Public Media Gears Up To Fight Elimination Of Federal Funding

In the wake of President Trump’s executive order to eliminate federal funding to NPR and PBS, and the White House’s just-released budget request proposing defunding public media — alleging a liberal bias in news reporting — public radio stations sure to be impacted by losing these needed funds via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are making their voices heard.

In a post on New York Public Radio’s website, President and CEO LaFontaine E. Oliver calls the move “more than a policy debate about the role of the federal government. It’s an attack on the free press, and the very idea of an American public sphere: where information and ideas flow freely, everyone has access to the arts, and neighbors are connected, to one another and to those in power.”

While a CPB statement said the White House had no legal authority over the company, and NPR called the order “an affront to the First Amendment,” Oliver warns that “if successful, the effort will exacerbate existing news deserts and create new ones, as public radio has become the main (or only) remaining source for fact-based local news, educational and cultural programming, and critical emergency broadcast services in many communities across the country.”

Even worse, he says, “It would lead to even more misinformation and disinformation, and a further retreat into hyper-partisan platforms. It has been well proven that the erosion of local news increases corruption and decreases voter turnout, civic engagement, and government efficiency.”

Other public radio stations, most notably those in markets a fraction of the size of New York, have stressed the importance of CPB funding, especially when it comes to keeping local listeners informed during an emergency, as West Virginia’s Blue Ridge Public Radio did Hurricane Helene last fall. “The public radio station was alerting people what was going on,” such as where residents hit hard by the storm could pick up water, Lisa Savage, a church volunteer during Helene, tells NBC News.

Tom Livingston, interim executive director of West Texas’ Marfa Public Radio — which, he says, is “the only radio service in a lot of the geographic area that we cover” — agrees that “it’s really essential in terms of if there’s news events, if there’s safety things that happen in the community.”

At Allegheny Mountain Radio, serving the West Virginia-Virginia border, which receives 68% of its annual budget from CPB, GM Scott Smith says, “We’re here providing basic-level services of information, emergency information, to our communities. And as part of that, we’re a pretty critical link in this area for the emergency alert system. When you take 60% of our income away, that’s not readily or easily replaceable.”

Teddy Wimer, GM of WMMT (88.7) in Whitesburg, KY, which receives 30% of its funding from CPB, notes that “We’re in an economically disadvantaged area of the country. Most of our listeners who really rely upon our programming don’t have the funds to ramp up their support.”

Meanwhile, in New York, NYPR’s Oliver says “the executive order will restrict New York Public Radio from using CPB funding to purchase programming or services from NPR. The budget request and executive order are only part of the administration’s ongoing effort to dismantle the American public broadcasting system as we know it. We expect even more to come.”

Just the same, he promises that “New York Public Radio will never retreat from its role as a beacon for news, culture, and civic connection. We will stand together with all of you and with public media stations nationwide — and we will get loud.”