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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'

#871

Post by wyager »

lamontcg wrote: post #843
wyager wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

39% of NPR revenue comes directly from corporations. Another 12% comes from foundations (the wealthy donor class). Only 31% of their revenue comes from member stations and only 13% of that comes from CPB or government sources, which totals up to 4% coming from the government. So corporate interests fund NPR more than 10x times as much as the government.

Then why did NPR have a ton of content on their website about how absolutely critical federal funding was to their operation?

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

#872

Post by roflyear »

wyager wrote: post #645
roflyear wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

Sure, but then what's the point of bringing it up at all?

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

#873

Post by albertop »

electrondood wrote: post #682
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…

From the article: > It receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

If this is true why NYT published the following:

“Public Broadcasters Fear ‘Collapse’ if U.S. Drops Support,” announced a New York Times headline in March of 2017. Michael Grynbaum and Ben Sisario reported for the Times:

Public radio and television broadcasters are girding for battle after the Trump administration proposed a drastic cutback that they have long dreaded: the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The potential elimination of about $445 million in annual funding, which helps local TV and radio stations subscribe to NPR and Public Broadcasting Service programming, could be devastating for affiliates in smaller markets that already operate on a shoestring budget.

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

#874

Post by [deleted] »

orblivion wrote: post #755
d23 wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NPR is not nor has it ever been state-affiliated media in any reasonable sense of the word. Is it a full stop, bald-face lie.

I agree and wasn't fond of the "state-affiliated" label but they switched to "government funded" which I agree with.

[deleted]

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

#875

Post by 93po »

soerxpso wrote: post #833
orblivion wrote: post #755

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree and wasn't fond of the "state-affiliated" label but they switched to "government funded" which I agree with.

How is receiving funding from someone not a form of affiliation with them?

affiliated:

"closely associated with another typically in a dependent or subordinate position"

"an organization that is officially connected with or controlled by another, usually larger, organization"

dependent: "relying on another for support" (also uses of the words "need" and "requires")

I would agree with parent comment - NPR is not directly, closely affiliated with the state. And isn't in a subordinate position with the state. It has about 12% of its funding from tax dollars, but I think it'd likely exists without that.

I also agree with parent comment they are state funded, however, and anyone who had 12% of their income from a given source for free and no work would be biased and influenced to be friendly towards them. To suggest that the people who work at and run NPR are free from bias and influence is demonstrably not true, and so it also follows we can't assume they would approach their funding without bias.

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

#876

Post by dylan604 »

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.

If I was a newsie that had an account on a platform that tried to negatively impact the reach of my account on that platform, you better believe I would go out of my way to restrict access to any of my feeds/api/whatevs to said platform. If my account is not okay by their standards for my account to exist unencumbered, why would it be okay by their standards to aggregate via a feed just to get some retention of their users. Capital F that noise

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

#877

Post by fundad »

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…

I love that people are trying to coat his actions in reason like "look at the numbers, it's not spite it's truth" and then Elon tweets "Defund @NPR" and makes them look silly.

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

#878

Post by fundad »

nailer wrote: post #856
fundad wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SpaceX and Tesla are not newspapers/publishers. Twitter is a media company, a publisher with an editorial voice that we have to assume is independent from the Saudi government or any government funding the owner's other businesses.

I'd be fairly happy for Twitter to declare their own potential conflicts of interest. That doesn't mean Twitter shouldn't correctly label state funded media.

He just wants NPR defunded

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

#879

Post by 54D2AFD131F3 »

lowkey wrote: post #859
detaro wrote: post #799

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? "State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution." Control/Coercion seem more important, especially since Twitter has a separate category for media with government funding. (cf https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia... f…

Correction: Twitter lists NPR as government-funded media, not state affiliated media [0] [0] https://mobile.twitter.com/NPR

It was changed to that. Originally the label was as given in the headline: "state-affiliated media".

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

#880

Post by pg938hkd »

d23 wrote: post #716
yossarian1408 wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter, SpaceX and Tesla are not newspapers/publishers. The reason for labelling news organisations' government affiliations is for the viewer/reader to understand that there may or may not be bias, and where the funding is coming from. If NPR's government contributions are embarrassing for the organisation, it might be best for them to forgo that funding. Additionally, if there's no influence/bias, then why does it…

NPR is not nor has it ever been state-affiliated media in any reasonable sense of the word. Is it a full stop, bald-face lie.

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