Trump Cuts to Public Media Threaten Native Stations That Protect Culture & Public Health, Issue Alerts

We speak to Loris Taylor, president of Native Public Media, about the Trump administration’s drastic defunding of public media and its impact on tribal nations. Fifty-nine tribal radio stations and one tribal television station that depend on federal funding will be among the first to face possible closure, putting some of the essential services that public broadcasting provides, including warning systems for missing Indigenous women and girls, at risk. Taylor shares how Native-led public media helps preserve Indigenous languages and helped keep communities informed during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. She fears that without these same resources and “with the climate crisis increasing, [we] are going to be operating on the margins of information and are not going to have real lifesaving information available to our citizens when they need it most.”