• Audio Statement: Download or Stream to Media Player (mp3 format)
• Nomination Statement
• Candidate Questionnaire

I'm Henry Norr. I was a reporter and columnist, specializing in technology, at the San Francisco Chronicle until I was fired in 2003 for getting arrested in a demonstration against the war in Iraq and for supporting justice for Palestine. An activist for more than 40 years, I now devote most of my time to Act Against Torture and Palestine solidarity work, as well as freelance writing -- and, of course, listening to KPFA.

KPFA is a great radio station, but not as great as it could be. Programming must be reinvigorated, with more debate, more listener input, and closer ties to the community and to activists on the front lines of the struggle for peace and social justice. History suggests, however, that such on-air improvements won't happen until the station has more democratic and transparent governance, combined with strong and accountable management.

Some programming changes I'd like to see:

• More airtime for grassroots organizers and activists. I recently helped organize an anti-torture demonstration, but until the day before the event, we couldn't get it announced on KPFA because we didn't have it planned three weeks in advance. That's wrong.
• More debate. With a few notable exceptions, KPFA programmers tend to tiptoe around issues that divide the progressive community - 9/11, the role of the Democrats and third parties, the power of the Zionist lobby, etc. Let's take such controversies head-on, with open, sustained debate between strong advocates from across the progressive spectrum.
• More space for listener voices. NPR reads from listener letters, sometimes including blunt criticisms. KQED lets at least a few listeners air their own "Perspectives." KPFA should be leading, not lagging, in this area.
• More local news from throughout the listening area, not just Berkeley, Oakland, and San Francisco, and more programming designed by and for young people, labor, immigrants, and other people of color.
• Democracy Now! aired when the most people can hear it - at 7 a.m. and again in the early evening. DN has a proven ability to win people over to progressive politics, so let's play it when the radio audience is largest. The Program Council decided years ago to make this change, but staff members who didn't like the idea simply stonewalled it. That's not acceptable.

Every listener has his or her own list of gripes and requests, and we can't all get our way. We need open and democratic mechanisms for hashing out such matters. Instead, what we have today is a secret Program Council. Yes, that body needs to do some work in closed sessions, but it should also make room for listeners to participate directly in evaluating existing programs and suggesting new ideas.

Listener democracy doesn't mean micromanagement, though - we need to hire and support a strong general manager committed to accountability, transparency, and respect for Pacifica by-laws to run day-to-day operations. On the LSB and throughout the station we need more civility and mutual respect, even as we all fight hard for our convictions.

1. Why do you want to be on the Local Station Board?

I want KPFA to be more interesting and useful to me and other listeners, to attract a much bigger and broader audience, and above all to serve as a more effective tool in strengthening the movement for peace, democracy, and social justice. I don't think we'll get very far in those directions, however, without reinvigorating what we put on the air - much of the current programming is excellent, but I want more debate (especially on issues controversial among KPFA listeners), more local news, more voices of listeners and activists and underrepresented communities. Experience suggests that changes like those will never come about unless the principles of governance that are enshrined in Pacifica's by-laws - listener democracy, transparency, and accountability - become more of a reality and we put in place strong managers committed to those principles. With my experience in journalism, technology, and activism (see my answer to question #6 below), I think I can help make such changes happen.

2. How do you envision the Local Station Board working with the Pacifica Foundation, KPFA and the community?

The LSB's role is not to manage the details of station operation, but to set policy directions, to ensure that listeners' voices are heard in all aspects of decision-making, to monitor station finanvces, and to help hire a strong general manager committed to listener democracy, transparency, accountability, and respect for the by-laws.

Our representatives to the board of the Pacifica Foundation should be seeking to ensure that the same values are reflected in decisions and procedures at the national level. We should also be trying to make the national organization more useful not only to KPFA and the other four Pacifica stations, but also to the progressive movement at large - building on the success of Democracy Now!, I'd like to see the Foundation working hard to get Pacifica programming on the air at community, college, NPR, and other stations across the country and around the world.

3. How could the station better serve its listeners?

As noted in #1 and in my candidate statement, I want more debate on the air, especially on issues controversial among KPFA listeners, such as 9/11, the role of the Democratic Party and third parties, and the role of the Zionist lobby in our media and politics. I also want more local news and more voices of listeners and activists and underrepresented communities on our air.

In addition, I think KPFA should air Democracy Now! at 7 a.m. (as the Program Council long ago decided and the LSB affirmed) and again in the early evening, because those are the times when the maximum number of people - especially working people and students - can hear it. And I believe KPFA could take better advantage of its Web site by using it not just to announce and archive on-air programming, but also to link to related content on other sites and to encourage discussion and debate among listeners.

4. Describe some actions you would take to increase the influence of the station in underrepresented communities and to increase the diversity of the listening audience?

I think we can make some progress on these challenges by doing more to promote KPFA in underrepresented communities - through, for example, the community-based town-hall meetings I mentioned in response to question #2. The real answer to these problems, though, lies in more diverse programming - making sure the voices of these communities are heard and their concerns covered on KPFA's news and public affairs as well as cultural programming. To my mind that entails not only expanding local news coverage, but also making the Program Council more open and democratic. Once we've done that, we can go to progressive organizations and leaders in all kinds of communities in our listening area to solicit their feedback on current programming and their ideas and involvement in developing new programs.

5. What sources of funding, other than listener donations, do you feel KPFA should solicit?

The station should depend only on its listeners for support. I would like to believe, though, that we could cut down on the length of on-air fund drives by doing more to encourage donations online in advance of the drives (as KQED did in September) and by raising more KPFA-sponsored political and cultural events - speakers, debates, concerts, etc. I'm opposed to corporate underwriting and foundation funding - some grant programs may look tempting, but they are Trojan horses for outside forces that may want to influence our programming.

6. Please state briefly the skills, experience, educational background, work history, organizational affiliations, areas of community service, areas of interest and expertise that you would bring to the Pacifica network as a member of the Local Station Board.

My experience as an activist dates back to the 1960s, when I became deeply involved in the student, anti-war, civil rights, and farm worker-support movements. After graduation I worked at a wide variety of jobs in the New England area: printer at a movement print shop; full-time anti-war organizer; busboy at a popular lunch counter in a community I was trying to help organize; sociology instructor at community colleges and in a police-training program; policy researcher at a "citizens' action" organization and then at MIT, and, for more than five years, machinist in several General Electric plants. Interspersed with these jobs I put in several stints in graduate school, ending up with master's degrees in education, sociology, and Soviet studies.

In 1986 I moved to California and became a journalist, first in the computer trade press (I rose to become editor of a then popular weekly called MacWEEK), then as a reporter and columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. In 2003, the Chronicle fired me for getting arrested at a demonstration on the day the U.S. launched its invasion of Iraq (and, I'm convinced, for my involvement in Palestine-solidarity work).

Since my firing I have worked part-time as a freelance writer, but I have devoted most of my energy to political activism. I believe in the power of direct action as well as mass mobilization and education: I have been arrested in numerous demonstrations, and in 2003 I was shot with a wooden dowel at the Port of Oakland and became a plaintiff in a class-action suit that forced the Oakland Police Department to make major improvements in its "crowd-control" policies.

Since 2002 I have spent a total of six months in Palestine, working with the International Solidarity Movement, the International Middle East Media Center in Beit Sahour, and, for two months this past summer, with the Tel Rumeida Project, a small independent organization dedicated to trying to deter the constant violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in a neighborhood of the West Bank city of Al-Khalil/Hebron. Last winter I also spent a month in New Orleans, helping the Common Ground Collective produce a newspaper for Katrina survivors.

In addition to Palestine-solidarity and antiwar work, I am currently actively involved in Act Against Torture, a Bay Area group seeking to increase awareness of and resistance to the interrogation and detention policies the Bush administration is using in its "war on terror."

7. Do you anticipate missing any Local Station Board meetings due to family or job-related problems or inadequate transportation?

No.

8. On which Local Station Board committees are you interested in actively serving?

Outreach (especially Website Subcommittee), Technology Development, and GM Hire Committees