A public TV and radio station in Western Alaska serves dozens of villages damaged by Typhoon Halong. But with federal funding eliminated, KYUK faces severe cuts to its staff and news department.
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Alaska Native communities are still cleaning up after Typhoon Halong devastated two villages last month. Hundreds are still evacuated, and now they face another loss. One of the few sources for local news and information, public radio and television station KYUK, says it plans to cut its staff and its programming. That’s after President Trump and Republicans in Congress eliminated money for public media, wiping out much of the station’s funding. NPR’s Jeff Brady has this story.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: When the remnants of Typhoon Halong hit the village of Kwigillingok on Alaska’s rural southwest coast, David Ryan’s (ph) house floated away with him and his four children inside. While waiting for rescuers, he talked on the phone with KYUK.
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RYAN DAVID: The flood lifted us up, and I didn’t think it was going to happen. And I’m like, I yelled at my kids to get up and group up here on the stairs just in case we tip over.
BRADY: The house did not tip over. It hit a bridge and stopped. About four dozen homes floated away like this in the storm, thankfully inland with the storm surge and not out to sea. In this isolated village with no roads to the outside world, all-terrain vehicles are how people get around. In Kwigillingok, KYUK is a crucial source of information, especially as a hotter climate from humans burning fossil fuels makes storms like Halong more intense. Lifelong resident Darrel John says the station’s Yup’ik language programs are especially valuable.
DARREL JOHN: A lot of great advices we listen to from the elders, any updates from any other communities, you know, what to look out for or any upcoming events.
BRADY: Over more than 50 years, KYUK has become a connecting resource for this sparsely populated region, which is about the size of Louisiana. The station broadcasts from a small building at the base of a tall tower in the town of Bethel. Each weekday, as Morning Edition ends, there’s local news and, very important in a place where people drive over frozen rivers in the winter, the weather forecast in the Yup’ik language.
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UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: (Speaking Yup’ik).
BRADY: KYUK was already navigating funding cuts from the state of Alaska when President Trump targeted public media and Congress eliminated funding this summer. KYUK General Manager Kristin Hall says federal money essentially paid for the staff.
KRISTIN HALL, BYLINE: It’s a little over $1 million that we were receiving each year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Our salaries and benefits in FY25 was also a little over $1 million.
BRADY: Federal funding has been up to 70% of KYUK’s budget. Hall says the station had 10 full-time employees, but after January, that’ll be down to four. As the station transitions to more part-time and on-call workers, it’s cutting a daily interview program to two days a week and may have to end other programs next year.
HALL: Essentially, the news director position is being cut.
BRADY: Sage Smiley is currently KYUK’s full-time news director. She’s also the local high school swim coach and was at a meet in another city when the remnants of Typhoon Halong arrived.
SAGE SMILEY, BYLINE: I was working remotely from a minivan with the swim team while the rest of the team was working on the ground here, and we had collaborators in Anchorage who were helping draft scripts and call communities and figure out what was happening.
BRADY: In January, Smiley says her hours will be reduced to about five per week, essentially cutting the newsroom staff by a third. The station has prioritized keeping Yup’ik language programs, such as the weekly talk show Yuk to Yuk with longtime host Sam Berlin.
SAM BERLIN, BYLINE: My employment here was hanging on by a hair, but the people – God bless them – they got together. And we raised over 100,000 with our fundraiser.
BRADY: That helps but doesn’t fill the gap. Raising money in a region with fewer than 30,000 people and with a poverty rate that’s twice the national average is difficult. The station is applying for grants, trying to sell more underwriting announcements and will hold more pledge drives. The station hopes that will raise enough to keep KYUK on the air with a smaller staff. Jeff Brady, NPR News, Bethel, Alaska.
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