How on earth can anyone say "falsely labeled"? NPR does get money from the federal government, that is an undisputable fact. How are they not "state-affilated"? I don't care how small a % of the budget is money from the government. The fact they take any money at all from the gov makes them sate-affilated.
Twitter's own definition of "state-affiliated media" reads as follows:
State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.
COMPETES act stuffed 500M for state sponsored anti-PRC propaganda. By that definition all US media should be default suspect of being state affliated. Or charitably state influenced / infiltrated.
If NPR was as upstanding as some think, and if this money isn't meaningful as claimed, then why is it so hard for NPR to give the money back and distance themselves in a way that leaves no room for question about being propaganda?
> In that case, very nearly every business (including mom and pop shops)
How so? In what capacity are “most businesses” getting federal money? Tax credits/breaks don’t count, that is the companies money that they don’t have to pay, not the federal government directly funding the business.
In their rebuttal [0] to this, they cited a statement from the White House Press Secretary:
> When asked about Twitter's decision during the White House's daily briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to address Twitter's content rules specifically. But she also defended NPR's journalism.
> "There is no doubt of the independence of NPR journalists," Jean-Pierre said. "If you've ever been on the receiving end of their questions, you know this."
If you read more [1] you'll see that NPR used several sources' talking points in its story.
So in this context who better? Also it's not like they received a real response from Twitter when they asked:
"In response to an NPR email for this story seeking comment and requesting details about what in particular might have led to the new designation, the company's press account auto-replied with a poop emoji — a message it has been sending to journalists for weeks."
Great, so you agree that Tesla and SpaceX must also be labeled as state-affiliated, right? And of course every single company that took PPP money, and...
And what purpose would that serve? Tesla is not a media company. It doesn't publish news and it doesn't claim to be objective. Nobody is interested in how their sources of funding might bias their coverage of events because that's completely irrelevant to a car company
Okay, so when big media corps get cut deals by government, are they now state-affiliated? Is Disney state-affiliated, with no editorial independence, because Florida had granted them their own little kingdom? Your post might as well say: "I don't care what the facts are, my minds made up that NPR is a mouthpiece for the state." It's just not at all true. Stations pay for NPR content, and stations are member driven, despite subsidy. The federal government has no more say in NPRs content than anyone else's.
If every source was judged by that standard, and the accounts of media conglomerates such as Disney were also flagged as state affiliated, I could get on board with that, maybe. But it risks being a useless qualification at that point.
By this logic, Tesla is also "state-affiliated". A huge amount of companies in this country receive government subsidies, are they all "state-affiliated" media? The NPR journalists act independently from any government oversight, they are not part of the government's media apparatus
I think folks who don’t follow the media industry would be surprised how much federal money makes its way around. The U.S. military alone has an annual marketing budget over $400 million, most of which goes to media companies.
There is also the 2nd order effect of major government contractors who spend heavily on brand advertising, which is in turned funded by revenue from government contracts. NPR actually gets most of its “government funding” this way, as private membership dues from local radio stations (who themselves receive some federal grants).
Personally what matters to me is editorial independence from the government, not where single digits of revenue come from. And NPR is undeniably as editorially self-directed as any other media company.
> The fact they take any money at all from the gov makes them sate-affilated.
Let's leave out the Elno companies that take gov money hand over fist, why is this label not applied to every company that gets tax benefits, took out govt loans?
