In the North Slope area of Alaska — the northernmost county in the United States, comparable in size to the United Kingdom — a single public radio station, KBRW, maintains communication among eight Iñupiat communities and reaches approximately 10,000 individuals. However, it might not continue to operate.
Last Thursday, President Trump enacted into law$9 billion in DOGE reductions, including $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a major supporter of NPR and PBS stations across the country. The president and his supportershave long aimedto cut funding for public broadcasting, claiming significant “bias” in its programming.
KBRW is among 36 tribally affiliated public radio stations and four television stations throughout the United States that depend on CPB financial support to remain operational. If this funding were lost, they might cease broadcasting, disconnecting Indigenous communities from local news, emergency notifications, and cultural content, according to Loris Taylor, president and CEO of Native Public Media, who spoke with MathHotels.com.
In the long run, we face the danger of wiping out many years of investment in native media systems,” Taylor stated. “Once these stations stop broadcasting, they might not come back. That would represent a severe loss for tribal self-governance, representation, and democratic principles.
Alaska is home to 15 tribally operated stations, significantly more than South Dakota and New Mexico, which each have four. The remaining stations are spread throughout the West and Midwest, providing service to rural tribal areas where broadband and phone connectivity is still lacking or unavailable, according to theAmerican Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University.
KBRW, located in Utqiaġvik, receives approximately 40% of its financial support from CPB. According to the station’s manager, Jeff Seifert, there is one part-time and four full-time staff members. They are soon expected to experience job reductions, reductions in local programming, and the removal of NPR — their most expensive content — resulting in the absence of national news.
It’s very uncertain how long we can keep going,” Seifert stated. “But it’s simply not viable. It will eventually run out of energy.
Over 500 miles south in Bethel, KYUK — a public station licensed by a tribe — reaches more than 50 federally acknowledged tribes and at least 25,000 listeners throughout the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. It receives 70% of its yearly funding from CPB.
KYUK provides local news programs in both English and Yup’ik, the main language spoken in the communities it reaches, three times daily. It also features call-in segments where older individuals and residents discuss current events in the region.
We are not part of a road network,” said Kristen Hall, general manager of KYUK. “So I frequently mention, what links us is our airwaves.
During winter, frozen rivers serve as roads linking these villages. However, traveling can be dangerous when the ice is forming or thawing. To ensure safety, KYUK collaborates with a search-and-rescue group through call-in programs, where listeners share information about risky spots like open water or unstable ice.
Both KBRW and KYUK operate with minimal profits and a small team. According to Hall, local fundraising cannot compensate for the lost federal funding, so “if more money isn’t secured by the fall, KYUK will have to reduce its local staff.” Local programming would stop, including its call-in programs, local weather updates, and local news.
These reductions are increasing the separation between this community and the rest of the country,” Hall stated. “The individuals in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta are also Americans. They should have the same access to news and information as everyone else.
Following the House vote, CPB released a statementa warning that incisions might endanger emergency alerts which are vital for numerous Americans.
The statement emphasized that the route to a more reliable and improved public media can only be realized through ongoing federal backing and positive changes.
Alaska Native communities depend on a combination of monetary earnings and traditional ways of life — including hunting, fishing, and collecting resources, as stated in theU.S. Department of the Interior. Subsistence supports cultural traditions and helps reduce expenses in isolated regions where food needs to be transported by air.
Due to limited cash flow, these areas frequently do not have affluent donors or sponsors, which means tribal radio stations depend mainly on federal support. Across the state, 45% of Alaska’s revenue was sourced from federal funds in 2023, as reported. Pew Charitable Trusts’ analysisaccording to the most recent Census information.
Maintaining heritage through radio broadcasts
In both areas, there are no roads linking the villages; people travel by air. Seifert mentioned that there are no local newspapers or television stations, and many, particularly the elderly, do not have access to the internet.
KBRW transmits in both English and Iñupiaq, the native language of the area’s Indigenous community. The older residents in the region mainly speak Iñupiaq, and Seifert mentioned that the station plays a vital role in preserving the language and culture, while also providing essential public safety information, weather warnings, and local news.
We are located in extremely isolated regions, and much of the information available in major cities simply isn’t accessible to us,” Seifert stated. “I don’t believe Congress comprehends this, as they don’t reside here, how crucial these services are.
Each day at 6 p.m., KBRW broadcasts “Story Time,” which includes recorded cultural narratives from senior members, some of whom are over 70 years old. This is one of the station’s most beloved programs.
Geoffrey Carroll, 74, is a former wildlife biologist who has used KBRW since relocating to Utqiaġvik in 1974. While he was born in Wyoming, his wife and children are Iñupiat. He mentioned that the station has played a key role in their family life in this remote area of Alaska.
“It would be a big gap in our lives if we didn’t have the radio station. I listen to the radio stations every day. Several hours each day,” Carroll said to MathHotels.com.
His children were raised listening to Iñupiaq on the radio and discovering their culture, including via the “Story Time” program.
They didn’t have much of a choice,” he remarked. “The radio was constantly playing — it was a constant presence in our home.
KYUK also hosts a narrative program where community elders share their traditional stories and folklore.
Hall stated that KYUK preserves the world’s oldest Yup’ik and Cup’ik audiovisual archive and has invested years in digitizing it for better access, particularly for younger people. As part of this initiative, they launched awebsite featuringa collection of elder interviews with Yup’ik transcripts and English translations — a distinctive language conservation resource.
“Sharing this language and culture with people is significant, and that’s genuinely in danger at the present time,” Hall stated.
Local Alaska stations received $12 million in CPB funding last year — 0.00018% of overall federal expenditure. Nevertheless, Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who opposed the reductions, referred to public broadcasting as “priceless tool that protects lives in Alaska.”
No means to issue emergency notifications
Seifert and Hall claim that legislators fail to recognize the significance of local public radio for people in rural Alaska — not only for their cultural identity, but also for their very survival.
A widespread misunderstanding, according to Hall, is the belief that emergency notifications will continue to be received by all individuals as long as Congress maintains funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
FEMA doesn’t manage radio stations,” she stated. “If we become silent, there’s no way to receive those signals and share them with the public. It’s a collaboration — they issue the alerts, but local stations such as ours are responsible for distributing them to the people.
The administration of President Trump and FEMA did not provide any statements in response to inquiries.
This month, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake occurred in the Gulf of Alaska, leading to tsunami alerts. Local radio stations provided safety information as it happened.
Last spring, the significance of the station became evident when a large piece of sea ice severed an underwater fiber-optic cable, disrupting internet access for communities throughout the North Slope area. All of a sudden, there was no 911 service, no landlines, and no cellular connectivity.
KBRW was the sole remaining channel of communication.
The radio was our only option,” Seifert stated. “We were the sole source of information, the only link.
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