FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 20, 2001

CONTACT:
Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship: Randi Zimmerman, 813-238-8205 Strike Background: www.fsrn.org

FREE SPEECH RADIO ANNOUNCES UNPRECEDENTED WAR COVERAGE
Daily Cast Challenges Information Black-Out Led By Mainstream Press

NEW YORK: Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) says that with hundreds of Afghani citizens killed in the first weeks of U.S./British-led bombing, it has positioned reporters across the Middle East and South Asia to cover this potentially global conflict--much of which is not accurately reported in the corporate press.

Flying routinely under government censors, and anchored by former Pacifica Network News veteran Verna Avery Brown, the newscast challenges the information blackout sweeping the mainstream media with a pool of over 100 progressive journalists around the world--filing from every continent except Antarctica.

In a climate of increasing political repression, FSRN is one of the few remaining independent sources for real information about the U.S. government's so-called war against terrorism--information not owned by a corporation, controlled by the Pentagon or vetted by the White House.

This daily, ground-breaking, half-hour newscast, airing on more than 50 community radio stations, over the Internet and beamed to 120 countries via short-wave, is proud to bring you:

--Fariba Nawa in Islamabad, providing first-hand accounts of U.S. air strikes, plus coverage of the Pakistani refugee crisis.
--Jeremy Scahill, the youngest-ever Polk Award winner offering critical analysis of the political alliances being sought by the U.S.
--Sputnik Kilambi reporting from South Asia, with deep contacts among Indian and Pakistani peace activists.
--James Smoot on the ground in Istanbul, reporting on violent police repression of civilian protest.

Other international coverage includes Rafael Krafft in Occupied Palestine; Steve Negus in Egypt; Rory Mulholland in Turkminestan; Rupert Cook in the Sudan and Sam Olukoya in Nigeria.

Kata Mester on Capitol Hill covers the clampdown on civil liberties. An impressive pool of journalists, including Polk-Award winner Robert Knight, Geoff Brady, Miranda Kennedy and Eileen Sutton bring daily news from "the first ground zero" in New York. Susan Wood weighs in from the United Nations, while FSRN is also keenly focused on the U.S. peace movement and other domestic issues.

"This daily newscast is breaking new ground with fresh, tough-minded reportage," said media critique and syndicated columnist Norman Solomon. "Born out of the censorship of Pacifica's top managers, Free Speech Radio News shows that radio still has a chance to live up to its potential as a source of news and views connecting people--from the grassroots--across the country and around the world."

FSRN, which supporters say features the best of progressive reporting from around the country and around the world, is twenty months old and was first created by dozens of freelance reporters who struck Pacifica Network News (PNN) last year over rampant censorship.

Critics say PNN has long-abandoned its progressive mission in tone and content, often sounding indistinguishable from mainstream media. Most of the stations carrying FSRN are Pacifica affiliates, and most have cancelled PNN. (For a list of those stations, see www.fsrn.org.)

FSRN will continue to uplink to a satellite at 5:00 p.m., Eastern Time, at coordinates A72.7M [b67.4]. MP3 and Real Audio files are posted to the strikers' web site daily at www.fsrn.org.

FSRN is produced in Washington D.C., San Francisco and Tampa. Aaron Glantz produces the cast, Randi Zimmerman is Headlines Editor. FSRN also receives critical production support from the Independent Media Center in New York (http://www.nyc.indymedia.org) and community station WMNF in Florida.