The Corporation For Public Broadcasting’s reductions are existential for Scott Smith.
He is the general manager of Allegheny Mountain Radio, which he runs alongside programme manager Heather Nidly. The spending and tax cuts were slashed as part of the massive spending and tax cuts bill signed into law in July, according to US President Donald Trump. As a result, the station, which has been on air for more than four decades, lost 65 percent of its funding.
We are here to support our communities by providing them with news, entertainment, emergency alerts, and school closings. We do lost and found pet notices. Funeral announcements are what we do. We have a listing of community events that is read multiple times a day. Weather forecasting is done by us. We’re a critical part of the community”, Smith told Al Jazeera.
The US Congress can revoke funding that had already been approved by the Trump rescissions bill, which also removes $ 9 billion in funding, including $ 1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). At the end of September, those funds officially dried up.
The previous Congress had already allocated the funds for 2026 and 2027’s public media. Now stations are scrambling to find ways to fill the holes.
Following the publication of a suggestive letter allegedly written by Trump to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for his birthday, the Trump administration has pursued news outlets that have covered him, including the Wall Street Journal. In September, he tried to sue The New York Times for allegedly being a “virtual mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party.
Because of federal tax dollars, he has a significant influence over the public media. The White House first signed an executive order to defund public media in May. Because Congress makes funding decisions, not the White House, that was quickly blocked.
Next, Trump pressured Congressional Republicans to put forth the rescissions bill that fulfilled the mission of his previous executive order. In May, the White House made a list of NPR and PBS segments with liberal bias, which included numerous segments about the trans community’s experiences, to support his call for cuts.
The White House also cited a report alleging PBS favoured Democrats. The openly partisan Media Research Center, which claims to promote conservative values, released that report.
A key, but overlooked, problem with the cuts is that they overwhelmingly harm stations that do not even cover the White House or much national politics at all.
One of those stations is Allegheny Mountain Radio (AMR). Comprising three affiliates for three counties straddling the West Virginia and Virginia border, on their airwaves, listeners will find gospel, folk and country music, as well as coverage of local football games and town hall meetings.
The national newscast for NPR is accompanied by AMR, and more importantly, it serves as the on-the-ground voice when bad weather strikes.
Unlike in other regions of the county, there is no other alternative to get real-time local news. The nearest neighborhood news station is a few hours away, separated by winding country roads. When there’s severe weather, AMR is the only way locals get vital information like road closure announcements because of floodwaters.
“Just a few years ago, we received a pour of rain pouring down and drew down parts of the county. At that point, when something like that happens, the radio station really is the only way to get that information out quickly to our listeners and let them know where it’s happening”, AMR programme manager Nidly told Al Jazeera.
Because of its close proximity to the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) near the Green Bank Observatory, which restricts the use of radio frequency and other signal methods so that they do not interfere with their equipment, AMR is in a region of the nation where cellphone signal and wireless access are sparse. This requires special equipment to point radio signals away from the observatory.
There is only a passing amount of business case for a station given the low population density in the area. But there is a case for public service. AMR is used by the community for emergency alerts, even on a personal level. During major storms, Smith said, people have shown up at their stations when their phones stopped working, asking if AMR could broadcast a message to let their family and friends know they were safe.
Due to limited local talent and resources, these stations may not receive the same level of donor support as larger public stations across the nation despite their strong community focus.
It is trying. The station is actively looking for donations on its website to keep afloat.
While small community stations – like those serving Bath and Pocahontas Counties in West Virginia, and Highland County, Virginia, through AMR – don’t produce national newscasts or air segments that ruffle feathers in Washington, they are still the ones that are most at risk of being hit hardest.
“These cuts will have a negative impact on small stations like ours,” said one station. We feel like we are the baby that got thrown out with the bathwater because there’s so much emphasis on the talking points around NPR and PBS. According to Smith, “the rest of us, the small community stations, have completely been forgotten in this equation.”
The cuts, however, hit stations across the US in big markets too. New York City’s WNYC lost 4% of its funding. WBUR in Boston, San Francisco’s KLAW, and KERA in Dallas, Texas, all saw 5 percent cuts.
As their hosts say during pledge drives, stations like these have sizable donor bases or “listeners like you.” Big market stations might be able to make up the difference, says Alex Curley, a former product manager at NPR who recently launched a platform called Adopt A Station, which shows which public media stations are at most risk of losing funding.
“When you think about stations that receive 50% or more of their revenue from the government, it’s not because they’re asking for a handout. It’s a literal public service for those stations”, Curley told Al Jazeera.
However, that donor base is less plentiful in counties with a sparse population and a limited economy. That’s the case with AMR.
“Our area is very rural,” he said. We are an area where there are not a whole lot of businesses. Therefore, Smith continued, “There is no way that that amount of income can be recouped by additional donations or underwriting.”
In a July Substack post, Curley, who was involved in NPR station finances until he left the network in 2024 amid layoffs, said that 15 percent of stations are at risk of closure. His website has offered a temporary rest.
“I only expected maybe a few dozen people to visit the site. A few donations that went to a station in danger would be my greatest hope. It’s]the website] been shared thousands of times. I’ve even heard from stations that have been warned about closing. They told me they’re getting an influx of donations from out of state through the site. The response has been incredible, according to Curley.
However, he argues, this is a temporary fix.
When people forget about public media, in six months, a year, and two years, there will be real danger. These stations basically are losing federal funding forever. Although donations are fantastic in the immediate future, they will need to figure out how to keep donors engaged and money flowing to them, or they may close, according to Curley.
“Public radio is also a lifeline, connecting rural communities to the rest of the nation, and providing life-saving emergency broadcasting and weather alerts. In a statement released on July 18 following the Senate vote, NPR’s Katherine Maher stated that nearly 3-in-4 Americans rely on their public radio stations for news and alerts regarding public safety.
“In fact, while the Senate considered amendments, a 7.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Alaska, prompting three coastal stations to start broadcasting live tsunami warnings, urging their communities to head to high ground”, Maher said.
Maher declined to give an interview request to Al Jazeera.
PBS faces similar pressures, and many of its stations are also at risk of closure, according to Adopt A Station’s data.
“These cuts will have a significant impact on all of our stations, but they will have an especially negative impact on smaller stations and those that serve large rural areas. Many of our stations, which provide access to free, unique local programming and emergency alerts, will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead”, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger said in a statement after the Senate vote.
Al Jazeera requested more comment, but Kerger did not respond.
The push to defund public media isn’t a new one for the GOP. The media is not a fundamental part of government, according to republicans’ longstanding claims. In 2012, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he would eliminate subsidies to PBS – during a debate moderated, ironically, by then PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed to “zero out” CPB funding in the 1990s, arguing that it should be privatized. And in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan attempted to slash $80m from public media – roughly $283m today – though Congress blocked the move.
Following global reductions
Cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are the latest wave of the White House cutting back on government-funded media arms, including reductions to the US Agency for Global Media, led in part by senior adviser Kari Lake.
Former Phoenix, Arizona news anchor Lake is known for defying the 2020 election results, which saw Trump defeat Democrat Joe Biden for president. She is also known for promoting baseless conspiracy theories and for refusing to accept her own defeat for governor and senator bids in Arizona in 2022 and 2024, respectively.
Since mid-March, Voice of America (VOA), which hasn’t published any new stories or uploaded any new videos to its YouTube page, has been effectively shuttered by her.
Last month, a federal judge in Washington blocked the firing of workers at VOA, which affected more than 500 staffers. The Trump administration vowed to appeal the decision, branding it “outrageous.”
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcasts in 27 languages across 23 countries, faced challenges similar to VOA. With $6.2 million in emergency funding, the European Union has remained committed to keeping the network operational.
Representatives for the US Agency for Global Media did not respond to our request for comment.
Increasing threats to freedom of expression
These cuts come alongside other threats to freedom of expression in the private sector. Soon after the funding cuts were passed, Paramount made the decision to axe The Late Show. The host, comedian Stephen Colbert – a longtime critic of the president – had only days earlier called out Paramount, the show’s parent company, for settling a lawsuit with Trump.
Trump claimed that Kamala Harris’ interview with him for president in 2024 was fake, which led to the lawsuit. Although the network had initially called the lawsuit meritless, it ultimately settled for $16m. Colbert referred to the settlement as a “big fat bribe,” noting that Paramount had a planned merger with Skydance Media, which was owned by David Ellison, the son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a key Trump ally. The merger has since been approved. According to Paramount, the decision is purely financial in nature.
Months later, following stand-up comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk’s death, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr appeared on a right-wing podcast to criticise the remarks and urged Disney – the parent company of ABC, where Jimmy Kimmel Live airs – to cancel the show.
One of the largest TV station owners in the US, Nexstar Media Group, announced it would no longer air the program, pending FCC approval. Disney subsequently suspended the show, though the decision was short-lived, as it returned to the airwaves within a week.
