Free Speech Radio News

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Free Speech Radio News.

Free Speech Radio News (FSRN) is a radio program that produces a half hour newscast each weekday. The newscast is produced at Pacifica network stations KPFA in Berkeley and KPFK in Los Angeles, in Oaxaca, Mexico, and the press room on Capitol Hill.

The newscast relies on over two hundred freelance reporters, "on every continent except Antarctica", that use the Internet to deliver their audio reports. ^[1]

1 FSRN strike
2 Current Situation
3 References
4 External links

[edit] FSRN strike

In January 2000, FSRN reporters engaged in a strike, citing censorship by Pacifica's newly elected board of directors. The strike lasted twenty-six months until March 2002. "At its March board meeting, the Pacifica board unanimously passed a resolution it negotiated with the strikers acknowledging the significant role they played in returning Pacifica to its historic mission, and pledging to end censorship of any programming throughout the network." ^[2]

[edit] Current Situation

Pacifica and FSRN have reached an agreement to work together over the next year. FSRN cannot yet afford to pay its daily staff vacation or health benefits, nor paid sick days. Freelance reporters filing for FSRN make about a third as much, per story, as their counterparts at other radio networks.