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Well, the next time you had a baffle, you might want to head for a TV around 6.30 pm. That's news time for the folks in southwest Alaska, but this broadcast is much different than what most of us are used to seeing, is bilingual. Rana McBride takes his behind-the-scenes at KYUK. They are the Yin and Yang of you big news, the Dan Rather and Andy Rooney of the Eskimo Wall. Adolf Lewis has a hard-nosed approach to news. Chilista Corporation officials like Felix Hess can count on Adolf to ask the tough questions, but why the corporation avoids holding its meetings in Bethel? On active, relishes the role of the crusty kermudgeon. What about the word light bulb, easy light bulb?
In Yupik, we call a light bulb, knock off chukwok. Literally, in English, imitation bladder, it was so dark this morning, I had to turn my imitation bladder on. But all joking aside, both men have a very serious and very important job. They are the medium between their people and the western world. A real sensitive, touchy term would be child sex abuse, penetrating a four-year-old. It's a good way to make it a good way to make it a good way to make it a good way. It bothers me a lot, especially when I'm doing a story about child sex abuse, child abuse, because my culture teaches us not to go around and talk about these things.
Ever since Adolf came to KYUK, he has struggled over the morality of doing news. At one point, he even left the station, complaining the very act of reading the news put him in conflict with his culture. John has the same love-hate relationship with his job. Is broadcasting natural for you? It's natural in the sense of telling stories, but it's unnatural in that we're talking about other people. I often feel awkward when I'm interviewing elders. We don't usually talk about other people. When I first started working in this field, I got into it because I was desperate for desperate for money, and IRS was behind my tail, telling me I either pay up my debt or
they do something, and I was just having a thread then. My heart changed, I guess, and I became committed to what I was doing. I was getting a lot of feedback, positive feedback from my elders from the community here in Bethel, and even the communities surrounding Bethel, I ran into elders who were telling me that I was doing a good job, I was making them understand, and that's what I always wanted to do. Make them understand what's going on out there in the political world, what's going out there in the economic world, what's going on in our country, elders, what's happening to their longevity program, is it being cut?
There's something about broadcasting and telling the information out that gives me a lift. If there's something important that people need to find out and hear about, and I deliver to them, it gives me a lift, it gives me a lift, when I tell other cultures about my culture. Recently National Public Radio carried a story of John's about the joys of Barry picking. It brought a pile of fan mail from all over the United States, one man wrote, that work of yours has probably done more for understanding the world's subsistence than any other
single thing. Humor is one tool John uses to transcend cultural differences. Besides being a newsman, John is also one of the voices and inspiration behind KYUK's lapstick radio feature Young Man Old Man, a routine he developed with Disjockey Pete Twitchel. The old man, the old man, the old man, the old man, and the old man did you hear about the governor's role to inform not only my people about what's going on in the world, but also now the
other culture about why we are the way we are. How to make them work together toward one common end with understanding to move together. For eight often John, the top priority is still their UPYX-speaking audience, but that at times can be a relationship a little too close for comfort. Good morning, this late-off calling from KYUK is Sergeant Closen. I'm calling to get information about the overdoose, the hunters, and greele. What Gillingock is Ados village and all too many times the subject of KYUK news stories involve relatives. And in this case, Ados knows both the hunters and the dangers they face. He's afraid. They may be stranded on an ice flow. I went through the same situation five, six years ago and I'm sure not how it feels like.
There's nothing in the horizon, you know, there's broader, there's snow, there's everything and you feel like your future is cut short. You feel broadcasters are lucky to have the kind of relationship John and Ados have with their audience. In fact, they depend on their listeners and viewers for help. Ados arrive, mispronounce the word or use the wrong word for a certain thing that we need to say. They're calls and collect it and, you know, it makes them proud, proud of that makes an Ados and I proud when we're corrected. The feedback is often quick and at least in one case, it was very easy to swallow. After the newscast, we said, well, thank you for listening to the new news and you pick and ended up by saying, guy, bar, which means, gee, I'm hungry and right after we stepped
out of the studio, the phone rang and somebody called and invited us both of us for over the best lunch we had in a long time, a Yupik lunch. Feeding the spirit of their listeners is something important too. Every night, John and Ados run a segment called Waves of Wisdom, featuring the wisdom of elders sent out across the airwaves. Most of the segments deal with hunting, fishing, survival skills, and cultural values. Some of the interviews have been surprisingly candid, like the one Adolf did with Elina Nick. The elder explains the custom of arranged marriages. She says she wasn't quite happy with her own parents' choice for her and rebelled by
not consummating the marriage, and she didn't undress. She just went to bed with everything, her cold, her pants, her boots, and she just didn't have sex for two years. Can you imagine that? Adolf hopes such juicy tidbits on the nightly news will keep the younger Yupik's tuning in. I think it, the station, the KY UK is playing a big role by letting people hear our language on the airwaves. I don't think it'll end up soon like the Yupik language did. Not right away, not for not in my lifetime and I had grandkids and kids knowing their lifetime is either, I don't think it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's anything.
Program
Yup'ik News Profile #1
Producing Organization
KYUK
Contributing Organization
KYUK (Bethel, Alaska)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip-127-08v9s8gc
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Description
Program Description
Yup’ik News Profile (for Assignment Alaska KTUU-TV); Yup’ik news profile for Assignment Alaska.
Program Description
Rhonda McBride hosts a feature on Yup'ik News with Kakianeq (Adolph Lewis) and Aqum'aq (Aqumgaciq - John Active).
Asset type
Program
Genres
News
Topics
News
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:11:02.535
Embed Code
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Credits
Copyright Holder: KYUK-TV, Bethel Broadcasting, Inc., 640 Radio Street, Pouch 468, Bethel, AK 99559 ; (907) 543-3131 ; www.kyuk.org.
Host: McBride, Rhonda
Producing Organization: KYUK
Speaker: Active, John
Speaker: Lewis, Adolph
AAPB Contributor Holdings
KYUK
Identifier: cpb-aacip-ef4e377997b (Filename)
Format: U-matic
Generation: Original
Duration: 00:10:55
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Citations
Chicago: “Yup'ik News Profile #1,” KYUK, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed July 30, 2025, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-127-08v9s8gc.
MLA: “Yup'ik News Profile #1.” KYUK, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. July 30, 2025. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-127-08v9s8gc>.
APA: Yup'ik News Profile #1. Boston, MA: KYUK, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-127-08v9s8gc