Public Media as Crucial Service

I certainly believe that public media is crucial. Vital. Important. Critical.

We are here to serve our listeners with pretty kick-ass music. (Nearly all of our content and certainly all of our music is curated in-house by your friends and neighbors.)

We inform you of whatʻs going on locally. We give voice to people for communal problem solving. (Part of our license is to be an educational station, which presents information in the form of talk shows like Pets and People in Paradise and In the Garden On the Farm, but also to have Public Affairs programming like Kaua’i Soapbox and Out of the Box.)

We report emergency information as it happens. (Not only is it our mandate, it’s part of our mission to bring factual emergency response information. Our volunteers are trained in how to communicate official messages. I personally serve on two boards that attend to disasters so we get insider info.)

We believe wholeheartedly in our mission to preserve, perpetuate and celebrate Hawaiian culture. (Have you yet tuned in to our 24/7 Hawaiian Music Stream? Did you know we steward a very large library of Hawaiian music and have teamed up with the Hawaii State Archives to present even more?)

Media in general serves as an outside entity to report on government doings. It asks questions and is uncontrolled in a democratic society. Non-commercial media is meant to present information in a way that the listener can learn and draw their own conclusions. A society whose government controls the media intends for an uninformed populace, having removed one of the checks and balances. Uninformed people donʻt know when their rights are revoked and are oblivious to abuses of power on their behalf. 

Read here the Public Notice that announces the FCCʻs intent to investigate the cost-benefit analysis of current rules and regulations. Which sounds pretty great, but some of my radio colleagues nationwide consider the lifting of rules to be a handout to big business and the oligarch class, which in turn means a corporate/government control of media and the diminishment and criminalization of opposing broadcasted ideas. It is the downfall of community media, your voice, communal problem solving and those things that are crucial. Vital. Important. Critical.

“Next Wednesday, March 26, the Chief Executive Officers of NPR and PBS will testify before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) at a hearing titled, ʻAnti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountableʻ.” This is lifted from a newsletter from Protect My Public Media. Should the voices of NPR and PBS be silenced through the weaponization of fines and the revocation of nonprofit and noncommercial status like what happened to Voice of America, it would be devastating for an informed public and devastating for noncommercial media everywhere. It would be devastating for KKCR.

Now is the time to write a quick note to our government representatives. You can find the contacts for Hawaii State reps here at KKCRʻs Advocacy Page. Or do whatever you can do to let people know that this, among other parts of our day to day lives are at a crossroads and it threatens our safety and knowledge. 

And Iʻm not even saying this because itʻs my literal job to say it. Itʻs because I care. 

Much Aloha Always,

Your Pal,

Anni