Trump cuts have fueled ‘rage-giving’ to US rural public radio. Will it be enough?

Sat, 03 Jan 2026

Across the US, federal public media cuts have galvanized many communities to donate to their local radio stations

As soon as the US government voted to cut funding to more than 1,500 public media outlets last July, Luke Dennis, general manager at WYSO, a public radio station in Yellow Springs, Ohio, kicked into action an emergency funding drive.

“The thing that really bothered me was not so much that the federal funding went away, because I felt like that was inevitable under the current administration, but to give us zero runway to prepare for it,” says Dennis.