Larry Bensky, a radio journalist whose reporting on major political events made him the signature voice of Pacifica Radio, a network of progressive, listener-supported stations, died on May 19 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. His wife, Susie Bluestone, said he died in home hospice care. Mr. Bensky’s gavel-to-gavel coverage of the congressional Iran-contra hearings of 1987 put the Pacifica network on the map, earning him a prestigious Polk Award for radio reporting. Mr. Bensky, who called himself an activist-journalist, brought leftist views to reporting — often on people and issues under-covered by other news outlets — which he hoped would, as he often put it, “stir things up.”That was hardly a fringe view in the progressive ethos of the Bay Area, where he was based, though he still managed to transgress the boundaries on a regular basis. The free-form rock station KSAN, the voice of Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, threw him off the air for interviewing workers who had been fired by one of the station’s sponsors.

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Persons: Larry Bensky, Susie Bluestone, Bensky’s, Bensky, Haight Organizations: Pacifica Radio, Pacifica, Polk Award, Ashbury Locations: Berkeley, Calif, Iran, Bay