From the Isthmus

After losing $112,000 in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Madison community radio station WORT-FM laid off two of its seven full-time staffers this week and is working to deal with what its board vice president called, in an email to volunteers, “a substantial deficit which is unsustainable.”

“We can no longer spend our reserves without replacement,” Tanya Graham, vice president of the WORT board wrote in her Nov. 10 email, obtained by Isthmus. “The board must act to ensure that WORT not only survives but thrives in the years and decades to come.”

Journalists from major news outlets such Associated Press and the Washington Post surrendered their Pentagon press passes and walked out of the building on Oct. 15 in protest of new rules, which include an agreement not to report information not approved for release by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

In their place, Frontlines, a media outlet run by Turning Point USA, as well as MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell’s streaming service Lindell TV both confirmed on social media that they had signed onto the new policy. The list of new outlets gaining credentials also includes conservative news sites like Human Events, the Post Millennial, RedState and the Washington Reporter.

An initial memo announcing the policy last month read that “information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”

The Pentagon Press Association, which represents journalists covering the Defense Department, repeatedly objected to the new policy, which they said “arises from an entirely one-sided move by Pentagon officials apparently intent upon cutting the American public off from information they do not control and pre-approve.”

The Corp. for Public Broadcasting said Friday it was shutting down, about one week after President Trump signed legislation stripping its funding

Since returning to office, Trump has made a priority of yanking federal funding for public broadcasters as part of a wider campaign against media outlets that he dislikes. The president derided PBS and NPR as government-funded “left-wing propaganda.” Congress fell into line.

It passed a measure in mid-July that canceled $1.1 billion that previously had been allocated for public broadcasting for two years.

Separately, lawmakers introduced a Senate appropriations bill for 2026 that excludes funding for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting for the first time in more than 50 years. Conservatives have long wanted to strip funding from public media because of what they perceive to be liberal bias.

The move could cripple smaller public stations, including those in rural areas that struggle to mount high-dollar local membership campaigns. The Corp. for Public Broadcasting helps support more than 1,500 local public television and radio stations nationwide.

Excerpted from The NY Times

At the urging of President Trump, Congress is expected to vote on whether to cut $500 million per year for public radio and TV stations.

If the package passes, the federal funding for public media will dry up beginning in October. NPR and PBS would survive — they get a small percentage of their funding from the federal government. But the cuts would force many local stations to sharply reduce their programming and operations. Many public broadcasters receive more than 50 percent of their budgets from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The cuts could even be a death sentence for some stations, which have survived several attempts to choke off funding over the decades.

The disappearance of U.S. public TV and radio stations would result in the elimination of local newsrooms that would probably not be replaced in the short term, said Neal Zuckerman, a managing director at the Boston Consulting Group who published a research paper on the economics of local media.

It would cost roughly $1 billion annually to fund significant journalism across the United States, requiring an endowment of $20 billion to be sustainable, he said.

“These are essential services,” Mr. Zuckerman said. “If the federal government isn’t a viable source of funding for the health of our local communities, we need a fiscally sustainable solution.”

From the Daily Beast

US President Donald Trump fired the chief of the US Copyright Office days after the release of a report that could have prevented artificial intelligence companies from training their models on copyrighted materials without the creator's permission.

“Making commercial use of vast troves of copyrighted works to produce expressive content that competes with them in existing markets, especially where this is accomplished through illegal access, goes beyond established fair use boundaries,” the agency wrote.

Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the Committee on House Administration, speculated in a statement that “it is surely no coincidence” that Trump fired Perlmutter “less than a day after she refused to rubber-stamp Elon Musk’s efforts to mine troves of copyrighted works to train AI models.”

“Her unlawful firing will gravely harm the entire copyright community,” it said in a statement. “She understood what we all know to be true: human creativity and authorship are the foundation of copyright law—and for that, it appears, she lost her job.”

From the NY Times

Trump administration officials want legislators to rescind $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some support for public media.

If Congress agrees, that will amount to about two years of the organization’s funding, nearly all of which goes to public broadcasters including NPR, PBS and their local member stations.

The ask would also be the latest move by the Trump administration to exert pressure on media organizations. The administration is waging a legal battle with The Associated Press over its decision to exclude the wire service from the presidential press pool, breaking decades of precedent. Mr. Trump is also personally suing CBS News and The Des Moines Register, and the Federal Communications Commission has launched investigations into Comcast, PBS and NPR.

Founded 1996, the Grassroots Radio Conference is an annual gathering of college and community radio stations for the sharing of ideas, technology, and camaraderie. The event is hosted by a different station each year.

The GRC Steering Committee is proud to anounce that this year's Grassroots Radio Conference will take place in Spokane, WA hosted by KYRS Thin Air Community Radio! It will be great to finally return to the Pacific side of the country and experience the majestic landscape of this area! Stay tuned for conference dates and more information. Hope to see you there!

US Senate bill would protect the independence of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and uphold the First Amendment

The proposed legislation aims to prevent any revocation of broadcast licenses based on the viewpoints expressed by broadcasters.

The bill stipulates that the FCC must operate as an independent agency, free from political pressures and retaliatory actions based on the content it oversees. It also explicitly prohibits the FCC from revoking any licenses or authorizations based on broadcast viewpoints or imposing conditions on transaction approvals influenced by such viewpoints.

From the New York Times

The U.S. government has been the world’s largest supporter of independent foreign media, principally through U.S.A.I.D., since the early 1980s. The funding is meant to foster democracy through transparency, as part of the country’s larger portfolio of soft power efforts. It has helped finance some of the most consequential investigative journalism of the past decade, including the Panama Papers, which won a Pulitzer Prize for uncovering international money laundering, and the FinCEN Files, which showed how banks facilitated corruption around the world.

But the financial support — less than three-tenths of 1 percent of America’s overall foreign aid budget — has been criticized in recent years by some conservatives, who argue that it is little more than paid propaganda for U.S. interests. They have cheered President Trump’s move to freeze nearly all foreign aid, which is now being litigated in court.

The defunding of global newsrooms is the latest fight in an increasingly hostile war between the Trump administration and the press. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, has ordered investigations into PBS, NPR and Comcast. Government agencies have suspended subscriptions to news outlets. Mr. Trump himself has amplified a baseless conspiracy theory that Politico was funded by the federal government, and has restricted The Associated Press’s access because of its refusal to use the name Gulf of America rather than Gulf of Mexico.

Last week, the Global Forum for Media Development, a Brussels-based network of institutions that support journalism, published a letter calling on donors to help struggling outlets.

“We urge governments, donors and stakeholders to take immediate action to address this crisis,” read the letter, which was signed by more than 100 press freedom and media development organizations.

Reprinted from the Columbia Journalism Review

The public and not-for-profit community broadcasting system needs more stable funding, a greater emphasis on local content, and reduced reliance on private financing and syndicated programs.

It might seem like an odd moment to call for more investment in media. And yet a growing awareness of the disappearance of local news, and a growing awareness that we need news and programming from beyond the coasts and the largest cities, just might create an opening for such an argument. 

Even without Congress, the public can secure stable, long-term journalism funding from our local and state governments. We can seek journalism funding through ballot initiatives, city councils, or state legislatures. Voters can demand multidecade bonds to pay for local journalism and insist that all revenue from the bonds go into a fund that politicians cannot touch. 

Legislatures might also consider allowing each citizen to allocate tax dollars to a local news outlet of their choosing. This way, newsroom funding would be insulated from electoral politics and newsrooms would be incentivized to compete for subscriptions from all members of their communities equally. Washington, DC, and Seattle are both considering versions of this proposal.

To be eligible for funding, newsrooms could be required to be physically rooted within their communities; to maintain a governing board that represents the community’s geographic and economic diversity; to provide all community members with access to content regardless of income; to commit to providing high-quality local news coverage; and to have every employee make at least a living wage. These content-neutral requirements would ensure that those who receive funding are actually making journalism for their communities without infringing on the freedom of the press.

MYM {Million Youth Media} is one of the fastest growing independent youth-platforms in the UK. The films often cut deep; raising awareness, challenging perceptions and changing mindsets.

                                
MYM was founded by Fully Focused Productions, a youth-led media company that specialises in creating content for the next generation that is real, raw and relatable. Most of the content is written, directed and produced by the Fully Focused team, where young people work closely with industry professionals to achieve award-winning results. They also showcase films made by our team in training and by some of the most exciting filmmakers across the UK and beyond.

Connect @ukfullyfocused on all socials and @officialMYM on Tik Tok!
New film every Thursday!

Films can be submitted to the channel, all submissions are approved by a youth panel. If you want one of your films featured, contact submit@fullyfocusedproductions.com

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