Yes. NPR gets about 2 percent of its annual budget directly from federal grants, including from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; for PBS, that amount is about 15 percent.
It’ll be a hit for PBS in particular, but it’s not gonna end NPR or PBS.
NPR as a national organization might be fine, but regional stations have smaller operating budgets and also get funding, and their programming gets picked up. Member stations will suffer or fail under this update, and that will feed back to national programming when something like WAMC’s On the Media or WBEZ’s Wait Wait gets axed.
and it’s going to hurt rural areas the most. some of them could lose up to 50% their revenue overnight, which will almost certainly lead to them shutting down. and then what happens next time there’s some disaster that knocks out the internet and there aren’t any local radio stations left to inform the people when and where to take shelter?
We deliberately don’t get news about it, but China is making entire cities for the well-educated looking to return to China from the US. They are “taking the solar system” right now according to some experts, and are on their third space station among multiple lunar missions. ESA and other countries have also taken grand steps into space. International science and medical research forges ahead without us. There are countries effectively expanding their social safety nets and other than US involvement in Israel/the Middle East broadly, the world is at an all-time peak of peace and personal safety.
You are being fed a cultivated image. This entire “free speech” catchphrase that we’ve been taught to scream at any offence is an illusion, a lie reinforced by every branch of media, which are in turn branches of the corporations that have long since nailed the coffin closed on actual democracy.
Remember Dead Internet Theory? Dead America Theory. We died around Reagan, the country has been running on momentum and money. We won’t feel it until the money runs out and that’s why this current administration is a pile of bottom-feeding bilge rats scraping off whatever they can from taxpayers. They know the value of the American dollar is about to start plummeting, and climate change and other technological changes to the global stage will be the final flush of this toilet we’ve been trying to pretend we’re not spinning around.
Our progress and species will go on, just not without America leading the way. Even if we got a “perfect” president and administration tomorrow they wouldn’t be able to undo this reverse-snowball that’s currently evaporating out of control.
Keep in mind I’ve only visited China and have limited actual knowledge of culture and policy, but I know there’s been a large wave of Chinese investment in future education, infrastructure and entire cities being made with the express purpose of housing an anticipated population influx, particularly repatriation from other countries like the US. They offer tax-breaks and assistance for housing and other services, but these are specifically to returning Chinese, and I am not researched into what qualifies you for these benefits. I’m sure there are loads of info out there.
Cities like Ordos have been ridiculed and made fun of for being “abandoned” but people forget that China’s policy-thinking stretches out over much larger timespans than most other developed nations. These are gleaming cities with automated taxies, ultra-efficient infrastructure and urban planning and they are starting to fill up. What’s wild is how many of the citizens in these new cities are obviously educated in America and everyone speaks English fairly well. They are also building and incentivizing higher education and tech-sector communities, making their own Silicon Valleys in multiple areas of China.
I think the last pieces they are missing to truly set the groundwork for the Chinese Century are much more robust family-planning and subsiding childcare so they don’t suffer the same population-rot impacting every other capitalism-ravaged nation right now, and better immigration/integration policies. If they can start embracing multi-culturalism they will literally steal the torch from America, but I guess some old ways die hard.
One of the best things going for them, and I have no idea how much they lean into it in reality, is the fact that despite being a capitalist country, they aren’t terrified of the word “socialism” so they won’t face riots from suggesting that maybe it’s okay for one person’s taxes to pay for someone else’s healthcare. Sense of community responsibility that works both ways is something absolutely squeezed out of American culture without a drop remaining.
It’s not even September and they’ve dismantled like 80% of the shit that makes being alive worthwhile
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/13/1250902337/npr-cpb-public-radio-funding-101
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/business/media/npr-pbs-funding-cuts.html
It’ll be a hit for PBS in particular, but it’s not gonna end NPR or PBS.
NPR as a national organization might be fine, but regional stations have smaller operating budgets and also get funding, and their programming gets picked up. Member stations will suffer or fail under this update, and that will feed back to national programming when something like WAMC’s On the Media or WBEZ’s Wait Wait gets axed.
and it’s going to hurt rural areas the most. some of them could lose up to 50% their revenue overnight, which will almost certainly lead to them shutting down. and then what happens next time there’s some disaster that knocks out the internet and there aren’t any local radio stations left to inform the people when and where to take shelter?
https://www.ajc.com/life/radiotvtalk-blog/gpb-ousts-bill-nigut-cancels-political-rewind-show/EDXKRWJ3PFD3JMJSG3ZOVWHH2Y/
This is what they want
If anything it might spark fundraising
Most of the funding goes to member stations for upkeep. Don’t wait for the next pledge drive. Donate tomorrow.
its still not great. if the feds wont even provide a percentage of funding, what else wont they do?
FTFY.
We deliberately don’t get news about it, but China is making entire cities for the well-educated looking to return to China from the US. They are “taking the solar system” right now according to some experts, and are on their third space station among multiple lunar missions. ESA and other countries have also taken grand steps into space. International science and medical research forges ahead without us. There are countries effectively expanding their social safety nets and other than US involvement in Israel/the Middle East broadly, the world is at an all-time peak of peace and personal safety.
You are being fed a cultivated image. This entire “free speech” catchphrase that we’ve been taught to scream at any offence is an illusion, a lie reinforced by every branch of media, which are in turn branches of the corporations that have long since nailed the coffin closed on actual democracy.
Remember Dead Internet Theory? Dead America Theory. We died around Reagan, the country has been running on momentum and money. We won’t feel it until the money runs out and that’s why this current administration is a pile of bottom-feeding bilge rats scraping off whatever they can from taxpayers. They know the value of the American dollar is about to start plummeting, and climate change and other technological changes to the global stage will be the final flush of this toilet we’ve been trying to pretend we’re not spinning around.
Our progress and species will go on, just not without America leading the way. Even if we got a “perfect” president and administration tomorrow they wouldn’t be able to undo this reverse-snowball that’s currently evaporating out of control.
Can you tell me where some of these are? Or give me any info to look them up?
Keep in mind I’ve only visited China and have limited actual knowledge of culture and policy, but I know there’s been a large wave of Chinese investment in future education, infrastructure and entire cities being made with the express purpose of housing an anticipated population influx, particularly repatriation from other countries like the US. They offer tax-breaks and assistance for housing and other services, but these are specifically to returning Chinese, and I am not researched into what qualifies you for these benefits. I’m sure there are loads of info out there.
Cities like Ordos have been ridiculed and made fun of for being “abandoned” but people forget that China’s policy-thinking stretches out over much larger timespans than most other developed nations. These are gleaming cities with automated taxies, ultra-efficient infrastructure and urban planning and they are starting to fill up. What’s wild is how many of the citizens in these new cities are obviously educated in America and everyone speaks English fairly well. They are also building and incentivizing higher education and tech-sector communities, making their own Silicon Valleys in multiple areas of China.
I think the last pieces they are missing to truly set the groundwork for the Chinese Century are much more robust family-planning and subsiding childcare so they don’t suffer the same population-rot impacting every other capitalism-ravaged nation right now, and better immigration/integration policies. If they can start embracing multi-culturalism they will literally steal the torch from America, but I guess some old ways die hard.
One of the best things going for them, and I have no idea how much they lean into it in reality, is the fact that despite being a capitalist country, they aren’t terrified of the word “socialism” so they won’t face riots from suggesting that maybe it’s okay for one person’s taxes to pay for someone else’s healthcare. Sense of community responsibility that works both ways is something absolutely squeezed out of American culture without a drop remaining.
When fascism works it makes everything boring and bland as fuck.