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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'

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm suggest Walmart similarly benefits from indirect Federal funding of their business, in the form of wages/benefits they don't have to give out to their employees receiving public assistance to be able to live.

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

#393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I suspect this is a bad-faith argument, but just to be clear, NPR get's a tiny fraction of its funding from the government *and* maintains editorial independence. > The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given that NPR is a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence. It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Br…

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

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So https://www.publicstorage.com/ is government controlled?

Hmm, I see your point. Names can indeed be misleading.

Another point is it’s facile to try to make arguments based on semantics. “Their name has public in it” is not a serious rebuttal to “It’s not government media.”

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

#396
post #258
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Twitter’s policy seems to specifically mention “media” accounts. Not just any business.

And it's the prerogative of any media company to take issue with that and stop using Twitter.

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

#397
post #280

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…

This is survivor bias. If you're a non-tech person signing up for a new service, the federation aspect is just wizard talk and it's not obvious what difference it makes. Most people do not want to go on side quests to find other people they know or figure out which digital village they live in, especially not as the first stage in the onboarding process.

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

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 doubl…

Yes, and this gives their funders editorial control how?

I was so surprised by the first statement in your comment, that I stopped reading right there, and searched online to see if I could confirm/deny the statement. Then I wrote a reply without reading the rest of your comment.

I didn't say anything about editorial control.

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

#399
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

for some reason I'm annoyed by all the @ symbols in these new things

Yah, the one thing that I like about bluesky is their name-spacing: “sports.npr.org”

We are coming full circle back to Usenet.

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 doubl…

Why not just look at the NPR page we're discussing, which says 13% of public radio station revenue is from federal funds? 13% of 31% is 4%. Edit: The 13% is from all government funds, not just federal.

Because not all government funding is federal funding.

Random example from an NPR member station's web site:

  KCRW is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Department of Arts & Culture. The Department's Organizational Grant Program helps fund a wide variety of arts, culture, and music programs that you hear on air each day!
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