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pibechorro

Still state funded.

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By that criterion, Tesla is a lot more state funded than NPR: https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/parent/tesla-inc

SpaceX would practically belong to the Pentagon.

Very true and yet completely irrelevant.

So you'd be fine with labeling Tesla a state-affiliated organization? I suppose that's at least consistent, though I don't see the utility of a label that applies so broadly.

And that strident libertarian Peter Thiel is the chairperson of a company that makes its money off government contracts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palantir_Technologies

Must be nice to be a libertarian—lot of fat government subsidies seem to come their way.

Grants amounting to less than 1% of their total funding is hardly "state funded".

From what I understand, state funding is 30-40%. It's just indirectly funneled to the main NPR org through member stations.

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

Perhaps worth reading from the horses' mouth as it were.

Also, here's the financials for a member station near me:

https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/4c/1d/4e0c21b44d2aa963c25f8bc9...

Note that state contributions totaled less than 5% of their total revenue. The CPB grant, which could be stretched to be considered state/government contributions, was about 16% of their revenue.

Given that member station contribution is 30% of NPR's total revenue, there's no chance that state funding is going to reach 30%-40% values.

And even then it is a minority of the funding and only part of that is federal funds.

And those member stations rely on _local_ subscriptions to stay solvent. They need to engage with their communities in a way that the communities find useful.

This basically is big govt working the right way. This framework enables local communities to support their local public broadcasting networks, which then contribute to the state and federal news via NPR, which is better at elevating the stories that matter to the nation.

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