By Jack Phillips
National Public Radio (NPR) was listed by Twitter as a “US state-affiliated media” on Tuesday, drawing outrage from staffers at the outlet.
Twitter owner Elon Musk weighed in on the designation, writing that it “seems accurate” to call NPR “state-affiliated.” He pointed to Twitter’s Help Center, which noted that “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.”
And, according to Twitter’s guidelines, “Labels on state-affiliated accounts provide additional context about accounts that are controlled by certain official representatives of governments, state-affiliated media entities, and individuals associated with those entities.”
But staffers with NPR—which critics say exhibits a far-left-wing bias in its reporting—suggested Tuesday the outlet shouldn’t be listed as such. Climate and energy correspondent Jeff Brady dismissed the label by simply writing: “Uh, no.”
“Labeling NPR state-affiliated media is wholly inaccurate and untruthful. NPR gets LESS THAN 2 percent of its funding from grants through the federal government. NPR’s newsroom is an absolutely free and independent newsroom; always has been. This label is a LIE and an insult,” wrote NPR’s Ashley Westerman.
The amount of taxpayer funding that NPR actually receives has been up for debate for years. Some argue that much of it is hidden in the form of grants and estimates have suggested that the broadcaster’s budget is far higher than the often-claimed 2 percent figure.
In 2015, one analyst, Mark Browning of the American Thinker conservative website, asserted that the broadcaster budget is more than 25 percent taxpayer-funded, while member stations receive upwards of 40 percent in public funds. At the time, an NPR spokesperson disputed Browning’s calculations, which he said was based on publicly available data.
In the 1970s and 1980s, NPR was primarily funded by the U.S. government, although there was a move to change its financial structure decades ago. According to the watchdog site Influence Watch, NPR gets about 1 percent of its yearly budget from the federal government, while about 10 percent of its budget comes “indirectly” from state, federal, and local governments.
NPR reporter David Gura tweeted two screenshots saying NPR was once listed alongside the BBC as a state-funded organization that was not defined as state-affiliated because it is editorially independent of the U.S. government.
“Musk’s Twitter labeled NPR ‘state-affiliated media,’ even though the company’s own policy stated the organization shouldn’t be labeled as such because it has editorial independence (left). Hours later, Twitter removed the reference to NPR in the policy (right),” he wrote.
Under the previous ownership, Twitter in 2020 labeled a number of accounts as state-affiliated, including Russian state media like RT and Sputnik News as well as Chinese Communist Party mouthpieces such as the the New China News Agency and Xinhua. Reporters with those outlets also received those designations.
“When it comes to conversations with government and state-affiliated media accounts on Twitter, we’re helping to make the experience more transparent,” Twitter wrote in August 2020, adding that the platform doesn’t allow state-affiliated outlets to advertise. “We’ll now use two distinct profile labels for these types of accounts, so you can easily identify them and their Tweets.”
NPR has not responded yet to a request for comment about the designation. When asked for further comment via email on Tuesday, Twitter’s media account responded with an automated poop emoji.
The broadcaster’s chief executive, John Lansing, sharply criticized Twitter’s move on Tuesday night.
“We were disturbed to see last night that Twitter has labeled NPR as ‘state-affiliated media,’ a description that, per Twitter’s own guidelines, does not apply to NPR,” Lansing wrote. “NPR and our member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for the independent, fact-based journalism we provide. NPR stands for freedom of speech and holding the powerful accountable. It is unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way. A vigorous, vibrant free press is essential to the health of our democracy.”
Also this week, Twitter changed its logo to the “Doge” meme on Monday, causing the related cryptocurrency known as “Dogecoin” to spike in value. It’s not clear why the change was made.
