Culture
Ailsa Chang stresses the importance of local public media amid funding losses
By: Emily Votaw
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) – Last month the Rescissions Act of 2025 cut $9 billion in previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The act effectively ended federal support for NPR, PBS, and their member stations, including WOUB. WOUB relied on CPB for about a third of its annual budget—approximately $1.5 million.
Ailsa Chang, an award-winning journalist and co-host of NPR’s All Things Considered, says the cuts will cause the most disruption for stations serving rural and remote areas.
Chang spoke with WOUB’s Emily Votaw about the life-saving role of public media member-station broadcast signals, the differences between public and commercial outlets, and why preserving local stations is vital to community connection.
Listen to their conversation by clicking “play” in the Soundcloud widget above. A transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, follows below.
Emily Votaw: I’m calling from WOUB, an affiliate that serves many communities in rural Appalachia. What do you see as the role of public media in rural areas?”
Ailsa Chang: I think your role is so important. What’s tragic about this rescission package is that it immediately jeopardizes member stations in rural, sometimes remote areas of the country where news deserts already exist. Having broadcast signals in places that struggle with internet access is vital—not only for news, but also as an emergency alert system. If a natural disaster happens, our network’s broadcast signal can warn people of urgent situations. Without that tool, entire communities lose a lifesaving resource. These protections are crucial to local communities, and now they’re in jeopardy. It’s extremely concerning.
How does the role of a public radio affiliate like WOUB differ from a commercial outlet, especially when it comes to servicing these kinds of communities?
Chang: The difference is like night and day. What’s so important about stations like WOUB is that you have journalists—people committed to the public media mission—who are also members of the community the station serves. It’s crucial to have people connected to a community reporting on the stories that affect it. You’re in the best position to see the people and perspectives that deserve attention but haven’t received it.
It takes someone rooted in a community to understand the layers and textures of a story that primarily impacts that community. If we lose local stations like yours, we risk losing those important stories—the kind listeners in your neighborhood depend on to navigate their daily lives.
Is there anything you’d like to say directly to people who support public radio? Like month after month, year after year?
Chang: I just want to thank you so much for your dedication and continued support. It’s so special and important, what we do. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but frankly, public radio saved my life. I’d be a lawyer—probably a very unhappy lawyer—if I hadn’t switched paths. I started in public media as an unpaid intern at KQED, and through that I discovered how important human conversation is.
Especially these days, when so much seems to divide this country and divide our communities, it’s important to stay tuned in to the possibility of commonality and of finding common ground. You can only do that by listening to conversation—or by participating in it. That is essentially what public radio does: we bring people together to connect and talk to each other.
Sometimes you might tune in and think, ‘I have nothing in common with this guest. What am I going to learn? I’m just going to get upset because I know I’ll disagree.’ But I bet that every once in a while, if you take a chance and keep listening, you end up learning something. Maybe you question an assumption you’ve long held. Or maybe the guest says something that reframes a fact you’ve taken for granted, putting it in a new light. Suddenly, you might feel more empathy for the other side of a debate you’re deeply invested in.
That’s why I believe it’s so important to keep human conversation alive in public media—so we can remind people how vital it is to find common ground, rather than staying siloed and angry.