54 ms·

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

• wayeq 4y ago
  "At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," he says. I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again." Welcome to the club.
• marstall 4y ago
  well done. losing NPR clearly is giving Musk pause.
  • illiarian 4y ago
    By "clearly giving him pause" you mean he finally went to bed after spending the evening joking about BBC? (At this moment the last tweet is 8 hours ago after several tweets about BBC including dick "jokes")
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • illiarian 4y ago
      So, that "pause" now is, quote, "Publicly funded PBS joins publicly funded NPR in leaving Twitter in a huff after being labeled “Publicly Funded” " https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1646359636361224193 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1646359636361224193
• andsoitis 4y ago
  "At this point I have lost my faith in the decision-making at Twitter," he says. "I would need some time to understand whether Twitter can be trusted again."
  • aeternum 4y ago
    Translation: We saw a great opportunity to generate some profitable controversy but will likely be back on twitter in a few months.
• hidden80 4y ago
  It's so wild witnessing the degradation of Twitter.
  • TigeriusKirk 4y ago
    Ragequitting is also degrading to NPR.
    • toomuchtodo 4y ago
      Why engage on the platform when it’s rigged by a narcissist? Like the Greyrock method, disengage. Twitter only has value so long as it has network effect. People leaving diminish it. So why not?
      • sneak 4y ago
        [flagged]
        • toomuchtodo 4y ago
          Tesla and SpaceX combined have obtained $5 billion in subsidies from the US government. NPR’s budget subsidy is less than one percent (~$3M). The label is not accurate, it’s a weapon of childish behavior.
          • byyll 4y ago
            [flagged]
            • nailer 4y ago
              SpaceX doesn’t report the news.
              • byyll 4y ago
                I was sarcastic, sorry if it wasn't clear.
• segasaturn 4y ago
  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/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter-government-funded-media-label https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter...
  • spir 4y ago
    Last week, the Federal Reserve issued an important update on twitter. So no, I don't think twitter is worried about losing NPR. Twitter has the strongest network effects of any contemporary social network.
    • fknorangesite 4y ago
      Well, I'm sure they didn't issue it only on twitter, right? That'd just be part of their normal media processes. Post it on the website. Post it on twitter. Post it on Facebook. Send press releases to media outlets. Blah blah blah.
    • reset2023 4y ago
      No dopamine hit with twitter anymore.
  • agluszak 4y ago
    Network effect is literally the only thing holding non-federated social networks together
  • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > 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.
    • 4y ago
• misssocrates 4y ago
  > It receives less than 1 percent Why do they keep saying they receive almost nothing, yet at the same time say government funding is essential to their operation?
  • Arborealist 4y ago
    [dead]
  • judge2020 4y ago
    https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... > Public radio stations receive annual grants directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that make up an important part of a diverse revenue mix that includes listener support, corporate sponsorship and grants. Stations, in turn, draw on this mix of public and privately sourced revenue to pay NPR and other public radio producers for their programming. Sounds like it may be more than 1% in total?
    • ceejayoz 4y ago
      NPR is one of several providers to individual public radio stations. The government supports those individual stations; they use some of that support to purchase programs from NPR, American Public Media, PRX, etc.
    • thelittlenag 4y ago
      The numbers I am last aware of, while ten years old now, were that Federal funding was roughly 10% of their operating budget, with 90% coming from other sources. This came more or less directly from our NPR station in DC as they talked about fund raising in their many, many drives. And this wasn't for the station itself, I believe this was for NPR, since they then went on to talk about how many stations, mostly in rural areas, had a funding inverse of that. Basically, if you are listening to NPR outside a major population center, then its almost certainly because Federal dollars make that possible. And if you listen and contribute to a major station, then you are one of the few that pay the 90% or so of the budget for the content on NPR.
• hikawaii 4y ago
  But he spoke the truth
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    In the BBC's case, he's acknowledge it's not accurate. NPR's case is similar (and even less "state affiliated" than they are). https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196 > Mr Musk said Twitter was adjusting the label for the BBC to "publicly-funded". "We're trying to be accurate," he said. If NPR is state affiliated because of 1% government funding, SpaceX should get the tag.
    • the_gipsy 4y ago
      Including Elon's SpaceX spam tweets.
    • slackfan 4y ago
      Corporation for Public Broadcasting is entirely government funded, and it funds NPR.
      • ajford 4y ago
        CPB indirectly funds NPR. Direct funding from CPB is ~1%, the rest comes from member dues of local broadcast stations that get their own funding. NPR doesn't control where the member stations get their funding from, and the US Gov't doesn't have editorial control over NPR. Heck, Twitter itself used to make the distinction between state-funded without editorial control and state-affiliated (where the state has editorial control) on their own Help Center [1]. They removed the distinction on 2023-04-07 [2], two days after it slapped the state-affiliated label on NPR. That distinction had been in place for over two years [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230407155944/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://web.archive.org/web/20230407155944/https://help.twit...
• bryanlarsen 4y ago
  I've seen government-funded ads on Twitter. Wouldn't it be ironic if Twitter's revenue share from government sources is larger than NPR's 1-2%?
  • Arborealist 4y ago
    [dead]
  • jpmattia 4y ago
    It's also interesting that we don't see the state affiliated label on SpaceX yet.
    • TheCoelacanth 4y ago
      Or Tesla, for which government carbon credits makes up roughly the same percentage of revenue that NPR gets from government funding.
      • bryanlarsen 4y ago
        Those don't technically come from the government, they come from other car manufacturers. Those car manufacturers could choose to make lower emission vehicles, but instead have chosen to pay Tesla to have Tesla's vehicles count towards their fleet average.
        • TheCoelacanth 4y ago
          And NPR's funding doesn't technically come from the government, it comes from member stations licensing their content.
    • dylan604 4y ago
      "whats good for me, is not good for thee" or some version should be tattooed on Musk's forehead.
    • drstewart 4y ago
• qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  ? At the same time they removed the state-affiliated media, from a ton of global times and CCT affiliated content creators. Guess musk really needs that tesla market in china..
  • nailer 4y ago
    Do you have references? I’m surprised I haven’t heard this previously.
  • JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > they removed the state-affiliated media, from a ton of global times and CCT affiliated content creators Source? Global Times’ Twitter accounts appears properly labelled [1]. [1] https://mobile.twitter.com/globaltimesnews https://mobile.twitter.com/globaltimesnews
• euix 4y ago
  Is NPR state funded? (real question - I actually don't know). What is the definition of state funded? Here in Canada all the media take government subsidies especially the big ones - a lot of that I think is the economics, they simply don't generate enough revenue on their own to sustain themselves so in the process of being subsidized by the federal govt they take on the viewpoint that can be considered statist. You just can't bite the hand that feeds you. The step that comes before independence of thoughts has to be independence of economics.
  • AlgorithmicTime 4y ago
    [dead]
  • stefantalpalaru 4y ago
    > Is NPR state funded? Yes, in part. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR?useskin=vector#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR?useskin=vector#Funding : "According to CPB, in 2009 11.3% of the aggregate revenues of all public radio broadcasting stations were funded from federal sources, principally through CPB; in 2012 10.9% of the revenues for Public Radio came from federal sources." "about 50% of NPR revenues come from the fees it charges member stations" "In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue from federal, state and local government funding, 10% of their revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue from universities."
  • kelipso 4y ago
    34% of their budget comes from CPB, which is federal funding for local radio stations, and which NPR gets the money through local stations. They downplay this funding source and only mention the 1-4% that they get directly from local/state/federal government sources but clearly NPR would be dead without federal funding. [1] https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/does-npr-receive-less-1-its-funding-directly-federal-government https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/does-npr-receive-less-1-its...
    • JohnFen 4y ago
      > 34% of their budget comes from CPB No. 34% goes to affiliate stations. A portion of that 34% goes to NPR indirectly through the fees they charge the affiliates to carry the programming. The affiliates are not NPR.
• thefilmore 4y ago
  It's labeled "Government-funded Media".
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    As with many recent Musk impulsive changes, it's being rapidly revised, and looks to be changing again soon. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65248196 > And he confirmed Twitter will change its newly added label for the BBC's account from "government funded media" to say it is "publicly funded" instead. https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-state-affiliated-media https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-state-... has a screenshot of the "state-affiliated" tag that was recently present.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    Ninja editing this stuff is par for the course at Twitter, as are impromptu decisions, reversals of those decisions and reversals of the reversals. If you want to keep track of stuff you need to screenshot and timestamp it.
    • badwolf 4y ago
      This will surely bring advertisers rushing through the doors!
  • zajio1am 4y ago
    According to https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia... 'state-affiliated media' and 'government-funded media' are two distinct labels on Twitter.
• datadata 4y ago
  It is a sad state of affairs that being "state-affiliated" is a negative thing.
  • brucethemoose2 4y ago
    Thats not necessarily true if its the weather service, post office or whatever. I am no Twitter fan/user, but its a decent format for circulating government announcements that people will actually see.
    • troyvit 4y ago
      Interestingly NOAA isn't listed as state media: https://twitter.com/NOAA https://twitter.com/NOAA
      • brucethemoose2 4y ago
        Yeah, that is the hypocrisy. The argument is that its fair to label NPR as govt funded, because they technically are, but Twitter is not exactly in a hurry to apply this rule anywhere else.
  • stametseater 4y ago
    This was the implication of the label from the start, when twitter created it years ago.
  • AnimalMuppet 4y ago
    That depends a great deal on which state it's affiliated with. How much do you trust that state?
  • DrThunder 4y ago
    What's sad is that people just automatically assume every government is altruistic when history has proven that to be unequivocally false. There is not ONE government in history that hasn't committed disgusting atrocities against its people. When you realize that, it becomes clearly easy to see that you ought not put full trust media that is backed by government when every government has used media like this to push evil propaganda on to its citizens.
• dustedcodes 4y ago
  I think after COVID and all the revelations since then it is pretty clear that funding aside, every big media outlet bends over to their own government when they are being asked to push a certain narrative to the population in order to make us belief or behave in certain ways. COVID made this extremely blatantly obvious but it was already apparent before COVID. For instance, when the US and its allies wanted to invade Iraq all big media corporations were peddling misinformation and propaganda to get people swayed in favour of an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation over false claims of weapons of mass destruction.
  • segasaturn 4y ago
    This comment doesn't hold up when you consider the person in charge of running the US government in 2020 was adamantly against any kind of COVID-19 prevention measures.
    • sbuttgereit 4y ago
      That person was also a disorganized, ineffective baffoon on a good day with a staff more interested in court intrigues than governing. That massive government institutions operated outside of his will shouldn't be surprising.
  • carapace 4y ago
    You might like "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media", a 1988 book by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky. > It argues that the mass communication media of the U.S. "are effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function, by reliance on market forces, internalized assumptions, and self-censorship, and without overt coercion", by means of the propaganda model of communication. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent
    • colpabar 4y ago
      I know it's cliche to say but I started reading this recently and it is amazing how well it applies to the media today. I can't wait for it to be designated a conspiracy theory!
• kome 4y ago
  > citing the social media platform's decision to label NPR "state-affiliated media," the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries. it's indeed a shame they do it for chinese and russian companies, but not the BBC or western european broadcasters... hell, not even Radio Free Europe is marked as "state-affiliated media". If not them, who?
  • anoonmoose 4y ago
    Twitter themselves had a guide that explained why NPR and BBC were not labelled as such, which has been revised since, but is still archived. "State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy." https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...
    • kome 4y ago
      but this opens the can of worm of defining "editorial independence". and I think that speaking of State-financed or Publicly-financed is a better.
      • ajford 4y ago
        Sure. But then can we label SpaceX and Tesla as State-Financed? They are both sucking down way more money from the US Gov't than NPR is. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12#solarcity-receives-4975-million-in-grants-in-addition-to-tax-credits-by-2015-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-su... https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-exploration-technologies-spacex https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/space-explor...
        • kome 4y ago
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• redleggedfrog 4y ago
  I read/listen to NPR daily. Twitter is blocked at my router. My very tech savvy family hasn't even mentioned the block once. Making good choices Mom...
• local_crmdgeon 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    Is "National Car Rental" state-affiliated? "National Geographic"? Do you think the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is a democracy, too?
    • Quillbert182 4y ago
      Keyword is "Public", not "National"
      • chowchowchow 4y ago
        Someone better tell Public Storage about this!
      • ceejayoz 4y ago
        So https://www.publicstorage.com/ https://www.publicstorage.com/ is government controlled?
        • Quillbert182 4y ago
          Hmm, I see your point. Names can indeed be misleading.
          • chowchowchow 4y ago
            Another point is it’s facile to try to make arguments based on semantics. “Their name has public in it” is not a serious rebuttal to “It’s not government media.”
      • InitialLastName 4y ago
        Public Enemy would like a word.
  • 4y ago
• photochemsyn 4y ago
  Well, there is an interesting history here. E.g. in 2000 NPR (and CNN) allowed the US Army's Psychological Operations division to place military members in the newsroom as interns as part of a media training program: https://fair.org/home/psyops-in-the-newsroom/ https://fair.org/home/psyops-in-the-newsroom/ > "PSYOPS is a division of the U.S. Army mandated to “develop and disseminate propaganda designed to lower the morale” of “enemy forces,” and to “build support among the civil population” in other countries for U.S. objectives (U.S. Army Field Manual No. 100-15)." I'm fairly certain that if a Russian media company had a history of hosting Russian military psyops people in its newsroom, or if hired ex-military and ex-intelligence officers as commentators, it'd get the 'state-affiliated' label on platforms like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter etc. without any controversy.
  • VulgarExigency 4y ago
    Yes, but the United States are the Good Guys, so their propaganda outlets must not get the label identifying them as such.
  • kelipso 4y ago
    The 'state-affiliated' label is a bludgeon that the US gets to use, not get used against the US haha.
  • carapace 4y ago
    Please, in Soviet Russia interns tell you what to do. (I'm sorry, that was a terrible Yakov Smirnoff reference, I apologize to him and to anyone reading this.) Anyway, in the USA military interns at NPR are learning how to run a radio station or whatever. I mean, if the military tried to tell NPR what to say there would be howls from coast to coast. - - - - And now I have read the article you linked to, and it does sound like there may have been some influence from OPD to NPR. As I would expect, when this came to light, there was howling from coast to coast, and it got shut down right quick. In fact, the article says the whole OPD was shut down. Good. (WTF people?)
  • md_ 4y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/apr/12/julianborger "Cable Network News (CNN) and National Public Radio, (NPR) denied that the "psy-ops" officers influenced news coverage and said the internships had been stopped as soon as senior managers found out . For its part, the army said the programme was only intended to give young army media specialists some experience of how the news industry functioned." That...seems like a pretty reasonable explanation? Just to be clear, the alternative theory you have is that the US government wanted to influence NPR's coverage, and thought the best, most inconspicuous way to do so would be by using an intern placement program targeting Army media officers?
• DeepYogurt 4y ago
  We should all be quitting twitter tbh
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    Did that the day the sale became final. There is no way I'm going to be associated with anything that Elon Musk does or holds sway over.
• smotched 4y ago
  They will look cool to a certain group of people momentary but it will hurt them in the long run. The average user won't even notice their tweets are missing from their feed.
  • JohnFen 4y ago
    Since only about 25% of the US population pays any attention to Twitter, I think that you're correct -- the average person won't notice NPR's tweets are missing.
  • garrickvanburen 4y ago
    this is true for any account, especially since algorithmic sorting was introduced and then amplified with the introduction of 'For You'.
  • 8organicbits 4y ago
    Each of these announcements shifts the window of discourse[1]. Not too long ago, the idea that a major news organization would leave Twitter was almost unthinkable. Now its just one of many departures and even more are on the fence. It's also a great opportunity for networks like Mastodon to pick up steam and mindshare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
    • Nicksil 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
  • Avshalom 4y ago
    Maybe, but like it didn't hurt Fox https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-breaks-16-month-twitter-silence-with-tweet-about-coronavirus-coverage/ https://www.thewrap.com/fox-news-breaks-16-month-twitter-sil...
• hermannj314 4y ago
  They were labeled as "state-affiliated media" and after a retraction, Twitter referred to them as "government-funded" On March 20th, NPR listed this retraction on their website "An earlier version of this story mistakenly said Musk bought Twitter for $44 million. In fact, he paid $44 billion." [1] Twitter can't make mistakes, but NPR makes dozens of them daily. Should we rage quit NPR everytime they issue a retraction to preserve our own independence and integrity? [1] https://www.npr.org/corrections/ https://www.npr.org/corrections/
  • anoonmoose 4y ago
    It wasn't a mistake, it was intentional. Musk verified this, and even if we disregard his ramblings, they intentionally removed NPR as an example of who wouldn't be marked as state-affiliated from their description of how the label is applied, which gives the game away. https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...
  • ajford 4y ago
    It sure doesn't seem like a mistake. Twitter itself used to make the distinction between state-funded (without editorial control) and state-affiliated (where the state has editorial control) on their own Help Center [1]. They removed the distinction on 2023-04-07 [2], two days after they slapped the state-affiliated label on NPR. That timeline sure doesn't sound like Musk made a mistake and sought to correct it, but more like he swung his whiny authority around and then people had to scramble to retract/alter policies to fit with Musk's world view. If it was a mistake, Twitter would have owned up to it instead of altering their policies to match the mistake. [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt... [2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20230407155944/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://web.archive.org/web/20230407155944/https://help.twit...
• trasz3 4y ago
  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.
  • matthewmcg 4y ago
    There’s a bit of a “Pluto problem” [1] though with labeling NPR and not explicitly government supported media organizations like Voice of America. This suggests to me that the decision was based on some personal beef the owner has with NPR and not any kind of objective basis. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33462184 https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-33462184 (warning: BBC is explicitly supported by the British Government)
    • justin66 4y ago
      Twitter have got the govenrment-funded label on VoA now. But not the BBC, curiously. > some personal beef the owner has with NPR NPR is a bogeyman of the American right-wing media, which Musk seems to be consuming an awful lot of in recent years.
      • empressplay 4y ago
        The BBBC is funded by TV license fees so their funding is more arms length, also they make money through BBC Worldwide and collaborations with external media companies like HBO. As such they commonly shit on the government of the day, no matter who it is
        • justin66 4y ago
          I don't know how you'd apply measurement using the length of arms and conclude that BBC receives less money than NPR from the government. In any case, editorial influence is a lot more important, and that's where the BBC is falling down lately. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/15/the-guardian-view-on-bbc-independence-compromised-at-the-top https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/15/the-gu...
• devjab 4y ago
  I'm Danish and I may have a different take on this than many Americans, but I'm frankly a little appalled that our democratic institutions are still renting their digital homes on the turf of tech giants. The EU set a good example when Elon musk bought Twitter and the EU created their first Mastodon servers, both for it's organizations and it's elected officials, and everyone should frankly follow suit. We shouldn't accept that a billionaire gets to dictate the online content of our democratic institutions, and, especially not when there are easily available alternatives where you can take back the governance. At least that is my opinion on the matter and I hope Elon manages to make this happen by getting people to quit Twitter. I'm not sure how it is around the world, because I mostly follow our local news on these topics, but it's been sort of silly to watch the Danish debate about TikTok. We've banned public officials from having it on their phones, but we've not banned Twitter, Facebook or any of the other Social Medias that do the exact same things TikTok does. Yes, we're allied with the US, but it's still sort of silly isn't it?. If the NPR is a state affiliated media because it gets public funding, then our primary media institution Danmarks Radio should frankly get the same label since it gets all of it's funding from the public. But why on earth wouldn't our primary media institution not run their own Mastodon server, so they can govern and moderate their own public image instead of being on Twitter? Sure they might lose followers, but we don't pay them public money to be popular on an American Social Media, do we? Heh. I personally think that what I've said here applies to everyone, every institution and organisation but I can see why it's different for American organisations to be on an American Social Network, but really, isn't it time we took ownership of our online lives back?
  • jensgk 4y ago
    I am also Danish, and I agree.
  • tr1ggerwarn 4y ago
    [flagged]
    • devjab 4y ago
      I think you misunderstand. You can't join the EU servers unless you're an elected official. You can make your own server, or join another one, but not the ones run by the EU. The beauty of the decentralized platform is that neither Brussels bureaucrats or billionaires get to decide what you do. I want the government of Denmark to run a similar server for our elected officials. That way Danish politicians get to decide how Danish politicians are moderated, which isn't the case today.
• chiefalchemist 4y ago
  I listen to NPR station in the car. Anecdotally, very little of the content is true journalism; much of it is effectively op-ed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, provived you understand what you're consuming. The state-funded tag is a bit much. But to claim NPR is a pure journalism play isn't accurate either.
  • ProAm 4y ago
    I dont think they claim to be pure journalism: "NPR is an independent, nonprofit media organization that was founded on a mission to create a more informed public. Every day, NPR connects with millions of Americans on the air, online, and in person to explore the news, ideas, and what it means to be human. Through its network of member stations, NPR makes local stories national, national stories local, and global stories personal." [A] https://www.npr.org/about/ https://www.npr.org/about/ [B] https://www.npr.org/ethics/ https://www.npr.org/ethics/
    • chiefalchemist 4y ago
      I think in their statement about leaving Twitter he mentioned journalism. I was pointing out that - imho - it's mostly op-ed. Nothing wrong with op-ed but it should never be confused with journalism.
  • rayiner 4y ago
    My dad used to listen to NPR all the time growing up (WAMU). It was always liberal, but now it’s become this highly processed and refined sort of white sugar liberal that’s hard to stomach even for him.
    • ToDougie 4y ago
      Happy music and happy words when "preferred" people/ideas are the focus of the story. Sad music and choice words when "bad"/ideas people are the focus of the story. It's maddening. Artisan hand-crafted propaganda.
    • chiefalchemist 4y ago
• say_it_as_it_is 4y ago
  NPR lost the influence that it once had on Twitter, controlling narrative that suited their political ideology. So, it quit. That's great new for Twitter. NPR is far worse than a state-affiliated media. Its coverage during the riots and protests following the accidental murder of George Floyd focused on "racially disproportionate policing". It wasn't journalism. It was BLM protest using NPR as a microphone. There wasn't a single show that discussed crime statistics. Policing methods were discussed to the extent that it suited the narrative that cops in America are a racist militant group.
  • stametseater 4y ago
    > It wasn't journalism. It was BLM protest using NPR as a microphone. Sounds like journalism to me. Journalism has never meant nor implied 'impartial reporting.'
  • pionar 4y ago
    > that it suited the narrative that cops in America are a racist militant group. I mean, they are, so where's the lie?
• freitzkriesler2 4y ago
  Talk about rage quitting. They'll be back. And whether it's unpopular or not, CPB gets federal and state grants for part of their operating budgets . Technically state funded or affiliated in the same way auto makers get government contracts. I don't know why they are mad about the designation. Whether it implies bias or not, it's true they get state funds, ergo they are state funded media.
  • bfeynman 4y ago
    Wait wasn't the whole debacle that Twitter had special access to govt and received money for them regarding postings? Isn't twitter then also state affiliated media?
    • freitzkriesler2 4y ago
      Wahwahwhatabout! We're talking about NPR, not Twitter. And the designation doesn't matter.
    • colpabar 4y ago
      Do you mean the twitter files conspiracy theory? That didn't happen, and if it did, it was totally normal, and if it wasn't, it was justified.
  • orwin 4y ago
    The issue is that they are marked as state affiliated, not state funded. And i support every company that receive state funds, directly or via tax breaks to be called 'state funded company'. That would have interesting repercussions.
• justin66 4y ago
  Twitter will probably, eventually find a more appropriate label for high-quality public media sources, and NPR will probably find their way back, since it doesn't cost them anything. On the other hand, the current kerfuffle just scratches the surface of their current labeling approach's weirdness. Propublica's twitter page is labelled "Media and News Company," but that's a label they applied to themselves, not something Twitter applies. Okay, fair enough. Some other for-profit or nonprofit news organizations don't have any labels at all, so clearly it's not mandatory. The distinction between something like Propublica and something like The Washington Post is significant to someone who cares about news, but maybe not to Twitter's censors. Voice of America is still on there and is, reasonably, labelled "government-funded media." But BBC is not not labelled at all, with any label, because... Elon Musk liked their reporter? Or something?
• retrocryptid 4y ago
  Does anyone still use Twitter? I tried to delete my account a couple years ago (well before people complained of post-musk problems) and couldn't do it. Not tweeting gives me time to make the award-winning comments [*] I'm known for on this platform. But seriously, what are people using after leaving Twitter? I just quit social media sites, didn't go anywhere else. * yes, this is sarcasm.
  • shaunxcode 4y ago
    Mass tow dawn.
  • r721 4y ago
    Twitter is #5 website by global traffic, according to SimilarWeb (6.6B visits/user sessions in Mar 2023): https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#overview https://www.similarweb.com/website/twitter.com/#overview
• dahwolf 4y ago
  Whilst I admit that Musk is needlessly erratic, unpredictable and troll-like in these matters, part of me enjoys the pushback against legacy media on Twitter. They've come into power by riding the Twitter hate train, maximally exploiting the algorithm that rewards rage and division. Lowering standards for journalism to a mere shadow of its former self. And yet they always have clean hands and are perfectly neutral, according to themselves. Regardless of where you stand on this, it's interesting to watch. Journalists don't really have anywhere else to go. Their status and reach is exclusive to Twitter and cannot easily be replicated elsewhere.
• annexrichmond 4y ago
  So much of this article reads like an op-ed that I can't take it seriously. Edit: for the downvoters, some excerpts: > The BBC exchange showed Musk as alternately conciliatory and erratic. According to whom? > He also said that he's sleeping on a couch at work, that he followed through on his promise to purchase Twitter only because a judge forced him to, and that he should stop tweeting after 3 a.m. this is a lot to say without any specific quotes > Like so many policy decisions at the social network of late, Musk applied the label to NPR's Twitter account abruptly. It's still not clear why he became so animated about the issue. Heavy use of adverbs and adjectives is like injecting opinion. > For years, many journalists considered Twitter critical to monitoring news developments, to connect with people at major events and with authoritative sources, and to share their coverage. Musk's often hastily announced policy changes have undermined that. Again, according to who??
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • newfonewhodis 4y ago
    If you want "objective" just watch the BBC interview?
• weinzierl 4y ago
  Most western countries have media comparable to NPR. In the UK that would be BBC, in Italy there is Rai, in Spain RTVE, in Portugal RTP and in Germany there is ARD. That makes me believe that they warrant their own label.
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    The BBC isn't comparable to NPR. The Chairman of the BBC is appointed by the UK's King-in-Council, on the advice of the Secretary of State. Similarly, RAI is owned by the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance; RTVE is state owned. Not sure on RTP and ARD; they sound more NPR-ish from their Wikipedias, although ARD appears to be paid for by a mandatory license fee like the BBC is.
    • weinzierl 4y ago
      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.
      • jeffbee 4y ago
        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.
        • manquer 4y ago
          There is significant controversy on the current one , how his appointment came about and links to then PM Boris Johnson. Also recent controversy over Match of the day program presenter Gary Lineker on twitter(!) comparing government language on immigration to the ones used by Nazis and his suspension following that . Given all this it is fair to say they are government controlled
• AraceliHarker 4y ago
  Who wouldn’t resent being thrown in the same basket with the likes of Voice of America, Xinhua News Agency and Sputnik under the same label?
• hbarka 4y ago
  By his logic, Tesla should be labeled as "Government-funded Car Company".
• coldtea 4y ago
  Not sure NPR's track record of this, but other news outlets labelling anything they didn't approve as misinformation, and calling out any affiliations for outlets they don't approve with abandon, now go: "It's not OK when others do it to us". >The decision by Twitter last week took the public radio network off guard. When queried by NPR tech reporter Bobby Allyn, Twitter owner Elon Musk asked how NPR functioned. Musk allowed that he might have gotten it wrong. Notice the BS reporting wording, because of course Musk did it, it couldn't be that Twitter employees did the labelling for thousands of outlets, including NPR. They even managed to write about how Musk "allowed that he might have gotten it wrong" in a negative light.
• hitpointdrew 4y ago
  How on earth can anyone say "falsely labeled"? NPR does get money from the federal government, that is an undisputable fact. How are they not "state-affilated"? I don't care how small a % of the budget is money from the government. The fact they take any money at all from the gov makes them sate-affilated.
  • chatmasta 4y ago
    In their rebuttal [0] to this, they cited a statement from the White House Press Secretary: > When asked about Twitter's decision during the White House's daily briefing, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to address Twitter's content rules specifically. But she also defended NPR's journalism. > "There is no doubt of the independence of NPR journalists," Jean-Pierre said. "If you've ever been on the receiving end of their questions, you know this." [0] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-state-affiliated-media https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-state-...
    • starbase 4y ago
      How ironic that NPR uses the state's talking points to argue they're not affiliated with the state.
      • starkparker 4y ago
        "yet you participate in society. curious!"
      • troyvit 4y ago
        If you read more [1] you'll see that NPR used several sources' talking points in its story. So in this context who better? Also it's not like they received a real response from Twitter when they asked: "In response to an NPR email for this story seeking comment and requesting details about what in particular might have led to the new designation, the company's press account auto-replied with a poop emoji — a message it has been sending to journalists for weeks." [1] https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-state-affiliated-media https://www.npr.org/2023/04/05/1168158549/twitter-npr-state-...
• StuPendisdick 4y ago
  Well, Bye.
• starbase 4y ago
  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 programming, thereby weakening the institution." "Elimination of federal funding would result in fewer programs, less journalism—especially local journalism—and eventually the loss of public radio stations, particularly in rural and economically distressed communities." https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
  • ceejayoz 4y ago
    That excerpt isn't about their funding. The CPB funds (in part) public radio stations. Many of those public radio stations purchase NPR-produced content. (And from other similar providers like American Public Media (Marketplace), PRX (This American Life), etc.) NPR's customers can't afford NPR's offerings without said Federal funding, which is why NPR's particularly interested in it.
    • wyager 4y ago
      An agency that is federally funded through 1 layer of intermediaries is still, in the most practical sense, federally funded.
      • ceejayoz 4y ago
        As the article indicates, those stations receive an average of 8% from CPB, and 5% from Federal/state/local government. The other 87% comes from elsewhere - 43% of it as individual donations. If they're "government funded" as a result, slap the label on Walmart and McDonalds. They can't operate without Federal funding, either. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-top-employers-of-medicaid-and-food-stamp-beneficiaries.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/19/walmart-and-mcdonalds-among-...
• hnburnsy 4y ago
  It has the words National and Public right in its name. I'd bet many already assume NPR is somehow state related. On a different note it's last news post on its main account had almost a million views. That is a lot of eyeballs to give up, but they don't really have advertisers to please.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• adultSwim 4y ago
  I've been uncomfortable with the uneven application of those labels. I think they are a good idea and should be applied to all government sponsored media. It should be basic transparency, instead of a selective scary warning.
• tapoxi 4y ago
  Good. It's clear now that Twitter is just an information control mechanism for Musk, and journalists should quit their addiction to it. I think every major news outlet should have their own ActivityPub compatible service, essentially as a modern replacement for RSS.
  • riffic 4y ago
    with ActivityPub you can have specific actors like @breaking@npr.org, @sports@npr.org, @finance@npr.org, @waitwaitdonttellme@npr.org, @reporter@npr.org, et cetera.
    • VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
      for some reason I'm annoyed by all the @ symbols in these new things
      • riffic 4y ago
        it was annoying to me to type it too! There are also webfinger URLs that serve the same purpose like https://mastodon.social/@gargron https://mastodon.social/@gargron == @gargron@mastodon.social
        • paulej 4y ago
          That's not a WebFinger URL. WebFinger URLs point to /.well-known/ path that returns a JSON document with links to other places for the user. To simplify WebFinger use by a human, we introduced acct:user@example.com syntax. And (at least my) WebFinger clients can assume the acct: part, much like email clients do for the email: scheme.
      • nkcmr 4y ago
        Yah, the one thing that I like about bluesky is their name-spacing: “sports.npr.org”
        • soulofmischief 4y ago
• softwaredoug 4y ago
  It's too bad we don't get a real experiment in trying to run a social network like Twitter on a skeleton crew. It would have been interesting to see the impact of sane moderation rules, but on 75% staff reduction.
  • xibo9 4y ago
    Who gets to say what is sane moderation? Sane is not something I would ascribe to Musk.
• KingLancelot 4y ago
  [dead]
• dmitrygr 4y ago
  Why "falsely"? I've been an NPR fan my whole life, but there is no denying at all that their coverage of american politics is nowhere near impartial. So as long as current party in power is aligned with them, they are de-factor state-aligned.
  • Rebelgecko 4y ago
    I think "falsely" because they're primarily viewer supported and less than 1% of their budget comes from the government. So it's odd for them to get the label when other news outlets like BBC and Voice of America (which is literally a state owned propaganda outlet) don't
  • JohnFen 4y ago
    Because it's not state-affiliated or state-sponsored media. Saying it is is factually incorrect. Whether or not it's impartial is a completely different conversation.
  • mikestew 4y ago
    Why "falsely"? Because "nowhere near impartial" != "state-affiliated". And your attempt to tie the two is a bit lacking.
• jckahn 4y ago
  Good. A publicly-funded entity like NPR should be hosting its own Mastodon server anyways.
  • DrThunder 4y ago
    There's a reason they don't. Much harder to trick people into donating to you if the algorithm on a large private social media site isn't around to prop you up.
• LispSporks22 4y ago
  Don't they know when they're being trolled?
• mfer 4y ago
  > By David Folkenflik According to Wikipedia... > David Folkenflik ... is an American reporter based in New York City and serving as media correspondent for National Public Radio. Interesting conflict of interest in news reporting.
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    What conflict of interest do you perceive? Would you rather the article was by Rush Limbaugh or do you see any items in the article that you feel misrepresent reality and that this was done because of the reporters' bias?
    • mfer 4y ago
      The conflict of interest is that he is writing about an organization he works for.
      • jacquesm 4y ago
        That does not mean there is a conflict of interest. By your standards no news organization would ever be able to report on things that they themselves are a player in. But in the real world this happens with some regularity and editorial boards have set ways of dealing with this sort of situation. They tend to become far more careful as soon as their own name is part of the story on the off chance that it could be used as proof that they are not able to report cleanly, which is then used to extrapolate to everything else they write about.
        • mfer 4y ago
          > But in the real world this happens with some regularity and editorial boards have set ways of dealing with this sort of situation Conflicts of interest are things to know and look out for. This is not the case of an editorial board. And, when publications write about themselves, even when there are editorial boards, there is a conflict and they may very well report the story differently than a 3rd party. Not realizing the conflict of interest is akin to being just fine with content on a news site about a product written by someone at the product company with no label of sponsored content or something similar.
• jaredwiener 4y ago
  Shameless plug here, but we're building a news feed for news at https://www.forth.news https://www.forth.news. It's not a social network. It's a way to follow reporters/news organizations/topics, and see what they post. No misinfo, no spam, no hate speech. Just news.
• gkoberger 4y ago
  Musk (and Trump) are really, really good at vocally saying things everyone agrees with to cover the fact they're doing the exact opposite. They're populist champions to such a degree that their supporters (and even the media / independents) can't fathom they don't actually care at all. Free speech, no wars, anti-corruption in DC, etc. These are all things most people agree with. If some of the stuff Trump/Elon did secretly leaked, people would be going crazy. But they've mastered the art of publicly being hypocrites, to the degree that the average person just genuinely can't wrap their heads around. Like, how can Elon publish "The Twitter Files" and then literally just do way worst stuff with way less accountability, and have people still believe he's a champion for free speech?
  • jacquesm 4y ago
    It's an intelligence test of sorts. Unfortunately lots of people fail that test.
  • mb9000 4y ago
    Maybe the average person just likes one brand of hypocrite over the other brand. And what sort of secret stuff has Trump or Elon done that hasn't been covered 100x by the media?
    • gkoberger 4y ago
      Like I said, they don't do secret stuff. People associate shame with having done something bad, and their in-the-open shamelessness is what breaks people's mental models of how to evaluate them. There's a difference. I have a hard time thinking of anyone (other than Bernie) on the left who has followers in the same way as Trump or Elon. It's a very new (yet not new at all) type of cult of personality.
  • shagymoe 4y ago
    >If some of the stuff Trump/Elon did secretly leaked, people could be going crazy Not their supporters, they very, very clearly don't care.
• m3kw9 4y ago
  Opens up a mastodon account: 5k followers after a few months
• pphysch 4y ago
  The current CEO of NPR was the former global propaganda chief for the US government. This is a fact. If you think that is a coincidence, and NPR is totally not de facto state-media, I have a bridge to sell you. Props to Twitter's new leadership for doing what is ostensibly right, though who knows what their motivation is.
  • tpmx 4y ago
    Had to look that up. Current NPR CEO John Lansing used to be the CEO for USAGM which supervises Voice of America (VOA), Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Europe, etc. https://www.usagm.gov/ https://www.usagm.gov/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agency_for_Global_Media https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Agency_for_Global_Media
  • travisporter 4y ago
    Same label as Chinese and Russian state media? This was not was an apolitical decision based on facts.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
• bagels 4y ago
  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-Twitter-tax-break-as-5851498.php 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.
  • smotched 4y ago
    "media"
    • binarymax 4y ago
      Twitter is a media company. EDIT: lots of discussion around this. Twitter is literally a social media company. You can split hairs on whether the “media” part of “social media” agrees with your bias here.
      • throwaway202303 4y ago
        With section 230 protection because they are not an editorial news organization under the defined meaning
      • AnthonyMouse 4y ago
        Media outlets: NY Times, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR. Tech companies: Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Twitter. Some companies are even both. But in the main, Twitter is the thing that employs developers and writes code and not the thing that employs reporters and writes stories.
        • point_blank 4y ago
          Google, Facebook, and Twitter have always been whatever they can aggressively monetize, as their primary piece of software hasn't financially scaled to where they need to be at quarter-after-quarter. These days, I'd say they're advertisement companies!
• DrThunder 4y ago
  Terms sound acceptable to me. They're constantly decrying how it's full of hate speech due to Elon anyway. Time to take a stance against "hate-speech" right? Just fyi, simultaneously saying your funds from the government are minuscule while also saying you shouldn't have them cut is just a whole lot of cognitive dissonance. Also, that in fact means you're state-affiliated and funded.
• BooneJS 4y ago
  Can we go back to RSS with great apps to get our news?
  • eestrada 4y ago
    This is how I get my news. Not every news source has an Atom or RSS feed, but plenty of aggregating sites (like HN I might note) do have feeds. Nothing is stopping anyone from doing this now. But apparently, this is not how the masses want to consume media, including news media.
• ck2 4y ago
  Someone is missing a massive opportunity that won't present itself again. As every big entity and celebrity quits twitter, have an exact clone ready, it almost doesn't matter what the name is. They don't need to be exclusive on it, just have all those entities cross-post and slowly over the next few years it will build to critical mass.
  • kgwxd 4y ago
    Any accounts suspected of cross-posting would be banned.
• labrador 4y ago
  I've long thought that a service like Twitter is a public utility and should be run in a democratic way with government funding. The tragedy of Twitter only confirms that. I hope that a billionaire creates a Twitter clone and grants oversight to it to a democratically elected government body. I don't think it should have ads, because that would give advertisers influence. I think we should all fund it so we the public and have a public square for discussion that is neutral. We can all debate what kind of speech that we allow and vote on that
  • clsec 4y ago
    It should be labeled as such considering it has received massive tax breaks and free rent from the City and County of San Francisco.
    • labrador 4y ago
      I'd support the Federal Government nationalizing Twitter. We live in a time of war after all, mostly cold fought on a cyber and informational front, but just as serious just the same. Musk has suppressed support of Ukraine on Twitter and boosted Russia supporting accounts. I think that's just wrong. I think it's obvious by now Musk can't be trusted.
• CodeWriter23 4y ago
  Headline is incorrect. NPR’s label at the time of their departure was “government-funded media”. Changed after Musk conceded he got it wrong with the first label “State affiliated media”.
  • well_actulily 4y ago
    I strongly disagree with the notion that Elon Musk's labeling of NPR as 'state-affiliated' was an innocent mistake. In my opinion, Musk was well aware of the implications of lumping NPR together with propaganda outlets like RT and Xinhua. By doing so, he deliberately misrepresented NPR's journalistic integrity and reputation as a non-partisan news source. It's clear that NPR's objection was not to being labeled 'government-funded,' but rather to being unfairly associated with disreputable media organizations. This was a calculated move by Musk to undermine NPR's credibility and independence.
    • CodeWriter23 4y ago
      There’s plenty of skullduggery going on around this situation. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1646228065071292416?s=46&t=xFRjQVI7Xstv-_hBGM0V0A https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1646228065071292416?s=46...
• poisonarena 4y ago
  It is, since 2015-2016 its just awful. I used to love NPR, listening to is everyday in the 2000s and first half of 2010s, love the podcasts. SOMETHING happened, and it took a whole year or so for almost everything to be focused on politics and race and trump and I just completely lost interest.
  • kgwxd 4y ago
    A fascist took office, and now more fascists are taking office. When the fascists go, the news can be boring again.
    • philippejara 4y ago
      obama and bush took office way before 2015.
    • poisonarena 4y ago
      anyone who says 'fascist' that many times in one line wont be able to convince me of anything
      • kgwxd 4y ago
        [flagged]
        • poisonarena 4y ago
          [flagged]
• snowwrestler 4y ago
  There’s a lot of focus in comments on the funding. But let’s say you are an engineer at Meta. And the next time you log into Twitter, your personal Twitter account has a label that says “Meta-affiliated account.” Would that seem fair or accurate? Even though you get most of your personal income from your employer, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are directing what you do and say on your own social media accounts. Unless you are communicating in some professional capacity on behalf of your employer, like PR. It’s similar with the concept of “state-affiliated media” (a concept which predates Twitter, by the way). The deciding factor is how much the media operation is doing, essentially, the PR work of the government. Maybe with Biden in office, some poorly-informed conservatives would be willing to believe NPR is taking direction from the government. But during the Trump presidency? It’s obvious from even a cursory review of NPR content over the years that they are frequently at odds with the contemporaneous administration. Whereas state-affiliated media always is aligned, by definition.
  • bhelkey 4y ago
    > But let’s say you are an engineer at Meta. And the next time you log into Twitter, your personal Twitter account has a label that says “Meta-affiliated account.” Would that seem fair or accurate? It seems reasonable to disclose that one works at a company before posting an opinion related to that company online. The statement "I love CeraVe products" is worth a whole lot more from a happy customer than it would be from a CeraVe employee.
• crisdux 4y ago
  NPR's funding does not come solely from direct appropriation. NPR receives a higher amount of federal funding than what is commonly believed. It is difficult to determine the exact amount of federal funding because it is hidden within the fees paid by local affiliates. These local affiliates receive a significant portion of their funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is itself funded by federal tax dollars. Congressional appropriation > Corporation for Public Broadcasting > grants for local affiliates > fee paid to NPR
  • jtr1 4y ago
    NPR is very up front about its funding: https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
• costanzaDynasty 4y ago
  Good. Maybe more companies, media/new outlets will quit and be forced to realize that pandering to the amen chorus on Twitter is bad for business.
• kylecordes 4y ago
  Imagine an upgraded version of Musk - making some of these changes in a less contentious way. I find the idea of labeling media outlets quite helpful. The initial state-affiliated label for NPR seemed like an unnecessary tarnishment. The updated "government-funded" label is better, but still not quite there. The idea elsewhere in this thread of labeling the approximate percentage of government funding is excellent and should not be offensive to anyone involved.
  • blowski 4y ago
    Musk does have the tendency to make "motherhood and apple pie" sound like nuclear war. It seems more about attention seeking than running a business.
• obeyandunthink 4y ago
  “Silicon Valley is full of libertarians” HN has become so contrarian that it’s now the establishment well rooted in postmodernism and authoritarian tendencies to ensure society agrees with them.
• tric 4y ago
  It would be more noteworthy if their reporters left Twitter.
  • shagie 4y ago
    It's an active and current discussion. https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646154796905136128 https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646154796905136128 > Steve Inskeep (NPR): John Lansing, NPR CEO, at the ⁦ @MorningEdition meeting. > NPR says it will de-emphasize Twitter. Aside from the misleading label, NPR says Twitter isn’t used by most Americans; drives little traffic to NPR; and “no longer has the public service relevance that it once had.” https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646155432124137474 https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646155432124137474 > Steve Inskeep (NPR): NPR employees with personal accounts are told they may make their own decisions. I’ll take it day by day. https://twitter.com/abbydphillip/status/1646166679032938501 https://twitter.com/abbydphillip/status/1646166679032938501 > Abby D. Phillip (CNN) replying to morning edition meeting: At the news org level, this makes sense. And even at the reporter level, we’d all be better served spending less time on here, because the conversations happening here are increasingly divorced from what’s happening in the real world. https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646202479988686855 https://twitter.com/NPRinskeep/status/1646202479988686855 > Steve Inskeep (NPR) replying to Abby: This captures something real. While I am not stepping away at this time (I read all sorts of sources!), Twitter always encouraged groupthink; has never captured the full range of what’s going on; and is a less valuable resource than a year ago. I’ve been on here less.
• BiteCode_dev 4y ago
  In the BBC interview, Musk says they are thinking about changing the label to "publicly funded". Seems like a good compromise.
• user3939382 4y ago
  [flagged]
• Eumenes 4y ago
  NPR has been insane since Trump/2016. I play a game with a few friends/family, we tune into NPR, and see how fast they'll talk about trans issue or white supremacy ... its literally 90% of the time within 60 seconds
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • askin4it 4y ago
    I play that too! I call it NPR bingo
• kaeresten_dit 4y ago
  Seems like a funny reaction to a label added as a subtitle to an organization with the name National Public Radio People get attached to words or phrases without thinking about what they actually mean, seems like definitions get modified to emotionally herd the [un]imaginative/initiated Wild that style of thinking goes that high up the chain at NPR the CEO sounds child-like with their response
  • petrusnonius 4y ago
    The BBC just had their label corrected..
  • minsc_and_boo 4y ago
    If it's such s small infraction then it should be easy for Musk to say they were wrong and correct it, right?
  • asdfman123 4y ago
    Because words and definitions matter, and you’re doing a lot of projection here
  • harrelchris 4y ago
    Twitter defines state-affiliated media 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. [1] This isn't an accurate description of NPR. The government has no control over the content. > NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding from the federal government [2] Even Twitter recognized this and walked back the labeling. [3] [1]: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR [3]: https://nypost.com/2023/04/10/twitter-rebrands-nprs-account-as-government-funded-media/ https://nypost.com/2023/04/10/twitter-rebrands-nprs-account-...
    • bropleaseread 4y ago
      [flagged]
• gaoshan 4y ago
  State affiliated media indicates state run media... i.e. propaganda for the State. NPR is in no way propaganda for the State. It's probably the furthest a media outlet could be from such a thing. This as an example of people putting their own political ideologies above all else and labeling the things that don't necessarily support them as propaganda. It's wrong and short sighted.
  • user3939382 4y ago
    Do you have any examples of them bucking the DNC establishment? I’ve never seen one. AFAICT state propaganda is exactly what they are.
    • mortenjorck 4y ago
      State propaganda and party propaganda are the same thing in some countries, but fortunately not in the US.
    • minsc_and_boo 4y ago
      Are you genuinely asking for examples, or are you just declaring your opinion in bad faith? NPR reports on DNC mishaps and criminals all the time: - https://www.npr.org/2017/11/16/564593737/sen-al-franken-accused-of-sexual-assault-by-la-model-and-radio-host https://www.npr.org/2017/11/16/564593737/sen-al-franken-accu... - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/12/505309059/former-rep-chaka-fattah-sentenced-to-10-years-for-white-collar-crime-spree https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/12/505309059... - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/19/529119721/anthony-weiner-pleads-guilty-to-charge-over-sexting-with-a-minor https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/19/529119721... - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/04/568336597/ex-rep-corrine-brown-sentenced-to-5-years-for-stealing-from-bogus-charity https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/12/04/568336597... - https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/02/20/172480780/guilty-pleas-expected-from-jesse-jackson-jr-wife-over-lavish-spending https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/02/20/172480780...
      • ghiculescu 4y ago
• hexage1814 4y ago
  Only state-affiliated media from countries we don't like, such as China and Russia, should be considered state-affiliated media. BBC and NPR get a pass. [/irony]
• guywithahat 4y ago
  To be fair they are, independent investigations have found around 20-40% of NPR's money comes from the US government in one form or another. I agree it's a bit ambiguous where the cutoff should lie though
• balozi 4y ago
  Distilled down to its most basic argument -the question becomes: can an institution that receives funding from a sponsor also claim that its output is independent of that sponsor's interests? My perception is that NPR serves specific class interests, not State interests per se. Unfortunately for them, the State also serves the same narrow class interests. Rage-quitting will not address the underlying tension.
  • user3939382 4y ago
    I’d say no. All of these corporate media outlets have the same conflict of interest (Fox, MSNBC, etc) and the result is unsurprising.
• nafizh 4y ago
  NPR is indeed a propaganda machine. But only for one party, and its woke ideology. It doesn't even have to receive federal funding to acknowledge that. Now the technical question is what label do you put on a media platform that's captured by an ideology favorable to a single party which comes to power every few years?
  • dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Now the technical question is what label do you put on a media platform that's captured by an ideology favorable to a single party which comes to power every few years? Without agreeing that that is actually true of NPR, the most accurate label would be “typical private media”, virtually all of which has an ideological viewpoint shaped by the interests (commercial and/or otherwise) of its principals (and, often by way of those commercial interests, those of its sponsors.)
  • kgwxd 4y ago
    > what label do you put on a media platform that's captured by an ideology favorable to a single party which comes to power every few years? a dog logo
• almost_usual 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/logout https://twitter.com/logout
• theknocker 4y ago
  [dead]
• zenlf 4y ago
  I’m surprised that NPR is still held with high regards after they just ignored Hunter Biden’s story and justify it with “not really stories”.
• whydoyoucare 4y ago
  If NPR is really concerned about getting balanced news to the masses, then their decision to quit twitter, in the lack of an alternative and equivalent platform, seems short-sighted and more like a temper tantrum of a kindergartner, than that of a thoughtful and mature news organization. It also reinforces the conspiracy theories that they were never truly independent. By making a stinker about this issue, they are trying to paint Musk as the evil overlord hell bent on strangling anyone he dislikes. NYT, WaPo and other leftist media outlets are going to join (yet again) this bandwagon, guaranteed. Did BBC quit? No. NPR, grow up, be an adult.
  • TobyTheDog123 4y ago
    I'm one of the people who thinks "government-funded" is a fair label (though "state-affiliated" isn't as it implies editorial control). However, not putting up with someone's (or a company's) antics is not a temper-tantrum, nor a factor in if their decision was "adult" or not. If an organization is offended by a company's decision, then what's wrong with their decision to leave? Why would they tarnish their brand by having all of their posts accompanied by a label that they deem to be false?
    • whydoyoucare 4y ago
      While I don't have proof, I believe the screaming of NPR about this issue was deliberate (yet again) attempt at painting Musk as the "Evil Overlord" about to destroy the very fabric of fairness, democracy and society. And I never implied NPR cannot or should not leave if they disagree. The BBC example was simply drawing parallels with someone who made no stink about this and chose to stay. To my knowledge, there was no attempt from NPR to have that label corrected, which seems to be the first logical step. Off topic, I never found NPR to be neutral or unbiased. They are great pretenders of neutrality though.
• bunnyswipe_com 4y ago
  [flagged]
• eunos 4y ago
  Unlike Twitter that is still selective on labeling. YouTube pretty much label every public media, that includes DW, BBC, and also NPR. Why do the stake seems much higher on Twitter? I'm thinking that's because journos, blobs and think tankers personally hang out on Twitter unlike YouTube.
• sschueller 4y ago
  Does this marking only apply to US media or media active in the US? Swiss public broadcasting such as @SRF is publicly funden but lack suck label. However you would have a very hard time finding someone in Switzerland that does not know this as there is constant debating about the fee which almost everyone has to pay separately from taxes. German public television is also not marked.
  • badwolf 4y ago
    I think Twitters' main criteria currently is "Has <@anyone> been saying mean things that Elon Musk doesn't like lately?"
• fdschoeneman 4y ago
  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 1%. The 1% funding figure is misleading because it implies that the only kind of state funding is that coming directly from the federal government. The figure is much higher when you consider indirect state funding, the fact of NPR taking in dues from affiliates that are substantially dependent on federal grants or state and local grants or money that comes from public schools and public universities, all of which are funded by or subsidized by government. In addition to the 1% figure being a lie, the writer of this piece failed to disclose that he is literally an employee of NPR. I guess it wasn't difficult to find out, but still...
  • lgdskhglsa 4y ago
    WBUR is an NPR station, not only is it not difficult to find out the writer is an employee of NPR, it's out in the open and advertised as such. Do writers need to disclose on every article that they're employees of the organization they're writing for? https://www.wbur.org/about https://www.wbur.org/about
    • fdschoeneman 4y ago
      I think they should make it clear in the first paragraph when they are, in effect, writing about themselves or their employer. That's what I would have done.
  • kenjackson 4y ago
    It does disclose it... this is at the end of the article: Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Acting Chief Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Vickie Walton-James. NPR's Bobby Allyn and Mary Yang contributed to this story. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly. What more do you want?
• linuxhansl 4y ago
  That would indicate many high-quality news outlets. Many European countries have state-funded but independent media. Switzerland, Germany, Great Britain, France, et al, all have state-funded and independent media. The idea is that state-funding makes them less dependent since they do not have to only report what people want to read for ad-revenue but can focus on honest reporting (including reporting critical of the government). Whether you buy that argument or not is a different discussion. The point is that "state funded" has nothing to do with "state controlled" or even "state affiliated"; just another dumb move by Elon Musk. I quit Twitter a long time ago. Good riddance, I have not missed anything!
• stronglikedan 4y ago
  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.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• jtode 4y ago
  He... he really thought that he was buying reality, I guess?
• hintymad 4y ago
  A criticism of NPR that I often see online is that NPR is leftists' propaganda machine (not government's, mind you, but democrat's). However, is this criticism true, though? To me, a propaganda machine would lie or weave facts to paint false pictures. I think it's perfectly okay if a media is either left leaning or right leaning. Heck, it's even okay if a media is extreme left biased or right biased, as long as the media reports facts (I assume opinions are their own rights). The only example I saw recently was that NPR blatantly rejected the legitimacy of the Hunter Biden's laptop story. I don't agree with NPR's decision, but I can definitely give them the benefit of doubt that they truly believed that the story was a distraction. So, are there any additional data points that show NPR is a propaganda machine to some extent?
  • luckylion 4y ago
    > a propaganda machine would lie or weave facts to paint false pictures A simple propaganda machine would. A sophisticated propaganda machine wouldn't want to be seen as a propaganda machine and wouldn't go off the rails, but just significantly lean on all topics and reports and massage the truth enough to make an impact, but not so much to derail the train. No clue whether that's true for NPR, I think I've only ever seen something from them when I randomly discovered Kishi Bashi because he did an NPR concert that I enjoyed. But I don't think it's useful to say "you've either completely left reality whenever it comes to topics concerning your agenda or you're not a propaganda machine". Like, if I have a pair of dices that I can control, I won't just hit the best throw each time, because it won't last. I'll make much more money if I just make sure I win 60% of the time.
  • Auracle 4y ago
    https://allthingsreconsidered.buzzsprout.com/ https://allthingsreconsidered.buzzsprout.com/ Episode 3 (trans dinosaurs) and the follow up are one good example. But honestly, just turn on your station and listen. Unless you're so far left you can't tell the difference, it should be pretty obvious - although it was even worse when Trump was president.
• tptacek 4y ago
  My general take on this is that people can make whatever arguments they want about whether NPR is According-To-Hoyle state media (I don't think it is, by the spirit of the term, but it's a gnarly enough question that I wouldn't want to burn a whole thread trying to hash it out). The real issue here is: if Twitter is going to continue to be ad-sponsored for commercial viability, running a social media platform that chases National Public Radio off is very bad for business. You already have major national brands hesitant to re-engage there (whether you like their reasons or not). Playing chicken with NPR and losing is an awfully powerful arrow to put in the anti-Twitter quiver at those companies. I wouldn't want to look at this through the lens of politics, so much as just plain mismanagement. It's part of a broader theme of Twitter, which depends utterly on user-generated content, doing things to deliberately antagonize the minority of their user base that actually produces content people want to see.
• r721 4y ago
  Bobby Allyn (Tech Reporter for @NPR): >NPR's analytics show that less than 2% of our traffic comes from Twitter. It's not a surprise to people who work in media, but even before the labeling saga, there was a pretty strong business case that the game wasn't worth the candle https://twitter.com/BobbyAllyn/status/1646195092661891072 https://twitter.com/BobbyAllyn/status/1646195092661891072
• anigbrowl 4y ago
  This was pretty much the aim; occupy the territory and drive others out. The goal isn't for Twitter (or X) to make money, as such, but to have a monopoly on real-time mass communication and leverage that monopoly to pick which content 'wins'. All the complaints about Twitter and other big tech companies are essentially a to-do list of what will happen following their capture or neutralization.
• tristanb 4y ago
  For a smart man, this guy is a complete idiot.
  • timbit42 4y ago
    He's not that smart. He just hires smart people.
• B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  So, "state-affiliated" is a bad thing, unlike those "by appointment to HM the Queen" that used to grace the advertisements of British (and other) brands?
• thordenmark 4y ago
  But NPR is state-affiliated media. It was founded by the LBJ administration. And has always towed the government line with very little deviation from state-approved positions. Even the calls are heavily screened to not let anything remotely out of the box in.
• reso 4y ago
  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.
  • jackson1442 4y ago
    Typically the State Affiliated badge is only applied to accounts where editorial control is in the hands of the state - think Chinese and Russian media companies. Also interesting- after the change, NPR's badge says "Government-funded media" while the BBC's badge says "Publicly funded media," at least in the US. Al Jazeera does not have any such badge, other than the gold "Official Organization" badge.
  • corbulo 4y ago
    US Politics revolves around being the underdog. If you're state affiliated you can't pitch yourself as the plucky underdog trying to change the world. Thats why NPR would rather leave twitter than live with the label.
  • stusmall 4y ago
    >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? From Twitter's definition > 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. Yes. That is an insult.
    • shagie 4y ago
      From their definition from a week ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https://help.twit... > 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. Accounts belonging to state-affiliated media entities, their editors-in-chief, and/or their prominent staff may be labeled. > State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy. Note that that copy is currently still live on the China specific version of the page: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated-china https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia...
• guidorice 4y ago
  national: (adjective) relating to a nation; common to or characteristic of a whole nation: this policy may have been in the national interest | a national newspaper. • owned, controlled, or financially supported by the federal government: plans for a national art library.
• mleafer 4y ago
  "Tesla has received more than $3.2 billion worth of direct and indirect California subsidies and market mechanisms since 2009, according to an estimate from Newsom's office." - https://www.govtech.com/policy/gov-newsom-says-california-subsidies-powered-teslas-success#:~:text=Tesla%20has%20received%20more%20than,an%20estimate%20from%20Newsom's%20office https://www.govtech.com/policy/gov-newsom-says-california-su....
• neom 4y ago
  Why doesn't AlJazeera have a label?
• EchoReflection 4y ago
  twitter and NPR are both liberal echochambers, although NPR has "high credibility". https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/npr/ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-admits-bias-in-algorithm-for-rightwing-politicians-and-news-outlets# https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/22/twitter-a... https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-twitter-treats-conservatives-more-harshly-than-liberals/ https://quillette.com/2019/02/12/it-isnt-your-imagination-tw... re: NPR:liberal bias but not egregious https://nypost.com/2017/10/21/the-other-half-of-america-that-the-liberal-media-doesnt-cover/ https://nypost.com/2017/10/21/the-other-half-of-america-that... (I realize NY Post leans way right)
• EricE 4y ago
  From the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up department, NPR then ran to TikTok. Running home to mama I suppose.
• helsinki 4y ago
  I mean, have you listened to NPR lately? It’s too much for me, a longtime listener, to tolerate the majority of the editorial content, these days.
• lee101 4y ago
  [dead]
• liberty-DNBWM 4y ago
  LMFAO why it is so hard to accept the truth?
• RickJWagner 4y ago
  [flagged]
• koobock 4y ago
  [flagged]
• strken 4y ago
  I wish they'd tell me who owns the private media. Labelling the Murdoch press would be useful.
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
  https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-ra...
• SebKba 4y ago
  We're talking about it so what Elon is doing is working. Amazing to see all the hate.
• insane_dreamer 4y ago
  To be fair, all private media should have a “corporate ad funded” label, or maybe better yet, a list of their top 5 ad purchasers.
• syngrog66 4y ago
  SpaceX has taken massively more US gov funding than NPR. and many Tesla car buyers were persuaded to make the leap due to US gov tax incentives on EVs I do miss the old Elon Musk, the one I could respect and appreciate without reservation. feels like something "broke" in his personality a few years ago
• mlindner 4y ago
  I'm not sure what NPR is complaining about, they themselves state that federal funding is "essential" (in bold) for them.
• parasense 4y ago
  The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) receives about half a billion dollars annually from Federal grants, and then channels that funding into subsidiaries like PBS and NPR. https://cpb.org/appropriation/history https://cpb.org/appropriation/history Funding from a benefactor is known to create bias. I'm concerned about NPR's statements which almost resembles some kind of pathology, because the statements look like a mix of denial and/or rationalisation. We are seeing outright denial, that they only get a little bit of federal funding... or rationalisation like that funding is just a small portion of our tiny budget... The fact is that in 2021 Public Radio received about ~$100 Million, and about the same in 2022. If these estimation are wrong, they are leaning towards the conservative side, and would likely go higher. I'm pulling the data from the CPB financial statements, and mostly glossing over the details, yanking data from the executive summary. https://cpb.org/sites/default/files/aboutcpb/financials/audited/cpb_combinedstatements_fy2022.pdf https://cpb.org/sites/default/files/aboutcpb/financials/audi... Please, by all means dispute this data. I'd love to be persuaded that this is all somehow wrong. But right now it looks like NPR & PBS are both affiliated with the Federal government because they get significant funding from there, alongside donations.
  • perigrin 4y ago
    I'm not going to dispute the data, but I don't think it means what you're saying it does. Honestly, I think you've made the same mistake that most people make in this conversation and equating NPR to Public Radio. NPR is Public Radio, but not all Public Radio is NPR. TL;DR: Based on the document you linked to the lions share of the money goes to _public radio stations_ in unrestricted grants to pay for their operations. Of the money that does trickle through that to program providers, NPR is only one of dozens of program producers and distributors, and NPR's own reporting on this seems to accurately portray the reality of how they are funded from independent stations. Looking at the second link you provided theses are the expenditure programs that look related to public radio broadcasting in the us: Radio Program Fund, National program production and acquisition grants, Community service grants, and Public broadcasting interconnection system. There may be expenses in other categories but they don't appear to be directly related to public radio. According to that document, these programs are: Radio Program Fund represents expenses for the development and production of high-quality, new and innovative radio programs that might not otherwise be supported by the marketplace. National program production and acquisition grants are restricted grants made to qualified public radio stations that must be used for the production, acquisition, promotion or distribution of national radio programs that are of high quality, creative and reflect society’s diversity. Community service grants are unrestricted general operating grants made to qualified public television and radio stations. Public broadcasting interconnection system [...] a new interconnection system to be used by both public television and radio stations to transmit and receive programming feeds [... as well as] “other technologies and services that create infrastructure and efficiencies within the public media system. The line item breakdowns on these services for 2022 are Radio Program fund: 7,145,925 National program production and acquisition grants: 24,579,081 Radio community service grants: 72,446,561 Public broadcasting interconnection: 2,871,313 Total: 107,042,880 So it looks like the CPB spends slightly over 107M on _public radio_ in the united states. Note that the "National program production and acquisition grants" specifically go to qualified public radio stations. NPR isn't a public radio station, and so doesn't directly get any of that money. That money would go to a local public radio station (here's a [list](https://radiostationusa.fm/formats/public https://radiostationusa.fm/formats/public)). A station like my own WMFE then would use that grant money to purchase a radio program like All Things Considered from NPR. But they might also use that money to purchase a radio program like Marketplace from APM, or This American Life from PRX, or be used to produce it's own programs like WBUR's Here and Now. So that money _might_ go back to NPR, but it might not. The same thing applies to the Radio community service grants, they're unrestricted grants to _stations_ so NPR _might_ get some of that money but much of it probably go to pay local expenses, like the salaries of the radio engineers who keep the towers up and running. What about the Radio Program fund? That looks like it's pretty much targeted to NPR. Certainly not 100% of it is going to NPR's new programming. Even being generous all de-funding this will do is specifically cut programs "that might not otherwise be supported by the marketplace". I suspect most of that money goes to things like The Splendid Table, and Growing Bolder (neither are NPR shows btw). Unless you want to argue with Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner that news isn't a marketable product? The Public broadcasting interconnection is paid to _stations_ to make physically acquiring content easier and a deal with NPR, APM, PRI, PRX and others reduced that cost _significantly_, so that line item dropped to 2M in 2022 from 78M in 2021. Nothing in your document I believe NPR _claims_ they get about 13% of that portion of a station's budget (based on [WMFE's 2021 Audit](https://drive.google.com/file/d/121U2UFSI8eNYUg59TnZtELEhBL-th_YL/view?usp=share_link https://drive.google.com/file/d/121U2UFSI8eNYUg59TnZtELEhBL-...) "program acquisition" was about 16% of their total budget so NPR seems credible here) … so about ~$12M of the CPB funding, add in a chunk of the Radio Program fund let's say 80% or ~$6M … we're still at about $18M of the $107M … plus another 1% direct funding (or is that 1% the Radio Program fund?) and we're around 20% of the total CPB "public radio" budget ends up in NPR. Since the CPB's "public radio" budget is only about 25% of the total expenses from the CPB … is 5% of the CPBs expenses considered "significant funding"? De-funding "public radio" won't mean that Morning Edition goes off the air, it means that the farm report for Ida Grove, IA goes off the air … and the wildfire reports for Billings MT … and close to home for me it means that Brendan Byrne won't be able to keep doing Are We There Yet and reporting on the rockets that keep going up funding my local community with something _other_ than tourism. The numbers aren't wrong, your definition of "public radio" is wrong when you assume it's just NPR.