After 20 years, Pacifica Network News, a progressive national news program, stopped broadcasting in February, citing financial problems. The Bloomington Independent, a local alternative newspaper, remains on hiatus since it stopped producing in January, also for financial reasons.\nLoss of both the Independent and PNN hamper robust local and national debates over many important issues. Locally, Bloomington's Growth Policies Plan, which will determine the path development takes in Bloomington over the next 10 years, and local elections are just a couple of issues not receiving as much debate as they would in the Independent. PNN's last broadcast, for example, provided a progressive viewpoint on issues ranging from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to campaign finance and the trial of Slobodan Milosevic.
Pacifica Network News\nPNN was originally conceived to compete with NPR's 90-minute news program "All Things Considered." PNN was to be structured much the same way, with three 30-minute segments: news (broadcast from Washington, D.C.), a news magazine (from Berkeley, Calif.) and another 30-minute chunk of news. \nBut Pacifica never fulfilled that goal and lost an opportunity to provide a progressive alternative to NPR, PNN Senior Correspondent Don Rush told PNN listeners on the final broadcast Feb. 15.\n"The fact is that Pacifica, for two decades, failed to ever come through on that promise," Rush said. "I think that Pacifica has lost its opportunity -- its historic opportunity -- to really put up a progressive, national news magazine that would have given NPR a run for its money."\nMarc Cooper, host of Radio Nation, agreed, adding that technological advances since the late '70s made the programming possible.\n"Pacifica has failed to take advantage of the last 20 years of readily available technology," said Cooper, who has been with Pacifica since PNN's inception. "The satellite technology is very cheap. It only costs like $100 an hour to broadcast over a national satellite."\nCooper saw a chance for increased coverage as time progressed, but it just didn't happen.\n"If Pacifica had put its mind to it, pulled its resources, we could be producing two, three, four hours a day of bang-up national programming that could seriously compete with NPR," Cooper said. "Instead, we're retracting."\nAt it's height, PNN served around 50-60 affiliate stations in addition to five of its own stations. \nPNN Correspondent Saul Landau blames the Network's management for PNN's demise. \n"Those who waged war against Pacifica have won," Landau told listeners in his final commentary. "As my final words for my final commentary, I can only say, long live sectarianism."\nFinancial reports prepared by auditing firm T. Curtis & Co. show deficits of $1.7 million in 2000 and $4.8 million for 2001 for PNN, with the five local Pacifica stations showing a combined surplus of $601,270 in 2000 and $1.3 million in 2001. PNN's financial problems are clear.
The Bloomington Independent\nThe weekly Bloomington Independent, with a readership of around 30,000, focused its coverage primarily on news, arts and entertainment. Bloomington has two daily newspapers, The Herald-Times and the IDS.\nThe Bloomington Independent provides another valuable source of information for Bloomingtonians, Independent music and cultural events freelancer Jessica Baldanzi said. "The Bloomington Independent has an open perspective that a lot of other publications wouldn't," she said. "There is going to be a serious void in cultural information in town."\nPublisher Craig Hitchcock praised the paper's efforts amid the financial difficulties after the events of Sept. 11. \n"The Independent has been a very successful editorial product," he told the IDS. "Last year it consistently improved."\nRegardless of the reasons each alternative medium has stopped producing, an important voice was lost for public debate of many issues -- local, national and international.
