Across the Country, Public Media at a Crossroads
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It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and the lobby of a glassy, modern building on 1st Avenue North looks like a stereotype of Seattle. People work on sticker-covered laptops, sipping espresso served by tattooed baristas at the independent café inside. Across the room, Sub Pop, the storied Seattle record label, sells records and merch. One sign at the front desk advertises the area as a safe place for LGBTQ people; another advises on navigating a potential encounter with ICE. Outside, the Space Needle looms overhead.
Some might expect a distillation of Seattle this pure on a TV show, trying to telegraph its location to viewers. Instead, this is the combined lobby and community space at the heart of KEXP, which since 1972 has been broadcasting to listeners in the Seattle area1 (and, since 2024, to San Francisco2). Behind tables filled with people chatting and working, DJ Larry Mizell, Jr., broadcasts from a glassed-in control booth; his live show is piped in over speakers throughout the room.
I’m at KEXP to take a tour of the station and learn more about their work. But admittedly, KEXP’s reputation precedes it. Since its launch as the scrappy project of University of Washington undergraduates, KEXP has become as much a part of Seattle’s social fabric as coffee, salmon, or passive-aggression. The station has leaned into that mantle, making its home in Seattle Center and rebranding itself as not just a radio station, but a “community arts organization,” as our guide tells us. She notes with pride that the lumber planks covering the exterior of the control booth were salvaged flotsam from Puget Sound; it doesn’t get more Seattle than this.
But if Seattle runs in KEXP’s blood, Washington, D.C. is increasingly on its mind. On July 18, Congress passed a bill that stripped two years of previously approved funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a non-profit corporation created by Congress in 1967 to steer federal funds to public broadcasters, with a goal to “inform, educate, and enrich the public.”3,4 On July 24, President Donald J. Trump signed the bill, called a “rescissions package,” into law.5 Days later, on August 1, the CBP announced it would shut down its operations entirely.6
Republicans who supported this effort framed the move as a justified response to alleged patterns of biased reporting from NPR and PBS. President Trump set the tone in a post to Truth Social on March 27, writing, “NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms … should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY.”7 Republican Members of Congress promptly took up the torch. Congressman Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) said in an interview that NPR has “completely showed itself to be an unnecessary — and quite honestly, because of the bias, the complete bias, self-admitted — a very inflammatory expenditure.’”8 No Democratic or independent Members of Congress voted for the package.
Accusations of biased reporting at NPR and PBS have dogged both networks for decades. As early as 1995, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich led a push to defund both, telling The Washington Post, “There’s nothing public about [public broadcasting]; it’s an elitist enterprise. Rush Limbaugh is public broadcasting.”9 Thirty years later, the 2025 rescissions package represented the culmination of a long-held conservative goal.
But to the extent that policymakers wanted to dismantle NPR, victory may have been more symbolic than practical. NPR typically received less than 2% of its annual revenue from CPB.10 Far more funding from CPB — approximately 70% of CPB’s annual budget — went to local public media stations.11 In the wake of these cuts, approximately 1,500 public TV and radio stations now confront unplanned major budget shortfalls. The crisis is most dire at rural and smaller stations, which relied more heavily on federal support.
While Members of Congress may have aimed to drive a stake into the heart of NPR and PBS, the more deadly blow may fall on the efforts of local broadcasters to support arts, culture, and community in the areas they serve.In Washington State and across the country, public media stations now face grave choices as they assess how to navigate the loss of millions of dollars in funding. While Members of Congress may have aimed to drive a stake into the heart of NPR and PBS, the more deadly blow may fall on the efforts of local broadcasters to support arts, culture, and community in the areas they serve.
KEXP stands to lose approximately $700,000 in the coming fiscal year, which according to KEXP’s Chief Programming Officer Chris Kellogg is about 4–5% of their annual operating revenue. Congress has “thrown us into a situation where we have no guidance,” Kellogg said in an interview. (As our interview began, KEXP played David Bowie’s 1995 song, ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’.) “It inhibits our ability to think big. I’m spending hours on this, instead of talking to programmers that push KEXP’s mission, and how we show up in the community. Instead of being able to focus on that with our staff, we’re focusing on this.”
Much like our tour guide, Kellogg emphasized that serving their listeners in real life as well as on the airwaves is “the highlight of our year.” He highlighted the annual live broadcast that KEXP conducts during Pride Month at The Wildrose12, one of the 38 lesbian bars that remain in the United States13, as well as the Juneteenth live broadcast that they have previously held at Midtown Square, in the heart of Seattle’s Central District.14 KEXP also maintains an ongoing collaboration with the Vera Project, an all-ages arts venue that has served as a gateway to the Seattle music scene for teenagers (and adults) for nearly 25 years.15
Asked about the impact that the CPB cuts would have on the station’s cultural programming, Kellogg said they sap focus and energy from efforts like community activations. “Even if stations can navigate that loss, the time and energy that we spend, the way we exist to educate the community, to serve as a cultural resource — that’s to me the most important message,” Kellogg stated.
Leaders at other stations struck a similar tone. When the station that would become KEXP began broadcasting, they got their first transmitter from KNHC, commonly known as c89.5. Owned by Seattle Public Schools, c89.5 is one of only a few radio stations to inform the music that appears on Billboard’s Top 40 and Dance music charts.16 Impressively, it also claims to have been the first radio station ever to play Lady Gaga’s music on the air in 2008.
“We believe that is true,” said June Fox, c89.5’s general manager, when asked about the urban legend. “Her label was sending CDs to stations around the country. When our Program Director Jon McDaniel heard the song, he knew instinctively it was going to be a hit and we started playing it.” More mind-bogglingly, Lady Gaga subsequently performed at c89.5’s home base of Nathan Hale High School in North Seattle in August 2008, which grainy footage available on YouTube corroborates.17
c89.5 allows high school students in Seattle Public Schools who are interested in media and broadcasting a uniquely global reach. “We are teaching students how to go on air, be on-air personalities…we’re teaching how to podcast, how to do multitrack production, things like that,” Fox told me. “They’re learning professionalism, they’re learning how to be on time, that their work product matters. They’re learning confidence. They’re learning how to speak for themselves and find their authentic voice and speak it. Those are such empowering things for students.”
c89.5 received 8% of its budgeted annual revenue from the CPB, or about $140,000 in 2025.18 Fox sounded upbeat when we spoke, saying that additional donations from listeners had covered much of that funding gap. “We had a young person write in with a one dollar bill,” she said. “I have no doubt that we’ll be able to continue.”
The loss of CPB funding, however, removes a long-term financing stream that stations will now have to work to fill, year after year. And beyond the Seattle metropolitan area – and the larger base of potential donors there – stations serving rural areas face a much grimmer prospect.
This is the case for Northwest Public Broadcasting (NWPB), which serves a vast swath of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho with radio and television programming. From coastal Forks, Washington, to tiny Cottonwood, Idaho, (population 822), NWPB reaches many rural listeners.19 “Some of the farmers tell us they have the station on all day in their tractors,” said Cara Williams Fry, NWPB’s general manager.
For these areas, public resources can be highly limited, making NWPB crucial as a source of information and connection. NWPB’s program “Explore Together / Exploremos Juntos” invites children aged 2–8 to in-person events that combine education with appearances by some of their favorite TV characters, like Curious George and Daniel Tiger – celebrity appearances that can make a toddler’s year.20 “That’s the secret sauce,” Williams Fry told me. “We’re having exciting events where they’re learning about STEAM. Arts are as critical to these conversations as everything else.”
NWPB will lose over $2 million as a result of the disappearance of CPB, or 20% of their annual funding.21 Bridging this gap in the long-term may require devastating cuts to the services that NWPB provides, or the staff that powers them. “Our entire mission is to serve the community; this will put a stranglehold on what we do.” Williams Fry admitted. “It’s been hard to take.”
Just a few weeks after the rescissions package, the effects of these funding cuts remain unclear. Station leaders are meeting constantly to sift through the CPB’s rubble for a path forward not just on funding, but on agreements governing royalty fees for the music stations play, as well as the Emergency Broadcasting System. Some emphasized not just the confusion and chaos caused by the funding cuts, but also a sense of bewilderment that Congress singled out their work serving local communities for punishment. People think that “this is about NPR and PBS, but it’s going to impact local kids in the Northwest,” said Williams Fry.
Years from now, NPR will still have urban listeners. The sharper pain will be local: a four-year-old in Pasco who doesn’t meet Elmo, a student who loses a podcasting class, a small-town station that falls silent. Whether the country notices will depend on whether it’s still listening.
1. https://www.kexp.org/read/2022/...
2. https://www.sfchronicle.com/ente...
3. https://www.npr.org/2025/...
4. https://cpb.org/abou...
5. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/...
6. https://www.npr.org/2025/...
7. https://nypost.com/2025/...
8. https://www.semafor.com/arti...
9. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...
10. https://www.npr.org/2025/...
11. https://cpb.org/abou...
12. https://www.kexp.org/pri...
13. https://www.lesbianbarproject.com/bar...
14. https://www.aclu-wa.org/even...
15. https://theveraproject.org/abo...
16. https://www.c895.org/abou...
17. https://www.youtube.com/watc...
18. https://www.c895.org/fede...
19. https://www.nwpb.org/abou...
20. https://www.nwpb.org/educ...
21. https://www.nwpb.org/fede...
Some might expect a distillation of Seattle this pure on a TV show, trying to telegraph its location to viewers. Instead, this is the combined lobby and community space at the heart of KEXP, which since 1972 has been broadcasting to listeners in the Seattle area1 (and, since 2024, to San Francisco2). Behind tables filled with people chatting and working, DJ Larry Mizell, Jr., broadcasts from a glassed-in control booth; his live show is piped in over speakers throughout the room.
I’m at KEXP to take a tour of the station and learn more about their work. But admittedly, KEXP’s reputation precedes it. Since its launch as the scrappy project of University of Washington undergraduates, KEXP has become as much a part of Seattle’s social fabric as coffee, salmon, or passive-aggression. The station has leaned into that mantle, making its home in Seattle Center and rebranding itself as not just a radio station, but a “community arts organization,” as our guide tells us. She notes with pride that the lumber planks covering the exterior of the control booth were salvaged flotsam from Puget Sound; it doesn’t get more Seattle than this.
But if Seattle runs in KEXP’s blood, Washington, D.C. is increasingly on its mind. On July 18, Congress passed a bill that stripped two years of previously approved funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a non-profit corporation created by Congress in 1967 to steer federal funds to public broadcasters, with a goal to “inform, educate, and enrich the public.”3,4 On July 24, President Donald J. Trump signed the bill, called a “rescissions package,” into law.5 Days later, on August 1, the CBP announced it would shut down its operations entirely.6
Republicans who supported this effort framed the move as a justified response to alleged patterns of biased reporting from NPR and PBS. President Trump set the tone in a post to Truth Social on March 27, writing, “NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms … should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY.”7 Republican Members of Congress promptly took up the torch. Congressman Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) said in an interview that NPR has “completely showed itself to be an unnecessary — and quite honestly, because of the bias, the complete bias, self-admitted — a very inflammatory expenditure.’”8 No Democratic or independent Members of Congress voted for the package.
Accusations of biased reporting at NPR and PBS have dogged both networks for decades. As early as 1995, then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich led a push to defund both, telling The Washington Post, “There’s nothing public about [public broadcasting]; it’s an elitist enterprise. Rush Limbaugh is public broadcasting.”9 Thirty years later, the 2025 rescissions package represented the culmination of a long-held conservative goal.
But to the extent that policymakers wanted to dismantle NPR, victory may have been more symbolic than practical. NPR typically received less than 2% of its annual revenue from CPB.10 Far more funding from CPB — approximately 70% of CPB’s annual budget — went to local public media stations.11 In the wake of these cuts, approximately 1,500 public TV and radio stations now confront unplanned major budget shortfalls. The crisis is most dire at rural and smaller stations, which relied more heavily on federal support.
While Members of Congress may have aimed to drive a stake into the heart of NPR and PBS, the more deadly blow may fall on the efforts of local broadcasters to support arts, culture, and community in the areas they serve.In Washington State and across the country, public media stations now face grave choices as they assess how to navigate the loss of millions of dollars in funding. While Members of Congress may have aimed to drive a stake into the heart of NPR and PBS, the more deadly blow may fall on the efforts of local broadcasters to support arts, culture, and community in the areas they serve.
KEXP stands to lose approximately $700,000 in the coming fiscal year, which according to KEXP’s Chief Programming Officer Chris Kellogg is about 4–5% of their annual operating revenue. Congress has “thrown us into a situation where we have no guidance,” Kellogg said in an interview. (As our interview began, KEXP played David Bowie’s 1995 song, ‘I’m Afraid of Americans’.) “It inhibits our ability to think big. I’m spending hours on this, instead of talking to programmers that push KEXP’s mission, and how we show up in the community. Instead of being able to focus on that with our staff, we’re focusing on this.”
Much like our tour guide, Kellogg emphasized that serving their listeners in real life as well as on the airwaves is “the highlight of our year.” He highlighted the annual live broadcast that KEXP conducts during Pride Month at The Wildrose12, one of the 38 lesbian bars that remain in the United States13, as well as the Juneteenth live broadcast that they have previously held at Midtown Square, in the heart of Seattle’s Central District.14 KEXP also maintains an ongoing collaboration with the Vera Project, an all-ages arts venue that has served as a gateway to the Seattle music scene for teenagers (and adults) for nearly 25 years.15
Asked about the impact that the CPB cuts would have on the station’s cultural programming, Kellogg said they sap focus and energy from efforts like community activations. “Even if stations can navigate that loss, the time and energy that we spend, the way we exist to educate the community, to serve as a cultural resource — that’s to me the most important message,” Kellogg stated.
Leaders at other stations struck a similar tone. When the station that would become KEXP began broadcasting, they got their first transmitter from KNHC, commonly known as c89.5. Owned by Seattle Public Schools, c89.5 is one of only a few radio stations to inform the music that appears on Billboard’s Top 40 and Dance music charts.16 Impressively, it also claims to have been the first radio station ever to play Lady Gaga’s music on the air in 2008.
“We believe that is true,” said June Fox, c89.5’s general manager, when asked about the urban legend. “Her label was sending CDs to stations around the country. When our Program Director Jon McDaniel heard the song, he knew instinctively it was going to be a hit and we started playing it.” More mind-bogglingly, Lady Gaga subsequently performed at c89.5’s home base of Nathan Hale High School in North Seattle in August 2008, which grainy footage available on YouTube corroborates.17
c89.5 allows high school students in Seattle Public Schools who are interested in media and broadcasting a uniquely global reach. “We are teaching students how to go on air, be on-air personalities…we’re teaching how to podcast, how to do multitrack production, things like that,” Fox told me. “They’re learning professionalism, they’re learning how to be on time, that their work product matters. They’re learning confidence. They’re learning how to speak for themselves and find their authentic voice and speak it. Those are such empowering things for students.”
c89.5 received 8% of its budgeted annual revenue from the CPB, or about $140,000 in 2025.18 Fox sounded upbeat when we spoke, saying that additional donations from listeners had covered much of that funding gap. “We had a young person write in with a one dollar bill,” she said. “I have no doubt that we’ll be able to continue.”
The loss of CPB funding, however, removes a long-term financing stream that stations will now have to work to fill, year after year. And beyond the Seattle metropolitan area – and the larger base of potential donors there – stations serving rural areas face a much grimmer prospect.
This is the case for Northwest Public Broadcasting (NWPB), which serves a vast swath of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho with radio and television programming. From coastal Forks, Washington, to tiny Cottonwood, Idaho, (population 822), NWPB reaches many rural listeners.19 “Some of the farmers tell us they have the station on all day in their tractors,” said Cara Williams Fry, NWPB’s general manager.
For these areas, public resources can be highly limited, making NWPB crucial as a source of information and connection. NWPB’s program “Explore Together / Exploremos Juntos” invites children aged 2–8 to in-person events that combine education with appearances by some of their favorite TV characters, like Curious George and Daniel Tiger – celebrity appearances that can make a toddler’s year.20 “That’s the secret sauce,” Williams Fry told me. “We’re having exciting events where they’re learning about STEAM. Arts are as critical to these conversations as everything else.”
NWPB will lose over $2 million as a result of the disappearance of CPB, or 20% of their annual funding.21 Bridging this gap in the long-term may require devastating cuts to the services that NWPB provides, or the staff that powers them. “Our entire mission is to serve the community; this will put a stranglehold on what we do.” Williams Fry admitted. “It’s been hard to take.”
Just a few weeks after the rescissions package, the effects of these funding cuts remain unclear. Station leaders are meeting constantly to sift through the CPB’s rubble for a path forward not just on funding, but on agreements governing royalty fees for the music stations play, as well as the Emergency Broadcasting System. Some emphasized not just the confusion and chaos caused by the funding cuts, but also a sense of bewilderment that Congress singled out their work serving local communities for punishment. People think that “this is about NPR and PBS, but it’s going to impact local kids in the Northwest,” said Williams Fry.
Years from now, NPR will still have urban listeners. The sharper pain will be local: a four-year-old in Pasco who doesn’t meet Elmo, a student who loses a podcasting class, a small-town station that falls silent. Whether the country notices will depend on whether it’s still listening.
Sources
1. https://www.kexp.org/read/2022/...
2. https://www.sfchronicle.com/ente...
3. https://www.npr.org/2025/...
4. https://cpb.org/abou...
5. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/...
6. https://www.npr.org/2025/...
7. https://nypost.com/2025/...
8. https://www.semafor.com/arti...
9. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archi...
10. https://www.npr.org/2025/...
11. https://cpb.org/abou...
12. https://www.kexp.org/pri...
13. https://www.lesbianbarproject.com/bar...
14. https://www.aclu-wa.org/even...
15. https://theveraproject.org/abo...
16. https://www.c895.org/abou...
17. https://www.youtube.com/watc...
18. https://www.c895.org/fede...
19. https://www.nwpb.org/abou...
20. https://www.nwpb.org/educ...
21. https://www.nwpb.org/fede...
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