It's state affiliated. Like Tesla. Like any company who received covid relief. Tax breaks etc.
Less than 1 percentage is simply not influential. It's disingenuous to say it's owned by the government.
> What business would turn around and say : "We don't need that 1%, you can have it back".
The one which would try to claim independence and non-influence from said entity?
So... everyone and everything is state affiliated and should be labeled as such?
That's obviously not the case. State affiliated should be limited to organizations that are influenced/controlled significantly by the state, which NPR is not. This is actually the definition that Twitter advertises.
NPR and PBS would not exist right now or in the future if their government funding grants were revoked. That puts a nonexistent bias on their editorial decisions. I seem to remember NPR "leaking"/breaking the story on WMDs in Iraq with one of their journalists directly quoting internal contacts in the Pentagon as their source. They are clearly far from immune to being used as agents of propaganda. That being said, I personally hold both NPR & PBS Newshour in very high regard. I do think that placing them in them in the same categorisation as RT or even the BBC is reductionist. Perhaps there should be varying levels of "state affiliated media" labeling.
NPR (and every other company) that relies on US roadways is giving the US govt levarage over the organization no?
there is a difference between a company that makes electric automobiles, and a company that influences the thoughts and (crucially) feelings of the populace through opinion and reporting.
we all agree that all of these things are true for government-dependent media organizations outside of the West, but for some reason many refuse to believe that the same thing happens here domestically.