Local WKAR Station May Lose Significant Funding from Federal Spending Bill

WKAR became a public broadcaster in the 1970s but has existed for more than 100 years. The Michigan State University-based outlet produces programming for both the local PBS television station and National Public Radio.

That work, however, is in danger after passage of President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” in the House of Representatives. The federal spending bill cuts $1.1 billion in public media funding and would take back funding that was already approved.

ELi spoke with Shawn Turner, general manager of WKAR, about the possibility of losing more than $1.5 million in funding.

“Going back to the start of the [Trump] administration, we knew that during the current political cycle, that there would be challenges to federal funding for public media,” he said. “We’ve sort of had these kinds of challenges before, but we’ve weathered those challenges through strong grassroots campaigns and through working very hard to help members understand the value of public media and their communities.”

There are more than 1,500 public media stations in the United States and approximately 175 of them, including WKAR, have joint licenses for both NPR and PBS stations.

Losing the federal funding would mean a 16% reduction in the WKAR budget, Turner said.

“It would result in a complete restructuring of our organization, and it would have a significant impact on not only the way that we do business, but what services we are able to provide to our community,” he said.

WKAR has a full in-house production operation allowing it to create original content focused on the local community, including a local news operation. There are other ways the organization serves the community, Turner said.

“We have a very strong, robust education program here that works with parents and school districts across our region to hand out more than 10,000 books every year to underprivileged, underserved communities,” he said. “We have a radio reading service that’s been on the air for more than 50 years, that reads news and information [and] books to people who are visually impaired over the radio. And that’s a service that is driven by volunteers but also supported by federal funding. Services like that would be impacted.

“Essentially what we would lose here would be the ability to localize our content and to focus on what people here in mid-Michigan care about. And that’s where our real value is.”

WKAR has 52 employees, several of whom Turner said “have been here for decades, and they’ve committed their lives to public media because they believe in the work they do.”

Turner said that WKAR is lucky to have allies on the MSU campus and throughout the Greater Lansing community.

“We’re fortunate to live in a state where both of our senators have been strong supporters of public media,” he said

ELi reached out to Rep. Tom Barrett, who represents East Lansing in the U.S. House and voted in favor of the bill that takes funding away from public media. Barrett’s office did not respond to the request for comment.

Turner said WKAR has received a wave of support from the community, as many have called their legislators to advocate for public media. He said continued advocacy is important as the bill makes its way through the senate.

“We called on the local community to stand with us and have their voice heard, and this community came out,” Turner said. “They stood up, they supported public media and WKAR in particular, like we’ve never seen before. We’re talking about thousands of letters, phone calls, emails. Reaching out to members through social media. 

“We don’t want people to let up. Even though we [Michigan] have two senators who support us, what we want to do is make sure that those senators are armed with information to talk to other senators who may not support us. And so what we’re asking people in the community to do is to, first of all, reach out to our senators and thank them for their support and second, encourage them to talk to their counterparts in the senate who may not support us. Talk to them about what public media means to them in this community.”