PHOENIX – Attorney General Mayes today filed a court brief along with 22 other attorneys general in support of two lawsuits brought by National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service that seek to block proposed funding cuts to their organizations and local affiliates.
“First as a journalist and now as Arizona’s Attorney General, I've seen firsthand the critical role Arizona PBS and NPR stations play in informing the public,” Attorney General Mayes said. “From providing the only emergency alerts in some of our rural and tribal communities, to their incredible educational programming, to their thoughtful, fact-based reporting on the issues that matter, PBS and NPR provide essential services that Arizonans across the state rely on."
At issue in the case is an executive order signed by President Trump on May 1 directing the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and executive branch agencies to end federal funding for NPR and PBS. On May 27, NPR and three Colorado public radio stations—Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio, and tribal-serving KSUT in southwestern Colorado—sued to block the proposed cuts. PBS and a Minnesota-based affiliate filed a separate lawsuit on May 30.
The coalition of attorneys general led by Colorado, Arizona, Minnesota, and Rhode Island argue that public broadcast stations serve a critical role in delivering information to the public and the proposed cuts would gravely harm Americans. The coalition says the funding cuts would create risks to public safety and erode trust by threatening coverage of local news, creating disruptions to the distribution of emergency notifications, reducing critical educational services, and limiting public media’s unique reach to rural and tribal audiences.
In the brief, filed concurrently today in both lawsuits, the coalition outlines some of the harms people in their states will face if the cuts move forward. These include threats to emergency notification systems like the Emergency Alert System, or EAS. Many states, including Arizona, rely on public broadcast stations to serve as primary or secondary stations to deliver EAS messages to the public during emergencies. Arizona PBS provides weather and civil defense alerts to parts of the state not reached by commercial broadcasters, especially for tribal land and rural counties. Additionally, other infrastructure provided by NPR and PBS serve as important backups for emergency notifications in the event of electrical or internet outages.
Other emergency notifications disseminated via public media include Amber Alerts for abducted children, Blue Alerts for notifying the public of suspects who have killed or seriously injured law enforcement officers, Silver Alerts used when older people or people with developmental disabilities go missing, and Missing Indigenous Person Alerts that are critical for tribal communities. The brief also outlines how public broadcasters serve important educational roles, including here in Arizona, by:
- Deploying Home Learning multimedia educational assets, including television broadcast and online services
- Orchestrating summer kinder-readiness camps to help prepare children for elementary school education. In Arizona’s FY24, it concluded a three-year, evidence-based evaluation study of 11 camps across five sites, which showed that children who participated in the camps increased reading and comprehension skills by 49%, letter sounds by 77% and decoding skills by 57%
- Providing scholarships to strengthen the early childhood education workforce. As part of this program, Arizona PBS works with 22 tribes and over 27 higher education institutions throughout the state. In FY24, 1,243 teachers received a total of $1,724,356 in scholarships to complete associate and bachelor’s degrees. In FY25, 678 teachers received $1,335,325.
- Employing six regionally embedded education staff members who serve their local communities in Apache Junction, Flagstaff, Lake Havasu, Pinetop-Lakeside, Tucson, and Yuma. That team traveled over 38,000 miles in FY25 to help meet Arizona’s educational needs in a culturally responsive manner that honors Indigenous heritage.
Finally, the brief highlights the disproportionate threats to rural and tribal areas posed by the cuts: “Each of the [states] contain rural population areas that support economic and cultural contributions far bigger than their population density alone might indicate." In Arizona, public broadcasting provides critical information in rural and tribal areas. For example, KUYI Hopi Public Radio provides “the only source for community-wide alerts, news, weather updates, road safety, and emergency announcements."
Joining Attorney General Mayes in filing the brief are the attorneys general of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Read the brief filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia here.