National Public Radio (NPR) has been branded as “state-affiliated media” on Twitter by Elon Musk, a moniker that was previously only applied to media outlets in autocratic nations like China and Russia.
“State-affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution,” read a memo Musk circulated announcing the decision, adding “Seems accurate.”
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NPR staff members reacted negatively to the news of the classification, claiming that the station receives only 1% to 2% of its total financing from federal grant programs. Correspondents for the station responded on their personal Twitter accounts:
NPR has a reputation for having a liberal bias, but it has come under fire for allegedly tailoring its coverage to its predominantly Democratic audience. According to a poll, the majority of its listeners—43%—identify as Democrats.
The notion that the virus escaped a Wuhan epidemiology lab was scorned by NPR as being on “thin ice” and having “almost no likelihood” of happening with the outbreak of Covid-19 in April 2020. Since early this year, when U.S. officials identified a lab leak as the most likely cause, no correction has been included to either narrative.
The National Public Radio (NPR) found itself withdrawing a previous remark owing to insufficient data, despite trying to offer a balanced and unbiased stance on the subject of gender and sports ability. They initially refused to admit that greater testosterone levels do in fact correspond with higher levels of physical performance, saying there was only “little scientific data” to support the notion that male athletes have an advantage over female competitors. However, readers were quick to point out a significant study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine that reveals trans-identified males still maintain a competitive advantage over women when NPR indicated there was insufficient data on the subject of elite transgender athletes. Experts in the field are still researching and debating these difficult problems.
NPR has been the target of efforts to defund for many years, with some Republicans fighting hard to end all federal funding for the organization. Newt Gingrich, a former House Speaker, made one famous attempt to eliminate funds from the federal budget. Notwithstanding these efforts, NPR has been successful in maintaining its federal money because it is really distributed through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). It’s interesting to note that CPB only gives each individual NPR station only 2% of its annual budget.
