“The “Healthy Station project” comes to KPFA

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Lyn Gerry

unread,Jul 10, 1997, 3:00:00 AMto
Lynne Chadwick, co-founder of NFCB’s “Healthy Station
Project” named as new manager for KPFA
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On July 3, 1997 KPFA management announced that Lynne Chadwick,
Director of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, would
take over for outgoing KPFA GM Marci Lockwood. Chadwick is one of the
founders of the “Healthy Station Project” which pushed community
stations toward commercialization and “professionalization,” and
advocated the use of more paid staff and a reduced role for community
programmers and members in decision-making.

The Grassroots Radio Coalition, whose second annual conference will
take place at the end of this month in Boulder, Colorado, is composed
of a growing number of stations who have rejected the “Healthy
Station” premise. In many cases, these community stations have had to
fight long hard battles to take their stations back. Because of this,
the GRC conference attendees understood and were supportive of Free
Pacifica delegates who attended last years conference to publicize our
struggle.

This a further ominous step in the program of the current Pacifica
regime of Executive Director Pat Scott, whose “5-year Plan”
articulates a goal of re-creating Pacifica Stations as a “professional
broadcast organization.”

Jesse Walker, a community broadcaster and journalist, has provided the
following excerpt from a work- in -progress which explains the
“Healthy Station” project and the struggle against it. (WERU is one
of the co-founders and sponsors of the Grassroots Radio Coalition.)

For more info on the GRC, visit the GRC website:
http://www.kgnu.org/grassroots

In an excerpt from an early draft of a forthcoming paper, J . . . “