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August 20, 2005
A Day of Support (TODAY) for Progressive News Programming
Join a peaceful positive protest outside of the KPFT studios this Saturday (11am to 4 pm) to mark the start of the 7 day KPFT mini-fund drive. This 'action' will not call for a financial boycott of the station but will be staged in opposition to Duane Bradley's (KPFT Manager) recent program changes which either cancelled or displaced most of the following vitally important news and public affairs programs from the weekday prime commuter drive times of (6:30 - 9:00 am and 4:00 - 6:30 pm).
Here's what Duane decided to do without consultation with the KPFT Local Station Board, The KPFT Program Council or the listeners themselves (the last 2 Town Hall Meetings said keep DN at 7am).
1. DEMOCRACY NOW - was moved from 7am to 6pm, weekdays.
2. FREE SPEECH RADIO NEWS - moved from 5pm to 3pm, weekdays.
3. COUNTERSPIN - moved from 6pm Tuesdays to 4am Sunday. SAME AS CANCELLED. This excellent program is produced by F.A.I.R.
4. MAKING CONTACT - CANCELLED.
5. ALTERNATIVE RADIO (w/David Barsarmian) - CANCELLED.
6. TUC RADIO - CANCELLED.
7. WOMEN'S INT'L NEWS GATHERING SERVICE (WINGS) - moved from Mondays at 6pm to 11 am on Monday
8. FLASHPOINTS - moved from 7pm weekdays to 11 pm Mon-Thurs.
9. THE HAITI SHOW moved to 5am on Sundays. This is the same as canceling
Just as Cindy Sheehan in Crawford, Texas can say she loves the US but opposes the war I believe we can do the same for KPFT. We plan to have speakers, music and poets. Bring refreshments, blankets and chairs. We plan to support donations to the station but intend to hand out flyers to educate listeners about the recent program changes.
If these sudden regressive programming changes at KPFT alarm you then I suggest you contact the station (713-526-4000) or email both the station manager (Duane Bradley: dbradley@kpft.org ), the interim Program Director (Ernesto Aguilar: ernesto@kpft.org) or the Local Station Board ( lsb@kpft.org ).
FYI: Before these were changes KPFT had 2.5 HOURS of truly progressive news programs on during the weekday prime (5 HOUR) commuter drive times of (6:30 - 9:00 am and 4:00 - 6:30 pm) - these were the abovementioned shows 1 through 7. As of May 1, 2005 we now have a total of 1 HOUR consisting of KPFT local news (not national or int'l.) and the 1st 1/2 hour of the 6pm Democracy Now broadcast. We went from having excellent progressive news programs during 50% of the prime 5 hours of each weekday (morning plus evening) to now having a total of 1 hour during the critical 5 commuter hours.
Please contact rgg-629@sbcglobal.net if you wish to be kept informed about this issue.
Posted by Guest Blogger PDiddie at August 20, 2005 07:20 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Sheehan on Hardball:
MATTHEWS: Can I ask you a tough question? A very tough question.
SHEEHAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: All right. If your son had been killed in Afghanistan, would you have a different feeling?
SHEEHAN: I don't think so, Chris, because I believe that Afghanistan is almost the same thing. We're fighting terrorism. Or terrorists, we're saying. But they're not contained in a country. This is an ideology and not an enemy. And we know that Iraq, Iraq had no terrorism. They were no threat to the United States of America.
MATTHEWS: But Afghanistan was harboring, the Taliban was harboring al-Qaida which is the group that attacked us on 9/11.
SHEEHAN: Well then we should have gone after al-Qaida and maybe not after the country of Afghanistan.
MATTHEWS: But that's where they were being harbored. That's where they were headquartered. Shouldn't we go after their headquarters? Doesn't that make sense?
SHEEHAN: Well, but there were a lot of innocent people killed in that invasion, too. ... But I'm seeing that we're sending our ground troops in to invade countries where the entire country wasn't the problem. Especially Iraq. Iraq was no problem. And why do we send in invading armies to march into Afghanistan when we're looking for a select group of people in that country?
So I believe that our troops should be brought home out of both places where we're obviously not having any success in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose and that's who they told us was responsible for 9/11.
Posted by: Kira Zalan ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.houstondemocrats.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at August 20, 2005 09:33 AM