Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wbur.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

951–960 of 1001 posts

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

#951

Post by drtz »

yossarian1408 wrote: post #502
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.

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…

Elon publishes commentary and opinions about policy and society to his Twitter account regularly. He probably has a much broader reach than NPR. To say he shouldn't be held to the same standards because he's not a "publisher" is laughable.

Making NPR display its funding sources for all to see is a good thing (although "state-affiliated" was not the right label). Not making other high profile accounts do the same is pure hypocrisy.

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

#952

Post by DrThunder »

d23 wrote: post #731
DrThunder wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm discussing government independence specifically, not whether companies are beholden to someone else. Obviously all businesses are beholden to someone. Yes you should always have an interest in what/who companies are beholden to. There's a reason Nike and Apple don't chastise the Chinese government.

To call NPR state-affiliated media to abuse the term to the point of incoherence. You may as well, by your own logic, say every media company ultimately has at least one dollar that's passed through the government and is thus state-affiliated. Thus they all deserve the label. Thus the label is meaningless, which incidentally, appears to be the point of this authoritarian-apolgistic nonsense. It's continued abuse of l…

I like how, nowhere in that entire two paragraphs were you able to explain why it's not state-affiliated when its funded by the government. All you did was try to shove the label off because other media is possibly also funded the same way.

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

#953

Post by DrThunder »

hilbertseries wrote: post #504
DrThunder wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. Just because you say you do doesn't make it so. When a big part of your funding comes from the people that can vote to cut it at any moment you do not have true independence. This is as silly as the argument saying the 1st amendment isn't violated by social media when you have the government literally asking these companies for censorship.

NPR continuing to publish programming critical of Trump during the Trump presidency, is a pretty strong indication they have editorial independence.

They've clearly stepped it up after his term, so, no not really.

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

#955

Post by DrThunder »

skybrian wrote: post #681
DrThunder wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this proves they're not government funded / affiliated how? Didn't they tweet that their funding by the government was so minuscule that they shouldn't be labeled state-affiliated? You cannot simultaneously say that while also declaring you can't exist to your full capacity without government funding.

You might compare with a government contractor like SpaceX. Private organizations can depend on government funding without being fully government-controlled. Speaking of SpaceX as a privately owned company is still accurate. Calling it state-affiliated wouldn’t be entirely wrong (they work with NASA), but a bit weird. In NPR’s case, their customers (public radio stations) receive a lot of government funding, so it’s…

Why are you bring up non-media companies? That label was specifically for media. You know, the ones that are supposed to bring you neutral information.... which is why the label makes more sense for media companies.

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

#956

Post by v0idzer0 »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #699
lostlogin wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I could somewhat see him trying to be fair after first acting out of spite. But why isn't the PBS NewsHour account labeled as government-funded media?

They are working on it. This is a new system a each label requires human research and consideration. They can’t do them all overnight.

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

#957

Post by v0idzer0 »

eat_veggies wrote: post #573
yossarian1408 wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. SpaceX and Tesla do not publish news 2. If by "easy loans" you mean competing for contracts with the likes of BlueOrigin, Raytheon and Boeing, you ought to drop the word 'easy' 3. If the goal is getting back at the industry, one questions whether Elon Musk wouldn't have had an easier time just buying up a bunch of the papers like Bezos and Murdoch 4. Unlike the previous Twitter regime, Musk allows organisations fr…

> Musk allows organisations free reign to critique anyone and anything they like That's why you were not allowed to like or retweet posts that linked to substack, right?

Substack was temporarily suspended for stealing data to seed their Twitter clone. They stopped and you can once again like and retweet their posts

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

#958

Post by mcv »

muyuu wrote: post #887
ta321099 wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

i believe they are in the process of including more labels to State-affiliated and State-funded media

Yeah, but it does seem like they're doing so only in order to justify their decision on NPR. They gave NPR the label in response to a critical article from NPR, even while NPR was explicitly listed as an organisation this label didn't apply to. Since then, they've been scrambling to change rules and texts to justify a decision that was clearly made out of revenge.

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

#959

Post by preseinger »

adastra22 wrote: post #934
preseinger wrote: post #530

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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

no they would not have, be better than this

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

#960

Post by mcv »

meerita wrote: post #942
khochesh_kushat wrote: post #757

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's right there in the name, social media.

Twitter is a social network. It may have media features, but its not a media company like NYT, NPR; etc. They don't create or practice journalism. They're a platform.

There's more to media than journalism. Twitter is not merely a platform, it's a platform for communication. A medium. I'd say that makes it a media company.
Post reply on HN