The Daily - Is Congress About to Kill This Local Radio Station?

Episode Date: July 11, 2025

From the moment President Trump and Republicans took control of Washington this year, they set out to turn their longtime threats against public media, which they see as biased, into action.Now, a piece of Republican legislation would cut more than a billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances PBS and NPR.As the bill makes its way through Congress, those who work in public media are warning that radio stations in red, rural and Republican America will feel the deepest impact.Guests: Jessica Cheung, a senior audio producer at The New York TimesTom Abbott, the general manager of KFSK-FM in Petersburg, Alaska Background reading: Some Republican senators voiced concern over the House-passed bill that would rescind money for NPR and PBS stations in their states.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo Credit: Ash Adams for The New York Times.Caption: The town of Petersburg, Alaska, voted for Donald Trump by an almost 2-to-1 margin in the last election. Now Republicans in Congress are trying to pass cuts that would defund the community’s radio station. Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical left-wing echo chambers for mostly wealthy, white, urban liberals and progressives who generally look down on and judge rural America. From the New York Times, I'm Michael Balbaro. This is The Daily. For far too long, federal taxpayers have been forced to fund biased news. This needs to come to an end, and it needs to come to an end now. From the moment that President Trump and Republicans took control of Washington this year, they set out to turn longtime threats against public media, which they see

as biased against them, into action. And that action is a piece of Republican legislation that would cut more than a billion dollars from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances PBS and NPR. Like many public radio stations, we're facing federal funding challenges that make listener support more important than ever. I hope you'll let your senators know public radio means a lot to the North country and they should oppose rescission.

But as that legislation hurdles through Congress, those who work in public media are warning that its deepest impacts may be on radio stations in rural and Republican America. Today, my colleague, Daily Producer Jessica Chung, speaks to the manager of one of those stations in a conservative town in Alaska. It's Friday, July 11th. Jessica, do you hear me?

Yes, Tom, I can hear you. So I don't have a camera on in the studio here. That's fine. Okay. You can just kind of stare at the top of my head. Tom Abbott is a longtime station manager at KFSK, a public radio station in a town called Petersburg. We are in southeast Alaska.

We're on an island. Our population is only 3,400. Petersburg is a fishing town. This time of year, the catch includes king salmon and crab. Because it's just gorgeous. I mean, you're going to see either sea otters or sea lions. We've got the humpback whales. Tom says it's a place that feels very remote.

We also don't have any chain stores here. Everything is mom and pop. Even though if you go to the post office, you'll see a lot of Amazon boxes coming across the counter. Because on occasion, there are things that can't be found here. Just because it's a small market and it's a small community, and that's what brings us back around radio. That's why there's only public radio here.

And if you turn the dial in Petersburg, can you hear any other radio station out there? Yeah, you can catch 88.5, which is the Lutheran Church. And that's it? Yeah, they broadcast for the shut-ins that can't make it to their service on Sunday. And that's the only other service that's on the FM dial. And there's nothing on the AM dial. Small rule stations like KFSK rely on federal funding to exist. And in a town like Petersburg that is conservative, a town that voted for Trump

by almost two to one in the last election, people are grappling with a Republican party that is now trying to defund an important resource within the community, a radio station that a lot of people love. So I wanted to talk to Tom about what that's been like, what's at stake, and just what a station like KFSK offers people. -♪ Good morning. You're listening to KFSK. It's our Tradio program for this Friday. It's the 13th of June. I'm Tom Abbott.

And you're not just a station manager at KFSK. I've actually heard you on the radio, and you host a show called Tradio. Well, we are here to take your phone calls if you got something to buy, sell, trade. Tell me about that. Tradio, we started 20 years back. We had a buy, sell, trade announcement time live. We'll take our first caller. Caller on line one. Good morning. You're on Tradio. Where the caller calls into the radio station, we put them on the air and they either make an announcement about an event coming

up, maybe they're having a garage sale on Saturday. And we have tons of stuff, chairs, dozens of hand tools, fishing poles, sporting goods, books, movies, you name it, we got it. Well this week we've got a lot of fishing poles or this week we've got a lot of baby pools or this week we've got a lot of baby clothes something whatever it may be. Yes good morning this is Earl I got a 2012 Nissan red vehicle with low mileage. We put them on the air they make the description they give their phone number

they give the amount. This is basically Facebook marketplace on the air, they make the description, they give their phone number, they give the amount. This is basically Facebook Marketplace on the radio. Exactly. And then we take the next caller. The other week I heard that there was a lot of rhubarb. Yes. And mason jar needs. that there was a lot of rhubarb and mason jar needs. I'm also looking for some wide mouthed candy jars. And do you need the lids as well or just the jars?

The rings would be okay, the lids. Those you replace all the time, yeah. Yeah. It's a neighborhood conversation basically. We do it on Wednesdays and Fridays at 9 a.m. until the calls stop and that's anywhere from 20 minutes to 45 minutes. That wraps up Tradio for this Friday the 13th. This afternoon we'll have a rebroadcast of the Alaska Fisheries Report at 1230.

A lot of people might not understand that what you hear on the local public radio station is a combination of stories produced by NPR in DC, and then there are also local stories produced by you in Petersburg. In other words, there's Morning Edition and All Things Considered that's largely made in DC, but then there's also a whole other slice of the pie that's your local programming.

Exactly. It's six o'clock. Good morning. You're listening to KFSK. Hope you have a great day today. There's little stuff'clock. Good morning. You're listening to KFSK. Hope you have a great day today. There's little stuff and there's big stuff. To those on jury duty, the April to June jurors are not needed this month. Whether it's somebody saying a happy birthday to somebody. Happy birthday to Dylan Swanson, Phil Smith, Gabby Ness. I mean, it's just these little things that KFSK is a big part of everybody's life.

If you jump into somebody's car, it's going to be 100.9. Everybody's listening to the same radio station. And so there's that. Then there's the local news. And Representative Rebecca Hemshoe will be in town Monday. This morning we have our state representative is here in town this week. We had an interview on with her. We had our local fire department along with the local coast guard.

There goes another one. They had a flare off the other night. Are you an experienced flare person? No, this is my first flare. But they've been on the boat for years and I've never shot any of them off. They said we're coming down here to do this and I thought, well, that'll be cool. You go out and you practice shooting flares in the event that you are in a position where you need to shoot off a flare because you're either lost in the woods or you're in trouble out on the water.

It became like a family fun night. Are you right handed or left handed? I don't know. Which hand do you right with? This hand. Okay, perfect. Three, two, one, pull. Oh my God.

Nice. So we cover that. Last Thursday evening, we were broadcasting the Medical Center board meeting live on the radio. We're working on a Medicare interim rate review right now and we may need to repeat. And I have found through the years that we are providing a really good service when we broadcast the meeting in its entirety live. So yet you're not just hearing a synopsis the following morning from a

reporter. It's our call-in show with local officials from Petersburg Medical Center. We had the medical center officials in the studio for a live call-in program. People were calling up and asking questions. What's going to happen to our local rural hospital if the big beautiful bill passes. Okay, so a third of our funding is from Medicaid? Into various departments, yeah. We are the source of entertainment, information, and emergency events. We've hadami warnings. There was an earthquake down on Prince of Wales Island, just offshore, and the Tsunami Warning Center

put out a tsunami warning. The medical center was able to evacuate all of the long-term care residents and got them up to the ball field, our highest point on the island. Safety response to a tsunami is to get to 100 foot above sea level. And being an island, we're all on sea level. And so KFSK, our staff came in that evening and we're on the air.

That was like at 2 a.m. We're calm, we're giving out, here's the facts, this is what to do. And then people are scared and they call and they want to be reassured and hear a calming voice of someone that they know. We get people through it. The main thing is because they trust us and it takes a lot to earn trust and you can lose trust real quick. And I can imagine that this kind of broadcasting becomes especially important during a big moment for the community, like in the instance of a pandemic. Yes. When COVID hit our news team here, and I, we decided to go live daily. We are preempting the local news today for a special live show and I'm joined in the studio today by three people from the Petersburg Medical Center and we assembled a panel. Again, we made it a call-in program. Caller on line one, you have a question or comment? Hey,

this is Harvey Gilliland. I'm wondering if coronavirus is exactly the same as COVID-19 and is there a COVID-18 and a COVID-20? Good questions. All very innocent good questions. I'm wondering when the pool is going to open. Okay Carl can you handle that? Are you still with us? It started like that and then it became more and more and more contentious. The way I understand this is not everyone who gets this virus is going to die. This is not a panic in spite of the media making us all terrified. This is an overkill, I think. Thank you. Okay, thanks for the comment. And any further comments? The phone calls went from informational questions to questioning the science that they were hearing.

I know for a fact if you wear one of these masks, it cuts your oxygen level. I've seen several doctors mention that. They just vehemently disagree. Okay, so you're not willing to wear a mask? Well, like I said, is anybody even looking at the science behind this? Sort of an accusation of this is a plan to take away our freedoms. Because the city came out with a mandate that if you are in a public location, you must have a mask on.

And the health experts that you guys were featuring on the show were backing that up. Yes, they were backing that up. Okay, well, thanks for the call. We're gonna end on that note. It was a very contentious time. And then the don't tread on me flags started popping up around town

and anti-government feelings just really, really mushroomed out of control almost. And it continued to the point where Joe, the news director and I came to the realization that we were no longer serving the public good by having the call-in portion of it. Because we felt we've got a responsibility that we should not be broadcasting misinformation and then that then created more backlash.

And because KFSK was platforming the science, is it your understanding that up until this point, the station was largely considered neutral and of the community, but then suddenly this programming, this COVID coverage, in conjunction with this politically divided moment, it made it seem like the station was taking a side. Yeah, looking back on it, that's exactly what happened.

I'd say that it became equivalent to a liberal bias, even though I don't think there's anything liberal or conservative about the American Medical Association or the CDC. I don't think there's anything liberal or conservative about the American Medical Association or the CDC, I don't think it's political. But that's my opinion. I think others did think it was political. And people that we thought were strong supporters of the radio station started withholding their financial support going forward and, more importantly, kind of festering that feeling and spreading it on Facebook and bad-mouthing the radio station.

And it had an effect. We were losing members, we were losing underwriters, we lost some volunteers. I mean, it affected us financially and it affected us as staff personally. I think, you know, it's a small town. There were and still are friendships that have been frayed and perhaps will never recover. LESLIE KENDRICK, HOST, CURRENTLY, CURRENTLY, AND FAST FORWARD TO TODAY, CAN YOU HELP ME Fast forward to today, can you help me understand how what happened during your broadcast of COVID relates to what's happening now with broader cuts to NPR? It cemented people's opinions, I think. Those that maybe were on the fence, were prone to dislike public broadcasting to begin with, thought that even KFSK is locally tainted.

But those that were strong supporters and those that trusted KFSK, I think their relationship with KFSK got stronger. Here's the thing, I've got members donating to KFSK that dislike NPR. All of them like KFSK, those that are donating. They donate to us because they like our local service and they want to see us continue. They know that what we do is unique and vital. And they know, even if they don't like NPR, they know that this attack on NPR by going

after CPB funding is going to hurt KFSK. We'll be right back. Well, Tom, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is because public radio stations like yours are at risk of losing federal funding. The House has passed a bill, and now that bill is with the Senate. If this passes as law, what would happen to your station, KFSK? Our service would be drastically altered. The CPB funding that we receive is 30% of our budget. As Public Radio does, we rely on membership donations, and that is our largest

single source. Our second largest single source funding is CPB funds. And without that 30% you get from the federal government, what are you contemplating? As far as the expenses go, personnel expenses are 65% of our budget. And how many personnel do you have on staff right now? Five, and there's two high school kids that help us out when we're doing live broadcasts in the evenings. And going forward, I foresee KFSK eliminating all staff except for two. And both of those, I would like to see it remain two reporters. If you were to go down to one reporter, you're on an endless cycle of burnout.

And is it my understanding that with 30% cut, you could still survive? Or is taking KFSK off the air an option you're contemplating? I don't think you'd ever have to go off the air because the infrastructure is here, the antenna is here, but it wouldn't be locally run anymore. It just couldn't be. Right now we have 27 individual public radio stations in the state of Alaska. I think that's going to go down to two, maybe three if this rescission goes through.

It's not going to happen immediately, but it's going to go down to two, maybe three, if this rescission goes through. It's not going to happen immediately, but it's going to go that route. And that's what's under threat here. It's not necessarily NPR going away. It won't be. NPR is not going to go away. It's 1% of their budget. NPR can certainly continue on, but many, many, many local community radio stations across the country are going to go either completely dark or dramatically reduce local services

dramatically. If they want to hurt NPR, they're going about it wrong. A couple of local comments that I've had of people that are like, I'm not going to renew my membership with KFSK this year because I am sick and tired of NPR. And then you explain to them that 50% of our broadcast day is local. The other 50%, maybe 20 of it is NPR. Quite a bit of it is BBC. We have the equal amounts of BBC and NPR news. So you're saying it's separate, that as you say on the radio, there is NPR programming and then KFSK reporting. Right. And what we have control over is local. I have no control over the

editorial content of NPR. I have no control over that whatsoever. In fact, I have myself, as a station manager, contacted them many times over the years with complaints. I think there are certain subject matters that are covered heavily that are not necessarily representative. They're certainly not representative of the audience that I serve.

Is there a specific story that you're thinking about, maybe one that you wrote to NPR about? I don't know. What comes to mind is the propensity for the LGBTQ plus stories. I don't believe that the percentage of the stories that that subject matter has is equivalent to the, certainly the service area that I have.

And I'm not saying that people are not caring about others. I'm not saying that at all. I get the editorial decision on it. It's under threat. But I'm just saying what is pertinent in your personal life. And I think this holds for Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, wherever you are, small town, rural areas. To me, it sounds like the editorial decisions are being made for the audiences that are

in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, you know, the big metro areas. And on occasion, there is a great story that NPR does that covers small town America or relates to small town America plenty of times. I'm not saying that they totally have a blind eye towards it. I just think the target audience that NPR has is metro areas. And what would you rather hear get coverage by NPR? Well, what's the effect of the tariffs on the farmers of America, the seafood industry of America?

That would really resonate here locally. Now, to be fair, NPR does cover those stories. They feature soybean farmers. I'm looking at a story about US shrimpers being happy about tariffs. They're covering those stories too. I agree. And I'm the first one that I say that to somebody who comes into my office and says, hey, and they give me a complaint. I will say, well, here's the stories that

were covered just recently. For the most part, NPR News is very, very good quality programming. It really is. I don't think NPR has a liberal bias. I do think that they could improve upon their standing with conservatives in the nation by doing a better job in their editorial decisions at times. And, you know, and I know this isn't a popular thing to say And, you know, and I know this isn't a popular thing to say among NPR stations. And what you described as feeling like there's a slant in the NPR programming, is that something that's shared by people in town? What are people in town saying about the NPR programming? So I wrote, it was an email blast that I went out to KFSK members. The email I sent out said, on June 3rd, the White House requested that Congress defund the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then here's how you can help, contact our federal delegation. And I finished it, thank you for advocating for KFSK and for public media at this critical time. And then I got a response, and this one was interesting. It says, Tom, I wrote an email to all of our representatives. One piece of advice, some of the programming is outright offensive to a lot of people. Everyone with foreign accents is complaining about their rights. I quit listening to most of NPR simply because I'm sick of hearing about LGBTQ rights and pride and whatever. Stick to the news and solid entertainment programs."

So this is interesting. This is somebody who doesn't like the NPR content, but supports the local, your local station, and thus is writing to Congress saying, please do not defund these stations. Yes, and he's one of our major donors. But also clearly through those comments, is kind of tired of NPR. Well, what they may be responding to is a real change in how NPR has sounded in the past few years. Just before the pandemic, NPR's then CEO

had made a decision to make sure that NPR sounded more like the rest of America. He emphasized the need for diversity in both its staffing and story selection. And I guess I wonder, like, shouldn't you be able to hear stories that reflect the rest of the country even as you're listening to the radio in Petersburg? By all means. Not that those are issues that shouldn't be covered.

It's just how often do you cover it? And what are you not covering when you cover this? Knowing that there are complaints from your listenership about NPR content, I mean, why can't you just, as a station manager, break away from that program and only broadcast local reporting? Well, that's a really good question, one that I have contemplated many, many times.

And it's because I believe the service is good. It's important. In the $650,000 local budget that we have, KFSK pays NPR $7,000 for its programming. And so I don't know what percentage of that is, but that is quite small. That's 7,000 just for clarification is for programming you get to air on KFSK that includes morning edition and all things considered?

Correct, and some of the cultural programs that we get. There's no alternative. I've had people say that before to me. I mean back when Rush Limbaugh was alive in broadcasting, they were like, why don't you carry Rush Limbaugh? It's like because we can't. He doesn't make his program available to public broadcasting and if he did, I don't think I could afford it. And to get the NPR content, it's only costing you $7,000. And that's just because we have a statewide group buy, and NPR makes it affordable to

us. I just don't think, I think it would be a big hole. I think there would be just as many people, if not more, that would yell at the radio station, well, where is Morning Edition? How come you got rid of NPR News? Well, what do you make of the argument, coming largely from Republicans, that today's media landscape is not like it was in 1967

when the Public Broadcasting Act was made into law, that more places in remote areas of the country, like in Alaska, now have more access to broadband, to the internet, to news sources, and that in this environment, render stations like yours more obsolete? I'll ask any one of them to come on up here, and I'll send them out to places where there is no broadband.

And I'll take them on not even three miles from where I'm sitting right now in our broadcast studio, where there is no cell phone coverage. Three miles away. We have got holes where Alaskans live. They're in a media desert. It's an amazing short-sightedness to handicap an infrastructure that was put together on public dollars over 60 years and then just cut it off.

It's just an irresponsible act. Republicans might say that if there truly is a demand for emergency services, for local reporting that if KFSK ever goes off the air or public media goes off the air that the market would respond. And I wonder for you like... I think that's naive. Why doesn't it exist now? Well, maybe because public media exists. No, I think it's because they can't make a dollar doing it. It's a losing operation. It's a public service. It is not a business

This is a nonprofit what we're doing with six hundred thousand dollars annually is amazing the amount of service we provide is amazing So again, they can cut CPB funding to try to hurt NPR But what they're really gonna do is hurt small town Service and then yeah, and then here we are in Petersburg. When are you gonna hear about the budget discussion that the Petersburg Bureau Assembly is discussing? You're gonna hear about it a week after the fact on Thursday when the local newspaper comes out. And we wouldn't have our school board meetings.

I don't think we'd be broadcasting the high school basketball games from out of town or in town. It's all the stuff, all the stuff. So everything that has come to define KFSK would be lost? It would be lost. I mean, given that the station is listened to by everyone in town, it seems like, and functions as such a glue to the community, if KFSK went away, what would living in the town be like?

Would it feel like living in a different town? Yes, it very much would. It very much would. It very much would. We hear it from people that have moved away and they still listen to us, you know, they stream KFSK and they say, yeah, what I got here, it's just not the same. Well, Tom, thank you so much for your time and sharing the story of KFSK. Well, thanks, Jessica. I appreciate it. Congressional Republicans face a deadline of next Friday to cut funding to public media.

If they don't, the funds will be distributed, as planned, to public radio stations including KFSK. Resistance to the cuts is growing among Republicans, including Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who said that the loss of funding would be, quote, devastating for our local stations. But on Thursday night, President Trump pushed back, calling public media a quote, monstrosity, and saying that he would refuse to support or endorse any Republican who votes to keep funding it.

We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. On Thursday, a federal judge blocked President Trump from enforcing his executive order ending birthright citizenship by certifying a lawsuit as a class action. Certified class actions are effectively the only way that federal judges can stop Trump's attempt to end birthright citizenship after the Supreme Court restricted the use of universal injunctions, which other judges had used to block the order. And the Secret Service is suspending six agents involved in securing the site in Pennsylvania,

where a gunman tried to assassinate President Trump last summer. The suspensions range from 10 to 42 days without pay. Multiple investigations have found that there was a significant breakdown in communication, both within the Secret Service and between the Secret Service and local police who were trying to secure the site. Today's episode was reported and produced by Jessica Chung. It was edited by Maria Byrne with help from Ben Calhoun.

Fact Check by Susan Lee, contains original music by Marian Lozano and Dan Powell, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsberg of Wunderly. Special thanks to Benjamin Muller. That's it for the Daily. I'm Michael Boboro. See you on Monday.