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Home > Capital Public Radio: Insight Podcast > Federal Funding Cuts for Public Media | Central Valley’s Political Character | New Owen McKenna Mystery Book ‘Tahoe Speed’
Podcast: Capital Public Radio: Insight Podcast
Episode:

Federal Funding Cuts for Public Media | Central Valley’s Political Character | New Owen McKenna Mystery Book ‘Tahoe Speed’
Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:00:00
Publish Date: 2025-07-28 15:00:00
Description:

Federal Funding Cuts for Public Media

Public media stations across the country are entering a new landscape without a critical lifeline. A Republican-backed Congress has made good on years of threats from President Trump, pulling federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting - which is the largest single source of funding for public media. Although this will impact NPR and PBS nationally, the biggest hit will be to smaller stations - especially in rural areas - where federal funding can make up a large share of their operating budgets. There are more than 30 stations across California now figuring out how to work without CPB funding. In our area, Sacramento PBS station KVIE stands to lose $2.5 million that it was expecting this fall. As far as CapRadio is concerned, it currently doesn't receive any federal funding. Because of prior financial mismanagement, CapRadio has not been eligible to receive CPB funding for the past two years, which our newsroom has reported on independently. Today, we’re going to get a better sense of the difficult decisions taking shape. Maya Miller is a politics reporter and Cayla Mihalovich is a justice reporter for CalMatters. They spoke with local stations across Southern California, the Central Valley, Bay Area and North Coast and join us with their reporting.

CalMatters is a nonprofit newsroom that partners with public media stations across the state.

Central Valley’s Political Character

The Central Valley is one of California’s fastest-growing regions, with up to five million new residents by 2060, according to projections from the Department of Finance. With that population growth comes political change, with parts of the Central Valley swinging from supporting Joe Biden for president in 2020 to backing Donald Trump in 2024, especially among Latino-majority counties and voters. Political Science professors Dr. Thomas Holyoke from Fresno State and Keith Smith from University of the Pacific talk about the political character of the region, and how shifts in political alignments and voter behaviors could impact the 2026 midterms and beyond.

New Owen McKenna Mystery Book ‘Tahoe Speed’

Thousands of people will visit the Lake Tahoe region this summer, drawn by the beauty of the famed blue lake surrounded on all sides by peaks of the Sierra Nevada. It’s also the stomping grounds of Tahoe Detective Owen McKenna, a Bay Area transplant who refuses to carry a gun. McKenna is the lead protagonist of Tahoe Speed, the 23rd installment in the Owen McKenna mystery thriller series by Todd Borg. He will be signing books this Saturday in Truckee and Sunday in Carson City. He joins us today to talk about the appeal of Lake Tahoe and mystery books, as well as what it’s like to create characters that keep people coming back for more.
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