"In the October 3rd, 2012 presidential debate, GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney made this remark:

I’m sorry, Jim, I’m going to stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m going to stop other things. I like PBS, I love Big Bird. Actually like you, too. But I’m not going to — I’m not going to keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for. That’s number one.

The suggestion that federal funding only goes to public television stations and programs such as Sesame Street are out of touch with where and who public media also serves. Romney (and others) pay no attention to the relatively few dollars that go to radio, and to the even fewer dollars that go to Native radio stations, for whom the dollars are the difference between survival and extinction.

Public media in Indian Country are comprised of non-commercial educational radio stations serving 53 Native communities. Native stations provide vital public safety, educational, civic, and economic news and information. Individuals, including Native Americans, cannot live without daily and vital information. If data are the raw material of the information age, these small Native stations are the backbone of communications for Indian Country. The very markets the Public Broadcasting Act was intended to serve when it was passed by Congress."

Get the Story:
Loris Taylor: Native Stations Will Be First To Go Dark Without CPB Funding (Native Public Media 10/4)