John,
Donald Trump’s war on the free press is unlike anything we’ve seen.
He forced CBS and ABC into legal settlements, launched a propaganda site hosted on the White House homepage, and replaced press briefings with staged performances for MAGA influencers. Now, his administration is moving to complete the transformation of America’s free press into state media.
Recently, the MAGA Congress passed a Project 2025 proposal to eliminate all federal funding for public broadcasting, a $1 billion cut move that could gut hundreds of local stations, especially in rural communities.
Project 2025 outlines what happens next: once local public stations shut down, the Trump administration would seize their call signs and frequencies — and replace trusted local journalism with government-controlled MAGA programming.
We’ll break it down more below. But the latest MAGA attempt to silence the free press is a clear alarm bell: now is the time to double down on support for independent media like COURIER.
Here’s what that takeover could look like in practice:
Stations like KGHR in Tuba City — which serves the Navajo Nation and provides emergency alerts, weather updates, and youth media training — would be wiped off the air. The station currently relies on federal grants for more than 70% of its funding. Without it, the signal goes dark.
And under Project 2025, once that happens, the Trump administration can legally seize the frequency — then fill it with partisan content produced by the executive branch.
Other rural public radio stations — like KAWC and KOFA in Yuma, Arizona — face the same threat. For them, federal support makes up a quarter of their operating budget. When that vanishes, so does local news, community bulletins, and emergency broadcasting that many residents rely on.
These aren’t just numbers on a spreadsheet — they’re lifelines for communities the mainstream press ignores.
And most Americans have no idea it’s happening.
That’s why COURIER is working around the clock to expose this plan — and why we need your help to keep going. Our local newsrooms in battleground states are telling the stories others won’t, connecting the dots before it’s too late.
In Solidarity,
The COURIER Team