If you care about public media and have read any news mentioning the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2025, chances are it’s been something scary / depressing / grim about how the president wants to defund it (not a new threat, but one that feels more real than it did a few years ago).

That’s why an announcement Tuesday morning from WUNC caught my eye. The Triangle-based public radio station is partnering with other public radio stations across the state — Blue Ridge Public Radio (Asheville), WFAE (Charlotte), WHQR (Wilmington), and WFDD (Winston-Salem) — to launch “the North Carolina Newsroom, Capitol Bureau, a journalism collaboration expanding North Carolina state government news coverage for North Carolina audiences throughout the year.” The funding for this new initiative, which supports a reporter and an editor/reporter in Raleigh, is a two-year grant from the CPB.

The CPB announced the $542,000 grant for this initiative what feels like a political century ago but was really just back in October. It was part of $2.65 million “to increase and strengthen state government coverage provided by public media” in seven states — Colorado, Florida, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, and New York, along with the Tar Heel State. That followed a first round of $2.25 million in funding for state government coverage in Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Texas, which stations say is already making a difference. NPR has also doubled down on collaboration to fill local news gaps through its growing network of regional newsrooms. In many communities, statehouse reporting has been a casualty of shrinking local newsrooms (though nonprofits and others have zeroed in on turning that around).

“At a time when many media outlets are cutting back on state government coverage, public media is increasing its journalism about how North Carolina state government is serving its citizens,” WUNC news director Brent Wolfe noted in the press release announcing the collaboration. “We are grateful that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Congress are enabling more reporting on North Carolina state government for audiences across the state.”

WUNC’s announcement, like the CPB-funded statehouse reporting initiatives taking shape in other states, is both as a heartening example of how collaborations can fill local news gaps — and an illustration of exactly what local public media stands to lose if the current administration succeeds in defunding CPB.

I asked WUNC president and general manager Paul Hunton what a loss of CPB funding would mean for local news, and for much-needed initiatives like the new Capitol Bureau.

“CPB funding is a crucial component of public media’s ability to provide in-depth journalism, especially at the local and state levels,” he said in an email. Specifically, CPB accounts for approximately 5% of WUNC’s annual budget. “Without this support, our ability to provide comprehensive state government coverage would be significantly impacted, limiting the public’s access to essential legislative and policy reporting,” Hunton said. “If federal support were to be cut, WUNC and stations like ours would face difficult choices. While we would seek alternative funding sources, CPB funding is not easily replaceable.”

Public media, Hunton noted, is one of the last remaining sources of local news that is based out of local communities — and that is free to access. “Losing CPB funding wouldn’t just hurt public media,” Hunton said; “it would hurt the communities that rely on it.”