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Comment by euix | Hacker News Reader

Is NPR state funded? (real question - I actually don't know). What is the definition of state funded? Here in Canada all the media take government subsidies especially the big ones - a lot of that I think is the economics, they simply don't generate enough revenue on their own to sustain themselves so in the process of being subsidized by the federal govt they take on the viewpoint that can be considered statist. You just can't bite the hand that feeds you. The step that comes before independence of thoughts has to be independence of economics.

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34% of their budget comes from CPB, which is federal funding for local radio stations, and which NPR gets the money through local stations. They downplay this funding source and only mention the 1-4% that they get directly from local/state/federal government sources but clearly NPR would be dead without federal funding.

[1] https://gigafact.org/fact-briefs/does-npr-receive-less-1-its...

> 34% of their budget comes from CPB

No. 34% goes to affiliate stations. A portion of that 34% goes to NPR indirectly through the fees they charge the affiliates to carry the programming.

The affiliates are not NPR.

You are quoting that source incorrectly:

>In its 2019 fiscal year, direct federal grants provided 0.6% of funding for National Public Radio... NPR does derive support indirectly, through payments from member stations that also get direct federal funding.

> NPR relies on the local stations' payments for 34% of its budget. CPB estimates its support provided 8.2% of the average station's budget in 2017, but it's more important to affiliates in smaller, rural markets

This is still wrong though. From your source:

> NPR relies on the local stations' payments for 34% of its budget.

Local stations are not 100% government funded.

> CPB estimates its support provided 8.2% of the average station's budget in 2017, but it's more important to affiliates in smaller, rural markets.

If I do the math. An average station's budget is 8.2% from CPB, and 34% of the funding for NPR comes from local stations, taking that 8.2% of government money, and saying 8.2% of the 34% funding from local station it is 2.7% of NPR's budget from local stations. And 0.6% directly, so from _your source_ NPR is funded by 3.1% from CPB.

Here's Twitter's old definition of who is and isn't "state-affiliated". They have since changed it. Note that NPR was literally used as an example of someone who receives state funds but is not "state-affiliated".

"State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy."

https://web.archive.org/web/20230404115255/https:/help.twitt...

It's not just that it's state-funded - NPR's CEO got there after years of heading the relevant US government propaganda agency, as evidenced in https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/management-team/john-lansin....

So is your argument that NPR is a mouthpiece for the US government? I think that requires some evidence, rather than flinging about flimsy associations like this.

No, my argument is that an institution managed by past government officials cannot be unironically called independent from said government.

So every institution employing former government officials are state affiliated? Or does this just apply to ones you don't like?

either would be silly tbh

s/employing/led by/. Yeah, pretty much.

> Is NPR state funded?

Yes, in part. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR?useskin=vector#Funding :

"According to CPB, in 2009 11.3% of the aggregate revenues of all public radio broadcasting stations were funded from federal sources, principally through CPB; in 2012 10.9% of the revenues for Public Radio came from federal sources."

"about 50% of NPR revenues come from the fees it charges member stations"

"In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue from federal, state and local government funding, 10% of their revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue from universities."

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