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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'

#351

Post by binarymax »

smotched wrote: post #336
bagels wrote: post #317

Should Twitter itself get a state sponsored label for getting concessions from San Francisco on their headquarters? https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-controller-hails-... Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label because of their significant government funding? It's hard to see this as anything but silly politics games.

"media"

Twitter is a media company.

EDIT: lots of discussion around this. Twitter is literally a social media company. You can split hairs on whether the “media” part of “social media” agrees with your bias here.

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

#352

Post by [deleted] »

eastbound wrote: post #332
tapoxi wrote: post #240

Good. It's clear now that Twitter is just an information control mechanism for Musk, and journalists should quit their addiction to it. I think every major news outlet should have their own ActivityPub compatible service, essentially as a modern replacement for RSS.

Strange that labelling medias with their true funding diminishes their credibility so much that they’d flee to any place where this information is not disclosed.

[deleted]

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

#353

Post by anonymouskimmer »

smotched wrote: post #336
bagels wrote: post #317

Should Twitter itself get a state sponsored label for getting concessions from San Francisco on their headquarters? https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/S-F-controller-hails-... Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label because of their significant government funding? It's hard to see this as anything but silly politics games.

"media"

Various companies in China are on US embargo lists because they are state-affiliated. Parsing out "media" companies is just hyper-targeting of ire. All companies that post tweets are effectively media. So why only highlight "news media" on a publication app such as Twitter?

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

#354

Post by xdavidliu »

eastbound wrote: post #332
tapoxi wrote: post #240

Good. It's clear now that Twitter is just an information control mechanism for Musk, and journalists should quit their addiction to it. I think every major news outlet should have their own ActivityPub compatible service, essentially as a modern replacement for RSS.

Strange that labelling medias with their true funding diminishes their credibility so much that they’d flee to any place where this information is not disclosed.

what percentage of NPR’s true funding was from the government?

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

#355

Post by jacquesm »

nostromo wrote: post #349
jacquesm wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides the fact that they receive only a tiny percentage of their funding from the government the bigger issue is that of editorial control and NPR is pretty clean as far as I can see. Unlike most of the other entities labeled 'State Affiliated Media'. Naming NPR in one breath with those others is intentionally tarnishing them and playing to the crowd, which is something that Elon has been engaging in in a very spec…

If the public funding isn’t important to them, then don’t take it and become truly independent. Or keep the funding and be open about it. I suspect most of NPR's followers are fine with their public funding, it's literally in the name. They're probably more upset about all their corporate funding. Tesla’s funding is neither here nor there; it’s not a news outlet.

NPR needs money and they need editorial freedom, they seem to have both. I really can't fault them for that, editorial independence is the yardstick by which media should be judged unless there is outright ownership.

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

#356

Post by burkaman »

starbase wrote: post #213

Here's what NPR's own website says about their federal funding: "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR." "Public radio stations receive annual grants directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)" "The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for…

It would be helpful to add some numbers to your comment. 31% of NPR revenues are from member stations, and 13% of that 31% is federal funding. So ~4% of NPR revenue is indirect federal funds. This is, to give one example, substantially less than the portion of grocery store revenues that come from SNAP. Do we consider all grocery chains to be government sponsored businesses? Is Y Combinator government sponsored, since so many of its investments received money from the SVB bailout?

My answer would be yes, government support is essential for most businesses, but that makes this label useless in theory and malicious in practice when only applied to a tiny subset of government-funded companies.

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

#357

Post by rahimnathwani »

jacquesm wrote: post #303
starbase wrote: post #213

Here's what NPR's own website says about their federal funding: "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR." "Public radio stations receive annual grants directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)" "The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for…

Besides the fact that they receive only a tiny percentage of their funding from the government the bigger issue is that of editorial control and NPR is pretty clean as far as I can see. Unlike most of the other entities labeled 'State Affiliated Media'. Naming NPR in one breath with those others is intentionally tarnishing them and playing to the crowd, which is something that Elon has been engaging in in a very spec…

> they receive only a tiny percentage of their funding from the government

There are at least two ways they get government funding:

- direct funding from the federal government

- payment from member stations (at least 31% of revenue) who are themselves supported by government funding

Without looking at the funding sources of each NPR member station, it's hard to come up with a good estimate, but it's probably a double digit percentage, which exceeds what I consider 'tiny'.

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

#358

Post by DrThunder »

starbase wrote: post #213

Here's what NPR's own website says about their federal funding: "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR." "Public radio stations receive annual grants directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)" "The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for…

And this proves they're not government funded / affiliated how?

Didn't they tweet that their funding by the government was so minuscule that they shouldn't be labeled state-affiliated? You cannot simultaneously say that while also declaring you can't exist to your full capacity without government funding.

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

#359

Post by JustSomeNobody »

hklgny wrote: post #280
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Everyone likes to blame the server interface, but honestly that's not so bad and I think most people get over it. Mastodon's real problem in my opinion is that its primary audience today doesn't actually want anyone new to join - it's VERY toxic for newcomers who don't fit a specific mold. It's a shame, cause we really do need something new. I'm hoping some of the new decentralized ones take off. Edit: I think the co…

> it's VERY toxic for newcomers who don't fit a specific mold.

I have not experienced that ... at all. Surely this is highly instance dependent.

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

#360

Post by civilized »

brewdad wrote: post #341
civilized wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That funding page says 31% of NPR's revenue comes from programming fees from member stations. Some of the 8% "other revenues" and 5% "PRSS contract" sound like they may come from member stations too, so let's call it 40% total from member stations as a best guess. Member stations themselves receive 13% of their revenue from the CPB (8%) and "federal, state, and local governments" (5%). Let's call that piece about 10%…

Those member stations choose to spend that money on NPR content. They are under no obligation (aside from standing contracts) to continue to give that money to NPR in the future. They could opt to license programming from other sources. That's like saying a federal employee who chooses to donate some of their income to NPR is giving them government funding.

I agree to some extent, but when the federal government is funding similar organizations with a similar mission, they have a strong incentive to work together. Public radio stations are operated and listened to by the kind of people who like NPR programming.

It's more like a federal employee who works for NPR and believes in NPR's mission donating to NPR. Yes, it's not compulsory, but the money is flowing towards entities with closely related missions that have a strong incentive to cooperate.

But again, I agree with you that the voluntary nature of the cooperation makes it quite different from merely some kind of shell game.

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