Behind the Paywall
defunding the arts & public radio
As a very part-time writer it doesn’t feel good when pieces you tirelessly work on go behind a paywall. It’s also frustrating, yet understandable, when the reasoning makes complete sense.
Queen City Nerve, the alt-weekly in Charlotte, NC, that I’m a frequent contributor to, announced recently that their content would be going behind a paywall. The publisher, Justin LaFrancois, told readers: “We've grown every year since our founding, in both revenue and readership (even through COVID). We were forecasted to have our best year ever in 2025. I even budgeted a real salary for myself and Ryan Pitkin for the first time. Then, one day, things just… stopped.”
Justin added, “We knew that we needed to make a pivot in order to both sustain the work that we do in the community, as well as provide payments to staff and contributors for the longform work that they do.”
Publications like Queen City Nerve, have a lot of nonprofits who advertise online and in print. With federal funding cuts from the Trump Administration, including cuts made to USAID, it all may seem unrelated, but when one cut happens it sends ripples across whole industries.
Those funding cuts lead nonprofits to hold advertising dollars, advertising dollars then don’t go to local alt-weeklies and then paywalls go up to offset costs. In the midst of all of the belt-tightening, writers like me experience less in readership, less in readership leads to less articles being greenlit.
Pew Research Center reported that “just 1% say they pay for access when they come across an article that requires payment. The most common reaction is that people seek the information somewhere else (53%). About a third (32%) say they typically give up on accessing the information.”
PR Daily reports that Only 16% of Americans currently pay for a subscription to a news outlet. By way of comparison, about 22% of Americans and Canadians subscribe to Netflix.
Here’s the issue, which is actually similar to the whole Netflix model. When Netflix came around, it was essentially the only game in town when it came to streaming. For sure it uprooted the Blockbuster model when we’re looking at its disc era, which in turn Blockbuster killed the mom & pop rental store when it took over the industry.
When Blockbuster faded away and Netflix became the big dog in town, it was competing with cable, offering a solution for those interested in “cord-cutting.” But eventually more competitors entered the arena, so you were paying for Hulu, HBO Max, Prime Video and eventually Disney+.
“Only $10 a month” they touted but now across a plethora of services.
Only $3.99 for a whole year of CNN! Only $1.50 a week for Forbes!
Newspapers had a similar dilemma.
Looking locally, Charlotte Observer was $0.25 for a daily copy and $0.50 for a Sunday copy in 1990. So for around $17 (based on national averages) you could get newspapers delivered to you for a whole month. Maybe you also read The New York Times or Wall Street Journal, but the choices essentially ended there.
Cable news came around and while the model for newspapers was disrupted, it still held, because it was mostly the only source for local news, aside from nightly television news. Around the mid-nineties and into the new millenium this all changed with online news sites.
Eventually, as internet got faster and smart phones came into play, you could check out most news all of the time in your pocket. Your phone sends an alert and BAM you’re aware that we’re bombing Yemin. For sure, this convenience devalued the cost of news, but life marches on. This convenience also led to the death of most local alt-weeklies, because there were other avenues by which you could keep up with regional events, thanks to Facebook or whatever your preferred social media was.
I’d love to say I’m any different, but when I hit a paywall I look elsewhere for information. It’s frustrating, because I understand the importance of these smaller publications, but there’s only so much we can expect people to do. Art and journalism have been devalued so much over the past 10-20 years and along with the devaluation, the minimum wage hasn’t been raised since 2009. Holding at $7.25.
Local news sources truthfully need the funding more than Spotify does, but eventually something has to give. I can’t expect someone who makes minimum wage to donate to my Substack.
That brings us to “free” sources of news like NPR and PBS. About $1.1 billion was destined for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances NPR and PBS, though most of that money is distributed to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations around the country.
Recently, Tommy Tomlinson of Southbound podcast and local NPR affiliate WFAE, announced that due to the budget cuts he was opting to take a buyout from the station. He said, “I have nothing but good things to say about that place.” Adding, “They are doing a very difficult thing that a lot of people are trying to do, which is navigate this incredibly difficult time for local media especially and trying to do the best they can and keep the public informed as best they can. It’s a lot harder job than it used to be.”
Tomlinson previously worked for Charlotte Observer from 1989 to 2012, so it’s safe to say he’s no stranger to these cuts. Tomlinson is currently publishing his weekly newsletter, The Writing Shed, which you can read here.
Researching this piece, I came across the New York Times article “What Will Funding Cuts Do to NPR and PBS?” I’d really like to know the answer to that, but it was behind a paywall.
As I wrote this on Friday August 1st, 2025, The Corporation For Public Broadcasting announced that it will be closing its doors due to the budget cuts. Patricia Harrison, the president and CEO of CPB, said, “Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations. CPB remains committed to fulfilling its fiduciary responsibilities and supporting our partners through this transition with transparency and care.”
I recently wrote an article about functional unemployment for Queen City Nerve and because of everything I’ve stated here, it too is behind a paywall. I don’t mention that to shame the paper, once again I understand the dire economics of the situation, but when I look at it directly, I’m asking possible unemployed people to pay to find information that might be helpful to their situation. I’ve been functionally unemployed since December 2023, working part-time in IT and just whatever else I can to make ends meet. I’m college educated and have over 20 years of experience across many different sectors. My point being, I directly understand the subject I’m writing about, because I am the subject.
It was recently reported by Associated Press that U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs last month, well short of the 115,000 expected. Revisions shaved a stunning 258,000 jobs off May and June payrolls. And the unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.2% as Americans dropped out of the labor force and the ranks of the unemployed rose by 221,000.
The 4.2% is contested by the likes of Gene Ludwig, who states that the functional unemployment rate (also known as true rate of unemployment) is around 24.1%.
The worsening economic climate is being blamed on President Donald Trump’s erratic and radical trade policies which is paralyzing businesses and raising doubts about the outlook for the world’s largest economy.
Recently, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that 30 to 50% of work at the company can now be done by AI. Chief executive Elijah Clark, a consultant who advises companies on AI implementation, says that “AI doesn't go on strike. It doesn't ask for a pay raise.”
Circling back to alt-weeklies, NPR, PBS and paywalls, what do we do now?
We’re in a tough position, but we need public radio and we need local voices of news. If you are working and in a position to support your local stations, then please open your heart and your wallet and give whatever you can. If you have a subscription and you know someone in need, maybe give them your login. Hell, we all do it with Netflix and Hulu, so whatever it takes to keep us informed.
Tommy Tomlinson says, “I think it's important for readers and listeners to understand that the old business models of journalism are basically gone. The reporting and research that goes into top-shelf journalism takes time and costs money. There's no way around it. And until we figure out some better way, the audience is going to have to shoulder most of the burden of paying for it.”
This administration and the billionaire ruling class want us to be misinformed. They want us to blame each other when it’s their fault this is happening. All of these issues could be avoided by just funding public radio, television and other non-profits. Tax the rich and stop funding overseas wars (NOTE: Free Palestine) when we have people who are jobless, hungry and homeless here.
Outside of federal funding, billionaires don’t care about you. So don’t care about them. Support your local community, buy local when you can, and reach out if you need help.
