts Magazine in 1968, Paris editor of The Paris Review (1964-66) and as an editor of the New York Times Book Review. For fifteen years he was a political writer and columnist for the East Bay Express, and a contributor to the Los Angeles Times book review, and The Nation. He has also appeared as a guest journalist on C-Span, CNN, The Today Show, and MacNeil-Lehrer, as well as on San Francisco KQED's "Forum" and "This Week in Northern California."
He has won a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Golden Gadfly award from Media Alliance. He taught broadcast journalism classes for twelve years at Stanford, and retired in 2003 after twelve years as a teacher of mass communications, journalism, broadcasting, and political science at California State University, Hayward. A native of New York City, he graduated from Yale University. He and his wife and daughter live in Berkeley.
In a farewell statement to his listeners, Bensky wrote, "Throughout these many years, and in the many different types of programming I've done, I've never gone on the air without a thrilling sense of connectedness. And an equally deep sense of how much being a broadcaster is a privilege, as well as a responsibility."
Bensky will continue to do live national broadcasts for KPFA and the Pacifica Radio Network, for which he has won many accolades, including a George Polk award for gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Iran-Contra hearings. His career will be celebrated at a public event on June 3rd, where he will speak about his life and times with Pacifica historian Matthew Lasar.
Perhaps best known as national affairs correspondent for Pacifica Radio from 1987-1998, Bensky covered numerous national and international events for Pacifica, including the Iran-Contra hearings in 1987, the confirmation hearings for four Supreme Court justices, the 1990 elections in Nicaragua, and numerous demonstrations and protests in Washington and elsewhere. Most recently, he anchored Pacifica's live coverage of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Larry Bensky has won the prestigious George Polk award and five Gold Reel awards from the National Association of Community Broadcasters.He won the prestigious George Polk award and five Gold Reel awards from the National Association of Community Broadcasters. Before his work for Pacifica, Bensky was one of the original "underground" newscasters and talk show hosts on "alternative rock" stations KMPX and KSAN in San Francisco. He has also been a political activist since the 1960's, working with nuclear disarmament and anti-war groups in New York, Paris, and San Francisco.
Before and during his broadcasting career, Bensky has been a print journalist and editor, including positions as managing editor of Ramparts Magazine in 1968, Paris editor of The Paris Review (1964-66) and as an editor of the New York Times Book Review. For fifteen years he was a political writer and columnist for the East Bay Express, and a contributor to the Los Angeles Times book review, and The Nation. He has also appeared as a guest journalist on C-Span, CNN, The Today Show, and MacNeil-Lehrer, as well as on San Francisco KQED's "Forum" and "This Week in Northern California."
He has won a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and the Golden Gadfly award from Media Alliance. He taught broadcast journalism classes for twelve years at Stanford, and retired in 2003 after twelve years as a teacher of mass communications, journalism, broadcasting, and political science at California State University, Hayward. A native of New York City, he graduated from Yale University. He and his wife and daughter live in Berkeley.
In a farewell statement to his listeners, Bensky wrote, "Throughout these many years, and in the many different types of programming I've done, I've never gone on the air without a thrilling sense of connectedness. And an equally deep sense of how much being a broadcaster is a privilege, as well as a responsibility."
For more information:
http://www.kpfa.org/bensky
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Now that the reactionary Democrat Larry Bensky is finally gone, we can have radical, labor and peace programming on Sunday morning. We want the Labor Collective's Labor Workweek on Sunday morning at 9 a.m. If they cannot do the full 2 hours, then the second hour should be Guns & Butter, currently heard on Wednesdays at 1 p.m., actively promoting the shining star of the peace movement, the 9/11 Truth Movement, as well as exposing all the other government sponsored terror incidents, till-tapping by the same warmongering terrorists at home, and the horrors of US imperialism at home and abroad.
The reactionary Democrat Larry Bensky had the unmitigated gall to attack the 9/11 Truth Movement and routinely preempts programs for which we pay for government hearings which are always summarized adequately on the 6 p.m. news the same day of those hearings. Many of us do not listen to government hearings, most of which are procedural garbage. KPFA's morning programs have become such promotionals for the reactionary twin of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, which only exists to keep the 2 peace parties out of office, the Reds & Greens, that this writer no longer turns on KPFA in the morning. We can get Democracy Now online if we wish to hear the whole show, and can read most of it without listening to it. The Morning Show, hosted by 2 Democrats who compete for the lowest common denominator chatter, is not worth the effort to turn on KPFA.
So, Local Station Board, elected by the people who pay for KPFA, namely the listener-subscribers, do you want to increase funds at KPFA? If so, you have to provide programs listened to by the peace community of the 7 million people in the Bay Area, starting with the voters for the 2 peace parties, Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party, who number a total of 50,000 in San Francisco and Alameda Counties combined, and 500,000 statewide, as the November 2006 elections demonstrated. Peace parties are also by definition labor parties and we need far more labor programming on KPFA. Sunday morning must be LABOR'S MORNING as labor must always lead and it is the profit motive of capitalism, the exploitation of the workingclass, that is the cause of all wars and the destruction of this society. Get off the dime for now is the time for LABOR WORKWEEK and GUNS AND BUTTER ON SUNDAY MORNING.
To those who are still in the dark as to the 9/11 Truth Movement, almost 6 years later, your homework is as follows, keeping in mind that as you saw it on TV, you saw (1) no air defense and (2) controlled demolition, each of which is clear evidence of an Inside Job:
Listen to Guns & Butter at:
http://www.gunsandbutter.net/archives.php
View everything at:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/
DVD that is a Must See at
http://www.loosechange911.com/
Read all of the following books immediately:
1. Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert
2. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions by David Griffin
3. The New Pearl Harbor by David Griffin
4. Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid
5. The Iron Triangle (on Carlyle Group) by Dan Briody
6. 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions by Rowland Morgan & Ian Henshall
7. Waking Up From Our Nightmare by Don Paul and Jim Hoffman
8. 9/11 Facing Our Fascist State by Don Paul
9. 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Tarpley
10. Body of Secrets by James Bamford
11. The War on Truth by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
12. The Terror Conspiracy by Jim Marrs
13. Towers of Deception by Barrie Zwicker (with DVD enclosed)
14. 9/11 and American Empire edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott
15. Flight 93 Revealed by Rowland Morgan
The reactionary Democrat Larry Bensky had the unmitigated gall to attack the 9/11 Truth Movement and routinely preempts programs for which we pay for government hearings which are always summarized adequately on the 6 p.m. news the same day of those hearings. Many of us do not listen to government hearings, most of which are procedural garbage. KPFA's morning programs have become such promotionals for the reactionary twin of the Republican Party, the Democratic Party, which only exists to keep the 2 peace parties out of office, the Reds & Greens, that this writer no longer turns on KPFA in the morning. We can get Democracy Now online if we wish to hear the whole show, and can read most of it without listening to it. The Morning Show, hosted by 2 Democrats who compete for the lowest common denominator chatter, is not worth the effort to turn on KPFA.
So, Local Station Board, elected by the people who pay for KPFA, namely the listener-subscribers, do you want to increase funds at KPFA? If so, you have to provide programs listened to by the peace community of the 7 million people in the Bay Area, starting with the voters for the 2 peace parties, Peace & Freedom Party and the Green Party, who number a total of 50,000 in San Francisco and Alameda Counties combined, and 500,000 statewide, as the November 2006 elections demonstrated. Peace parties are also by definition labor parties and we need far more labor programming on KPFA. Sunday morning must be LABOR'S MORNING as labor must always lead and it is the profit motive of capitalism, the exploitation of the workingclass, that is the cause of all wars and the destruction of this society. Get off the dime for now is the time for LABOR WORKWEEK and GUNS AND BUTTER ON SUNDAY MORNING.
To those who are still in the dark as to the 9/11 Truth Movement, almost 6 years later, your homework is as follows, keeping in mind that as you saw it on TV, you saw (1) no air defense and (2) controlled demolition, each of which is clear evidence of an Inside Job:
Listen to Guns & Butter at:
http://www.gunsandbutter.net/archives.php
View everything at:
http://www.brasschecktv.com/
DVD that is a Must See at
http://www.loosechange911.com/
Read all of the following books immediately:
1. Crossing the Rubicon by Michael Ruppert
2. The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions & Distortions by David Griffin
3. The New Pearl Harbor by David Griffin
4. Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid
5. The Iron Triangle (on Carlyle Group) by Dan Briody
6. 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions by Rowland Morgan & Ian Henshall
7. Waking Up From Our Nightmare by Don Paul and Jim Hoffman
8. 9/11 Facing Our Fascist State by Don Paul
9. 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA by Webster Tarpley
10. Body of Secrets by James Bamford
11. The War on Truth by Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed
12. The Terror Conspiracy by Jim Marrs
13. Towers of Deception by Barrie Zwicker (with DVD enclosed)
14. 9/11 and American Empire edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott
15. Flight 93 Revealed by Rowland Morgan
For more information:
http://www.loosechange911.com/
Yes, we need to know EVERY WEEK what the all-important sex workers think! The Labor Collective's program proposal for a sex workers show is sooooo radical! And be sure to buy all those 9/11 conspiracy DVDs...KPFA should be a 24/7 advertorial for them.
Of course, when the subscribership dwindles to five, we won't have to hear about it anymore. Then the petty fascisti trying to overrun the station will finally be able to claim victory.
Of course, when the subscribership dwindles to five, we won't have to hear about it anymore. Then the petty fascisti trying to overrun the station will finally be able to claim victory.
Who and what replaces Bensky and Sunday Salon? A fair number of people i've talked to would like to see another Public Affairs show with substanial time allocated for Listener call ins. But with multiple rotating hosts instead of one media celeb. A few names that have been raised are Michael Parenti., Evelina Molina, Todd Chichten , Ahmed Evans., Matt Gonzales, and 'Guns and Butter' 's Bonnie Faulkner.
Whomever may replace Bensky people want a creative, open minded host (or hosts) that would be respectful of those he/she disagreed with. Unlike L.B. who despite his undoubted accomplishments was often hostile and oozed comtempt for those to the Left of him .
Several people contrasted the late Mama O'Shea's style (who welcomed dissent and debate ) to that of Bensky's .
My two cents .
Whomever may replace Bensky people want a creative, open minded host (or hosts) that would be respectful of those he/she disagreed with. Unlike L.B. who despite his undoubted accomplishments was often hostile and oozed comtempt for those to the Left of him .
Several people contrasted the late Mama O'Shea's style (who welcomed dissent and debate ) to that of Bensky's .
My two cents .
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