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- Adopt a Station Rolls Out Community Impact Tags
New data from the nonprofit Semipublic will now provide potential donors more insight into public media stations in financial distress and whether they have strong local journalism and local programming and community-rooted programming. Semipublic launched the website AdoptAStation.org nearly a year ago in the days following Congress’ decision to rescind federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The website helps connect donors and public media stations at financial risk. (Read more on the enhancements to Adopt a Station.) The introduction of Community Impact Tags, drawn from an expanded Semipublic dataset compiled over the past few months, provides insight into what the stations mean to the communities they serve, according to a release. The website will now feature the following tags: Local Journalism Leader – Stations that create a high amount of local journalism compared to their annual budget. Local Program Leader – Stations that create a high amount of local programming compared to their annual budget. Native Audiences – Stations that are a member of Native Public Media and primarily serve Native American, Alaska Native or Indigenous communities. Rural – Stations that are members of the Alliance of Rural Public Media, or identified by America’s Public Television Stations as those that serve rural communities. HBCU – Stations operated by or in direct affiliation with a Historically Black College or University. Music – Stations that broadcast music as their main format. Alex Curley Alex Curley founded Semipublic with the mission of building public trust in media through data. He said the tags are derived from financial filings, programming data and station licensing records compiled in its independent database. [Related: “How John Oliver and a Data Startup Give Thanks to Public Radio”] Curley launched AdoptAStation.org believing that the information was needed to help guide donors to the most at risk stations. Since July 2025, Adopt A Station has welcomed over 100,000 visitors and directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to stations across the country. Stations that serve rural communities, Semipublic explained, often faced the steepest funding losses and sometimes operate as the sole local news source for the communities they serve. In addition, stations servicing Native American communities saw steep cuts in funding. For example, Semipublic said KSHI(FM) serving the Zuni tribe in New Mexico lost 96% of its federal revenue. Meanwhile, stations across Alaska lost an average of more than 30% of their annual budgets. But the organization… [TheTopNews] Read More.24 mins ago - Music Groups Say Caps Aren’t to Blame for Radio Homogenization
Radio World has been publishing excerpts of various comments about radio ownership rules that have been filed in the FCC’s quadrennial review process. The MusicFirst Coalition and the Future of Music Coalition say assertions about program diversity by the National Association of Broadcasters do not support the loosening of local radio ownership limits. In joint comments filed earlier this year, they said the FCC should retain its limits on the number of FM stations that one entity can own per geographic market, “to protect and promote viewpoint diversity, localism and competition between local AM/FM radio broadcasters.” These are excerpts from their comments about program diversity. The NAB asks the commission to believe that there is a direct cause and effect relationship between AM/FM ownership consolidation and increased “program variety.” The NAB cites a 2007 study … that indicated that “more concentrated markets have fewer stations with the same format categories, and therefore more format diversity; that ‘large national radio owners offer more formats’; and that ‘common ownership results in more diversity in actual programs aired.’” However, the Future of Music Coalition provided data in the commission’s 2006 Quadrennial Review that showed that programmatic diversity was greatest in station groups that were below their local ownership market caps. At that time, FMC found that among owners of smaller commercial radio clusters, religious format stations and Spanish-format stations were more common, as were Classical and Smooth Jazz stations. 2010 comments by FMC explained: “It appears that a wider variety of programming comes from the relatively small station groups and not the large station groups that resulted from the FCC’s signal-contour market definition. This finding casts doubt on any potential claims that larger station groups will offer the public a wider variety of programming” and supports the notion that the local radio ownership caps should not be loosened or eliminated. The NAB commissioned a 2025 Radio Programming Study by BIA Advisory Systems that it cites to purportedly support its assertions: “[R]adio stations continue to provide more varied programming to their local communities than they did in 1996, prior to the increase in common ownership permitted by the 1996 Act. But BIA’s new study also shows that since 2006 increases in the variety of programming have slowed down substantially, flattened or even in some cases reversed, as the 1996 local radio ownership rules have not kept pace with profound changes in the marketplace.” The… [TheTopNews] Read More.53 mins ago - Dem Lawmaker Goes Nuts and Smacks Phone Out of Reporter’s Hand When Asked Abou...
Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) wigged out and appeared to smack the phone out of a reporter’s hand when he was asked whether he endorsed Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner, as seen in new footage obtained by Fox News on Wednesday. The channel played a brief clip of Moulton being asked about Platner while walking into an office. “Who are you?” Moulton scoffed at the reporter. “Do you endorse Graham Platner in Maine?” the male reporter asked again. The lawmaker walked right up to the reporter and put his face inches away from the camera phone, before asking, “Who are you to be asking this question?” He then seemed to snatch the phone while quipping, “You gotta do a better job of hanging onto your phone.” The phone jumped around and seemed to tumble to the ground in the last few seconds. “Yikes!” Fox News anchor John Roberts said when the clip stopped playing. Moulton defended himself on X soon after the video went out. He said the reporter — which he put in quotes — was with America Rising, a right-wing PAC dedicated to opposition research on Democrats. “I’m not going to apologize for how much MAGA pisses me off,” Moulton declared. “I’ll take them on anywhere, anytime, and I won’t back down. If this tracker can’t handle a reality check or hold onto his own equipment, that’s on him.” He then called out Fox News, saying if the channel “wants me back on their airwaves so badly, they should stop ghosting my team.” That wild exchange comes after Platner’s campaign has been hit with several scandals. He infamously had a Nazi tattoo on his chest — which he later removed and denied knowing it was tied to Nazi Germany; a former girlfriend later contested his claim and told The New York Times he knew exactly what it was. There have been plenty of other unsavory headlines, like Platner’s campaign admitting he sexted a number of women who were not his wife. Platner ripped the “establishment media” for trying to tear apart his loving marriage in response. Platner also praised Nazi-allied soldiers in now-deleted Reddit posts and was accused of abusive behavior by ex-girlfriends in the aforementioned NYT report. Platner denied the accusations. Despite the baggage, Platner easily won the Maine Democratic primary last month. He will face Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) in this November’s general election. Watch above. … [TheTopNews] Read More.1 hour ago - Trump Administration Spent at Least $11 Billion Paying Federal Workers Not to Wo...
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci) The nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, Public Citizen, dug through publicly available data from the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and found that Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s DOGE cuts resulted in federal employees being paid “at least $11 billion – and likely much more – not to work.” The group did a deep dive study into the cost of Trump’s federal employment cuts and noted that the “total reflects only the lower end of estimated costs for the Deferred Resignation Program (DRP) – inspired by Elon Musk in the Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM’s) infamous “Fork in the Road” email, and it does not look at other federal efforts to reduce the number of federal workers.” Musk’s DRP refers to the 139,628 federal employees who took an offer from DOGE to resign their jobs in early January of 2025 but still get paid through October. The report added: A second DRP offer, known as DRP 2.0, began in April 2025 and paid employees through September 30, 2025, unless they planned to retire by the end of the year and could then be paid up until December 31, 2025, when they separated from federal service. The result was that nearly 140,000 federal workers were paid not to work for weeks or, in most cases, months. Based on OPM data, Public Citizen estimates that paying federal employees in the DRP not to work cost between $11.1 billion and $15.1 billion through March 2026, the last month OPM posted publicly available data. Musk’s DOGE program has long been derided as both ineffective and dangerous, as it not only did not result in less government spending but also served to push out key employees. Many critics have long pointed out that the best employees would be likely to be first to leave under DOGE’s offer, as they could easily find new jobs and earn double income. DOGE cuts impacted everyone from the workers guarding the U.S. nuclear arsenal to air traffic controllers, many of whom ended up being urgently hired back. In April of 2025, the Partnership for Public Service (PSP) released a report finding that while DOGE claimed it saved $160 billion in waste and fraud, it cost taxpayers some $135 billion in additional costs. CBS News reported on the finding at the time, noting the $135 billion figure didn’t include DOGE “defending multiple lawsuits challenging DOGE’s actions,… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago - Trump Reportedly Attacks GOP Senator For Missing Key Vote — While Campaigning ...
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) President Donald Trump reportedly jabbed a Republican senator during a Wednesday lunch meeting for missing a key vote — though the senator missed the vote because he was campaigning with Trump. Trump met with Republican senators at a Wednesday lunch shortly after he made the surprise announcement that he was cancelling a ceremony for the signing of a bipartisan housing bill aimed at increasing housing supply and lowering costs for Americans. The president said he was cancelling the ceremony and doesn’t want to sign until the Senate passes the SAVE Act, voter ID legislation that would put more restrictions and requirements on voting. MS NOW congressional journalist Mychael Schnell and others reported leaks from the closed-door meeting. One person described it as a “total clusterf*ck,” according to Semafor’s Burgess Everett. Schnell reported that Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) was “yelling” at Trump at one point. She also reported that Trump at one point turned his attention to Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) for missing a war powers vote. The president was reportedly upset about the rebuke he received from the GOP-led Senate the day prior. The Senate passed a non-binding resolution to invoke the War Powers Act on Wednesday, with four Republican senators joining the effort: Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Cassidy. The resolution tells the president to end the war with Iran, but it is not legally binding. McCormick and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) were absent for the vote. As Schnell noted, however, McCormick had good reason not to be there that Trump should have remembered, and even if he was, it would not have changed the outcome. INSIDE THE SENATE GOP LUNCH WITH TRUMP: Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) confronted President Trump over the Iran memorandum of understanding, a source familiar with the lunch conversation tells me @MSNOWNews. Cassidy was “yelling” at Trump, the source said. This source also tells me… — Mychael Schnell (@mychaelschnell) June 24, 2026 “This source also tells me that Trump went after Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) for missing yesterday’s war powers vote, which was successful, 48-50,” Schnell reported. “But worth noting: McCormick was with Trump at a Pennsylvania rally. And even if he were at the Capitol, the resolution still would’ve been successful because McConnell was absent.”The post Trump Reportedly Attacks GOP Senator For Missing Key Vote — While Campaigning With Him first appeared… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago - ‘I Don’t Like a Few People’: Trump Dishes on ‘Really Great Meeting’ Wi...President Donald Trump called a Wednesday afternoon meeting of the Senate GOP caucus “really great” shortly after it was described as a “total cluster f*ck” by another source. Punchbowl’s Andrew Desiderio reported that Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), “came in guns blazing, at one point stopped calling Trump ‘Mr. President’ and referred to him as ‘brother.’” Cassidy himself later explained that Trump “did not particularly care for my comments, raised his voice, I lost my temper…it’s the Irish in me.” The president also reportedly took aim at Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Dave McCormick (R-PA). The first three voted in favor of a war powers resolution vis-a-vis the conflict in Iran on Tuesday, while the other two were not present to cast a vote. “The Senate GOP meeting with Trump is not going well. ‘A total cluster f#ck,’ one person said.” tweeted Semafor’s Burgess Everett. Trump acknowledged the tension, but struck a much more positive tone in remarks he delivered to the press after the meeting while standing beside Senate GOP leadership in the Capitol. “I think we had a really great meeting, and we’re very proud of the party. We like our leader. We like everybody, really, in the room. I don’t like a few people, but that’s okay, I think you know who they are. But we-, I’ll give you that information someday. But for the most part, we have a really well-unified party. And I said it very strongly: we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We’re the most powerful, we’re the smartest, we’re the most respected. Two years ago, we were a laughingstock all over the world. We had a terrible group of people representing us. Every leader — I just left G7 — every leader, and we had a lot of people, in addition to G7, as you know, came. Everyone said, what we’ve done in a year and a half is a miracle. We have the hottest country in the world, and we want to keep it that way,” he began before continuing: We have more factories being built right now than we have at any point at any time in the history of our country. And all of those factories are opening up soon. It’s all jobs. And our job numbers are incredible anyway. I see that oil just broke the… [TheTopNews] Read More.2 hours ago
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