EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) – The Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations organization will eliminate its statewide team of reporters and editors at the end of the year.
The Indiana General Assembly defunded the organization, which has 17 public radio and television stations across the state, in April.
“This funding rollback directly affects the ability of stations to continue delivering these services at the scale and quality Hoosiers expect and rely on,” Mark Newman, IPBS Executive Director, said in a statement.
WNIN, the IPBS station located in Evansville, uses the coverage from the statewide reporting team on a daily basis.
Tim Black, President and CEO of WNIN, is hoping to fill those gaps in their daily content with more local news coverage.
“It’s certainly not going to be as vibrant or as full as it was before, but we will certainly be doing our best to try and fill some of those gaps,” Black said.
The IPBS budget cuts were around $3.675 million in annual funding, which amounts to about $446 thousand a year for WNIN.
Black said he was barely given any notice before the funding got cut.
“It happened, as they say, under the cover of darkness and behind closed doors,” Black said. “Was certainly not expected.”
Federal funding has not been cut yet, although Black said he is worried.
He is urging community members to contact their representatives.
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“They need to be contacting their senators right now,” Black said. “Whether they’re in Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, expressing their support for WNIN and why it would be important for senators not to vote to pull federal funding at this point, on top of our state funding.”
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