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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'

#411

Post by burkaman »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #400
burkaman wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I apologize for my imprecise language. The 13% I quoted includes "Federal, state and local governments". Again this is all on the web page we're all discussing, in a very easy-to-understand chart.

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

#412

Post by jrussino »

jfengel wrote: post #186
colanderman wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 may well have found that having trolls, clowns, and morons to enjoy his adolescent antics is worth $44B in pure enjoyment

This is the most disappointing part. I have a hard time imagining that any of these billionaires are "good people" in a way that I would recognize. But before this Twitter thing I felt like at least I can respect the things Musk chooses to spend his time and money on. How much would that $44B have moved the needle on on his Mars dream? Seems like a waste to me.

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

#413

Post by nostromo »

jacquesm wrote: post #355
nostromo wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Money can be easily tracked. Editorial independence cannot be.

I actually think NPR has been captured by their audience in the same way MSNBC and Fox News has been. They know member donations are their biggest funding source, so they largely tell their audience what they want to hear.

Put another way, I don't think perfect editorial independence exists. Everyone knows where their bread is being buttered. Having a badge on Twitter saying you're independent would be entirely a judgement call.

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

#414

Post by nimbius »

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.

more ontopic, I think its indicative of a general exodus of brands in general as well. nobody wants to pay for the checkmark, nobody wants to have their brand identity or message challenged or negated by fly-by-night impostors, and most people have lost tolerance for the abdication of moderation and safe space for a modern brand in general. The time to close your account was arguably last November when leadership fired all the employees and locked themselves out of the headquarters.

thats not to say theyre evacuating to another platform, just that 'no platform' is a safer option than twitter platform.

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

#415

Post by RobotToaster »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #337
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.

> 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.

Wasn't spaceX partly funded by the CIA's investment capital arm?

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

#416

Post by rvz »

riffic wrote: post #323
rvz wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, no mention of Mastodon in this announcement. It sounds like they're just going to use Facebook for the time being. I think it is time that we can call it a day after 7 years, and we should also admit that the Mastodon experiment has become unviable, unscalable, obsolete and already extinct as a serious alternative against Twitter. It had its slither of a chance, and it still failed. Maybe a lesson in networks…

mastodon as an open source project is wildly successful what are you even talking about?

Had you read my comment, you would know that my point still stands unrefuted.

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

#417

Post by JustSomeNobody »

nilptr wrote: post #387
JustSomeNobody wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Have you considered you fit the mold?

I have considered that I don't fit most molds, but I am very observant.

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

#418

Post by das-hinterland »

travisd wrote: post #343
eastbound wrote: post #332

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…

[flagged]

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

#419

Post by fortuna86 »

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.

Also a "decentralized" social media network is something an engineer thinks is great, but no user does.

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

#420

Post by chapium »

fortuna86 wrote: post #385
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

China controls their state media, NPR/BBC etc. have state funding but remain editorially independent.

That seems like a contradiction.
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