Kansas City’s public radio station has no intention of scaling back its news coverage or laying off reporters, editors, producers and hosts amid sizeable cutbacks in federal funding.
But preserving KCUR, the local National Public Radio affiliate, just got more difficult.
Senate Republicans voted early Thursday to claw back $1.1 billion in funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that lawmakers had already approved for the next two years. The House followed suit late Thursday evening, clearing the cuts to be signed into law ahead of a Friday deadline.
The rare procedural move came at the direction of President Donald Trump, whose combative relationship with the press has only escalated in his second term. KCUR will lose nearly $1 million in federal funding over the next two years if Trump signs the cuts into law as he is expected to do, said Lisa Rodriguez, the station’s interim director of content.
“Despite the fact that we’ve seen this coming and that it’s been signaled by the administration for months, it hurts, and I would be lying if I said that people weren’t scared about what this means for KCUR,” Rodriguez said.
But the mood in her newsroom is one of determination, she said. “People also know right now that their work has never been more important. So there is kind of this double feeling of like, showing up for work is critical right now,” Rodriguez said.
KCPT, the city’s public television station, finds itself in a similar bind. KCPT President and CEO Kliff Kuehl told The Star his station is also bracing for cuts and will do everything it can to preserve radio and television programming.
“We will continue to serve our community to the best of our ability, and will do all we can to limit the impact of these cuts on the user experience of our audiences,” Kuehl said.
Public radio and TV funding
KCUR plans to mount an emergency pledge drive over the weekend, Rodriguez said.
“We’re hopeful that we can capture the energy around this moment to get as far as we can into that $1 million in the next few days,” Rodriguez said.
Most of KCUR’s funding — 86% — comes from individual donations, membership gifts, grants, sponsorships and event revenue, Rodriguez said. But just under $500,000 — roughly 5% of the station’s projected revenue in 2025 — comes from the federal government. Over the next two years, KCUR was slated to receive nearly $1 million through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Without that money, the station could be forced to make difficult decisions and staffing and coverage, Rodriguez said. So they’re turning to their roughly 1 million monthly listeners and readers to ask for help.
“I don’t know that there’s an expectation that we can raise all that in a weekend, but if we can get a really solid start, that helps us make a case when we go to institutional funders and other organizations that have the means to make larger gifts,” she said.
Public media fans are dedicated and motivated, Rodriguez said. But she acknowledged that KCUR is far from the only organization that will be seeking public contributions in the coming months.
KCPT is also at risk of losing out on a significant source of funding. If the public broadcasting cuts are finalized, the station stands to lose about 9% of its radio budget and 13% of its TV budget, Kuehl said. In anticipation of cuts, the station trimmed its annual operating budget and set aside emergency funds from last fiscal year, Kuehl said. The station is also turning to increased fundraising as it evaluates long-term sustainability, he said.
“It will be very difficult to replace this federal funding. And ultimately it will limit ours and every PBS station’s ability to provide the resources and programming communities count on and will most likely force some smaller rural stations to shut their doors for good,” Kuehl said.
‘Political propaganda’
All four Kansas and Missouri senators voted to claw back previously approved funding for public broadcasting, as well as billions of dollars in foreign aid money. Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt took ownership of the move, managing the legislation, which is known as a rescissions package, on the Senate floor Thursday.
“The American people were clear — they want more accountability in Washington, and I was glad to lead President Trump’s rescissions package in the U.S. Senate to ensure your hard-earned tax dollars are no longer going towards woke projects not aligned with the values of your everyday American,” Schmitt told The Star in a statement.
During a speech on Tuesday, Schmitt railed against NPR and PBS, expressing disdain for NPR CEO Katherine Maher over her prior remarks condemning Trump.
“They are the arms of the left-wing activist class, taxpayer-funded platforms for political propaganda masquerading as journalism,” Schmitt said. “Why are Americans being forced to subsidize institutions that hate them? Why are truck drivers in Missouri paying for Ivy League grads in D.C. to tell them they’re bigots?”
Rodriguez said her station is independent, objective and committed to sharing a broad range of viewpoints.
“We are a platform for Democrats and Republicans alike, no matter your ideology and no matter how you voted on this rescissions package,” Rodriguez said. KCUR recently hosted a constituent town hall for Rep. Mark Alford, a Missouri Republican. Segments of an interview with Rep. Sam Graves, another Missouri Republican, are set to air on Friday’s broadcast of “Up to Date” with Steve Kraske.
What does KC stand to lose?
If KCUR is unable to make up the funding gap, the newsroom will simply have to do less, Rodriguez said. That could mean less daily news coverage, less investigative news coverage, and less accountability for local officials.
“KCUR also takes a lot of pride in raising, lifting community voices and taking deep dives into the history of Kansas City and shining light on cool things that our neighbors are doing. And it’s less of that, too,” Rodriguez said.
The most impactful journalism KCUR does — including stories about a Native American tribe finally reclaiming its ancestral land and a 10-month investigation into how much car crashes caused by the Kansas City Police Department cost taxpayers — can oftentimes be the most resource-intensive, she said. Rodriguez said she believes listeners and readers don’t want the station to scale back its ambitious reporting.
KCUR is also a hub for different collaborations, Rodriguez said, pointing to the Kansas News Service, which spreads reporters across the state and makes its content available to any public radio station and to any newspaper to reprint.
“So small papers in Marysville, Kansas, can pick up Kansas News Service coverage because they don’t have someone at the Statehouse. These little towns are able to get thorough, fact-based, unbiased coverage where it simply doesn’t exist before,” Rodriguez said.
She worries about the gaps that will be left — particularly in rural communities — if NPR is forced to reduce its footprint. “Because we’re nonprofit, we don’t have to make our decisions based on whether we can make money reporting on this place,” Rodriguez said.
