As longtime advocates in KPFA's struggle a decade ago and the network democratization that followed: here are our thoughts on the appeal put out by Flashpoints after the program was hit hard by budgetary reductions.

Media Alliance supports, as we have for more than a decade, certain core principals in independent media, be it radio, television, internet news sites, or print outlets.

Those principles include advocating for non-hierarchial structures within progressive and alternative media that support democratization and collaborative work and do not replicate gatekeeper dynamics that have been dysfunctional in the mainstream and produced so much poor media.

Another important organizing principle is to uphold programming and projects that support communities under-represented in media, present topics and perspectives less frequently heard and bring different voices to the table as media workers and producers.

Flashpoints is a program with a compelling and important track record in doing this work. Its national and international investigative reporting, most notably in Palestine, but also a host of other locations, has provided background and context on events available in few other places.

Programs that do effective work in this arena, like Flashpoints and Hard Knock Radio. are valuable. They are what KPFA was created to contain and bring into being and they are a large part of the reason thousands of people dig into their pockets every year to support independent radio.

Pockets are emptier this year, and it is no surprise that KPFA, like the entire nonprofit community is suffering. But the necessity to make cuts must be balanced against a core commitment to maintaining community-rooted programming that tells essential stories.

So we add our voice to the long list of people and organizations that are concerned about disproportionate cuts being applied to Flashpoints and potentially other programming and reporters that we value.

We would ask KPFA management to assure us and other concerned members of their community of equal impact on station programming and operational departments: equal meaning equal.

And further to affirm their commitment to maintaining and growing programs like Flashpoints, Hard Knock Radio, Guns and Butter, Africa Today, Voices of the Middle East and North Africa, La Raza Chronicles APEX Express, Full Circle, Bay Area Native Circle, Pushing Limits, Women's Magazine and others which do exemplary work in bringing unheard voices to the forefront.