FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 1, 2021

Jane Fonda Did Not Endorse the New Day Bylaws

Berkeley – On May 21, many Pacifica members received an email from the New Day proponents with a picture of Jane Fonda and an assertion that the actress wanted the members to vote yes on adopting the New Day bylaws. On May 29th, Jane Fonda contacted the Pacifica Foundation and spoke to Pacifica corporate counsel Arthur Schwartz.

Here is Schwartz’ summary of the conversation he had with Jane Fonda.

New Day sent out an email to the Pacifica list stating that Jane Fonda had endorsed the New Day Bylaw changes. She contacted me and asked what this was about. She said that she had never endorsed New Day’s proposals, didn’t know what New Day was, and wanted her name removed. Apparently she got an email asking her whether she wanted to “save Pacifica” and she replied “yes.”
~ Arthur Schwartz, Pacifica General Counsel, in a letter to New Day Pacifica’s Beth Kean

This describes a New Day endorsement process that is, at best, manipulative. More importantly, it resulted in the irritation of a prominent celebrity who had to spend her time chasing down the misuse of her name and image by people associated with Pacifica Radio. Any version of saving Pacifica includes cultivating influential allies, not alienating them. It was a rookie mistake by the people at New Day Pacifica that should cause you to question their claims about the miracles they will perform if you put them into power by adopting their bylaws revision.

New Day continues to assert that they will pursue legal action in order to modify the memorandum of understanding they signed with the Pacifica Foundation in December. They want Pacifica to disregard the results of the separate staff referendum if those results are a no vote on their proposal. This switcheroo, 10 days before the ballots were due to be sent, throws the referendum election into chaos. Additional costs to the members may be incurred by litigation, and it is possible the results of the referendum will not be clear until such litigation runs its course.

This will put a pall on the regularly scheduled local station board delegate elections, whose nomination period opens today. Potentially, Pacifica members who run for delegate seats on their local boards will not know if they can fill the seats they are elected to or will be ejected from them.

The best way to avoid such disruption is a clear vote from both classes of members to reject the New Day bylaws, as Pacifica members rejected the similiar Pacifica Restructuring Project bylaws proposal in 2020. As we have said many times before, the bylaws revision proposal that will be successful in the future is the one that makes measured and balanced changes and does so by consulting broadly with listener and staff members all across the country to see what changes they could support. You should be asked what you want, not just implored to vote yes or vote no on a fait accompli. Such a proposal would not need to manipulate celebrities for phony endorsements, because it would have a broad and deep base of support within the entirety of the Pacifica community.

Revising the bylaws fast and badly is no substitute for doing it right.

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Started in 1946 by conscientious objector Lew Hill, Pacifica’s storied history includes impounded program tapes for a 1954 on-air discussion of marijuana, broadcasting the Seymour Hersh revelations of the My Lai massacre, bombings by the Ku Klux Klan, going to jail rather than turning over the Patty Hearst tapes to the FBI, and Supreme Court cases including the 1984 decision that noncommercial broadcasters have the constitutional right to editorialize, and the Seven Dirty Words ruling following George Carlin’s incendiary performances on WBAI. Pacifica Foundation Radio operates noncommercial radio stations in New York, Washington, Houston, Los Angeles, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and syndicates content to over 180 affiliates. It invented listener-sponsored radio.