The end of public media?

Colbert, Elmo and the Agenda … The post-session spin … And Make America Sweaty Again.

Last week, Congress voted to cut every single penny the federal government allots for public media.

That means NPR and PBS are out about $1.1 billion. And it means massive cuts and shuttered TV and radio stations across the country, especially in rural America where there aren’t many news outlets to begin with.

So what now? What’s going to fill the void?

We — perhaps unsurprisingly — think the future of the news industry is small, independent, reader-funded news outlets like the Agenda.

And we think the U.S. is actually entering a golden era of news organizations that are beholden only to their readers.

We’ll explain why.

But first, let’s dwell on the problem with NPR and PBS for a minute, and the damage that the Trump administration has done to the country’s media infrastructure.

Because it is extensive.

Ready, fire, aim

The cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which helps fund NPR and PBS) represent a generational setback to public media and the news industry as a whole.

And the effort to defund them shows a deep misunderstanding of what the media is and how it works. President Donald Trump was aiming for NPR in Washington, D.C., but he hit little stations in rural Arizona and Arkansas.

PBS, which is not primarily a news organization, gets about 15% of its budget from the CPB.

And while NPR national only gets about 1% of its funding from the CPB, the number is much higher for your local NPR station — especially if you live in a rural area.

NPR national is gonna be fine. It’s the station in your backyard, the one you actually rely on for local news, that’s going to die.

And when stations start dying, it’s going to set off a “doom loop” of dire consequences, as Tim Isgitt of Public Media Company told the New York Times recently.

“Failing stations will create a cascade effect in this highly connected and interdependent system, impacting content producers and leading to the potential collapse of additional distressed stations in other areas of the country,” Isgitt said.

That’s very bad news for those of us who rely on our local NPR station for local news.

And according to polling, that’s a whole lot of people. A poll last week found 66% of Americans support federal funding for public radio, including 58% of Republicans.

The problem with government funding

We love NPR and PBS.

And we think the government should have a role in helping to subsidize news, which is objectively a public good.

But we’ve been around long enough to know that anytime there’s a government appropriation or subsidy involved, it gives petty politicians the power to yank that funding away, and put some serious hurt on the news companies that depend on them.

Case in point: Back in 2016, Hank wrote a series at the Arizona Capitol Times that really pissed off a handful of leaders at the state Capitol. Former Senate President Andy Biggs had made it his longtime goal to kill off newspaper public notices — a revenue stream that newspapers, and especially the Capitol Times, relied on. That year, he finally muscled a bill through that said certain companies no longer had to publish their articles of incorporation in a newspaper.

The newspaper’s lobbyist still blames Hank for the millions in lost revenue.

Trump and the corporate media

The dynamics at play today are the same — petty politicians are using their power to try to hobble a free and independent press.

They can do that because many of the behemoth “journalism” companies are not, in fact, journalism companies — they’re multinational conglomerates that also happen to own news organizations.

And their corporate owners are terrified of Trump. (Yes, that’s directed at you, Jeff Bezos, and so many others.)

Another case in point: Trump sued “60 Minutes” for the laughable violation of editing Kamala Harris’ answer to a question. Every news organization edits responses, including when interviewing Trump. (We may not agree with the way Fox News edits a Trump interview, for example, but that’s 100% their decision to make.)

Although any First Amendment scholar would tell you the case was a slam dunk for CBS, the company rolled over and donated $16 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle the case.

Why? Because CBS’ parent company, Paramount Global, doesn’t give a shit about journalism. It’s in talks for a merger with Trump-fan-owned media company Skydance.

The Trump administration has to sign off on that merger.

And while we’re on the topic, CBS’ recent decision to fire “Late Night” host Stephen Colbert — which Trump celebrated and used to warn Jimmy Kimmel that he’s next — also looks suspicious as all hell.

We could create a whole email of bullet points of his other attacks on the press and other institutions — in fact, we have.

Instead, we’ll just note that last week, he threatened to sue the Wall Street Journal, and its owner Rupert Murdoch (who also owns Fox News) after the paper wrote an article about a birthday card Trump wrote to Jeffrey Epstein (that contained Trump’s signature doubling as pubic hair on his doodle of a naked woman).

The good news

But as Trump sets his sights on Colbert, Elmo and NPR, something interesting and hopeful is happening in local news.

We’re entering the era of independent journalists.

Starting a local independent news organization has never been more accessible, and, across the country, former journalists are fleeing their collapsing corporate models to start something new, independent and reader-supported.

Those tiny news startups may never fill the hole left by giants like NPR, CBS, the Washington Post, Politico, or others that are either getting pummeled by, or acquiescing to, Trump. But with support from readers, some are trying.

Dan Rather is on Substack now. Jim Acosta is making a killing as an independent journalist. And Bari Weiss has built an impressive national news organization that rivals some of the big players.

We made the leap from corporate to independent journalism four years ago. It hasn’t been easy, and we’re basically still broke. (The economics are much harder at the local scale.)

But we are free of government influence or shitty decisions by corporate overlords. And that freedom has allowed us to publish some of the best work of our careers. (Not to mention, weird rants like today’s edition.)

But independent local media is only as strong as the support it has from readers.

As Trump takes out and cows some of the titans of journalism, please consider supporting independent news startups that are trying to fill that void.

The Trump administration, with the help of Republicans in Congress, is cracking down on NPR and PBS.

We told you how we feel about this development. Now it’s your turn!

We wanna know:

• How are these cuts sitting with you?

• What shows would you miss the most if they went away?

• And how should public, corporate and independent news organizations position themselves in the Trump era?

Sound off in our comments section about those questions or anything else on your mind!

The post-session rebrand: The Capitol Times dropped a series of Q&As recapping the 2025 session with Arizona’s legislative leaders, and some lawmakers are taking an interesting approach to reframing this year’s chaos. House Speaker Steve Montenegro said the “relationship between the House and the Senate is fine” after this year’s budget feud, while Senate President Warren Petersen said “unnecessary division within the party made the process more difficult than it needed to be.” Democratic leaders Rep. Oscar De Los Santos and Sen. Priya Sundareshan highlighted their party’s budget wins and called for a clean renewal of Prop. 123 next year.

Food aid fallout: Experts warn that incoming SNAP cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill will hit public schools hard — as family benefits shrink, more kids rely on school meals, the Daily Independent’s Stacy Mantle reports. Arizona districts in low-income areas are bracing by expanding free meal programs, rolling out mobile food services and planting gardens.

Kids without counsel: New U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows federal agents encountered just 968 migrants crossing the border in the Tucson Sector in June, which is quite a drop from highs of up to 80,000 monthly. Meanwhile, unaccompanied minor children are facing immigration judges without representation and staying in government custody for months at a time, the Republic and Puente News Collaborative report. More than 10 minors, including babies, recently shuffled into Phoenix’s immigration court and were read their rights in Spanish without an attorney.

AC or else: Air conditioning hasn’t been working since early June for residents of Elton Apartment Homes, and owners recently received a demand letter from Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes to fix it or get sued, the Republic’s Wren Smetana and Alexandra Hardle report. A pregnant tenant at Elton Apartment Homes was hospitalized after her apartment reached 97 degrees, and a 66-year-old man died. Mayes’ office sent a similar letter to a senior living home on July 9, and it has since fixed the AC.

Our AC works, but only if we can pay the bills. Help keep independent local journalists cool this summer with a paid subscription.

Owning land, and the libs: Right-wing grifter and Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson bought millions of dollars of real estate in the Phoenix metro area, the Phoenix Business Journal’s Paul Thompson reports. The Peterson Academy, his online school that offers a six-hour course on “the Boy crisis,” is headquartered in Scottsdale.

Tag it or trash it: Chandler’s City Council is on track to approve a new ordinance allowing city workers to remove political signs in public rights-of-way that don’t have the name and phone number of the person or entity responsible for posting them, the Daily Independent’s Jason W. Brooks writes. Councilmember OD Harris, who was hit with sign-tampering allegations last year, tried to delay the vote.

Airborne ambitions: Lawmakers got $2 million into this year’s budget for flying car infrastructure, and former astronaut and Arizona U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly loves the idea, per 12News’ Brahm Resnik. Republican Sen. David Farnsworth is championing the project and said he’s hosting weekly stakeholder meetings on things like building "vertiports” where flying cars can take off and land.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is back in Arizona, and this time, he’s a lot more sweaty.

Back in April, the Health and Human Services Secretary graced us with his presence to promote his MAHA agenda and to avoid questions about the measles vaccine.

To commemorate his most recent trip, he posted a picture on top of Camelback Mountain on Saturday morning, wearing jeans and a sweat-soaked T-shirt.

Unfortunately, the morning high that day was 99 degrees, and brainworms don’t start to die off until 145 degrees.