U.S.-MEDIA: Dropping of Prisoner Broadcast Draws Cries of Censorship

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Feb 27 1997 (IPS) - The decision by a dozen Pennsylvania radio stations to drop a radio programme featuring the state’s most famous prisoner has fuelled protests from some groups that media access into prisons is being increasingly censored.

The groups, including the Society of Professional Journalists and Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, are angered that Pennsylvania’s Temple University, which owns the radio station WRTI, cancelled on Monday the daily political show ‘Democracy Now’ — on the same week that it was to feature death row inmate Mumia Abu- Jamal.

Because of WRTI’s decision, a dozen Pennsylvania affiliates subscribing to ‘Democracy Now’ — a third of the show’s subscribers nationwide — dropped the programme entirely. For some media analysts, the lesson was clear: the leftist Pacifica Radio, which produces the show, was being punished for airing a notorious prisoner’s views.

“The sudden, abrupt decision to pre-empt Pacifica’s ‘Democracy Now’ is clearly an act of censorship,” says Steve Geiman, president of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), an Indiana-based journalism organisation. “This issue today is about allowing (Abu-Jamal) — and other prisoners — the right to be heard and about the media’s ability to pursue stories that will inform and enlighten the public and the bureaucracy.”

Abu-Jamal, a former radio broadcaster who has been in prison facing a death sentence since he was found guilty of the 1981 murder of policeman Daniel Faulkner, has been the focus of controversy for several years, with liberal activists contending he did not have a fair trial. Two years ago, activist pressure prompted a suspension of plans to execute Abu-Jamal, although he is still imprisoned under a death sentence.

The ‘Democracy Now’ broadcasts, however, did not address any questions of Abu-Jamal’s guilt or innocence, says Dan Coughlin, a ‘Democracy Now’ producer. The radio spots — which the show’s other 24 affiliates have begun to braodcast this week — were recorded by Abu-Jamal in prison last October, and touch on issues ranging from African American family life to alcoholism and other social ills.

Yet no matter what he says, Abu-Jamal has remained a target for groups, like Philadelphia’s Fraternal Order of Police, who believe he is a murderer and want his views silenced, Coughlin says. He notes that, following pressure by the police union in 1994, National Public Radio dropped plans to air radio spots by Abu- Jamal, while Addison and Wesley, the publishers of Abu-Jamal’s memoirs ‘Live from Death Row’, were protested repeatedly by police.

Celebrities supportive of Abu-Jamal’s case, including actors Whoopi Goldberg and Ed Asner, have also faced police protests in what Coughlin calls “a continued denial of Mumia’s ability to speak and write.”

National Public Radio’s earlier decision to drop Abu-Jamal had a bearing on Temple University’s decision this week, says George Ingram, the university’s vice-president of communications. “I knew that National Public Radio had refused to air his commentaries in 1994…(and) they said they thought it was inappropriate,” Ingram told The Philadelphia Inquirer this week. “And what’s good enough for NPR is good enough for me.”

But Ingram has repeatedly denied that the decision to air Abu- Jamal’s show was not the deciding factor in dropping ‘Democracy Now’ and another Pacifica news show, saying that he had decided to replace the shows with jazz music programmes weeks earlier.

That is news to ‘Democracy Now’ host Amy Goodman, who has contended that Pacifica received no prior notification that the shows would be dropped until Monday, when the first of a dozen Abu- Jamal commentaries was scheduled to air.

In any case, Coughlin says, the decision comes at a time of dramatically declining access to prisoners by media around the nation.

“There are increasing restrictions on media access to prisoners in the United States,” he argues. “Mumia can no longer even make tapes by Pennsylvania law,” he notes, following a state ruling last November — one month after the Pacifica broadcasts were taped — banning audiotaping of Pennsylvania prisoners.

According to the SPJ, seven states — Pennsylvania, Califonia, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Rhode Island and Virginia — have restricted media access to inmates in recent years.

In California, for example, reporters are now barred from face- to-face contact with selected prisoners, Coughlin says. The climate is likely to get worse, he predicts: “If they can get the little guys (in the media), they’re going to go after the bigger guys.”

“If prisoners are not allowed to speak through the media, then we the public are not allowed to hear them,” says Peter Sussman, president of the SPJ’s northern California chapter. “We can’t make effective criminal justice policies without hearing all of the parties to various criminal justice disputes.”