Flanking Community-Rooted Journalism: Why Philanthropy Must Act Now

Last month, the U.S. House and Senate voted to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), instantaneously jeopardizing community-rooted journalism across the country and threatening our already fragile democracy.

As Ars Technica and CNN report, the cuts will shutter local stations, gut educational programming, and silence voices in rural and underserved communities that rely on public media—not just for news, but for civic engagement, cultural connection, and community safety. In a statement from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Allyn Brooks-LaSure, a former CPB executive, calls the move “deeply short-sighted,” emphasizing that “this is not just a loss of funding—it’s a loss of public trust and national character.”

In The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Borealis’ own Alicia Bell and alvin-louis starks examine this “divestment from civic infrastructure—an attack on information access, local employment, and diverse narratives,” and lay out immediate steps that funders can take to ensure that local public media not only survives, but thrives. “At this critical time, philanthropy needs to help re-position public media as a vital ingredient for democracy, equity, and civic life,” they write. “If the nation loses public media, it will lose more than news coverage—it will lose civic connection, accountability, and the possibility of shared truth.” 

In a recent interview, Brooks-LaSure shared, “[It] plays a vital role even outside of natural disasters in a day-to-day basis of helping to educate our children, to provide timely, accurate, neutral information to the American public.” His message aligns with an urgent wave of voices representing the media and movement ecosystems, and shared in Poynter, NPR, and The New York Times. Across the spectrum, folks agree: this decision was not a shift to a budget line item; it was a decision that intersects with—and will impact— the distribution of power, the inclusivity of narratives, and the future of freedom and expression in our country.

Our attempts at democracy have consistently faltered due to the absence of a critical requirement–an informed public. This is why Borealis Philanthropy organizes financial, social, cultural, and intellectual capital to resource a cooperative network of journalism institutions led by and serving communities. We invite funders to join us in meeting this moment with courage and clarity; to mobilize abundant resources to storytellers, elevate community-led narratives, and protect our public squares from those seeking to dismantle them. As our friends at Media Impact Funders write, this moment offers us all “a chance to reimagine public media’s role as a trusted backbone of civic life.” 

To learn more about what this might look like, please connect with our team.