4 ms·

Is there another publication covering this case? NPR, whose funding comes directly from federal taxes, has an inherent conflict of interest in this case, and ba

Is there another publication covering this case? NPR, whose funding comes directly from federal taxes, has an inherent conflict of interest in this case, and based on the slant of the article, they are doing little to mitigate it.

jvanderbot 3y ago
I don't see a slant other than quoting government officials on the impact of the tax laws they drafted, and their opinion on the impact of overturning those laws. Aside from interviewing the judges potentially involved (which happens almost never?) what could they have done?
- kyrra 3y ago
  Quote people that are constitutional lawyer that points out issues with the law. Passing a law that violates the constitution seems like an avenue that should be followed. Also, every article has a bias to it. If the author on NPR led with how the tax was potentially illegal and frame it that the couple is being unjustly taxed, that would have a very different feel than this article. The NPR author could then bury quotes from the author of the law further down in the article. Order of delivery of facts and the title of the article clearly show the authors bias in a certain direction. Here is an argument in favor of th couple. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-will-finally-decide-what-income-means-tax-investment-mandatory-repatriation-e647a03f https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-will-finally-...
V__ 3y ago
About 10% comes directly from federal funding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
- junofan 3y ago
  Ironically, the article talks about how 10% of something is a controlling interest and part of the reason the plaintiffs wound up in court.
  - acdha 3y ago
    It’s worth noting that the federal rule mentioned is very specifically referring to influencing dividend amounts and timing. That’s not really comparable to running a news organization.
- BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
  There's a difference between NPR affiliated independent radio stations and NPR. On average NPR gets less than 1% of their budget from the federal government. https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  Directly, yes. How much of the rest comes from tax-deductible corporate donations and grants from tax-free nonprofits? Almost all of it. Since that money is not taxed, one could certainly argue that it represents a de facto tax increase on other people. That is, if the federal government needs $x/year in tax money, and Exxon doesn't pay taxes on the $y/year it gives to NPR, that tax money is going to have to be made up from someone else. Right?
jonahbenton 3y ago
It's completely false to say that NPR's funding comes directly from federal taxes. And anyway the piece isn't "slanted." In contrast to e.g. the Bloomberg piece it makes clear this is a relatively minor international tax regime issue and some of the facts are disputed. The SC isn't going to weigh in on realized vs unrealized gains writ large. I mean, a bunch of them might be assholes and idiots but they aren't fools.
- dboreham 3y ago
  Ah the old idiot vs fool distinction.
- baryphonic 3y ago
  > It's completely false to say that NPR's funding comes directly from federal taxes. It's completely true.[0] 1% of NPR's funding comes directly from the Treasury. Sure, not all of the funding comes directly from the government, but certainly enough to give NPR a financial incentive to preserve government revenue. Further, another ~10% comes indirectly through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is "non-governmental" but is Treasury-funded and administered by presidential appointees. CPB allocates grants to states & local stations, who use those grants in part to pay for NPR programming via fees. The law dictates that a certain percentage of CPB grants are allocated toward NPR's nationally-produced programming. > And anyway the piece isn't "slanted." In contrast to e.g. the Bloomberg piece it makes clear this is a relatively minor international tax regime issue and some of the facts are disputed. The SC isn't going to weigh in on realized vs unrealized gains writ large. I mean, a bunch of them might be assholes and idiots but they aren't fools. The Supreme Court is a trier of law, not facts, so factual disputes are irrelevant. Whatever unresolved factual disputes exist will be handled at the trial court level whichever way SCOTUS decides. That's just one example of the slant in the article. The article clearly paints the Moores with a skeptical brush, both with the "disputed facts" canard and with editorializing. Sentences such as this are clearly telling me what to think rather than telling me what happened: "The Moores are portrayed as sympathetic plaintiffs in Supreme Court briefs and a video posted on the webpage of the anti-regulatory Competitive Enterprise Institute." How are they "portrayed" as "sympathetic" in briefs and in the video? Why would we ever expect plaintiffs not to be portrayed as such in their own briefs and public relations content? What purpose does this sentence serve, other than to have the reader draw a negative inference about the Moores? The government's side of the the argument is given no such skepticism. A tax law professor and a GOP staffer who worked on the law each label a victory for the Moores as a "tsunami" and "enriched uranium," respectively, in the world of corporate tax law. NPR presents these without qualifications. These two experts constitute the vast majority of the expert opinion in the article; an expert favoring the Moores' interpretation is given a few sentences. It ends with an accusation of hypocrisy against the US Chamber of Commerce: "As [GOP staffer] Callas caustically observes, for the chamber [US Chamber of Commerce] and other stakeholders years later "to discover constitutional concerns that they didn't raise before" strikes me as "opportunistic."" The law in question is 186 pages long. Isn't it possible - likely, even - that defects in the law exist which jeopardize the constitutionality of the law and, upon their discovery, groups which are organized against taxes might champion this position? I'm not sure how that counts as "opportunism," except insofar as the author is presenting a tendentious, slanted argument. [0] https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-ra...
Eumenes 3y ago
[flagged]
- robmccoll 3y ago
  Couldn't you say that about any American news source, but maybe swap the three hyphenated last names for a brunette white man and a blonde white woman or something? That's just the state of our national conversation. Also this article isn't about any of those topics.
  - Eumenes 3y ago
    Play the game I suggested with other news sources. It won't work. NPR panders to a specific class of people obsessed with identity politics and activist causes. And the hyphenated last names are generally white people.
    - dwater 3y ago
      I went to look at the staff for All Things Considered, one of their most popular shows. I see zero hyphenated last names (and zero 3 hyphenated names). Perhaps you are biased. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/01/394867832/the-all-things-considered-staff https://www.npr.org/2020/01/01/394867832/the-all-things-cons...
    - r2_pilot 3y ago
      I played your stupid game and literally none of what you said was accurate. Maybe it's because I live in a red state. Or maybe it's because you did not take measurements of your observations and fell victim to confirmation bias. Either way, waste of my time (and yours). Be better.
    - acdha 3y ago
      Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NPR_personnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NPR_personnel I see two people with hyphenated names who are white, two who aren’t, and far, far more who don’t have hyphenated names. I have no idea what this absurdity was intended to prove but it’s clearly untrue even before you compare it to other news organizations to see whether NPR is unusual. I would also suggest that by the time you are focusing on whether reporters are white rather than their work, you’ve already lost whatever you’re arguing.
severine 3y ago
For an independent POV with a clear leftist slant, this is a good explainer, with links: https://www.publicnotice.co/p/moore-v-us-brief-charles-kathleen-kisankraft https://www.publicnotice.co/p/moore-v-us-brief-charles-kathl...

jvanderbot 3y ago

I don't see a slant other than quoting government officials on the impact of the tax laws they drafted, and their opinion on the impact of overturning those laws. Aside from interviewing the judges potentially involved (which happens almost never?) what could they have done?

kyrra 3y ago
Quote people that are constitutional lawyer that points out issues with the law. Passing a law that violates the constitution seems like an avenue that should be followed. Also, every article has a bias to it. If the author on NPR led with how the tax was potentially illegal and frame it that the couple is being unjustly taxed, that would have a very different feel than this article. The NPR author could then bury quotes from the author of the law further down in the article. Order of delivery of facts and the title of the article clearly show the authors bias in a certain direction. Here is an argument in favor of th couple. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-will-finally-decide-what-income-means-tax-investment-mandatory-repatriation-e647a03f https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-supreme-court-will-finally-...

V__ 3y ago

About 10% comes directly from federal funding. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding

junofan 3y ago
Ironically, the article talks about how 10% of something is a controlling interest and part of the reason the plaintiffs wound up in court.
- acdha 3y ago
  It’s worth noting that the federal rule mentioned is very specifically referring to influencing dividend amounts and timing. That’s not really comparable to running a news organization.
BugsJustFindMe 3y ago
There's a difference between NPR affiliated independent radio stations and NPR. On average NPR gets less than 1% of their budget from the federal government. https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...
Turing_Machine 3y ago
Directly, yes. How much of the rest comes from tax-deductible corporate donations and grants from tax-free nonprofits? Almost all of it. Since that money is not taxed, one could certainly argue that it represents a de facto tax increase on other people. That is, if the federal government needs $x/year in tax money, and Exxon doesn't pay taxes on the $y/year it gives to NPR, that tax money is going to have to be made up from someone else. Right?

jonahbenton 3y ago

It's completely false to say that NPR's funding comes directly from federal taxes. And anyway the piece isn't "slanted." In contrast to e.g. the Bloomberg piece it makes clear this is a relatively minor international tax regime issue and some of the facts are disputed. The SC isn't going to weigh in on realized vs unrealized gains writ large. I mean, a bunch of them might be assholes and idiots but they aren't fools.

dboreham 3y ago
Ah the old idiot vs fool distinction.
baryphonic 3y ago
> It's completely false to say that NPR's funding comes directly from federal taxes. It's completely true.[0] 1% of NPR's funding comes directly from the Treasury. Sure, not all of the funding comes directly from the government, but certainly enough to give NPR a financial incentive to preserve government revenue. Further, another ~10% comes indirectly through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is "non-governmental" but is Treasury-funded and administered by presidential appointees. CPB allocates grants to states & local stations, who use those grants in part to pay for NPR programming via fees. The law dictates that a certain percentage of CPB grants are allocated toward NPR's nationally-produced programming. > And anyway the piece isn't "slanted." In contrast to e.g. the Bloomberg piece it makes clear this is a relatively minor international tax regime issue and some of the facts are disputed. The SC isn't going to weigh in on realized vs unrealized gains writ large. I mean, a bunch of them might be assholes and idiots but they aren't fools. The Supreme Court is a trier of law, not facts, so factual disputes are irrelevant. Whatever unresolved factual disputes exist will be handled at the trial court level whichever way SCOTUS decides. That's just one example of the slant in the article. The article clearly paints the Moores with a skeptical brush, both with the "disputed facts" canard and with editorializing. Sentences such as this are clearly telling me what to think rather than telling me what happened: "The Moores are portrayed as sympathetic plaintiffs in Supreme Court briefs and a video posted on the webpage of the anti-regulatory Competitive Enterprise Institute." How are they "portrayed" as "sympathetic" in briefs and in the video? Why would we ever expect plaintiffs not to be portrayed as such in their own briefs and public relations content? What purpose does this sentence serve, other than to have the reader draw a negative inference about the Moores? The government's side of the the argument is given no such skepticism. A tax law professor and a GOP staffer who worked on the law each label a victory for the Moores as a "tsunami" and "enriched uranium," respectively, in the world of corporate tax law. NPR presents these without qualifications. These two experts constitute the vast majority of the expert opinion in the article; an expert favoring the Moores' interpretation is given a few sentences. It ends with an accusation of hypocrisy against the US Chamber of Commerce: "As [GOP staffer] Callas caustically observes, for the chamber [US Chamber of Commerce] and other stakeholders years later "to discover constitutional concerns that they didn't raise before" strikes me as "opportunistic."" The law in question is 186 pages long. Isn't it possible - likely, even - that defects in the law exist which jeopardize the constitutionality of the law and, upon their discovery, groups which are organized against taxes might champion this position? I'm not sure how that counts as "opportunism," except insofar as the author is presenting a tendentious, slanted argument. [0] https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-radio-npr/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-ra...

Eumenes 3y ago

[flagged]

robmccoll 3y ago
Couldn't you say that about any American news source, but maybe swap the three hyphenated last names for a brunette white man and a blonde white woman or something? That's just the state of our national conversation. Also this article isn't about any of those topics.
- Eumenes 3y ago
  Play the game I suggested with other news sources. It won't work. NPR panders to a specific class of people obsessed with identity politics and activist causes. And the hyphenated last names are generally white people.
  - dwater 3y ago
    I went to look at the staff for All Things Considered, one of their most popular shows. I see zero hyphenated last names (and zero 3 hyphenated names). Perhaps you are biased. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/01/394867832/the-all-things-considered-staff https://www.npr.org/2020/01/01/394867832/the-all-things-cons...
  - r2_pilot 3y ago
    I played your stupid game and literally none of what you said was accurate. Maybe it's because I live in a red state. Or maybe it's because you did not take measurements of your observations and fell victim to confirmation bias. Either way, waste of my time (and yours). Be better.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NPR_personnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NPR_personnel I see two people with hyphenated names who are white, two who aren’t, and far, far more who don’t have hyphenated names. I have no idea what this absurdity was intended to prove but it’s clearly untrue even before you compare it to other news organizations to see whether NPR is unusual. I would also suggest that by the time you are focusing on whether reporters are white rather than their work, you’ve already lost whatever you’re arguing.

severine 3y ago

For an independent POV with a clear leftist slant, this is a good explainer, with links: https://www.publicnotice.co/p/moore-v-us-brief-charles-kathleen-kisankraft https://www.publicnotice.co/p/moore-v-us-brief-charles-kathl...