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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'

#181

Post by kome »

ajford wrote: post #155
kome wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but this opens the can of worm of defining "editorial independence". and I think that speaking of State-financed or Publicly-financed is a better.

Sure. But then can we label SpaceX and Tesla as State-Financed? They are both sucking down way more money from the US Gov't than NPR is. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-su... https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-explor...

omg yes, between banks bailouts, law mandated insurances, private-pensions plans and companies with a huge public contribution (such as SpaceX); it would finally open the eyes to the public how much of "capitalism" is in fact politically created and directed.

So yes, I really would like to see this.

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

#182

Post by colpabar »

md_ wrote: post #85
photochemsyn wrote: post #46

Well, there is an interesting history here. E.g. in 2000 NPR (and CNN) allowed the US Army's Psychological Operations division to place military members in the newsroom as interns as part of a media training program: https://fair.org/home/psyops-in-the-newsroom/ > "PSYOPS is a division of the U.S. Army mandated to “develop and disseminate propaganda designed to lower the morale” of “enemy forces,” and to “build suppo…

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger "Cable Network News (CNN) and National Public Radio, (NPR) denied that the "psy-ops" officers influenced news coverage and said the internships had been stopped as soon as senior managers found out . For its part, the army said the programme was only intended to give young army media specialists some experience of how the news industry functioned." That...see…

It's insane to me that we're all just supposed to give a US army program literally titled PSYOPS the benefit of the doubt because their corporate partners said there was nothing to worry about. Does anyone remember that the entire mainstream media was in full support of everything the bush administration did in the middle east, NPR included?

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

#183

Post by dylan604 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64
segasaturn wrote: post #9

I wonder if this will have any domino effect, right now the only thing holding Twitter together is its network effects. According to the article on NPR's site[0], they have 8.7 million followers and run 52 different accounts so Twitter is losing a pretty important partner. Also, no mention of Mastodon in this announcement. It sounds like they're just going to use Facebook for the time being. 0: https://www.npr.org/20…

> no mention of Mastodon in this announcement Mastodon blew its moment. It could have eaten Twitter’s lunch. But onboarding—specifically, choosing a server—was too tedious for non-niche adoption.

This will always be a problem with federated vs unfederated services. It's hard to get a network effect when things are so spread out without a central place.

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

#184

Post by dylan604 »

jpmattia wrote: post #151
bryanlarsen wrote: post #20

I've seen government-funded ads on Twitter. Wouldn't it be ironic if Twitter's revenue share from government sources is larger than NPR's 1-2%?

It's also interesting that we don't see the state affiliated label on SpaceX yet.

"whats good for me, is not good for thee" or some version should be tattooed on Musk's forehead.

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

#185

Post by acdha »

photochemsyn wrote: post #154
md_ wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger "Cable Network News (CNN) and National Public Radio, (NPR) denied that the "psy-ops" officers influenced news coverage and said the internships had been stopped as soon as senior managers found out . For its part, the army said the programme was only intended to give young army media specialists some experience of how the news industry functioned." That...see…

I'd perhaps distinguish between 'state-sponsored' (i.e. all the operating funds come from a government) and 'state-affiliated' (i.e. media employees and government employees are intermingled and move back and forth from media to government jobs.) If MSNBC hires a Biden spokesperson (Jen Psaki) or if CNN hires a intelligence officer (e.g. James Clapper) or if Fox hires a White House communications director (Hope Hicks…

There’s another aspect you have to consider: the power dynamic. If MSNBC hired Jen Psaki or Fox News hired Hope Hicks because she got sick of working in government, they might have a bias towards their former colleagues but it would be voluntary and clearly a job either would be qualified for. That’s pretty different from, say, Russian government going to RT and giving them a list of qualified candidates or even, say, the Tories appointing their loyalists to the BBC because the decision isn’t being made by the government and there isn’t a threat explicit or implicit that there would be consequences for not hiring them.

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

#186

Post by jfengel »

colanderman wrote: post #39
hidden80 wrote: post #3

It's so wild witnessing the degradation of Twitter.

Right? > Twitter's communications shop now simply responds to reporters' emails with poop emojis. Like, does Musk realize the market of trolls, clowns, and morons who enjoy his adolescent antics is... not worth $44 B?

He certainly figured it out, which is why he worked so hard to back out of the deal.

Though he never really expected it to earn its price back. As a large-fraction-of-a-trillion-aire, he may well have found that having trolls, clowns, and morons to enjoy his adolescent antics is worth $44B in pure enjoyment. He was buying a chance to put a significant thumb on the finger of world culture.

Musk has so much money that he doesn't really care if there's a net positive return to his purchases. He spends money to enjoy it. Which I actually find bizarrely refreshing, compared to the ones who want to use it for the purpose of acquiring more money, plus the occasional conspicuous consumption that seems more like a performance than actual enjoyment (e.g. megayachts).

Too bad he's such an asshole, though.

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

#187

Post by acdha »

dylan604 wrote: post #179
segasaturn wrote: post #9

I wonder if this will have any domino effect, right now the only thing holding Twitter together is its network effects. According to the article on NPR's site[0], they have 8.7 million followers and run 52 different accounts so Twitter is losing a pretty important partner. Also, no mention of Mastodon in this announcement. It sounds like they're just going to use Facebook for the time being. 0: https://www.npr.org/20…

I would assume a single account with 8.7 million followers isn't a big deal to Twitter. It's not like the 8.7 million NPR followers are unique to NPR and are going to disappear. Those 8.7 million followers probably follow 8.7 million other things themselves. I'd be willing to guess a single Kardashian has more followers than NPR (maybe I'm too cynical). Eventually, the way Musk is running Twitter, he'll give a free b…

That’s true to some extent but NPR and its people provide a ton of timely content which keeps users active. People like the “what’s going on” aspect and news organizations disproportionately help provide that.

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

#188

Post by dylan604 »

orwin wrote: post #157
nailer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So any company accepting grants is a state-affiliated company? Honestly I kinda like it. I would extend it to any company accepting tax breaks. Imagine the headline 'The church of the Last days, a state-affiliated non-profit, is warning that the end is near'.

McDonalds, a state funded eatery,... (because they accept tax breaks)

Amazon, a state funded company,... (because they shopped around for the best tax breaks)

Or any single other company that does what a company does by making any deal they can to better their bottom lines by taking tax breaks or gov't funding in any form would need to be called state funded.

It sort of loses its stigma from that view point.

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

#189

Post by dragonwriter »

mikeryan wrote: post #30
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?

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.

> A lot of folks confuse NPR With PBS which is publicly funded

PBS gets a minority of its funding from government, and a minority of what it gets from government from the Federal government.

But it gets a bigger minority of its funding from government than NPR does.

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

#190

Post by bryanlarsen »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #176
jpmattia wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also interesting that we don't see the state affiliated label on SpaceX yet.

Or Tesla, for which government carbon credits makes up roughly the same percentage of revenue that NPR gets from government funding.

Those don't technically come from the government, they come from other car manufacturers. Those car manufacturers could choose to make lower emission vehicles, but instead have chosen to pay Tesla to have Tesla's vehicles count towards their fleet average.
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