Gerald Rodriguez, the general manager of an NPR affiliate in rural Colorado, expected federal funding for public media to shrink. He didn’t expect it to disappear almost overnight.
“What we thought would happen is that they would just cut the funding a little bit,” Rodriguez told CNN. “But, no, they totally gutted it out completely. We didn’t expect that.”
His station, KRZA, is the only public radio station in Colorado’s San Luis Valley; the next closest station is in Colorado Springs, nearly three hours away.
With a staff of just two people — Rodriguez and one other colleague — the station provides local