NPR Radio is US State-Affiliated Media

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Twitter has labeled National Public Radio as “state-affiliated media” on the social media site, a move some worried could undermine public confidence in the news organization.

NPR said it was disturbed to see the description added to all of the tweets that it sends out, with John Lansing, its president and CEO, calling it “unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way.”

It was unclear why Twitter made the move. Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, quoted a definition of state-affiliated media in the company’s guidelines 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.”

“Seems accurate,” Musk tweeted in a reply to NPR.

NPR does receive U.S. government funding through grants from federal agencies and departments, along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Besides the direct govt funding, NPR gets about 30% of its money from govt-funded local stations. The NPR web site says public radio station reveneues are 13% from the govt. It also says "Federal funding is essential".

I listen to NPR Radio regularly, and I have never heard it give a politically balanced report on anything. Not PBS TV either. For example, they never have a Trump representative giving his side of a Trump-related story. I have found more balanced stories on RT, the Russia-funded network.

Twitter should have put this label on PBS and UK BBC also.