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Comment by jagtstronaut | Hacker News Reader

Maybe it’s a hot take (I didn’t think so until the violent reaction) but I felt the label was accurate. I like NPR a lot , but certainly the fact that liberal policymakers vote in favor of its funding affects their content. Do we really consider ourselves that much better than other nations that their state media is labeled as such but ours has a high moral calling that is unaffected by dollars?

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NPR is not US state media.

The US does have a state media news org. It's called Voice of America. They have a youtube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVSNOxehfALut52NbkfRBaA

Also Stars and Stripes: https://www.stripes.com

If I recall the label was “state funded media” not state media

NPR receives almost nothing in Federal funding. Like, less than 1% of it's income. The individual stations get a little, but I stress little, it's typcially less than 10% of their budget, and is mostly state/local, not federal.

Total spend by the CFB is a whole $1.40/yr per person, and the lion's share of that goes to PBS, not NPR.

They don't receive it directly, but the Federal government gives it to local PBS stations, which then pay NPR for the content rebroadcast rights. Because the money is now passing through multiple pockets, you can say the federal money isn't directly going to NPR, but local PBS fees amount to about 1/3rd of NPR's revenue.

If the 1% number NPR touts was real, they should advocate for the disbandment of CPB so their independence would be undisputed, but they live on that money so they don't.

Last time I checked, EVs got $7500 from the Federal Government for every car, which is more than 1% of a typical car price.

Does that make Tesla a government funded company? Should Tesla be given state-sponsored flags on Twitter?

Media organizations that receive non-trivial government funding have to be wary of criticizing the politicians who secure them that funding and then readers want to be aware of that potential bias, because media companies are otherwise expected to critically investigate politicians. There is no such expectation for car companies.

The reason car companies don't get the "state sponsored media" flag isn't that they're not state sponsored, it's that they're not media organizations.

Musk spoke at the Wall Street Journal's CEO Summit Monday and suggested scrapping the Biden infrastructure package. Musk said that Tesla didn't need the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles, which provides a tax credit of up to that amount to individuals purchasing plug-in electric vehicles, to drive demand for its vehicles. He also called federal support for charging infrastructure unnecessary.

"Do we need support for gas stations? We don't," Musk said. "There's no need for support for a charging network. I would delete it. Delete."

Sure, now that he's entrenched after sucking on the government teat, shut that stuff down so competitors can't benefit.

Finally, I can get that government motors commie car!

Do you think Tesla falls under "government-funded media"? Last I checked they made cars. But if they start a newspaper, and the federal govt financed it, I'd support the label.

We can play that all day. Pharmaceutical, oil, car, agribusiness, and other companies that receive massive amounts of government subsidies, contribute a huge share of every major media outlet's ad revenue.

The corresponding problem for ad-supported media isn't that the media won't criticize the government, it's that the media won't criticize the interests of the advertiser, e.g. by opposing pharma subsidies. But the viewer can see who the outlet's advertisers are and impute their bias, because they can see the ads.

How about when NBC, one of the main cheerleaders for the homicidal war in Iraq, was owned by a defense contractor that made billions selling weapons (GE)?

NBC would then be a media organization with significant government funding, so it should get the tag.

They're not owned by GE anymore though. They're owned by Comcast, which... maybe it should still get the tag.

If you can agree that it is objectively true that it is state funded, why are you uncomfortable with labeling it as such?

Because the important distinction here is between (1) media that is state-funded in the sense that the state owns it and guides its editorial priorities, and (2) media that is state-funded in the sense that like almost every other enterprise, some small share of its operating budget is a consequence of state spending.

Calling (2) "state-funded" when the signal was clearly intended to indicate (1) is disingenuous and eliminates the value of the signal.

> they should advocate for the disbandment of CPB so their independence would be undisputed

What's the point? Nobody thinks that the Musk fans attacking NPR are arguing in good faith. No matter what NPR does they will keep finding reasons to attack it, unless Elon says otherwise. Intellectual consistency is about last way to describe Musk's flailing changes over at twitter, yet his diehard fans always defend them.

I think Musk got it right when he posted on X that NPR's own 'about' page said "federal funding is essential"

He'd be wrong. If all federal funds were cut off most would lose 5-10% of their funding income. It would suck for them, but they'd still be fine. Elon had it entirely wrong and implied they were just a state run propaganda source.

Instead of feeling like the label was accurate (it is not), why not instead do a quick search and actually find out how much of NPR's income comes from the government?

(Spoiler: government advertising pays significantly more of the budget of a great many commercial and "independent" radio stations)

So your argument is that it’s okay not to label it as state funded (which it most certainly is) because other media companies are? And you feel the best course of action is to continue hiding all that?

Spend some time there and you'll hopefully get a broader view of its content. It's frequently critical of both parties, and leaves plenty fuming on both sides. Outside of nonsense politics, they actually educate their listeners instead of focusing on opinion blather.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with it being state funded or not. It can be funded by the government and still fairly unbiaised. Why hide it? It's fine to be state funded, as long as the public is aware

Agreed with both of you actually. I enjoy NPR and I certainly agree that it allows for both sides at times. However, it is a fact it is state funded (it is in the name) and I think it objectively leans one way (which you can verify by looking it up on one of those companies that evaluates media bias) and it just so happens that the way it leans is where the votes for its funding comes from?

NPR is not owned or controlled by the US government. At least read the wiki article or something if you think that.

By labeling it that - you are devaluing the term for dictatorships that use state run media to manipulate the state. How is NPR being manipulated by Biden? Has he been talking to their staff like the previous administration spoke to a conservative media star?

Words need to matter. You could call this Federally funded media - but he didn't .. And like others have said funny he didn't label Tesla or Space X state sponsored car company. They are (and should be imo) This was just playing politics.

That's not what it means. Even the BBC is state funded media. That you think your media shouldn't be labelled by what it objectively is, is just peak American exceptionalism.

And yeah sure, they weren't directly funded but that's semantics. The stations, which constitute NPR are state funded. It's such a weird position to deny something like this, it just exposes your biases (aka, the label was never meant to be factual but mostly to be a smear)

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