KPFA: Get Ian Masters Off the Air!! Why Does KPFFA Have A CIA-Connected Programmer?

KPFA: GET IAN MASTERS OFF THE AIR!!
In what parallel universe is a CIA-connected programmer allowed his own show on KPFA?


KPFA management unilaterally has put on disgraced Los Angeles KPFK programmer Ian Masters and his program called “Back Ground Briefing” Monday through Friday morning during drive time. He resigned from KPFK after telling the listeners that they should boycott Pacifica and not donate to the KPFK fund raising.

Many listeners in Los Angeles have protested for years that many of his “Background Briefing” guests are ex-CIA and FBI agents who are in support of US military operations around the world including in Syria, Iran and many other countries. His family is also connected to CIA officials including John H. Haller who ran the CIA covert operations to overthrow the Mosaddegh government in Iran. He also put on an ex-FBI agent who allegedly was running the Police Committee to keep Mumia Abu Jamal in prison.

When the present KPFA interim General Manager was asked at a KPFA Local Station Board meeting why Masters was chosen when there are many other good programs produced by Pacifica nationally he could not provide a valid answer.

Speakers on 6/22 will also report on the growing rightwing programming at the station including one sided NPR-type coverage about the war in the Ukraine and lack of evaluation of programs.

The station management and Local Station Board have refused to support the freedom of Julian Assange, Mumia Abu-Jamal and also refused to defend KPFA journalist Frank Sterling when he was attacked by the racist Antioch police. The Treasurer of the Board, Sharon Adams even defended the police in attacking and arresting Frank by reading at the meeting the pro-police version of the incident and the previous KPFA manager attempted to dodge the issue of supporting one of its own journalists by saying that KPFA was not a political party.

Is this “Free Speech” radio? Even the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian and San Francisco Labor Council called for the freedom of Julian Assange.

The present Local Station board hasn’t evaluated the past manager in almost a decade and the present manager was just hired without an LSB convened search committee. This cronyism is not the way to run a community radio station.

Programs have been unilaterally removed including the only labor program WorkWeek and in the midst of the largest labor union upsurge in decades, the KPFA man- agement refuses to have a regular labor programs on the air.

This month nominations are taking place for the Local Station Board, and Rescue Pacifica is running for the Local Station Board and is linking up with others around the country to make Pacifica a vibrant activist broadcast ve- hicle that will help not only educate but support a people and workers movement against fascism and the danger of world war.

We need a station that goes back to the roots of KPFA, which was founded by Lew Hill, a pacifist who was opposed to the McCarthy witch hunts and wars around the world. Pacifica supported whistleblowers like the late Daniel Ellsberg and supports his collaborator journalist, Julian Assange and has a tradition of opposing US military empire and the military industrial complex which makes money from wars that cost the lives of millions.

Contact the following to support the removal of Ian Masters: Pacifica - pnb [at] pacifica.org, ed [at] pacifica.org KPFA Interim General Manager - antonio [at] kpfa.org, and join Rescue Pacifica email list at RescuePacifica.net

Join us to speak out make KPFA a beacon for peace, justice and Free Speech

For more info: RescuePacifica.net, PacificaInExcile.org, PacificaFightback.org, danielborgstrom.blogspot.com

Sponsored by Rescue Pacifica & Pacifica Fightback

New KPFK CIA connected programmer Ian Masters has been continuing to support the imprisonment of Mumia Abu-jamal

Background Briefing Production
Date: Sat, Apr 17, 2021 at 6:46 PM
Subject: Mumia

Dear Sheila,
If you talk to reporters who covered the case and those who knew Mumia
as fellow journalists when he got involved with MOVE then was
understandably outraged by the Philadelphia police's massacre of the
movement and the burning alive of the children, it is no surprise he
killed the cop which is what he admitted to to the EMS crew who
treated him at the scene. I frankly don't understand why he doesn't
tell the truth and own what he did instead of feeding the martyr myths
to his gullible followers. There are plenty of black men in jail who
shouldn't be there. He just happens to be less deserving of adulation.
But since I'm against capital punishment, he should not be on death
row.
Cheers,
Ian Masters