Lights Out: Rural Kentucky is Losing Reporters to the GOP Agenda

Nat Turner is a former WKU broadcasting student and journalist. She is now Director of Communications for the Kentucky Democratic Party.

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The lights are going out west of I-65. Rural Kentucky is losing reporters.

“Effective October 1st,” reads a somber message from WKU Public Media, “we have reduced our staff by a third.” At a time when no one can afford to lose a job, that’s eight jobs lost — eight people who would otherwise be broadcasting news and weather alerts to families in one of the smallest media markets in the country.

As a WKU broadcasting intern, I saw firsthand how much my radio mentors could do with so little. 65% of Kentucky can hear the station’s broadcast, and the people who just lost their jobs always made sure their news coverage matched that reach, even when the funding didn’t. Through the constant rush of budget-bending and on-air fundraising, public media employees are often the only reason we find out what our mayors, school boards and lawmakers are doing.

Unfortunately, as a direct result of votes by Congressman Brett Guthrie and the rest of Kentucky’s Republican Congressional Delegation, we just lost more of these public servants than I can count on one hand.

Congressman Guthrie, whose district includes WKU Public Media, joined the rest of his party in voting to claw back $1.1 billion from public broadcasting. This wasn’t a future cut; these Republicans voted to yank already-approved funding away from stations like ours — stations that were counting on having that money to keep the lights on and keep you in the loop.

Ultimately, while this is a huge blow to rural journalism, it is not going to stop the journalists at our station’s affiliate NPR from producing stories that help us hold elected leaders accountable. Nor will it stop our station, but only one of those outlets just had to lay off a third of its staff because of Guthrie’s vote.

Taking this money back was a cruel and cynical act of political grandstanding. Kentuckians deserve to know what’s happening in their neighborhoods. While we are blessed to have many great local newspapers, not everyone can afford to subscribe. Not every single parent has time to read.

Not everyone has talking points delivered to them by a Republican Party that is increasingly hostile to a free press.

Following in Guthrie’s footsteps, Kentucky’s Republican state lawmakers are already threatening to pull even more money from public broadcasting — from people delivering free news and educational programming to parts of Kentucky that are lucky to even have a library. We must not let politicians get comfortable with the idea of controlling the media, whether it’s pulling nationally-broadcasted comedians off air or firing the reporters who cover Christmas events at Mammoth Cave.

If Guthrie has nothing to be ashamed of, he should be happy that his district has local journalists willing to cover his time in office and broadcast it for free. The voices of WKU Public Media are the ones that his constituents commute to in the morning. If he and his peers continue to attack these locally-run news outlets, they will simply stop existing. We will all rely on news from Louisville and Lexington, and not even “big city” outlets can afford to check up on Hopkins County all the time.

Many Kentuckians may not know that NPR’s highest-paid reporter, Steve Inskeep, spent four years of his life learning from Kentucky journalists at Morehead State University. Just a few days ago, after coming back to interview Governor Beshear, he talked about what’s next for public broadcasting:

“NPR is in a very strong position,” he said. “There are some stations that are in less populated areas, more rural areas…and they're going to need more help.”

He’s right. They’re going to need more help to cover stories you care about and broadcast emergency weather alerts on time. They’re going to need more help to give you live access to your lawmakers in Frankfort. In a perfect world, they’d be getting help from those lawmakers instead of retaliatory threats.

The only way democracy works is if people know what they’re voting on. As WKU Public Media wrote in their layoff announcement:

“If there’s ever been a time to support your right to know, it’s now.”