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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'

#372
post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An agency that is federally funded through 1 layer of intermediaries is still, in the most practical sense, federally funded.

As the article indicates, those stations receive an average of 8% from CPB, and 5% from Federal/state/local government. The other 87% comes from elsewhere - 43% of it as individual donations. If they're "government funded" as a result, slap the label on Walmart and McDonalds. They can't operate without Federal funding, either. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-...

Are you suggesting that Walmart and McDonald's receive more in government subsidies than they pay in taxes?

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

#373
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.

> Twitter is just an information control mechanism for Musk, and journalists should quit

agreed. That was the case long before Musk.

Would you have felt comfortable articulating that opinion, two years ago? When anything but Twitter was "an extremist echo chamber"? When the only censorship they were indulging in was the censorship we still can't talk about?

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

#374
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.

Yeah I'm sure it has nothing to do with months of the CEO putting out right wing agitprop and promoting QAnon conspiracies. He openly promoted GOP candidates on his media site.

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

#375
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It disregards editorial control, which was part of how Twitter used to decide this. https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt... "State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy."

Whether CBC is actually neutral and non-partisan is something of a perennial political issue in Canada. I personally would say it is. A lot of the country disagrees. The opposition party wishes to cancel it. Opinion polls indicate the public believes it to be the most partisan major broadcaster in Canada. Twitter will be wading into some very turbulent waters if they're going to start deciding which public broadcaste…

Even if there's no official interference, one must ask themselves: could people working at the public broadcaster have their careers on hold if they don't push the correct narrative?

When the media landscape is disproportionally dominated by one state-backed entity (so it really doesn't have to compete with anyone else), you can't just jump to your competitor...

Also, could pushing the correct narrative land them a cushy non-elected government job?

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

#376
It is, since 2015-2016 its just awful. I used to love NPR, listening to is everyday in the 2000s and first half of 2010s, love the podcasts. SOMETHING happened, and it took a whole year or so for almost everything to be focused on politics and race and trump and I just completely lost interest.

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

#377

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…

It's still federally funded.

Twitter probably shouldn't have gotten into labeling who is and isn't state funded, but if they are, US/UK/NATO orgs should be fair game alongside the Russians and Chinese.

NPR labeling the "state-funded media" claim as "false" when its trivially, factually true is a bad look for them as a fact-based organization.

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

#378
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.

> Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label because of their significant government funding? My first thought. How much in easy loans have his companies received from the government? This is just rich people hating on the industry that publicly critiques them.

[flagged]

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

#379
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.

> Should Elon's account (or SpaceX or Telsa) have the same label because of their significant government funding?

They aren't trying to hide it.

The NASA contracts are very much public.

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

#380
post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Email stands as a notable counter-example.

but that's not how you use email. you don't sign up for an email account, and then go searching for other users to follow and what not with in the same server.

with social platforms, you do just that. you want to see a centralized list of available users to choose to follow or subscribe or join cult or whatever.

i'm deliberately using centralized here as not needing to know that multiple servers exist with different users in each. maybe i'm showing my ignorance of mastodon, but it seems like mastodon.com or whatever central website could just publish a list that mastodon clients can refer to rather than making users discovery a hunt and fetch kind of process. like a torrent index site. if that already exists, then i'll TIL the workings of mastodon. if it doesn't exists, then it seems very short sited.

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