Here's Twitter's documentation on how they identify state-affiliated media[1].
This excerpt makes the decision seem outside of the defined process:<p><pre><code> 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 for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the
purposes of this policy.
</code></pre>
[1] <a href="https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affiliated" rel="nofollow">https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/state-affilia...</a>
The article states "More than 99% of NPR's funds do not come from federal sources" and yet elaborates "NPR ... gets the bulk of its direct financial support from two sources: sponsorships and fees paid by hundreds of member stations." How are those member stations funded? Through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives a $465 million federal appropration each year.<p>So can the Federal Government exert pressure through "financial resources" or "indirect political pressure", per the Twitter policy? You bet. Does the NPR model naturally align itself to bigger government with more grant-making power? Definitely.<p>I think Twitter could have come down on either side. It's a grey area. But how could the NPR story fail to mention the $465 million?<p>See also <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...</a> where NPR makes the opposite argument, namely, that "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."
> NPR ... initially assumed it was applied by mistake, NPR spokesperson Isabel Lara said. "We were not warned. It happened quite suddenly last night," Lara said.<p>> 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...<p>Sigh.
The US government does not control NPR this is ridiculous. If they did, why are they laying people off over funding? They get most of their money from foundations and corporate sponsors. Who in the US government could control it? Congress, the President? the Top-Secret deep state? This is a bad look for Musk because it isn't even logical. Does Musk not remember the decade where all NPR programs were "sponsored by Audible" or "brought to by Audible"? I got so sick of hearing about audible.com and its great selection of audiobooks.
This is not a very convincing defense. Most foreign outlets Twitter and US media label state-affiliated are not directly controlled by the state. It's more like, <i>hey, this institution gets a lot of its funding from, or has close ties to, the state, so just watch out for that</i> which is 100% true here.<p>NPR was literally created by an act of congress. You can't be honest and say in good faith it's not state affiliated.
NPR makes a good case that the “funded by the state” clause isn’t applicable to them. Directly is knockdown, they have that “less than 1%” statistic. Indirect funding clause seems like a wash - they are supported by member fees, which some members pay with state grants and others pay with revenue.<p>Distribution is also clearly not controlled by the state, production is less clear but probably still not materially so.<p>Which leaves “state editorial control” as the likely cause of this. Many people would say the state doesn’t have editorial control of NPR, many others would say it does. Editorial influence likewise.
State affiliation is not just about funding. Per Twitter guidelines:<p>"How state-affiliated media accounts are defined<p>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."
Quote from NPR’s own website[0]:<p>“Public Radio and Federal Funding<p>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.<p>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.<p>These station programming fees comprise a significant portion of NPR's largest source of revenue. The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution.”<p>[0] <a href="https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances" rel="nofollow">https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...</a>
NPR gets a lower percentage of it's funding from the US government than Exxon gets from government petro subsidies. Should we label Exxon as state-affiliated media?