Colorado radio stations SUE Donald Trump’s White House

“This is not about politics — it is about principle,” they said

Photo by Andreas Koutsouko on Unsplash

Three Colorado radio stations have become the tip of the spear for local public media in a court fight against President Donald Trump.

Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio, and KSUT tribal radio in the Four Corners region, along with NPR, have sued the Trump White House over the Republican president’s executive order that aims to cut funding for NPR and PBS.

The move is as bold as it is potentially risky.

Since at least February, public broadcasters large and small across Colorado have been on alert as Trump has threatened their financial support.

On May 1, Trump issued an executive order that instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”

In recent weeks, stations from Greeley to Carbondale have communicated with their audiences about how federal cuts would affect their individual operations.

Now, three Colorado stations said in a joint statement that they have decided to join in the legal fray because Trump’s executive order threatens a core constitutional protection.

“This is not about politics — it is about principle,” the statement read. “When the government tries to limit press freedom or control the flow of information, we have not only the right, but the obligation, to speak out and defend our rights that make independent journalism possible.”

That the only local NPR member stations included in the lawsuit are from Colorado is notable.

The state has a robust public radio ecosystem. Colorado newsrooms have long benefited from collaborations — one as recently as last year — that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has financially supported. The CPB, which is a private nonprofit corporation, allocates more than $500 million in taxpayer money to public TV and radio stations each year. “Stations, in turn, provide free and universal access to news, emergency alerts and a wide array of programming,” CNN reported.

In 2017, on the 50th anniversary of the day Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, Meg Dalton and I published a story in Columbia Journalism Review that used a Colorado radio station to set the scene.

Colorado First Amendment Attorney Steven D. Zansberg, who is representing the Colorado stations in the lawsuit, told Aspen Public Radio that NPR and its counsel decided to approach a small set of member stations to join.

The reason only three were selected — and all of them in Colorado — “was because it’s easier, obviously, to have a smaller group than a large, unwieldy group,” Zansberg said.

The three stations, he added, “really represent a vast diversity; they essentially stand for the entire network of stations and they represent rural, mountain, and urban communities.”

Beyond that, having all three local stations in one state also made the lawsuit easier to file, he said, because one attorney could represent them all.

Here’s the opening of the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court by lawyers Miguel A. Estrada, Theodore J. Boutrous, Elizabeth A. Allen, and Zansberg:

Plaintiff National Public Radio, Inc. (NPR) and Plaintiffs Roaring Fork Public Radio, Inc. d/b/a Aspen Public Radio (Aspen Public Radio), Colorado Public Radio (CPR), and KUTE, Inc. d/b/a KSUT Public Radio (KSUT) (together, the Local Member Stations) bring this action to challenge an Executive Order that violates the expressed will of Congress and the First Amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, and also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information.

The lawsuit accuses Trump and his administration of retaliating against public broadcasters in violation of the First Amendment.

In it, the lawyers quote a litany of the presidential administration’s public attacks on NPR and PBS, such as accusing them of spreading “radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”

Trump’s objectives with his executive order “could not be clearer,” the lawsuit argues, stating it “aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country.”

The White House’s deputy press secretary, Harrison Fields, opined to the Associated Press that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting “is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.” Therefore, he added, Trump was exercising his authority under the law.

“The president was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars,” Fields told the AP, “and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”

Here are some more nuggets from the filing:

• “More broadly, the Order puts the Local Member Stations and other public radio stations that air NPR programming on notice that the government disapproves of their editorial choices and will seize any available opportunities to retaliate if they continue to air NPR programming.”

• “The Order also poses a threat to local public radio stations, including the Local Member Stations, that they will incur official sanctions for airing NPR content. In so doing, the Order will doubtless result in broader “‘self-censorship’ of speech that could not be proscribed,” particularly by organizations that receive government funds, and will thereby “discourage the ‘uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate that the First Amendment is intended to protect.’””

• “In enacting the Public Broadcasting Act, one of Congress’s overriding goals was to guarantee the Corporation, and the public broadcasting entities that receive federal funds from the Corporation, ‘maximum protection from extraneous inference and control.’”

• “NPR currently has 246 Member stations across the country, including in the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam, collectively operating more than 1,000 public radio signals and hundreds of digital platforms.”

• “NPR relies on CPB grants to support essential functions, and without federal funding, NPR would need to shutter or downsize collaborative newsrooms and rural reporting initiatives and, at the same time, also eliminate or scale back critical national and international coverage that serves the entire public radio system and is not replicable at scale on the local level. Loss of all revenue from local public radio stations would dramatically harm NPR’s ability to execute its journalistic mission.”

• “For most of its coverage area, KSUT is the only public radio station available and the only available source of free, reliable local and regional news and information.”

• “The Order seeks to sanction NPR because it is purportedly ‘biased’ and because the President dislikes the content of certain of its programming.”

Boutrous, a veteran attorney among those representing NPR in the case, told CNN that Trump’s move against NPR “really is just pure viewpoint discrimination.”

Among other things, the lawsuit seeks the court to declare Trump’s May 1 executive order unlawful and unconstitutional.

“These participating Colorado stations reflect the diversity of public radio across the country — we are each independent, nonprofit organizations that represent rural, mountain and urban communities and together serve every district of Colorado,” CPR, Aspen Public Radio, and KSUT wrote in their joint statement. “We also share a deep commitment to providing local, fact-based news and information without government interference.”

The Colorado College Journalism Institute, which I oversee, has an office in the Southern Colorado Public Media Center that Colorado Public Radio built; CC students intern at KRCC, which the lawsuit notes is a member-supported, non-commercial community service of Colorado College.

In recent weeks, some Colorado Republicans, including former Colorado Republican Treasurer Walker Stapleton and Western Slope State House Rep. Matt Soper, have explained why they object to public media funding cuts championed by some of their national GOP brethren.

For one of its lawyers in the lawsuit, NPR chose Miguel Estrada, who has a conservative background and was once a judicial nominee by former Republican President George W. Bush.

Asked by Aspen Public Radio reporter Halle Zander if the Colorado stations might have just put a target on their backs by joining the lawsuit, Zansberg, the Colorado lawyer, indicated that it could be possible.

The White House, he noted, has targeted and retaliated against institutions like Harvard University and certain law firms that have challenged some of his other orders.

“So, I would not put it beyond the pale to suggest that the three member stations I’m representing may similarly face additional retaliation,” he said.

---

Now, a message from this week’s sponsor…

🤠 Howdy! I’m Skyler McKinley. You may remember me from your television sets on slow news days, my work at the Denver Press Club, or the historic little saloon I own in Routt County, Colorado. Well, I reckon I’m still doing all that stuff, but I’m doing a new thing, too: I get a real kick out of connecting public policy makers, stakeholders, and reporters like you. Some folks say that I’m “the lobbyist who loves the media.” Sure enough: If you’ve got a story on a pressing matter of public concern, let me know. I just may be able to help! I’m at skyler@wzstrategies.com or 303-720-9200. As for the story you just read above, Colorado is full of courageous folks taking stands that shape the national conversation. If you’re one of them, get in touch! 🤠

What’s a WZ? It’s an in-joke about license plates.

---

First layoffs in five years hit the Denver Post

This week, the Denver Post laid off a deputy sports editor, a part-time photo editor, and a part-time breaking news reporter, a member of the labor union that represents the paper confirmed.

“These are the first layoffs at the Post since 2020,” said Elise Schmelzer, a Post reporter who serves as the newsroom unit chair of the Denver Newspaper Guild.

In April 2020, during the swing of the pandemic, the Post, which is financially controlled by the Alden Global Capital hedge fund, laid off 13 people, with four of them coming from the newsroom. Two years before was the bloodbath that cleaved off a third of the paper’s staff.

“It’s incredibly disheartening to lose important members of our team,” Schmelzer said about the latest cuts. “The rest of us will keep working to do the important journalism that we have dedicated our careers to, despite the ongoing uncertainty across the entire industry.”

She added that at least two other open or soon-to-be-open positions won’t be filled.

Also this week, the Post closed YourHub, a one-time successful citizen journalism project of the Rocky Mountain News that survived in the pages of the Denver Post as a community section following the Rocky’s 2009 closure.

“Starting after the May 29 issue, YourHub will no longer be included in Thursday editions of The Denver Post, either in print or in the digital replica,” the section’s managing editor, Julie Vossler-Henderson, wrote.

More from the announcement:

This shift is part of our effort to focus our resources on other areas of news coverage. But don’t worry—you can still stay connected with what’s happening around the metro area through The Denver Post’s event calendars at denverpost.com/event-calendar, curated by our team at The Know.

Next week, Rick Goldsmith is bringing his documentary “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink” to Denver for a screening.

The film focuses on the Denver Post’s hedge fund owner and what it has done to the newspapers it owns.

Denver sportswriter Woody Paige ‘not upset’ about cancellation of Around the Horn

After nearly a quarter of a century, the onetime TV soundtrack to the American college dorm for some of a certain generation is no more.

“Not long ago a network executive called and said he had an informal statement and a formal statement,” wrote Woody Paige, the longtime panelist of the popular ESPN sports-talk show Around the Horn. “I had been one of the great talents for ESPN and influenced generations of young people. Then he said my last official day with the network would be May 23. I thanked him.”

Paige had been a sports journalist for the Denver Post who became famous for his roughly 3,000 appearances on the show with its group-discussion format that he taped from a studio in the Mile High City. He now writes about sports for the Gazette in Denver and Colorado Springs.

“I’m not upset, I’m not concerned about why we are canceled, or why we don't go on for another 15 years,” Paige told Denver7. “I feel fortunate that I was lucky enough to be involved in that platform for over two decades.”

More from Denver7:

“We really had an effect, an impact, on young people who would watch this and say, ‘That's my career,’” Paige added, pointing to the fact that the show inspired many children and college students to pursue a journalism career.

Paige shared advice he got from his father when he shared that he wanted to go into a field that did not pay well.

“My dad said, ‘You want to be a ditch digger? Be the best ditch digger in the world. People will come from miles around to have you dig a ditch… Be the best you can. And it doesn’t matter what industry you're in or what profession you're choosing to go into,’” he said.

Paige also gave Colorado sports the platform they deserve. He pointed out that before “Around the Horn,” most shows were based on either the East or West coasts. The show allowed journalists from other cities, like Denver, to get a national spotlight.

One of Paige’s fellow panelists, Tim Cowlishaw, was less diplomatic about the show ending. He accused ESPN of “gearing itself more toward hiring athletes instead of journalists.”

In March, Michael Roberts wrote for Westword about Paige and the impending doom of Around the Horn.

“I’m the luckiest person in Colorado,” Paige said at the time.

Wither the ‘watchdog role’ at 21 Denver-area newspapers?

Steve Strickbine, the Arizona-based owner of Times Media Group, spoke openly this week about what might be in store for the 21 Denver-area newspapers he just bought.

Strickbine is the new owner of a string of papers that were formerly part of the Colorado Community Media brand under the National Trust for Local News. That group abruptly washed its hands of them earlier this month after being unable to keep them sustainable under nonprofit ownership.

This week, reporter Sarah Scire of Harvard’s Nieman Lab spoke with the new owner about the extent to which a diminished community newspaper is better than no newspaper at all.

“It’s rare, in my experience, to hear directly from newspaper owners making cuts to local newsrooms,” she wrote.

Here’s an excerpt from the story:

Strickbine described a method of “platooning” across his local newspapers in which reporters from areas having “a slow news week” contribute coverage to other publications. There are also two executive editors who edit across dozens and dozens of outlets in Times Media Group — often from hundreds of miles away.

“It’s just kind of the way it is. Do we have the watchdog role? Can we do that now in all these areas? No. I think that’s obvious,” Strickbine said. “We have to just manage those resources well and really try to do our best.”

Here are more notable nuggets:

• “I asked Strickbine about the unbylined pieces I’d noticed on most of the homepages of the newspapers he owns. The unbylined pieces are typically reworked press releases, he said.”

• “Strickbine also brought up the sponsored content that appears in his newspapers. He sees local businesses as a constituency alongside readers.”

• “Strickbine believes that these local publications would not exist without his cuts and ownership. His argument is that the stripped-down local outlets are better than nothing and critics pushing for fewer cuts are out of touch with the brutal reality of local news economics.”

Read the whole important story at the link above.

CTR: Springs school district partners with conservative media program

The progressive nonprofit news and commentary site Colorado Times Recorder reported this week on a partnership between a school district and a conservative news source.

From reporter Heidi Beedle in CTR:

Peak News, the “citizen journalism” initiative led by conservative activists and political figures, held a webinar last week with historian and Christian conspiracist William Federer and Colorado Springs School District 11 (D11) Superintendent Michael Gaal encouraging supporters to “Take the Media Back.” …

Earlier this month D11’s majority-conservative Board of Education approved Peak News’ “Professional Media Practicum” course, to be offered through D11’s Odyssey Early College and Career Options, by an instructor provided by Peak News.

More from the story:

• During a May 7 D11 board meeting where the school district approved a class by Chaim Goldman, the founder and host of Peak News and the organizer behind Church Voter Guides, board member Julie Ott “raised questions about Peak News’ supporters and conservative ideological bent. ‘My concern is several things,’ said Ott. ‘The internship opportunities don’t appear to be defined beyond this one news organization, and to me that’s concerning because this particular news organization admits to and encourages what might be considered bias in its own programming, and if students’ values don’t align with that, my concern is that they’re in a internship, work-based learning environment, they may not get the promotion or other opportunities other students might have.’”

• Salem Media, the conservative station that airs the Peak News program, is “currently involved in a defamation lawsuit from former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer after former KNUS radio host Randy Corporon platformed Douglas County podcaster Joe Oltmann, whose claims about an alleged ‘antifa conference call’ have been ruled ‘probably false’ by a Denver District Court judge. Last year, Salem Media, the company behind the conspiracy film ‘2,000 Mules,’ issued an apology and said it would halt distribution of the film and remove both the film and book from its platforms.”

Read the whole thing at the link above.

---

🌿 This week’s newsletter is proudly supported by PR firm Grasslands: A Journalism-Minded Agency™, founded by Ricardo Baca (ex-Denver Post, ex-Rocky Mountain News, and current Colorado Public Radio board of directors). We understand journalists because we were journalists — and we’re here to help. Need expert sources or compelling stories? Our diverse client roster includes beloved Colorado institutions (Naropa University and Illegal Pete’s), innovative wellness brands (Boulder County Farmers Markets, Naturally Colorado, Eden Health Club), bold natural products businesses (Wild Zora, Flatiron Food Factory, Flower Union Brands), and other purpose-driven organizations. As creators of the Colorado Journalist Meet-Up and longtime champions of quality journalism, Grasslands recognizes the essential role reporters play in our communities. Our team is ready to connect you with sources, data, and unique perspectives that elevate your reporting.

Have a story you’re working on? Email Ricardo directly: ricardo@mygrasslands.com. Together, we’re crafting better narratives — one story at a time. 🌿

---

More Colorado media odds & ends

🗺 This newsletter is in out-of-the-country mode, meaning content might be lighter than usual and I might not be as quick to respond to emails, voicemails, and DMs.

😬 The Florence Reporter newspaper says it’s having a hard time getting basic information from the city including “Who is the public information officer for the City of Florence?”

💦 Colorado journalists and newsrooms who want to dip their beaks into thousands of dollars in grant funding to cover water issues have two more weeks to apply.

⚾️ Multiple journalists for Denver’s 9NEWS pointed out that the Colorado Rockies Major League Baseball team, which is pretty bad, actually won a game once the team’s broadcasts were made available on 9NEWS. “Coincidence? Yes, almost certainly,” one said.

📉 The Southern Colorado Press Club is closing. “In recent years, we’ve seen a decline in participation as the media landscape in Pueblo has shifted,” wrote Southern Colorado Press Club Board President Jayson Peters.

🏆 Master Plan, the excellent podcast about how the United States legalized corruption, created by the team at the Lever, founded by Denver journalist David Sirota, has won the 2025 National Press Club Award.

🆕 Dan Grossman, described by Denver7 as “an experienced Colorado journalist who most recently worked as a national correspondent for Scripps News, the national broadcasting arm of Denver7’s parent company,” is set to join “the station’s morning anchor desk.”

💻 The nonprofit digital news site Colorado Newsline has an initiative called The Trendline that offers analysis on public policy in Colorado by exploring “ways to think about the news based on research, history and other important context, helping Coloradans connect the headlines to the big picture.” A recent great example is by Chase Woodruff who breaks down how Colorado’s housing-supply politics contradict the ‘abundance’ narrative.

⚙️ Former Bucket List Community Cafe reporting and engagement apprentice London Lyle is now a reporter at the Longmont Times-Call.

📚 The Colorado Sun — and by extension its ongoing, weekly SunLit feature — “called on some of Colorado’s award-winning writers to offer their recommendations for worthy titles in their genre of expertise,” reporter Kevin Simpson wrote. Find them here.

I’m Corey Hutchins, manager of the Colorado College Journalism Institute, advisor to Colorado Media Project, and a board member of the state Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For nearly a decade I reported on the U.S. local media scene for Columbia Journalism Review, and I’ve been a journalist for longer at multiple news organizations. Colorado Media Project is underwriting this newsletter, and my “Inside the News” column appears at COLab. (If you’d like to underwrite or sponsor this newsletter, hit me up.) Follow me on Bluesky, reply or subscribe to this weekly newsletter here, or e-mail me at CoreyHutchins [at] gmail [dot] com.