Last Friday, after the U.S. House of Representatives clawed back funding from public media, including NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WBOI's Travis Pope spoke with local Morning Edition host Brianna Barrow about the impact of the cuts.
Below is a transcript of their conversation.
Bri: Last night, Congress passed an order of rescission for, among other things, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, northeast Indiana. Public Radio, president and general manager, Travis Pope, is here to discuss the impacts of that decision with us. Good morning, Travis.
Travis: Good morning. Bri, so what's the state of WBOI? Following this decision, the state of WBOI is that we're still here providing you the news and music that you enjoy, and will do so for as long as we can.
Bri: So this is the second hit to WBOI. Is government appropriation this year, correct?
Travis: It is. So earlier this year, the state of Indiana also stripped funding for the Indiana public broadcasting stations, which we are a member of, that hit cost us about $60,000 every year, and we expect that this loss in funding will cost us another 143,000.
Bri: So how is this going to impact what listeners can expect from WBOI?
Travis: I would love to sit here in this chair in this room and this place, talking to you and all of the wonderful people here of northeast Indiana, and say that there will be no impacts, that we will be able to weather this exactly the way we are.
But that is not realistic.
I do expect that this will impact some programming. It absolutely will impact our ability to gather news. This absolutely will impact our ability to do the jobs that we were sent here to do. That being said, I came to Northeast Indiana after since in Texas and leaving my home state of Virginia, because for me, the idea that any community, no matter how big or small, would not have a public audio service, was intolerable, and the people who work here in this building see it the same way.
That's why I came. That's why we're still here. That's why we open those doors every day and will continue to do so.
Bri: Could you be more specific about some of those impacts and what those will look like?
Travis: Sure, because it's $143,000, on top of a $60,000 cut in one fiscal year, we are going to have to look at programming. We are going to have to look at staffing.
Those are realities. None of those realities are things that sit well with me, but we are where we are in any opportunity we can to make sure that we keep broadcasting to you. We will, because that is the job you've sent us here to do.
Bri: And how can listeners help?
Travis: Sure. At wboi.org, if you go to wboi.org/save you can find, you will find a list of actions that you can take. Obviously advocating at this point wouldn't be helpful into the next budget cycle, but you can make a donation of support there.
You can send us nice notes, if you would like. Those are the things that we're focusing on now.
How to make sure that we continue making this audio service working on your behalf, because as long as you are willing to fund it, we will be here every day, Monday through Friday, and, sometimes on Saturday with Bri, making sure that we can keep these programming, these programs alive.
Bri: Travis, thank you so much for your time this morning.
Travis: Thank you for having me.
Bri: That's Travis Pope, president and general manager of northeast Indiana Public Radio, speaking about the rescission act of 2025 and its potential impacts on WBOI.
