More than $1 billion in cuts to previously allocated federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has left the fate of 59 tribal radio stations nationwide in question, including in the Pacific Northwest.
Station managers note the integral role that tribal radio plays in the communities they serve, which are often rural, including delivering essential information such as emergency alerts during natural disasters.
“I’m having trouble coming to terms with having to reduce what we do,” said Sue Matters, the station manager of KWSO Warm Springs Radio in Oregon, which is owned and operated by the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs. “I like to think that we have worked ourselves into a place where we are legitimately considered a community institution.”
Funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting makes up 40% of KWSO’s annual budget — which is typically around $600,000 — meaning the station is losing about $240,000. The budget cuts approved by Congress on July 17 were part of a larger plan that also eliminates about $7 billion in foreign aid.
The cuts at KWSO will eliminate funding for two staff members, its automation system (which is used to schedule and play content) and related expenses, contract signings, website operation and streaming and app costs, according to Matters.
Matters hopes the tribe can help subsidize some of the lost funds, a hope that Loris Taylor, Hopi and Acoma, president and CEO of Native Public Media, said is going to be common among the affected tribal radio stations.
“I think what compounds this particular situation is that tribes are also getting squeezed for funding, and tribes are facing huge issues like, ‘How are they going to take care of their citizens who lose Medicare? How are they going to fill the gap in education as education funding goes away?’” she said. “There’s some really huge issues that tribal governments are dealing with.”
Native Public Media supports the network of 59 radio stations and three television stations and reaches over 1.5 million people. Taylor said 36 out those tribal radio stations have lost funding from CPB directly, resulting in over $8 million in funds that need to be found elsewhere. With Indigenous communities receiving less than 1% of philanthropic funding, she said the scramble to find funding could result in stations closing their doors.
A lifeline during emergencies and natural disasters
Reggie George, a Yakama Nation tribal member and broadcaster at KYNR, the Yakama Nation radio station, feels for his colleagues at stations facing cuts. KYNR is fully funded by the Yakama Nation and won’t be affected by the budget cuts, but George said the rippling effects of the funding cuts will be felt throughout Indian Country.
“It’s people’s jobs and their incomes and their families,” he said. “People solely depend on the radio for what’s going on around them.”
One of the biggest concerns George is the loss of emergency alerts if radio stations go dark.
“This affects the people in the area that have dangerous storms and floods and everything like that,” George said. “Especially in the Midwest with tornadoes and stuff like that. So that needs to be accounted for in the importance of tribal radio.”
Many Indigenous communities have limited or no access to broadband internet and cable TV, and tribal radio is their sole way of accessing news and information. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the stations were essential information sources. Alerts and updates about wildfires, mudslides, tornadoes and other natural disasters are broadcast on the airways, which can save lives.
According to Matters, on the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation and in surrounding communities, residents rely on KWSO for those types of broadcasts.
“If there’s a snowstorm, people will just flat out call and say, ‘Is there work? Is there school,’” she said. “They’ll just call because they know we’ll answer, and we’ll probably know, and we probably won’t be wrong. People call for all sorts of things. So, you know, it’s just kind of an information system or an information center.”
Many individuals and homes in Indian Country lack access to internet service and are not equipped with mobile devices to receive wireless emergency alerts, which include amber alerts, national alerts, imminent threat alerts and public safety alerts. And out of 574 federally recognized tribes, only 12 are certified to broadcast wireless emergency alerts through mobile devices under the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
Tribal radio stations play an important role in filling those gaps.
As part of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation’s department of health and human service branch, KWSO serves as a hub for news on health and mental health services. Matters said there could be less reporting on health as she continues to rework the station budget.
“Having 36 stations that are not focused on what they should be on, how they should be serving the community, but instead on how to keep the lights on right, is tragic,” Taylor said.” That’s the unseen consequence of all this, because it takes our broadcasters away from the important task of serving the public on a daily basis. And some are doing that even though they have a gazillion things on their mind, but then they have to worry about how long will we last on the air?”
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