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BumRushDaShow

(156,830 posts)
Sun Jul 20, 2025, 12:02 PM Sunday

Cuts to public media will smash budgets of some local radio stations

Source: NPR

July 20, 2025 12:01 AM ET


DUNMORE, West Virginia — When President Trump pushed to slash federal funding for public media, he said a key reason was because he thinks PBS and NPR are politically biased. But some of those hardest hit by Congress' decision last week to clawback $1.1 billion in federal funds are small radio operations that provide local news and information to rural communities.

One is Allegheny Mountain Radio, a cooperative of three stations which cover Pocahontas County, West Virginia as well as Bath and Highland counties in Virginia. Allegheny Mountain is not an NPR member station, but it does run NPR's daily newscast, a quick run down of top stories.

Allegheny Mountain's mix of programming includes local news and information as well as gospel, country and blues shows. A recent episode of the Noon Hour Magazine reported on a $5,000 signing bonus to attract new teachers and how the energy demands from data centers could eventually affect this remote region where people sometimes have to drive 60 miles to reach the nearest shopping center.


Allegheny Mountain Radio's WVLS, which sits in the picturesque mountain town of Monterey, Va., provides local government news, funeral notices and information on missing pets to listeners in areas where it can be hard to access cell phone signals and the internet.
Kristian Thacker for NPR


The show also featured a regular segment on missing pets, in this case a dilute calico with a stripe down its nose. "I have read a lost and found pet report for an emu that was wandering around the county," recalls Scott Smith, Allegheny Mountain's general manager. Allegheny Mountain relies on funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for up to 65 percent of its annual budget of about half a million dollars. Smith says his stations do have financial reserves, but the hole in their budget could become existential.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/20/nx-s1-5469908/trump-npr-public-community-radio-corporation-broadcasting-federal-funding-cuts

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walkingman

(9,576 posts)
1. This is so dumb. Just watching a gardening show on our local PBS. Almost everything on PBS is none political
Sun Jul 20, 2025, 12:13 PM
Sunday

and yet the GOP acts like it is the end of the world. And shows like the NewsHour are just good journalism.

What is wrong with the idiots? I honestly think they are fucked up mentally. Most of the crap they spew is just stupid.

Walleye

(41,453 posts)
2. I don't know how it is now but in the 80s I was working on a commercial salmon boat in Naknek, Alaska
Sun Jul 20, 2025, 12:17 PM
Sunday

NPR had the best local radio station I’ve ever listened to. And it was the only one we could get loud and clear out on the boat. It gave detailed reports on the fishing where the fish were running when the openings were, the tides. And every morning, five minutes of “Let’s Speak Yu’pik.”Local language, was very interesting. And we would get programs from NPR like “Lake Woebegone” and “Click and Clack”. Also neighborhood news like lost pets, like you said. I don’t know what this community would do without it. oh yeah, and there was no “leftist liberal indoctrination” or anything

Walleye

(41,453 posts)
6. Well, it was actually quite interesting because all the names of the rivers and towns were taken from the Yu'pik
Sun Jul 20, 2025, 12:31 PM
Sunday

But what are you gonna do with guys who live in Southern California and refuse to speak a word of Spanish. Because it is so woke or something.

littlemissmartypants

(28,456 posts)
8. And yet...
Sun Jul 20, 2025, 03:38 PM
Sunday

Every time the deplorable idiots say Los Angeles or San Diego & the like, they are speaking Spanish.

DBoon

(23,972 posts)
3. We need to donate to these stations
Sun Jul 20, 2025, 12:18 PM
Sunday

Maybe we can't replace all Federal funding, but we can show support from across the country

ProudMNDemocrat

(19,896 posts)
4. Point your fingers at those who voted for TACO Don and Republicans in general.
Sun Jul 20, 2025, 12:20 PM
Sunday

Remind them when they complain..."You voted for this!" Shout this on high volume.

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