Free speech has taken on new meaning at Pacifica radio's political talk show "Democracy Now!" with host Amy Goodman suspended this week without pay by her bosses yet continuing to do the show. The program, which airs locally on Pacifica's KPFK-FM (90.7) and examines political, social justice and environmental issues from a far-left perspective weekday mornings, has been in reruns since last week.

That's when Goodman, her engineer and two producers said threats and intimidation from staff and management at their flagship station in New York made them feel unsafe, so they began broadcasting from a studio elsewhere in Manhattan. But instead of the live shows Goodman says she has been broadcasting--in exile as she describes it--Pacifica has been airing archived episodes of "Democracy Now!" on four of the five stations it owns: KPFK in North Hollywood and those in New York, Washington and Houston.

As part of the civil war within the network, KPFA-FM in Berkeley is the only Pacifica-owned station to carry the live shows, which are also broadcast by such independent affiliates as KFCF-FM in Fresno and WMNF FM in Tampa, Fla. A dissident group of listeners has scheduled protests in support of Goodman for Tuesday morning outside Pacifica stations.(see story link for more)