NPR quits Twitter after being labeled as 'state-affiliated media' • Hacker News Board

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

#641

Post by lostlogin » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

oatmeal1 wrote: post #628

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? Are SpaceX or Tesla news organizations?

They can post on Twitter in the same way as others can. If the objective is to show potential bias, why only apply it to some accounts?

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

#642

Post by 908B64B197 » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

arrosenberg wrote: post #506

geraldwhen wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Member stations are federally funded. Member stations pay NPR. To say that NPR doesn’t receive a significant portion of its budget from the federal government is a lie. This same argument is made whenever a politico mentions cutting funding to NPR. There is a large push to claim that NPR receives very little funding and it’s irrelevant to the network. But you can’t have it both ways. The lady doth protest too mightil…

Federally funded != State Affiliated. There is no one from the Biden Administration telling them what to say. By labeling them as such, Elon/Twitter are implying that NPR has a Goebbels-like figure running it, which is mendacious at best.

Have you ever seen money being given without any strings attached?

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

#643

Post by wyager » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:35 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #365

wyager wrote: 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.

Does the federal government assert editorial control over NPR?

It doesn't matter in the slightest if they do this explicitly. NPR would be stupid to bite the hand that feeds it.

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

#644

Post by HDThoreaun » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #635

bagels wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter is a publisher. Just like newspapers publish AP stories, Twitter publishes the latest memes from users.

[flagged]

So? The government isn't the arbiter of what words mean.

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

#645

Post by wyager » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

roflyear wrote: post #606

wyager wrote: 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.

That would make probably almost all businesses in the US federally funded, as the US government is the single largest employer of people, and those people spend their money at private businesses. The US government purchases things from private businesses. Come on.

Yeah? Lockheed Martin could be reasonably described as "federally funded".

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

#646

Post by stronglikedan » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

Well they literally are, and combined with being as biased and disingenuous as any MSM organization out there, they should be labeled as such. Twitter has become much better since Musk took the helm. The little people can finally speak truth to power without getting deplatformed.

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

#647

Post by klooney » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

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.

[flagged]

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

#648

Post by galleywest200 » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

gkbrk wrote: post #542

acdha wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Worst case, Twitter can set up something like "system accounts" that automatically fetch headlines from news websites or RSS feeds and post them with links on Twitter.

Twitter has recently been playing cat and mouse with its API access -- why wouldn't these news sites just block twitter's RSS agents?

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

#649

Post by smoldesu » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

preseinger wrote: post #540

h2odragon wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

[flagged]

They're right, though. Somewhere between the "Matt Tabbi truther" and "Dorsey supremacist" mindset, we can all acknowledge that Twitter is not an unbiased news source. It's a bunch of people competing for attention in a sinkhole that rewards the worst contributors most consistently. Even as a liberal progressive, the caliber of extremist 140 character takes Twitter has promoted drives me crazy. It precludes meaningful discussion and forces interactions into the outskirts, which (as the parent is joking about) ironically happens less on federated platforms.

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

#650

Post by throwaway743 » Wed, Apr 12, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #251

throwaway743 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By definition they're state funded, but not state ran. The implications from the optics though may result in extreme takes. Though we could assume there's at least some influence the funding has.

NPR is not meaningfully state funded. They get less than 1% of their funding directly from the government. Local NPR affiliates get more, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. On average about 1/3 of their funding comes from the government, and a portion of that goes to NPR in the form of licensing fees for their programming. In the end, erring on the side of overestimating the amount of government money g…

> By definition

I was going by technicality, but am aware of those numbers and agree. Also, it's my belief that it should be applied to all companies receiving government funds, or shouldn't be applied at all.