[nyerp]

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.

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.

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?

See also https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... 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."

[sometimesjerks]

I've seen a lot of misunderstanding about how NPR's funding works, and a claim that NPR/NPR affiliated stations receive $465M.

First, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) receives ~$128M for "Public Radio Station and Programming Grants", not NPR or NPR affiliated stations [1].

Second, CPB uses that money for grants to local stations, which then license content from NPR. This model was a direct result of NPR's funding crisis in the 1980's. Additionally, the amount a local station gets from the CPB depends on how large it is, with the average station only receiving 7.2% percent of its annual revenue from CPB grants [1]. Small rural stations get a much larger percent -- and most probably wouldn't be able to function without it hence NPR's "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service" statement.

[1]: https://cpb.org/funding

[vannevar]

By this same logic, all television networks are "state-affiliated media", because they all depend on local stations that hold federally-granted broadcast licenses. So add Fox Broadcasting, NBC, CBS, etc., etc. to your list.

[stusmall]

Also with the same logic Tesla is "state-affiliated". Federal subsidies on sales have been a critical part of their business model.

I think people are arguing that is label makes sense are really losing the thread of the point of the label. Is it possible for the Federal government to exert pressure on the organization? Honestly, that's true of any person or organization that has any financial dealings that touch the US. It's really hard to argue in good faith that NPR is a mouth piece of the state like RT or Xinhua.

[krapp]

The logic being applied here is the baseline of American conservative logic that all mainstream media, excepting Fox News of course, is controlled by an organized leftist cabal that takes their orders directly from the Democratic Party. They mistrust NPR and PBS in particular (and have for decades,) considering them nothing but organs for Marxist propaganda.

As with the "Twitter Files" this is just an attempt to normalize right-wing conspiracy theory under the facade of neutrality.

[revelio]

Broadcast licensing isn't the same thing as direct subsidization, though.

[vannevar]

Agreed. Licensing is much more powerful leverage, because there's no alternative. At least PBS stations can appeal to private sources for funding. Licensing power is exclusive to the government.

[revelio]

But in practice (in the USA) broadcast licenses are just a way to manage spectrum and don't get revoked for political reasons. Funding can go up or down depending in order to condition behavior.

[Dudelander]

The source you cite points out that only 8% of public radio's funding comes from federal funding, and less than 1% of NPR's budget comes from federal funding. The federal government does not exercise any editorial control over NPR other than by the mechanisms that apply to Fox, CNN, Newsmax, or any other "private" media organization.

[vuln]

> The federal government does not exercise any editorial control over NPR other than by the mechanisms that apply to Fox, CNN, Newsmax, or any other "private" media organization.

So NPR hires former IC members and then utilizes them to downplay or hype a story? I mean “give an analysis”…

[dingosity]

It turns out that many people leave the intelligence community each year. Many of them move on to other jobs (i.e. - they don't retire, they change jobs.) Some of these jobs are at NPR. What's your point?

[vuln]

Perhaps you should read this article that highlights MSNBC and the lies their paid IC folks spewed relentlessly. Not only were they lying, countless times to push a narrtive MSNBC NEVER corrected any of their “mistakes” oh right “that’s just their opinion, it doesn’t matter if they were previously a spy, they don’t do that anymore”

https://www.racket.news/p/msnbc-sucks

[vuln]

Some of those jobs are at NPR and other News Networks. Some of those jobs are at all the social networks… Some of those are at think tanks… It seems like where ever there is a choke point to information you’ll find a bunch of IC members. It’s just a coincidence, I’m sure.

[Rapzid]

Industries interested in intelligence have a high concerntration of former IC members?

Wow, so slueth. Such conspire.

[oska]

This is highly disingenuous. Former employees of intelligence agencies have no place in employed, paid roles in corporate or state media, because the possibility that they are still working to advance the agencies propaganda or protect their past actions and present causes is way too high.

If they like, they can set up as an independent journalist or commentator, as Ray McGovern has done, where they are invited on as guests or they independently publish their own material. But that's it. No paid commentator/opinion roles, no senior management roles (Jim Baker at Twitter) in the media should be open to them. And any state or corporate media organisation who employs them only confirm their role of being conduits for propaganda.

[vuln]

Thanks. You articulated this better than I could.

[rcktmrtn]

> How are those member stations funded?

A case quick case study on this for Wisconsin I did recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35294972&p=2#35295817

... in summary, our station seems to be about 1/3 funded directly by the the government (state+federal). It's obviously simpleminded to claim that NPR is directly and obviously a stooge of the federal government, but trying to deflect the question with the "99% non-federal funds" doesn't convince me of anything.

[TheCoelacanth]

31% of revenue comes from member station fees and 13% of member station fees comes from government funding, so that would mean 13% of 31% or 4% of the total comes from government sources.

"State-affiliated" still seems highly inaccurate. Tesla get 3% of its revenue from government carbon credits. Are they labeling Tesla as state-affiliated?

[cool_dude85]

But if the CPB stations didn't exist, who would be trying to advertise, excuse me, become a corporate sponsor, with NPR? The network of stations that NPR sells its material to would likely not exist without Federal funding.

[Rimintil]

What-ifs get in the way of the facts. Perhaps we should just not go there since your scenario isn’t applicable to NPR as it stands today.

[dingosity]

I believe you to be high.

The US petroleum industry as a whole (and the few individual companies I follow closely) receive a higher percentage of their income as subsidies from the US federal government than NPR does.

By this logic, they are more likely to yield to pressure from the US government than NPR and yet Twitter does not label their accounts as "government affiliated."

Tesla received $7.5B in federal subsidies last year on $81.4B of revenue. That's about 8 percentage points more federal funding than NPR received. Maybe we should label Tesla's twitter account as "government affiliated."

I can't find recent data, but through 2015, SpaceX received $4.9B in government subsidies, and SolarCity received $497M in direct federal subsidies. Maybe they should also be labeled "government affiliated."