Except in going through Leavenworth, when I put on a Richard Wagner cassette, my habit is to tune in Northwest Public Radio when driving through Eastern Washington.
Public broadcasting offers escape from the lies and party line of right wing talk radio, the hijacking of Jesus’ message by preacher men, and homogenized corporate-honed music. It provides a welcome alternative — location-by-location weather forecasts and, increasingly, the direction of fire smoke.
You don’t need be a weather forecaster to know which way the wind is blowing, however, and to see the immediate peril facing public radio and public television. The U.S. Senate will vote this week on a Trump Administration bid to slash $1.1 billion from money going to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which dispenses money to PBS and local NPR radio stations. The rescission has already passed the House on a 214-212 vote.
The Trump Administration wants to chop another $2 billion in the next fiscal year. The rescission is on money already appropriated by Congress. In the words of U.S. Budget czar Russell Vought, “If it doesn’t pass, we have to then release the funds and they have to be spent.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, chair of the Senate Commerce Committee, is gung-ho to cut funding, thundering that National Public Radio has a “deeply entrenched culture of political bias and partisanship.” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, alleges that NPR is “media that disparages conservative voters.”
Keep in mind that it also informs them. In Texas’s Hill Country flood disaster, Texas Public Radio has stayed on the air to provide updates on severe weather alerts, recovery efforts, and helping communities mourn and rebuild together.
The public radio effort is vital, since the Federal Emergency Management Agency is being gutted under Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. FEMA staff are leaving and the administration has revoked $3.6 billion in grants to communities dealing with hurricane, flood, tornado, and fire damage. On July 6, 2,363 callers tried to reach FEMA, just 836 got through. A day later, 16,419 called, with 2,613 getting through.
The result of these cuts ought to wake up even the most programmed MAGA voter. The New York Times and Wall Street Journal have been careful to record responses under the publicity-craving Noem.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash, has looked at disaster-prone areas and figured that 13 million Americans depend on public radio stations for lifesaving emergency information. “When the floods rise in the Southwest, or wildfires rage in the West, or hurricanes barrel down on the Atlantic or Gulf Coasts, public broadcasters are often the only lifeline connecting families in rural communities to crucial emergency information,” said Sen. Cantwell.
She’s not delivering hyperbole. Heavily dependent on air travel, much of it by light planes, Alaska depends on public broadcasting for site-specific forecasting. Planes fly through mountain passes. Public broadcast is “an invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska,” in words of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.
Idaho has dealt with both natural and human-caused calamities. Boise State Public Radio transmits to 27 radio stations across the state. “Most of them are in rural towns,” said station manager Tom Michael. “We’re the local primary for a lot of Southwest Idaho, so that means if there’s a presidential alert, something from FEMA, about severe weather and wildfires,” the information is broadcast.
The folks most impacted are, of course, Trump voters. Such urban stations as KUOW and KNKX raise a lot of their money through on-air beg-a-thons. When KPLU (now KNKX ) needed to raise $7 million to stay independent, listeners came through. Right-wing bloviating about elitism was blown away by active involvement of blues musicians from south Snohomish County. (KNKX is a blues-jazz-and-news station.)
New York Public Radio explains the importance of federal dollars: “To put it bluntly, this is the funding that keeps the lights on, keeps our signals on the air, and keeps the entire public media system working as a whole.”
U.S. Reps. Dan Newhouse and Michael Baumgartner, R-Wash., representing Trump country, voted Aye on rescission. So, amazingly, did Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, recipient of the 2025 Champion of Public Broadcasting award from the nation’s stations, honoring him as an ”unwavering supporter of local public broadcasting stations” and “particularly rural communities.” In accepting the award — before voting for the $1.1 billion cut — Simpson allowed: “I am concerned about the future of trying to do away with public broadcasting. I’m a supporter of public TV in Idaho. They do a fantastic job.”
Just how ruthless are the Trumpers and supporting cast? They have lumped together, in the rescission package, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, the acclaimed global health initiative of the Bush Administration that has saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, is very concerned about the AIDS initiative, and may give it priority over the CPB.
Public radio and TV in Seattle have been filled with save-our-funding pitches. Here are some suggestions for improvements: Cascade PBS (channel 9) ought to go back to the extraordinary documentaries done by Jean Walkinshaw, rather than politically correct Crosscut. KUOW might overhaul its Friday noon snoozer of a public affairs show. KNKX should put UW weather expert Cliff Mass back on the air. Mass severely discounts impacts of climate events but he sure does know which way the wind is blowing. I’ve disputed him on global warming, but swear by him on when the lenticular clouds atop Mt. Rainier become a mean storm.
This story also appears on The Cascadia Advocate.
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