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Kirk Siegler reporting on location for NPR in the Amazon. The rescission package will almost certainly limit the ability for rural stations to afford journalism from NPR and PBS; Siegler says he's trying to let his reporting into rural communities and the challenges they face—especially related to climate—speak for itself. Photo courtesy Kirk Siegler.��

Going-to-the-Sun Road is known for its natural beauty, its sweeping views of Glacier National Park, its white-knuckled masses of tourists travailing its winding roads. It is not known for cellular service.��

So, when Kirk Siegler was driving the road while on assignment in the park over the summer, he turned the dial to the local NPR station to see what he’d missed while being away from coverage.��

“I tuned in to the top-of-the-hour newscast and got it loud and clear,” said Siegler (Jour’00), an NPR News correspondent. “There have been a lot of investments in towers and infrastructure by local public radio stations in recent years—especially here in the West, where the topography is so challenging—to ensure information gets out during disasters, as well as basic news services.”��

When Congress clawed back more than $1 billion in approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting—which will close in January after laying off most of its employees in the fall—it created new challenges for alumni working in public media. But the real pain has been felt at rural stations, which can no longer afford to license content from NPR and PBS, creating vast news deserts.

In fact, when Siegler is in the field—he is based in Boise, Idaho, and covers the western United States—most people he interviews have never met a reporter.��

“They’re mostly following the cable news networks, and the rancorous debate they see there,” Siegler said. “Once people talk to me, they’re appreciative of a reporter coming to listen to them, and having their stories get out there.”��

Funding cuts are just the latest challenge for rural publishers and station managers, said Patrick Ferrucci, chair of the journalism department and a researcher who studies the business models of rural newsrooms.��

“You’re mostly talking about family-owned newspapers that haven’t changed their approach in a hundred years,” Ferrucci said. “It’s easy to say ‘just innovate,’ but it’s not that simple.”

He said rural journalism must diversify its funding structures—away from focusing solely on advertising—and change its community engagement practices.��

“Rural journalism has always done a good job of being part of a community,” he said. “We don’t want to change that emphasis on community-based storytelling, but we’ve seen some success with things like membership models and events that make the newspaper a public space.”

Siegler is at his happiest when he’s melting shoe leather talking to residents of rural communities—he’s been co-producing a series, “American Voices,” where he visits places ignored by national media to understand how Donald Trump’s policies are affecting people and communities. But he’s often among the first on the scene for NPR when big news breaks in the West. He was at the campus of Utah Valley University just hours after a gunman killed conservative commentator Charlie Kirk earlier this fall.

That assignment, he said, underscored the value journalists bring to breaking news in a highly polarized climate.��

“I saw it more on this one—this race to know all the answers on social media,” Siegler said. “At NPR, our job is not to race to conclusions. Our job is to cut through the noise and only report what we know. Sometimes when we’re on the air, we talk about how we don’t know all the facts and why it’s important to not speculate until we learn everything. I think our listeners appreciate that.”

At Marketplace—a publicly funded media outlet that licenses its business and economics coverage to stations around the country—Neal Scarbrough is broadening his offerings to make the company’s services invaluable, especially in rural areas.��

“We’ve maintained our audience, even as radio listenership is dipping,” said Scarbrough (Jour’84), vice president and general manager. “In this moment of economic turmoil, we do have relevance for our listeners, who are seeking answers to questions on tariffs, trade wars, the markets and so on. But we have to demonstrate our value every day.”

Scarbrough has an editorial background, but his day-to-day focus at Marketplace is innovation. Of late, that’s meant offering more digital content to partner stations; as he put it, “the longer we’re restricted to radio, the quicker we’ll decline.”

Siegler’s reporting on climate catastrophe is especially important in the West. Major coastal outlets cover fires, flash flooding and mudslides, but he also reports on the local governments and developers turning arid places into the nation’s fastest-growing areas.��

“The West is positioned to bear some of the most serious effects of climate change,” he said. “If there aren’t reporters covering city hall, holding politicians and developers accountable, then people don’t see it in the news and change doesn’t happen.”

Both Siegler and Scarbrough said there are other ways to make a living, but neither is giving up the fight. Siegler hopes journalism students will be able to compete for more jobs as rural communities realize what they lost when public funding disappeared.��

“This is not the time to fall on our sword, but to raise our sword and cut a new path,” Scarbrough said. “Rather than say ‘woe is us, we lost our funding,’ we need to see this as a moment to redefine what public media is, in a way that helps our audience make sense of the world��around them.”��

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.