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NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

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Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#161

Post by rayiner »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #79

I listen to NPR station in the car. Anecdotally, very little of the content is true journalism; much of it is effectively op-ed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, provived you understand what you're consuming. The state-funded tag is a bit much. But to claim NPR is a pure journalism play isn't accurate either.

My dad used to listen to NPR all the time growing up (WAMU). It was always liberal, but now it’s become this highly processed and refined sort of white sugar liberal that’s hard to stomach even for him.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#162

Post by js2 »

misssocrates wrote: post #10

> It receives less than 1 percent Why do they keep saying they receive almost nothing, yet at the same time say government funding is essential to their operation?

In 2022, CPB got $465M from the Federal government. Of that, $72M goes to "Direct grants to local public radio stations", $24M to "Radio National Program Production and Acquisition grants" and $7.3M to "Radio Program Fund".

https://cpb.org/aboutcpb/financials/budget

According to NPR's 2020 budget, total revenue was $275M, of which $92.7M was "Station dues, programming and digital fees".

https://media.npr.org/documents/about/statements/fy2020/Nati...

So ~ 1/3 of NPR's revenue is from member stations, and some percentage of that revenue is part of the $72M that the stations were granted from CPB.

Looking at WBUR's budget as a randomly picked example, its 2022 revenue was $39.7M of which $1.8M was grants. Let's call that 4.5%.

https://media.wbur.org/wp/2023/01/WBUR-Special-Purpose-Finan...

Let me pick another random station, WUNC. In 2018 its total revenue was $13.8M. of that CPB grants were $617.8K. Again, about 4.5%.

http://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/wunc/files/wunc_2018_...

Using 4.5% as the percentage of of the $72M from CPB that ends up as part of the 1/3rd of NPRs revenue. 4.5% x 33% = ~1.5%.

I gather then that even though it's a small part of NPR's revenue, it's very high leverage in helping to keep all of the member stations afloat. I guess that's how they can simultaneously downplay the dollar amount while also speaking of how critical it is.

https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...

I may have gotten my math wrong here somewhere, corrections appreciated.

I ignored the $24M and $7.3M of the CPB budget because I wasn't sure what to do with them, but you can read more about those here:

https://www.cpb.org/funding/

It's probably fair count some part of those dollars as part of NPR's funding, I just don't know how much.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#163

Post by rondini »

nailer wrote: post #75
mwsfc wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all ragequitting and not degrading to NPR. Staying on the platform tacitly implies NPR accepts the label ...which would be degrading, from their perspective.

If NPR doesn’t wish to accept the label it should refuse government funding.

If Twitter wants to survive it should stop antagonizing large users to make political statements

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#164

Post by justin66 »

matthewmcg wrote: post #160
trasz3 wrote: post #70

Yeah, it's not like their CEO came directly from the relevant government bureau, right? I'm not a fan of Elon (or most companies, for that matter), but this was the right thing to do. Previously the "government-sponsored" badge was nothing more than US propaganda.

There’s a bit of a “Pluto problem” [1] though with labeling NPR and not explicitly government supported media organizations like Voice of America. This suggests to me that the decision was based on some personal beef the owner has with NPR and not any kind of objective basis. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33462184 (warning: BBC is explicitly supported by the British Government)

Twitter have got the govenrment-funded label on VoA now. But not the BBC, curiously.

> some personal beef the owner has with NPR

NPR is a bogeyman of the American right-wing media, which Musk seems to be consuming an awful lot of in recent years.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#165

Post by throwaway743 »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #79

I listen to NPR station in the car. Anecdotally, very little of the content is true journalism; much of it is effectively op-ed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, provived you understand what you're consuming. The state-funded tag is a bit much. But to claim NPR is a pure journalism play isn't accurate either.

By definition they're state funded, but not state ran. The implications from the optics though may result in extreme takes. Though we could assume there's at least some influence the funding has.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#166

Post by Nicksil »

8organicbits wrote: post #158
smotched wrote: post #63

They will look cool to a certain group of people momentary but it will hurt them in the long run. The average user won't even notice their tweets are missing from their feed.

Each of these announcements shifts the window of discourse[1]. Not too long ago, the idea that a major news organization would leave Twitter was almost unthinkable. Now its just one of many departures and even more are on the fence. It's also a great opportunity for networks like Mastodon to pick up steam and mindshare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#167

Post by retrocryptid »

Does anyone still use Twitter? I tried to delete my account a couple years ago (well before people complained of post-musk problems) and couldn't do it.

Not tweeting gives me time to make the award-winning comments [*] I'm known for on this platform.

But seriously, what are people using after leaving Twitter? I just quit social media sites, didn't go anywhere else.

* yes, this is sarcasm.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#168

Post by TheCoelacanth »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #43
mikeryan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the bulk of NPRs funding comes from the dues of member stations most of which are non-profits and receive funding from a myriad of sources. Hard to say what percent of their funding comes from some governmental source but it’s all indirect and arms length. A lot of folks confuse NPR With PBS which is publicly funded and many of NPR’s member stations are PBS affiliated.

> Because the bulk of NPRs funding comes from the dues of member stations most of which are non-profits and receive funding from a myriad of sources. From wikipedia: Although NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding from the federal government, member stations (which pay dues amounting to approximately one third of NPR's revenue), tend to receive far larger portions of their budgets from state governments, and…

https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...

31% of their funding comes from member stations. 13% of member station funding comes from government sources. In total that would make about 31% * 13% = 4%.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#169

Post by sbuttgereit »

segasaturn wrote: post #89
dustedcodes wrote: post #33

I think after COVID and all the revelations since then it is pretty clear that funding aside, every big media outlet bends over to their own government when they are being asked to push a certain narrative to the population in order to make us belief or behave in certain ways. COVID made this extremely blatantly obvious but it was already apparent before COVID. For instance, when the US and its allies wanted to invad…

This comment doesn't hold up when you consider the person in charge of running the US government in 2020 was adamantly against any kind of COVID-19 prevention measures.

That person was also a disorganized, ineffective baffoon on a good day with a staff more interested in court intrigues than governing. That massive government institutions operated outside of his will shouldn't be surprising.

Re: NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media'

#170

Post by trasz3 »

matthewmcg wrote: post #160
trasz3 wrote: post #70

Yeah, it's not like their CEO came directly from the relevant government bureau, right? I'm not a fan of Elon (or most companies, for that matter), but this was the right thing to do. Previously the "government-sponsored" badge was nothing more than US propaganda.

There’s a bit of a “Pluto problem” [1] though with labeling NPR and not explicitly government supported media organizations like Voice of America. This suggests to me that the decision was based on some personal beef the owner has with NPR and not any kind of objective basis. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33462184 (warning: BBC is explicitly supported by the British Government)

Oh, definitely; it could be based on literally anything, or just effectively random. But it doesn't change my view of whether the outcome is positive or not.
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