‘What connects us is our airwaves': How Trump's public media cuts might leave these communities in the dark

CNN

6 days ago

In Alaska's North Slope region — the northernmost county in the US, roughly the same size as the United Kingdom — one small public radio station, KBRW, keeps eight Iñupiat villages connected and serves about 10,000 people. Now, it may not survive.
Last Thursday, President Trump signed into law $9 billion in DOGE cuts, including $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a key funder of NPR and PBS stations nationwide. The president and his allies have long aimed to defund public media, alleging widespread 'bias' in its broadcasts.
KBRW is one of 36 tribally licensed public radio stations and four TV stations across the US that rely on CPB funding to stay on the air. Without that money, they could go dark, cutting off Indigenous communities from local news, safety alerts and cultural programming, Loris Taylor, president and CEO of Native Public Media, told CNN.
'In the long term, we risk erasing decades of investment in native media infrastructure,' Taylor said. 'Once these stations go dark, they may never return. That would be a catastrophic loss to tribal sovereignty, self-representation and democracy.'
Alaska has 15 tribally licensed stations, far more than South Dakota and New Mexico, the next closest states with four each. The rest are scattered across the West and Midwest, serving rural tribal communities where broadband and phone access remain limited or nonexistent, according to the American Indian Policy Institute at Arizona State University.
KBRW, based in Utqiaġvik, gets about 40% of its funding from CPB. The station's manager, Jeff Seifert, told CNN that they have just one part-time and four full-time employees. Now, they imminently face layoffs, cuts to local programs and dropping NPR — their most costly content — meaning no national news.
'It's really up in the air as to how long we can survive,' Seifert said. 'But it's just not sustainable. It's just going to run out of gas eventually.'
More than 500 miles south in Bethel, KYUK — another tribally licensed public station — serves more than 50 federally recognized tribes and at least 25,000 listeners across the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. It relies on CPB for 70% of its annual funding.
KYUK broadcasts local newscasts in English and Yup'ik, the primary language of the villages it serves, three times a day. It also hosts call-in shows where elders and community members talk about what's happening in the area.
'We're not connected to a road system,' said Kristen Hall, KYUK's general manager. 'So I often say, what connects us is our airwaves.'
In the winter, the frozen rivers become highways connecting these villages. But travel can be risky when the ice starts to form or melt. To help keep people safe, KYUK works with a search-and-rescue organization on call-in shows, where listeners report hazardous areas, such as open water or weak ice.
Both KBRW and KYUK run on thin margins with limited staff. Local fundraising can't replace lost federal funds, Hall said, so 'if additional funding isn't found by the fall, KYUK will be forced to cut its local staff.' The local programming would cease, including its call-in shows, local weather reports and local news.
'These cuts are further distancing this community from the rest of America,' Hall said. 'The people in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta are Americans, too. They deserve the same access to news and information as anyone else.'
Following the House vote, CPB released a statement warning that cuts could jeopardize emergency alerts that are a lifeline for many Americans.
'The path to a better, more trusted public media is only achievable with continued federal support and constructive reforms,' the statement said.
Alaska Native communities rely on a mix of cash income and subsistence living — hunting, fishing and gathering, according to the US Department of the Interior. Subsistence preserves culture and helps offset high costs in remote areas where food must be flown in.
With limited cash flow, these regions often lack wealthy donors or sponsors, so tribal radio stations rely heavily on federal funding. Statewide, 45% of Alaska's revenue came from federal funds in 2023, according to Pew Charitable Trusts' analysis of the latest available Census data.
In both regions, there are no roads connecting villages; residents travel by plane. Seifert said there are no local newspapers or TV stations, and many, especially the elders, lack internet access.
KBRW broadcasts in both English and Iñupiaq, the traditional language of the region's Indigenous people. The local elderly population speaks primarily Iñupiaq, and Seifert said the station helps keep the language and culture alive while delivering crucial public safety updates, weather alerts and community news.
'We are in areas that are very, very remote, and a lot of the information you can get in the big cities just isn't there for us,' Seifert said. 'And I don't think Congress understands, because they don't live here, how important these services are.'
Every day at 6 pm, KBRW airs 'Story Time,' featuring taped cultural stories from the elders, some more than 70 years old. It's among the station's most popular shows.
Geoffrey Carroll, 74, is a retired wildlife biologist who has relied on KBRW since moving to Utqiaġvik in 1974. Although originally from Wyoming, his wife and children are Iñupiat. He said the station has been central to their home life in these remote parts of Alaska.
'It would just be such a hole in our lives if we didn't have the radio station. I listen to the radio stations every day. Several hours every day,' Carroll told CNN.
His children grew up hearing Iñupiaq on the radio and learning about their heritage, including through the 'Story Time' show.
'They didn't have much choice,' he said. 'The radio was on all the time — it was ever-present in our house.'
KYUK similarly produces a storytelling show with local elders sharing their oral histories and legends.
Hall said KYUK maintains the world's oldest Yup'ik and Cup'ik audiovisual collection and has spent years digitizing it for easier access, especially for younger generations. As part of this effort, they launched a website featuring a series of elder interviews with Yup'ik transcripts and English translations — a unique language preservation tool.
'Sharing that language and culture for people is important, and that's really at risk right now,' Hall said.
Local Alaska stations received $12 million in CPB funding last year — 0.00018% of total federal spending. Still, Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, who voted against the cuts, called public broadcasting an 'invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska.'
Seifert and Hall say lawmakers underestimate the importance of local public radio for rural Alaskans — not just for their culture, but for their survival.
One common misconception, Hall said, is that emergency alerts will still reach everyone as long as Congress continues to fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
'FEMA doesn't operate radio stations,' she said. 'If we go dark, there's no receiver to get those signals to the public. It's a partnership — they send the alerts, but local stations like ours are the ones that get them out to people.'
The Trump White House and FEMA did not respond to requests for comment.
Earlier this month, a 7.3-magnitude earthquake in the Gulf of Alaska triggered tsunami warnings. The local public stations broadcast safety instructions in real-time.
This past spring, the importance of the station became clear when a massive slab of sea ice sliced through an undersea fiber-optic cable, cutting off internet to communities across the North Slope region. Suddenly, there was no 911, no phone lines and no cell service.
KBRW was the only line of communication left.
'The radio was it,' Seifert said. 'We were the only source of information, the only connection.'