Three public radio outlets in Colorado are worried that the federal government wants to put them out of business because of their affiliation with National Public Radio.
The groups said that reprisals could include further cuts in federal grants, or even worse, heavy-handedness by government agencies through tax audits or broadcast license revocation.
The concerns were expressed in documents filed in U.S. District Court, where NPR and Colorado Public Radio (CPR), Aspen Public Radio and KSUT have sued the Trump administration over the May executive order that ended funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Their lawsuit targeting the executive order argues that President Trump acted illegally in terminating the funding for CPB, which managed the distribution of federal dollars for public media.
At a key court hearing Dec. 4 in Washington, D.C., the plaintiffs appeared in court. There was no direct testimony during the hearing, according to Stewart Vanderbilt, the CEO of CPR, but oral arguments were made by lawyers who represented the trio of NPR affiliates.
The three public radio operations filed court declarations in the legal battle, centered on their concerns that the administration’s icy relationship with NPR could have a “chilling effect” on their abilities to continue operations and their mission of local journalism.
However, the U.S. Department of Justice pushed back. It told the court that the NPR affiliates cannot salvage their otherwise “moot or unripe challenges” to the president’s executive order earlier this year.
A “chilled” association
Colorado Public Radio, which is based in Denver on flagship 90.1 KCFR(FM), argued that the executive order continues to infringe on its editorial discretion. Vanderwilt said the president’s order seeks to prevent CPR and other independent public radio outlets from using any federal funds to air NPR-generated news and other programming offerings.
It “seeks to dictate our editorial choices and limit those choices to programming that the government approves,” Vanderwilt wrote in the court filing.
(Read Colorado Public Radio’s supplemental declaration.)
Vanderwilt reiterated that CPR believes the rescission harms the public media outlet by “chilling its association with NPR and threatening severe financial losses if it continues to air NPR news.”
NPR content as a “stigma”
The other plaintiffs made similar claims. Aspen Public Radio Executive Director Breeze Richardson said in a supplemental declaration that the broadcaster fears retribution from government agencies due to its association with NPR.
(Read Aspen Public Radio’s supplemental declaration.)
In addition, Aspen used approximately $12,000 from its final payment from CPB to pay its NPR membership fees, she said, which raised its uncertainty about the consequences Aspen Public Radio may face as a result.
“I fear that Aspen will be punished for having spent federal funds to help pay its NPR fees,” Richardson said.
She feared that federal agencies might “wield their regulatory authority” to retaliate against Aspen for using funds in a manner prohibited by the executive order, including through tax audits or even revocation of its broadcast license. Aspen Public Radio is heard on flagship 91.5 KAJX(FM) in Aspen and 88.9 KCJX(FM) from Carbondale.
“Agencies would know that we, an NPR member station, carry content disfavored by the administration – a stigma that could doom any grant application,” Richardson said.
Handicapped
KSUT(FM), “Four Corners Public Radio,” heard on 91.3 FM and licensed to Ignacio, Colo, serves four federally recognized tribes in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah. It is also heard on a 94.3 FM translator in Cortez.
(Read KSUT’s supplemental declaration.)
The station told the court that it recently received an approximately $333,000 grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for FY2025, but it is worried that future funding from the agency may be jeopardized through its association with NPR.
KSUT Executive Director Tami Graham said that while the rescission created considerable hardship for KSUT, the executive order continues to impose its own, independent harms while also exacerbating the harms it’s already caused.
She said those harms include infringing on the station’s editorial and journalistic independence.
“The order thus seeks to dictate our editorial choices and limit those choices to programming the government approves,” Graham wrote in her sworn declaration, describing the situation has “untenable.”
“I fear that BIA could retaliate against KSUT, including by seeking to claw the funding back or by denying funding in any future grant award,” she said.
“Simply put, the order handicaps KSUT from obtaining other sources of federal funding precisely when it needs those funds most.”
DOJ response
But the Department of Justice argued at last week’s summary judgment hearing that each plaintiff declaration errs by “stating in a conclusory manner” that the executive order causes present or imminent harm by seeking to dictate plaintiffs’ editorial choices.
(Read the Department of Justice’s response to the supplemental declarations.)
The executive order, the DOJ asserted, provides neither a means by which any federal agency may control public media programming, “nor any imminent threat of harm” sufficient to justify a change in programming, it wrote in response.
The DOJ said that the plaintiffs offer no basis to conclude that any federal entity intends to retaliate against local stations for their programming decisions. To the contrary, the DOJ argued that the plaintiffs’ own supplemental declarations disprove that assertion.
The government’s lawyers point to the fact that KSUT recently received the $333,000 award, which was nearly five months after the executive order was issued.
“Plaintiffs cannot credibly claim their past association with NPR exposes them to retaliation,” the DOJ wrote.
As for federal agencies being able to claw back funding, the DOJ called that notion “particularly far-fetched” and said allegations of the FCC revoking broadcast licenses are only “hypothetical.”
The court did not issue a ruling after last week’s hearing; and it’s unclear when a decision will be made.
