KSTK Local Content and Services Report –  February, 2024

1. Describe your overall goals and approach to address identified community issues, needs, and interests through your station’s vital local services, such as multiplatform long and short-form content, digital and in-person engagement, education services, community information, partnership support, and other activities, and audiences you reached or new audiences you engaged.

Our goals include being the core source for all local news and community information for Wrangell, Alaska. Other goals are to produce quality content, address local issues, present multiple community voices and viewpoints and encourage community participation. KSTK provides fact based news and information that is relevant to the lives of those who live here. KSTK delivers accurate health, education, community service, native issue, arts and culture information through our reporting, programming and public service announcements. KSTK is Wrangell’s LP1, providing essential Emergency Alert Services to the community when emergencies happen. We provide a full featured website and mobile platform and live stream in addition to our radio broadcast. KSTK’s staff is engaged with individuals, organizations, businesses and local government on a daily basis, keeping our attention focused on the needs of the public and paying attention to events that impact the daily lives of the people who live in Wrangell. We encourage and welcome the public to participate and be represented through our reporting, community conversations and on-air volunteer opportunities. KSTK is intentional about seeking local indigenous participation and input. This connection with community members guides us in making programming.

2. Describe key initiatives and the variety of partners with whom you collaborated, including other public media outlets, community nonprofits, government agencies, educational institutions, the business community, teachers and parents, etc. This will illustrate the many ways you’re connected across the community and engaged with other important organizations in the area.
Key initiatives include collaboration with Wrangell Emergency Response and the City and Borough of Wrangell. KSTK is the LP1 in Wrangell and when there is a community emergency, KSTK participates by getting facts about the incident from officials and informing the public of the specifics of the emergency and any action they should take. KSTK also collaborates with the City and Borough of Wrangell on our Borough Media Project where KSTK broadcasts, records and archives all Regular Assembly Meetings on our website so interested individuals can listen to recent or past assembly meeting recordings. We partner with Wrangell Public Schools offering technical, production and broadcast education to High School Students. KSTK works with Tlingit language instructor and students on Tlingit Language and Culture projects focused on recognizing, celebrating and preserving the local Tlingit culture. KSTK partners with Wrangell Cooperative Association Tl’átḵ Earth Branch to inform citizens about local recycling, composting, local water quality testing, community gardening and other efforts to preserve and revitalize the natural world in the traditional lands of the Shtax’héen Ḵwáan. The WCA intern joined us at KSTK last summer to produce informative PSA’s. KSTK announces the Tl’átḵ / Earth Branch monthly water quality findings. KSTK collaborates with media partners CoastAlaska, Alaska Public Media and National Native News. We contribute news reports to, and receive news reports from, Alaska Public Media and the CoastAlaska news team. We are members of Wrangell’s Chamber of Commerce and work to promote the missions of local non-profits. We work with a variety of agencies to get the word out about services including the State Department of Transportation, Department of Environmental Conservation, the USGS, Department of Fish and Game, the US Coast Guard the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services and many health care service non-profits and governmental agencies. Every spring through fall, we partner with the U.S. Forest Service on a weekly Recreation and Road Report that is produced at KSTK by Wrangell Ranger District staff. Each spring we work with the USFS during the Stikine Birding Festival to inform visitors and residents about the migration occurring on the Stikine River Delta and we play a game of “Name That Tweet” over the airwaves encouraging listeners to call in to identify bird calls. KSTK partners with the Nolan Center and Museum to inform people of visiting exhibits, new exhibits, performances and other arts and culture events.

 

3. What impact did your key initiatives and partnerships have in your community? Describe any known measurable impact, such as increased awareness, learning or understanding about particular issues. Describe indicators of success, such as connecting people to needed resources or strengthening conversational ties across diverse neighborhoods. Did a partner see an increase in requests for related resources? Please include direct feedback from a partner(s) or from a person(s) served.

Wrangell experienced a massive and fatal landslide that destroyed 3 homes and killed 6 individuals including three children. When this occurred, approximately 70 homes were isolated from town because the slide covered the only road connecting those homes with town. Those residents were without electricity, land lines, cell service and internet for about 10 days. KSTK was critical to getting accurate information out to the community during this disaster. Many folks living in the impacted area told us at KSTK that we were absolutely their lifeline to information about services and evacuation plans. Anyone with a battery operated radio was able to receive information even without electricity, phones or internet. Wrangell’s Mayor and other officials publically voiced their appreciation for KSTK. Our reporting included geologic and meteorological information about ground stability and rain saturation so people could make decisions about staying or evacuating. We spoke daily with the Department of Transportation on debris removal, repair and recovery of the highway so that people would know when the road was passable. KSTK is the community hub for emergency information and that fact was very evident during the disaster and in the weeks afterward. We received much love from the community in appreciation. People stopped by to say thanks and drop off food for radio staff who were working long days. People called and gave thanks during the many community events that followed.
KSTK’s collaboration with the Tlingit Language students and teacher shines a light on Tlingit language and culture and helps bring awareness in an authentic way. KSTK receives continued appreciation from all members of the community for the work students and teacher through the studios of KSTK. This work has inspired some in the community to start taking classes and broadening their knowledge and understanding of the people who have lived on and around Wrangell Island for thousands of years.
Our collaboration with the School District is appreciated especially during High School Basketball season when we work with students to video and audio stream games. Our Friday night music host is a student and produces one of our best radio shows incorporating his taste in music and interviews guests in the studio about topics that are fun and important to youth.

 

4. Please describe any efforts (e.g. programming, production, engagement activities) you have made to investigate and/or meet the needs of minority and other diverse audiences (including, but not limited to, new immigrants, people for whom English is a second language and illiterate adults) during Fiscal Year 2023, and any plans you have made to meet the needs of these audiences during Fiscal Year 2024. If you regularly broadcast in a language other than English, please note the language broadcast.

KSTK regularly asks for community input and stays connected with schools and service organizations to understand who is in the community and let community members know how to connect with KSTK. Our ongoing partnerships with WCA, the School District and other organizations helps to keep us engaged with all segments of our small community. The station has an open door policy and encourages participation. KSTK staff are actively engaged in learning more from indigenous people of Shtax’héen Ḵwáan including taking classes in language and culture. We use everything that we are privileged to learn in our daily lives in Wrangell whether in our personal lives or at work. KSTK offers Tlingit language programming and one Spanish language program. KSTK covers local tribal elections, celebrations and holidays. KSTK is always looking for ways to be more inclusive and actively participate in all cultures and segments of our community.

5. Please assess the impact that your CPB funding had on your ability to serve your community. What were you able to do with your grant that you wouldn’t be able to do if you didn’t receive it?
CPB funding is absolutely critical to KSTK’s ability to serve our community. Without the CPB grant, KSTK would not be able to broadcast or offer any web content to our community including any emergency alerts and emergency information. We can’t imagine experiencing another emergency such as the massive and deadly landslide without KSTK to let citizens know the facts and critical emergency information.

KSTK serves a rural Alaskan island community of approximately 2,000 people. Our population base and economic opportunities are not robust enough to fund the station through membership, underwriting, special events or local grants. Alaska’s Governor Dunleavy continues to veto funding for Public Broadcasting that our state legislators appropriate every budget session. Since Governor Dunleavy has been in office, Alaska stations have received zero funding from the state. If KSTK’s federal funding also goes away, KSTK will not survive and the people of Wrangell will be without a local Emergency Alert System, daily local fact based news and information as well as the cultural connections the station provides.