If Trump cuts funding to NPR and PBS, rural America will pay a devastating price; The Guardian, June 6, 2024

Margaret Sullivan , The Guardian; If Trump cuts funding to NPR and PBS, rural America will pay a devastating price

"With the sharp decline of the local newspaper business over the past 20 years, many parts of America have turned into what experts refer to as “news deserts”. These are places that have almost no sources of credible local reporting.

As local newspapers have shuttered or withered – at a rate of more than two every week – news deserts have grown. The effects are sobering. People who live in news deserts become more polarized in their political views and less engaged in their communities.

One of the foundations of democracy itself – truth – begins to disappear. People turn to social media for information and lies flow freely with nothing to serve as a reality check.

Right now, many small and rural communities that are on the brink of becoming news deserts do still have access to public media – particularly to National Public Radio’s network of member radio stations, which employ dedicated local reporters.

But the Trump administration’s new effort targeting public radio and television is a serious threat...

Voters – especially those in rural areas, small towns and red states – should let their elected representatives know that they need public radio and television to continue. That public media may even be their lifeline."

How Libraries Are Faring Under the Trump Administration Amid Detrimental Funding Cuts; Time, April 26, 2025

  Rebecca Schneid, Time; How Libraries Are Faring Under the Trump Administration Amid Detrimental Funding Cuts

"Cindy Hohl, president of the ALA, says that many of the 125,000 libraries in the nation utilize IMLS funding to support things like summer reading programs and translation services. Without the services of the IMLS, she says libraries are already facing “huge challenges”—and she has heard of short-term panic and “tough decisions” being made from librarians who are members of the ALA.

“The greatest impact to reduction in funding and services will be [felt by] the small and rural communities across this country,” Hohl says. “How can any legislators say that small and rural communities don't need access to the Internet, they don't need access to public computers, they don't need access to books and reading?”

IMLS was first created and funded by Congress in 1996 and charged with supporting the nation’s libraries and museums. The IMLS awarded $266 million in grants and research funding to cultural institutions last year. Hohl says the problem with the federal government kicking this funding of library services from the IMLS down to the states and local governments is that “we don’t have a comparable model” of the kinds of free services available to communities the way they are in libraries."