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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'

#931

Post by faeriechangling »

reso wrote: post #734

This seems perfectly fair to me and I don't understand the controversy. Maybe in the US people see "State Affiliated" as some kind of an insult? Public broadcasters like the BBC and Al Jazeera have done extraordinary work at times. That being said it would only be fair to also include a badge for private media corporations that says who their parent corporation is.

Mostly because the amount of money we're talking about from NPR where including indirect funds (Government -> NPR Affliates -> NPR + Government -> NPR) reaches single digits whereas the majority of BBC funding comes from the TV license legislation enforced by the government and Al Jazeera has an undisclosed amount of money funding it.

Further a huge amount of media outlets worldwide receive money from the government in the realm of single digits and yet are not slapped with the same label, NPR is only being equated to organisations like the BBC here who are truly on a different level in terms of being "state affiliated".

NPR could very conceivably leave all of its government funding behind and not hurt all that much as a result. Whereas if BBC lost all the TV license funding it would be apocalyptic for the organisation. So regardless of the nominal independence of Al Jazeera and BBC from their respective governments, it's difficult to see them as being as independent in practice. NPR gets far more of its funding from corporate sponsors who in all likelihood have more of an editorial influence over it than the government does. They aren't however listed as "Corporate-affiliated media", which would honestly be both more accurate and more damning to their image. Whereas I really wouldn't claim that BBC or Al Jazeera are "Corporate affiliated media" but I wouldn't hesitate to call them "State affiliated".

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

#932

Post by kzrdude »

jacquesm wrote: post #303
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…

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…

There's a bunch of state funded media in Europe, for example Scandinavian, German, UK, etc public service media orgs. They have standards for editorial independence and I think they are just as independent or more, as NPR.

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

#933

Post by weinzierl »

jeffbee wrote: post #319
weinzierl wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a bit my point. The details differ and the naming differs but I'd argue that by and large and in the broad public perception there are three categories: Privately-owned commercial, state controlled and a third category that is really neither. Regardless of the details and legalities people know it when they see it, so an own label would be justified.

BBC clearly meets certain definitions of "state controlled" and NPR does not meet any. BBC itself cannot sack its chairman. Only the government can appoint and remove them.

> BBC clearly meets certain definitions of "state controlled".

I disagree with that. Every media is under pressure of influencing forces and sometimes mistakes are made, but throwing out the baby with the bath water and classifying the BBC as "state controlled" is clearly unjustified.

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

#934

Post by adastra22 »

preseinger wrote: post #530
kodah wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon's playing word games. When the average person talks about State Affiliated Media they're referring to editorial control. As far as I know NPR has always had editorial control and goes to great lengths to maintain neutrality in their writing. They've certainly screwed up in major ways before, but compared to MSNBC, Fox, the NYT, NYP, and CNN I'd say NPR looks like a saint. The irony I see here is that Twitter is…

[flagged]

Conspiracy theories like (1) you should mask up, or (2) COVID is airborne? Both would have gotten you suspended from Twitter.

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

#935

Post by jacquesm »

mindslight wrote: post #237
trasz3 wrote: post #70

Yeah, it's not like their CEO came directly from the relevant government bureau, right? I'm not a fan of Elon (or most companies, for that matter), but this was the right thing to do. Previously the "government-sponsored" badge was nothing more than US propaganda.

The mismatch is that it's disingenuous to apply the label in the US, while not applying it to NBC, ABC, Fox, NYT, WaPo, Sinclair, etc. The US has a microkernel government where most actual power resides with corporations, with the same investors and executives owning the major news sources and shaping their coverage. Ironically, "government funded" NPR and PBS are in many ways actually more independent of the governi…

> The US has a microkernel government

Brilliant insight. Thank you.

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

#936

Post by rbanffy »

Diesel555 wrote: post #728
rbanffy wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter and its curation and targeting mechanisms make it very much a publisher.

They are not categorized as a publisher. They receive legal protections as such. This will quickly evolve into a section 230 debate. I do agree social media companies should be categorized as a publisher - or content providers, but they are not. I think changing section 230 would solve a lot of problems by removing very specific legal protections, which news companies do not receive, and help prevent clear issues suc…

> knowingly promoting false information.

This in itself should be enough to remove media organisation protections.

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

#937

Post by fdschoeneman »

zerocrates wrote: post #667
fdschoeneman wrote: post #590

I'm sure NPR does some good work, and while I believe it is biased, I've found it to be less biased than CNN or MSNBC. I don't understand why NPR objects to being labeled as either state funded or state affiliated. It was established by an act of Congress, for one thing, and according to its own website, and its own disclosures, it does depend on federal funding. And that figure is substantially more than the claimed…

The "state affiliated" label on Twitter was originally applied to sources that are not editorially independent from their states. Twitter put this label on NPR, then removed an explicit mention of NPR as non-state-affiliated from their public policy related to the label, then removed the mention of editorial independence from the policy entirely, then changed the label to "state funded." I think it's easy to see why…

I'm not sure I care. To me, state funded is the same as state affiliated. The important thing is not that npr is labelled one way or the other. Everyone knows what NPR is and what the BBC is. Most fair people figure they have a bias but that sometimes they still do good work. The important thing is that by being consistent, and by labelling journalists and media brands like RT and the Chinese state media organs using the same rules we apply to npr and the BBC, we help information consumers understand when they're likely being propagandized.

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

#938

Post by BulgarianIdiot »

codeddesign wrote: post #785
Andrex wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter doesn't exist anymore (as of yesterday[1]), so the Saudis' ownership shares likely transferred to X Corp. How much of X is now owned by Saudi Arabia is the real question. 1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/04/twitter-no-longe...

Large shareholders were moved to equity upon purchase. In other words..the Saudi you are referencing was a large shareholder of the “Old Twitter”. That’s along the lines of “how much did Russia fund Facebook” VTB (sanctioned bank) funded Facebook in the tune of $1bn. It also funded Twitter in 2011 for $191m.

Buying shares is not funding. Unless the shares are emitted from the co itself. Which happens during IPO and dilution only.

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

#939

Post by fdschoeneman »

kenjackson wrote: post #675
fdschoeneman wrote: post #656

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. I either missed it or the disclaimer was added after I first read the piece. I think I'd have preferred it be up front in the first paragraph, and that the writer used language making it clear he was talking about his own company and not NPR as an entity he was able to be objective about. That's what I'd have done.

I'm not sure what you meant about the language to use -- but I do agree that I'd prefer to see disclosures upfront. I know that most NPR podcasts, for example, state the disclosure at the start of the podcast. Because honestly, I probably only finish about half of the articles I start -- I know, that's my fault.

I mean by language some difference in words or voice. For example, instead of describing what NPR's chief executive did, the author could have written about what his boss did.

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

#940

Post by naijaboiler »

lowkey wrote: post #923
cycomanic wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is 1% a large part? Quoting https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... > On average, less than 1% of NPR's annual operating budget comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and departments.

They are playing fast and loose with their accounting by ignoring the large contribution that comes from local affiliate stations, local affiliate stations that receive a large part of their funding from the corporation for public broadcasting, a government sponsored entity. In reality government funding accounts for much more than 1% of NPR's budget.

it seems its not. they say 30% of NPRs funding come from local affiliates paying for NPR programming. And on average those local NPRs get 8% of their funding from government. Do the math, that means 2.4% + 1% of NPR comes directly government
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