On Wednesday morning, taxpayer-funded National Public Radio (NPR) upped the ante in its hissy fit against the Elon Musk-owned Twitter as, in light of the fact that Twitter added the “state-affiliated media” label to NPR’s account and then tweaked it to say “government-funded media.” The far-left crackpots are quitting the social media platform because Twitter was “falsely implying that we are not editorially independent.”
To reiterate, NPR quit Twitter in a childish fit of rage because the free speech platform accurately labeled them as government funded in the same way as wholly state-run media outlets in China and Russia are labeled. Therefore, staying would be a supposed affront to their “journalism”.
NPR and its litany of liberal defenders also purposefully left out the fact that Twitter has slapped the same label on BBC, who’s also incensed despite existing thanks to a royal charter and fee set by the government and charged to nearly every British business and household.
In a statement, NPR whined:
NPR’s organizations accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent. We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence. We are turning away from Twitter but not from our audiences and our communities. There are plenty of ways to stay connect and keep up with NPR’s news, music, and cultural content.
On NPR’s website, media correspondent David Folkenflik took a pause from his life’s mission to kill Fox News to report his outlet “quits Twitter after being falsely labeled as ‘state-affiliated media’”.
Talk about some serious coping and seething. Folkenflik would probably hate if we shared links harkening back to the days when defunding NPR and PBS were seen as killing Big Bird.
Folkenflik explained the move extended “to its 52 official Twitter feeds” and parroted his bosses in whining it was offensive to NPR to being depicted with “the same term it uses for propaganda outlets in Russia, China and other autocratic countries.”
He insisted in a comical take that NPR isn’t “government-funded” and rather “a private, nonprofit company with editorial independence” that “receives less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.”
So, NPR receives money from a federal board? That sure seems like government funding. Also, what a relief to know tax dollars are so infinitesimal to NPR’s survival that it wouldn’t be a threat to their existence if Congress defunded and shuttered the CPB, which received $465 million in 2022.
Simply put, Folkenflik and his likeminded lemmings play accounting games. A “Public Radio Finances” page on NPR’s website completely omits government tax dollars with its second largest funding source (after “corporate sponsorships”) coming from “fees paid by NPR Member organizations to support a suite of programs, tools, and services.”
What are “NPR Member organizations”? Essentially, they’re NPR affiliates. And how are NPR affiliates funded? Through “community service grants” to “provide significant public service programming.” And where do those come from? Yes, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Try and not to laugh, but NPR CEO John Lansing — the former head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (the parent company of Voice of America) — said the move was to stave off any “risk” to NPR’s “credibility” and even argued it didn’t even matter that NPR does, in fact, derive funding from taxpayers (click “expand”):
"The whole point isn't whether or not we're government funded," Lansing says. "Even if we were government funded, which we're not, the point is the independence, because all journalism has revenue of some sort."
NPR's board is appointed without any government influence. And the network has at times tangled with both Democratic and Republican administrations. For example, NPR joined with other media organizations to press the Obama administration for access to closed hearings involving detainees held by U.S. authorities at Guantanamo Bay. And "All Things Considered" host Mary Louise Kelly stood her ground in questioning then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over then-President Donald Trump's actions in Ukraine despite being berated by Pompeo.
Most of NPR's funding comes from corporate and individual supporters and grants. It also receives significant programming fees from member stations. Those stations, in turn, receive about 13 percent of their funds from the CPB and other state and federal government sources.
Folkenflik further displayed the level of mind-numbing egotism and use of stochastic terrorism to clamp down on external criticism under the guise of death threats (click “expand”):
Fears that Twitter label could endanger journalists
Journalism and freedom-of-speech groups have condemned Twitter's labels, including PEN, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
"NPR receives public funding, but is not state-controlled, meaning Twitter's listing could pose risks for journalists reporting from areas where suggestions of government affiliation have negative connotations," CPJ's Carlos Martínez de la Serna said in a statement urging Twitter to revisit its decision.
This rhetorical meltdown by a thin-skinned outlet was despite the fact that, over at YouTube, they remain active with a similar label of being “an American public broadcast service” with identical labels for other state-backed sites, including those for western countries like Australia’s ABC, the U.K.’s BBC, Canada’s CBC, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, and Ireland’s RTE to name a few.
NPR also fired off a series of tweets explaining to followers where they can still view and listen to its work, including Chinese-owned TikTok. So, yes, NPR trusts an unofficial arm of the Chinese Communist Party over Musk.
According to longtime NPR lefty Steve Inskeep, Lansing stopped by Morning Edition’s production meeting to insist Musk’s site “no longer has the public service relevance that it once had” (meaning it’s no longer controlled by pro-censorship leftists).
Those cries you hear? That’s the sound of a liberal political strategy firm realizing they’ve lost control of a key medium to shovel their propaganda.
