The question whether Pacifica has marginalized itself out of the national spectrum of debate is important because America may never have needed a strong voice from the left as much as it does now.

Today's airwaves are anchored on the right by outfits with huge cable audiences such as News Corp.'s Fox News Channel, which seems to spend half its time on the Laci Peterson case and the rest promoting demented reactionaries like Ann Coulter. What passes for the left is represented by NPR, a "liberal" network chiefly in the sense that it cherishes "balance," which generally means a spectrum of opinion that stretches from conservative Southern Democrats on one end all the way over to centrist New England Republicans on the other. That's a pretty scrawny slice of American apple pie.