Bensky served as station manager for KPFA from 1974–1977. After returning to KSAN as a news anchor, reporter, and talk show host, he narrowly missed accompanying Congressman Leo Ryan to investigate conditions at the Jonestown colony in Guyana in 1978, which resulted in Ryan and four journalists being shot to death on an airstrip, precipitating the mass murder-suicide of over 900 people. In the early 1980s, Bensky turned his attention to the revolutions and American interventions in Nicaragua and El Salvador. He produced the PBS documentary, "Nicaragua: These Same Hands" in 1980.