Why public broadcasting is important to Appalachia

Washington Post - President Trump's budget director had a blunt explanation for why the administration wanted to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: It was inappropriate, he said, to ask working-class Americans — such as "a coal miner in West Virginia" — to pay for programs like the CPB. "We can ask them to pay for defense, and we will, but we can’t ask them to continue to pay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," added Mick Mulvaney, head of the Office of Management and Budget.

... Precisely because of their far-flung nature, those areas — such as parts of Appalachia — often lack many broadcast options other than the ones CPB provides. CPB funding is "especially critical for those living in small towns and in rural and underserved areas," the organization's president, Patricia Harrison, said in a statement.

For instance, about 43 percent of entities receiving CPB support — 248 out of 575 — are classified as "rural." Only about 18 percent of Americans live in rural areas, so stations serving those Americans are more likely than urban stations to be funded by CPB, relative to overall population.

Even at the dollar level, rural stations receive a disproportionate share of CPB funding: Close to 30 percent of CPB's entire federal appropriation goes toward funding rural stations.