Wash Leaves Top Post at Embattled Pacifica By Lisa Allen-Agostini November 2, 2001

Wash Leaves Top Post at Embattled Pacifica By Lisa Allen-Agostini November 2, 2001 Bessie Wash, Pacifica Radio's former executive director, said yesterday that she quit her job last week after being asked to step down by the network's new chairman, Robert Farrell. Farrell, based in Los Angeles, did not return calls yesterday seeking comment. Wash said she was not fired because she'd already submitted her resignation from the independent, left-leaning network in late September, effective at year's end. "I'm tired," said Wash, who was executive director of the five-station public radio network for nearly two years, about the length of time it has been embroiled in a bitter internal fight over its direction. Some have accused Pacifica's leadership of trying to commercialize the network and move it away from its hallmark alternative news format. It's been an ugly dispute, complete with management lockouts of workers, on-air protests by employees and allegations of threats of violence. "I had done everything I had set out to do," said Wash, a former general manager of WPFW, Washington's Pacifica station. "I had a five-year plan; everything was done, and it was just time." There was no animosity between Wash and the network's board, she said. Wash presided over the network during some of its most turbulent times, including last December when she fired the general manager, program director and union steward of WBAI, Pacifica's New York station, in a move that became known as the "Christmas Coup." Joanne Meredith, Pacifica's national development director, says she'll serve as interim executive director. She began her new duties Tuesday but declined to comment further.