This Friday and Saturday, May 1 and 2, mark Public Media Giving Days – a national two-day campaign to support local public media stations. For our corner of Colorado, it’s also a moment to recognize something remarkable.
On March 31, KSUT Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, and Aspen Public Radio won a landmark federal First Amendment case against the Trump administration, permanently blocking an executive order that had sought to cut off federal funding to stations carrying NPR programming (Herald, April 1). The court found the order constituted illegal viewpoint discrimination – that the government had used its financial power to punish journalists for their coverage. It was a David-and-Goliath fight, and David won.
The victory is historic, but it is not without cost. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been dissolved. The funding it once provided to KSUT and KDUR – roughly $333,000 annually to KSUT and $130,000 to KDUR – is gone and will not be restored. KSUT’s own description of where it stands says it plainly: defunded but determined.
This is KSUT’s 50th year on the air. For half a century, it has transmitted across 130,000 square miles – Montezuma, La Plata, San Juan, and Archuleta counties in Colorado and San Juan County in New Mexico – serving the Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Jicarilla Apache Nations and the northeastern Navajo Nation, where little to no internet connectivity exists. Local news. Emergency alerts. Music. The kind of daily service that is easy to take for granted until it isn’t there – and in remote areas, can be lifesaving when it is.
The same is true of our other community media partners. KDUR, Fort Lewis College Community Radio, marked its own 50th year in 2024. RMPBS rounds out a local public media landscape that educates, entertains, informs, and connects us across a vast rural region.
Public Media Giving Days are May 1 and 2. The federal funding is gone. The people who value this work are not. If you’re one of them, now is the time to say so.
