Veteran Broadcaster Larry Bensky Says Farewell

March 1, 2007

Dear Colleagues, Listeners, and Friends,

I will be leaving KPFA and Pacifica Radio at the end of April. My last "Sunday Salon" broadcast will be April 29.

This decision has been difficult. First, to leave an organization with which I first began working thirty-eight years ago. And, at the same time, possibly ending my work in broadcasting, having first started in Junior High School.

While many factors have gone into my decision, the principal and overwhelming element has been demographic. I will be 70 years old on May 1.

After much thought about this upcoming milestone, I decided that I've done this long enough. It's time to move on.

My health, fortunately, is not an issue. I have pretty much recovered from the two surgeries and subsequent slow healing that began two years ago. But that painful and frightening experience focused me on issues of personal mortality that previously had been present in my life mostly as abstractions.

With whatever years and energy I have left, I would now like to explore other means of being, and of expressing myself.

However, it is also true that had things worked out better for me personally, and for KPFA and Pacifica as an organization since our turmoil in 1999-2001, I might feel differently about continuing. Or at least differently at this time of leaving. As I see it, the so-called "democratization" of our local and national governance structure has not enhanced our effectiveness as a media outlet, or as a force for peace and social justice. In fact, despite the best intentions of a few people involved, Pacifica's current governance and administration is a wasteful, counterproductive, and far from transparent distraction.

For me personally this has meant that, despite repeated and tantalizing hints and promises, I never got the job I back that I worked so many years to establish: National Affairs Correspondent. Nor has Pacifica managed to re-establish itself as national programming entity, with or without me as part of it.

Hardest of all for me now is the sense that I will be absent from most of your lives from now on -- although occasional appearances on various KPFA and Pacifica programs as well as other media, are always possible.

And, even more difficult, is the sense that you will be absent from mine.

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. Throughout this time, as I hope you've been able to hear, I've tried not to "leave my game in the dressing room," as they say in sports. Everything I could bring to broadcasting, all the knowledge and wisdom I could summon from myself and others, I've tried to provide.

I could not, of course, have done this alone. I've been very fortunate to have had wonderful producers. And very supportive co- workers and management at KPFA.

In making this decision last year (I told management in early November that in six months I would be leaving) I listened back to some broadcasts, both local and national, that I'd done a long time ago, and more recently. I wanted to be sure that I was leaving "at the top of my game," and hadn't, like so many others have done, at KPFA and elsewhere, stayed beyond my abilities to do best what I do. The perfectionist in me always finds things I could have done better. But the realist knows that I've done as well as I knew how to do. I'm grateful for having had, and more recently, regained my strength to do so.

Much of that strength, I must add, has come from friends, family, and listeners over the years. Your response was overwhelming, and determinative, during my banning and firing in 1999-2001. And your support for me personally during my health crisis was a critical component of my recovery. I can never express enough what a blessing this support for me and this institution has been.

I wish I had some terminally profound words of wisdom with which to leave you. But I'm not yet terminal, fortunately, nor as wise as I still hope to become.

All my best,

Larry

P.S. The practical among you may be wondering if I can "afford" to retire. The sad fact is that among its many "human resources" failures, Pacifica/KPFA has not had until very recently anything like a decent plan for taking care of its long term workers. (My most recent statement of retirement benefits, for example, indicated that I have a current available balance of...$845!)

Like so many of my generation, I now need to continue to work to supplement social security and savings. But, as I always have, I will continue to live as frugally as I can, seek meaningful work, and live with all the contradictions that a person of conscience has in navigating in the material world...