Comment by fdschoeneman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fdschoeneman | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure NPR does some good work, and while I believe it is biased, I've found it to be less biased than CNN or MSNBC. I don't understand why NPR objects to being labeled as either state funded or state affiliated. It was established by an act of Congress, for one thing, and according to its own website, and its own disclosures, it does depend on federal funding. And that figure is substantially more than the claimed 1%. The 1% funding figure is misleading because it implies that the only kind of state funding is that coming directly from the federal government. The figure is much higher when you consider indirect state funding, the fact of NPR taking in dues from affiliates that are substantially dependent on federal grants or state and local grants or money that comes from public schools and public universities, all of which are funded by or subsidized by government.

In addition to the 1% figure being a lie, the writer of this piece failed to disclose that he is literally an employee of NPR. I guess it wasn't difficult to find out, but still...

The "state affiliated" label on Twitter was originally applied to sources that are not editorially independent from their states. Twitter put this label on NPR, then removed an explicit mention of NPR as non-state-affiliated from their public policy related to the label, then removed the mention of editorial independence from the policy entirely, then changed the label to "state funded."

I think it's easy to see why NPR objected to the initial "affiliated" labeling, and that they see the new one as just a quick wording change to try to bat back some criticism, but that it carries the same stigma.

In terms of the affiliation of the author, this is a story written by NPR itself: https://www.npr.org/2023/04/12/1169269161/npr-leaves-twitter...

The poster here on HN just happened to post the version from WBUR's website. Also, I don't know if it was edited later or not, but the piece both on NPR's site and WBUR's site has a disclosure at the end explicitly stating that it's NPR reporting on itself.

I'm not sure I care. To me, state funded is the same as state affiliated. The important thing is not that npr is labelled one way or the other. Everyone knows what NPR is and what the BBC is. Most fair people figure they have a bias but that sometimes they still do good work. The important thing is that by being consistent, and by labelling journalists and media brands like RT and the Chinese state media organs using the same rules we apply to npr and the BBC, we help information consumers understand when they're likely being propagandized.

This. It's not fair to apply this rule that kinda says "state affiliated/funded = propaganda" to everyone except for USA media, that's some USA exceptionalism.

It does disclose it... this is at the end of the article:

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Acting Chief Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Vickie Walton-James. NPR's Bobby Allyn and Mary Yang contributed to this story. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

What more do you want?

You're right. I either missed it or the disclaimer was added after I first read the piece.

I think I'd have preferred it be up front in the first paragraph, and that the writer used language making it clear he was talking about his own company and not NPR as an entity he was able to be objective about. That's what I'd have done.

I'm not sure what you meant about the language to use -- but I do agree that I'd prefer to see disclosures upfront. I know that most NPR podcasts, for example, state the disclosure at the start of the podcast. Because honestly, I probably only finish about half of the articles I start -- I know, that's my fault.

I mean by language some difference in words or voice. For example, instead of describing what NPR's chief executive did, the author could have written about what his boss did.

WBUR is an NPR station, not only is it not difficult to find out the writer is an employee of NPR, it's out in the open and advertised as such. Do writers need to disclose on every article that they're employees of the organization they're writing for?

https://www.wbur.org/about

I think they should make it clear in the first paragraph when they are, in effect, writing about themselves or their employer. That's what I would have done.

maybe it was added in the 12 minutes since you wrote your comment but there is a disclaimer at the end stating the writer is an NPR correspondent.

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