Earlier this month, Congress calmly voted to rip the guts out of public media. The 2025 Rescissions Act yoinked $1.1 billion away from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the nonprofit that since 1967 has worked to fund Americans' public television and public radio.
No one is going to mistake Phoenix New Times for NPR or PBS. We're at once more aggressive and more louche. We're more likely to have bags under our eyes and to smell faintly of last night's happy hour specials. Fred Rogers and the Count do not work here. Often as not, we are brought to you by the letters F and U.
Still, we are in much the same fight as the public television and radio stations that Congress just nuked. Yes, we’re out here covering Valley cops having sex in their cars and lurid anti-Trump billboards and Katy Perry’s whackadoo tour stop and ICE busting taco truck workers. It’s not exactly Ken Burns and Garrison Keillor on tap here. But as our methods diverge, our goals and those of public media are kin: To inform the public, for free, without partisan favor. We tell you what’s going on so everyone can make better decisions, for themselves and for society at large.
This is my pitch to you, New Times reader, as we launch our summer fundraising campaign. This publication is as old as "Sesame Street" and twice as grouchy. And yet in the 55 years we have been covering hard news, culture, music and food in the Valley, we have charged readers a total of zero dollars. Online and in print, everyone in your community gets New Times journalism for free.
We are here for Phoenix, through thick and thin. And we’re hoping you’ll help us cover our bills at a moment when the headwinds against professional free media have never been fiercer.
How you can support local, independent media
This summer, we’re aiming to raise at least $7,000 — a pittance, really, in a city of 5 million people. You want to help out? Step right up and smash this link to our fundraising page. Much love.
Readers like you who generously support us become members. Members get cool stuff. Most recently, at a Harkins theater in Tempe, we invited members to the Arizona premiere screening of an anti-corruption documentary called “Bribe, Inc.” We concluded with a Q&A with the film’s director, Peter W. Klein, and one of the film’s producers (that would be yours truly).
What’s in it for you is only part of my pitch. (To recap: you get a functional democracy and maybe the occasional hang with journalism nerds.) As we pass the hat, I also want you to reflect on what it means to have robust media working for everyone. Across every area of our coverage, we make life better for the people of Phoenix — and more difficult for anyone who would also seek to confuse or mislead the public.
“New Times’ work on music, food, and other reporting is critical for the region.”
“The in-depth look at issues. Feel your work isn't mitigated by partisanship.”
“Reporting is exceptional. The fact that it is free on the newsstand. Need support from those picking up their FREE copy. Donate what you can afford!”
After Congress reneged on funding the future, a writer at the Cato Institute gloated that defunding public media was a “significant win for liberty.” My response to people who equate “liberty” with “starving the public commons” is, liberty for whom exactly? Who benefits when we lose free news and free educational programs?
Public television improves your life when it teaches your neighbor’s kid the alphabet. Public radio improves your life when it explains the day’s events to the harried commuter passing you on I-10. And day in, day out, New Times improves your life, as well as the lives of your friends in the Valley who care about culture, who support music, who work in or eat at restaurants, and who vote or pay taxes or attend schools or interact with the police.
We’re out here on the ramparts for you, as we have been for the past 55 years. With your help, we’ll be here for 55 more. (Fifty-five! Ah ah ah ah ah.) Count on it.
