The rollback, however, will have a serious impact on rural communities, where public radio is\u00a0a disseminator of news and entertainment, and a lifeline during public emergencies and natural disasters,\u00a0according to residents, media\u00a0interests\u00a0and others\u00a0who spoke to\u00a0CBC News.<\/p>\n
Johnson thinks public spending probably needs to be “reined in” in certain areas.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“But this is an area that has been very troublesome,” she said. “I am greatly concerned.”<\/p>\n
She added she’s worried about whether this move infringes\u00a0on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.<\/p>\n
“I feel like one of our freedoms, our First Amendment rights, is being upheld with the radio station.”<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/gwen-johnson.jpg\")
Gwen Johnson, a non-profit professional and former radio programmer in Jackhorn, KY., says she’s concerned about the impact of the Rescissions Act on public radio. (Submitted by Gwen Johnson)’It’s pretty overwhelming’<\/p>\n
Federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is\u00a0part of the $9.1 million US worth of cuts outlined in the Rescissions Act, which rescinds congressionally approved funding allocated to public broadcasters and foreign aid.<\/p>\n
Congress approved the cuts on Friday morning, sending the package<\/a> to Trump’s desk for his final signature.<\/p>\n The CPB, a private corporation,\u00a0disseminates some $1.1 billion to NPR, PBS, and local TV and radio stations across the country\u00a0every year, with the bulk of its operating budget<\/a> set aside for direct grants to local public radio stations.<\/p>\n Senator Mike Rounds said last week that he had secured a carve-out\u00a0for more than a dozen Native American radio stations\u00a0in which they’d receive funding from the Interior Department. But it’s unclear if that has been approved\u00a0or how much it would help<\/a>.<\/p>\n LISTEN | Why the future of U.S. public media is at risk:<\/p>\n Information Morning – NSWhy the future of public media in the U.S. is at risk<\/p>\n The Trump administration wants to cut $500 million per year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0The CEO of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network explains what this could mean, including how it would affect roughly 1,500 local radio and TV stations.<\/p>\n Already, some community radio stations are looking at different funding models and revenue streams to offset the blow of the cuts. One of them is\u00a0the aforementioned Kentucky station, WMMT\u00a088.7.<\/p>\n Based in the heart of coal country, it has operated for nearly 40 years. Outside Kentucky, its signal stretches into Virginia, West Virginia, parts of East Tennessee and a bit of Southeast Ohio, reaching 18,000 people weekly, according to the station’s Nielsen survey data.<\/p>\n “It’s hard to imagine,” said Roger May,\u00a0director of artistic\u00a0programs at Appalshop, an independent Appalachian media company. WMMT is its flagship radio station.<\/p>\n “I mean, I’m looking at it through the lens of our community radio station, and when I pull back and try to imagine what that’s like for all the other stations, it’s pretty overwhelming.”<\/p>\n About a third of the station’s funding comes from the CPB, and a clawback on that money would drastically impact its operations over the next two fiscal years, according to May.\u00a0It currently has one full-time employee and relies on a network of local disc jockeys to run its programming.\u00a0<\/p>\n The station’s development team is looking for ways to source the money from elsewhere.\u00a0It has long received support from within the community \u2014 some small businesses, including a bakery that Johnson manages, serve as underwriters for the station.<\/p>\n “It isn’t a political issue. It’s a community service issue, one that everyone is going to be impacted by who relies on community radio stations and public radio in\u00a0the country,” said May.\u00a0<\/p>\n “We’re just one example of many in the country of rural spaces that really do rely on something as simple sounding as community radio. It really is a vital key in how we share information.”<\/p>\n An emergency service<\/p>\n When widespread flash flooding hit eastern Kentucky three years ago, WMMT\u00a0\u2014 after being briefly knocked offline\u00a0\u2014 became a vehicle for disseminating public service announcements, news and “a slice of normality” as people recovered from the disaster, said May.<\/p>\n When Hurricane Helene made landfall in the U.S. last year, devastating parts of North Carolina, another community radio station shared a constant stream of updates and emergency guidance from the government.<\/p>\n “We hear\u00a0stories upon stories of people telling us, ‘OK, well, we got a crank radio or we had a crank radio, and we knew you’d be on,'” said\u00a0Ele Ellis, CEO and general manager at Blue Ridge Public Radio in Asheville, N.C.<\/p>\n Some would crank up the volume and\u00a0put the radio\u00a0on a\u00a0mailbox, and neighbours\u00a0would gather to listen, as the story goes, while\u00a0the station reported on\u00a0water distribution sites \u2014 Asheville’s water system had shut down.\u00a0“That’s what they had to do to get information that was going to help them live,” said Ellis.<\/p>\n Blue Ridge covers more than a dozen counties in the western part of the state, reaching about 90,000 listeners on a weekly basis.<\/p>\n “We hit every valley and every mountain in this 14-county area. So there are people that wouldn’t get any other public radio if they didn’t have us,”\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n The station stands to lose about six\u00a0per cent of its budget, or $330,000 a year, because of the cuts. That could lead to job losses\u00a0or\u00a0taking down signals in communities where it’s more expensive to keep signal towers operating, said Ellis.<\/p>\n The U.S. uses an emergency alert system that blares out over the radio’s AM and FM channels, overriding other programming to deliver crucial information during a national emergency. But the integrity of that system is at risk without public funding, critics of the Rescissions Act have argued.<\/p>\n “If there’s a tornado watch, tornado warning, a flood watch, a flood warning, a blizzard, anything Mother Nature could dole out \u2014 people can know it’s coming,” said Ellis.<\/p>\n That would change\u00a0without the funding, and if people don’t notice a change right away, they might not understand the role that public radio plays in a community, she added.\u00a0<\/p>\n “But they don’t think about what happens in eight months, when one of our towers fails for some fairly fixable reason, that we’re going to have to make a decision about whether we want to spend money on that tower.”<\/p>\n Trump’s battle with public media In May, Trump signed a separate executive order calling on the CPB to cease funding<\/a> to NPR and PBS, though the organization has argued<\/a> it’s not a federal agency subject to Trump’s authority.<\/p>\n The president has also frequently criticized NPR and PBS for what he characterizes as left-wing bias, framing funding cuts as\u00a0an end to “taxpayer subsidization<\/a> of biased media.”\u00a0The leaders of both organizations testified before a House oversight committee in March in response\u00a0to the allegations of ideological bias.\u00a0<\/p>\n NPR’s CEO has argued the cuts would be a risk to public safety, and Rep. Lisa Murkowski\u00a0\u2014 one of two House Republicans to vote against the Rescissions Act\u00a0\u2014 argued that public broadcasting saves lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt\u00a0disagreed, saying, “I am not sure how NPR helps the public safety of our country, but I do know that NPR, unfortunately, has become really just a propaganda voice for the left.”<\/p>\n Public radio plays a vital role in the small communities where these cuts would hit hardest, both on a daily basis and in emergency scenarios, said\u00a0Laura Lee, a former NPR producer and editorial director of NC Local, a statewide media organization in North Carolina.<\/p>\n “We’re talking about communities where local news outlets have shuttered, where there’s not access to quality, vetted, independent news and information that people need about their school board, about their city\u00a0council, about the agriculture industry in their communities.”<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/roger-may.jpg\")
The funding cuts are ‘hard to imagine,’ says Roger May,\u00a0director of artistic\u00a0programs at Appalshop, an independent Appalachian media company. (Roger May)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2178900307.jpg\")
A van stands sunken with other debris in the Swannanoa River in Asheville, N.C., on Oct.20, 2024, after Hurricane Helene devastated the area. (Jim Watson\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/npr.jpg\")
An April 15, 2013, photo shows the headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) on North Capitol Street in Washington, D.C. (Charles Dharapak\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n