Hacker News Reader

Comment by sneak | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

Tesla and SpaceX combined have obtained $5 billion in subsidies from the US government. NPR’s budget subsidy is less than one percent (~$3M).

The label is not accurate, it’s a weapon of childish behavior.

They have not. You are relying on a false headline that calls things like contracts, loans, zev credits from other automaters as ' government subsidies', which is obviously incorrect.

Tesla is only just now receiving subsidies to produce batteries from the IRA that was passed last year, but previously had received no subsidies from the federal government

Are Tesla or SpaceX media companies? I thought they were in manufacturing.

You are comparing apples to oranges.

It feels like you’re attempting to make excuses for bad faith behavior through contortions of criteria. That is a choice, but not one I think that would stand up to scrutiny (based on the facts of the matter, Elon’s very public history of how he exists, operates, and “lashes out” whenever feeling challenged or sleighted).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law

No really SpaceX isn’t a media company.

State funded is not the same as state affiliated. The government doesn't have any editorial control of NPR.

>The government doesn't have any editorial control of NPR.

Yeah, it's not like the government literally put their own guy as NPRs CEO: https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/management-team/john-lansin...

NPR hired him away from the USAGM; "selected by NPR's corporate board". https://www.npr.org/2019/09/05/758047287/npr-names-veteran-m...

True but it does lean heavily in one political direction. If it is receiving any federal funding then it should be pushed to neutrality, and remove the one-sidedness of their news programing.

I think NPR would be very upset if the government required political neutrality as part of its funding.

NPR seems plenty neutral to me. Neutral is not defined as the midpoint between our two main US political parties (as your username would suggest you know).

I always hear more than one side to each story, when they're long enough, and a good mix of brief stories about either side, positive and negative.

I am a regular listener to at least Morning Edition and All Things Considered, and I can assure you their reporting is very biased to the Left.

The credulous reporting of politically left ideas, policies, and positions on news stories without even strawman explanations of competing ideas is very frequent.

I listen to podcasts for long form, fair discussions of issues, but NPR used to (seemed to?) hew to an objective ideal of reporting, and the new crew happily crusades for their team/goals.

Or maybe your perception of what is actually neutral is too skewed by American political extremism. It seems any source that isn’t ranting about trans folk and teachers being groomers or that the 2020 election was stolen is somehow “left leaning” to many people in this country.

When Trump threatened to cut their funding because they weren't friendly enough to him, their funding increased from donations quite a bit. They're making content their listeners want.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com