To All Pacifica Affiliates and Concerned Progressives,

Please read our letter below to PNN's Don Rush. We believe Pacifica National is engaged in a new campaign to try to co-opt parts of the resistance through a superficial, cynical strategy of dialogue and the appearance of inclusion. We believe these actions are suspect, and are being driven by Pacifica's new Beltway PR firm and lawyers. Please be mindful of these tactics, especially in the face of the unprecedented harassment of Amy Goodman. Please send us any communications from National you might want to share.

Sincerely,
Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship

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From: PNN strikers pnnstrikers@igc.org
To: donrush@pacifica.org , pnn@pacifica.org
Subject: response from Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship
Date: Thu, Aug 9, 2001, 8:41 PM

August 9, 2001

TO: Don Rush, Pacifica Network News, via email

Dear Don Rush,

Aaron Glantz informed us recently that he had an informal chat with you at the Grassroots Radio Conference, after you called him to make some proposals. Here is our formal response to your contact with Aaron.

Our consensus, as the Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship Strike Coordinating Committee, is that we have no interest in, or desire to, talk with you or other staff members at Pacifica Network News until the strike is settled as part of a larger settlement of the Pacifica crisis. As you say, you are not management, and it would be wise for you to stop trying to act as such. If you want to help settle the strike, please encourage Pacifica management to contact the Strike Committee directly by writing to pnnstrikers@igc.org.

Of course, as always, we welcome any support the AFTRA-protected staff, such as yourself, might want to lend the strike. Your actions in response to our strike have been consistently negative and harmful. If you are genuine in wanting to help create a resolution, dealing truthfully with the progressive community and the reporters on strike would be a positive first step.

It has also come to our attention that National Program Director Steve Yasko is promoting inaccurate information. He has communicated the notion to other Pacifica staffers that you have had *extensive conversations* with those of us involved with Free Speech Radio News regarding PNN's desire to create ethics guidelines for its news coverage.

As you know, this claim is completely false. You have not had any conversation with the striking reporters -- other than a brief personal chat with Aaron -- and further, Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship does not in any way endorse, and has no participation in, any of Pacifica's internal mechanisms as PNN attempts what we believe will prove to be superficial and meaningless reforms to strengthen its national-news service.

We urge you to correct Mr. Yasko's apparent misapprehension and deep confusion as soon as possible. As you can well imagine, his gross misrepresentations will in no way instill confidence in communications coming from management.

And we further direct you to our chronology of censorship, posted to our web site at http://www.savepacifica.net/strike/chronology.html. This carefully-documented list of censorship leading up to our strike is, for us, the true face of Pacifica and PNN. In fact, management's censorious behavior, network-wide, has continued unabated in the nineteen months since our strike began.

On behalf of Pacifica Reporters Against Censorship,

Martha Baskin, Seattle, WA (member, AFTRA Seattle)
Aaron Glantz, Berkeley, CA
Miranda Kennedy, New York, NY
Kent Paterson, Albuquerque, NM
Leigh Robartes, Moscow, ID
Lisa Rothman, Berkeley, CA (member, CWA Local 9415)
Eileen Sutton, New York, NY (member, NWU Local 1)
Vanessa Tait, Berkeley, CA (member, NWU Local 3)
Robin Urevich, Los Angeles, CA (member, CFI-CWA)

cc: Stephen Yasko, National Program Director, sypacifica@aol.com, pacno@pacifica.org