NPR Rage-Quits Twitter Over Government-Funded Media Label

(BrightPress.org) – National Public Radio (NPR) has announced they’re rage-quitting Twitter after owner Elon Musk opted to label them “Government-funded media” on the social network, warning users that they are directly financed by government money, suggesting bias in their coverage.

NPR President and CEO John Lansing called it “unacceptable” even though it’s factually accurate and consistent with how Twitter labels foreign media that is funded by foreign governments. 

Elon quoted the company’s guidelines on state-affiliated media and replied simply that it “seems accurate” to include NPR in the category. NPR claimed that their budget from federal dollars made up less than 1% of their income. They had previously been specifically carved out for an exclusion in Twitter’s rules that excepted BBC and NPR from the labeling, NPR was removed from that sentence shortly after the rule change. 

Many more folks are calling for the BBC in Britain and the CBC in Canada to be similarly labeled as both take money from the government and have a particular slant that always seems to favor the leftist establishment. 

The move followed after the New York Times had its gold verification checkmark removed. Elon had threatened to take away all verified checkmarks from legacy-verified individuals if they weren’t going to pay for the service. It seems as if the only one to lose it was the NYT after a user pointed out they announced their plans not to pay for it. They had a gold star for legacy verified institutions prior. 

NPR announced its plan to “no longer be active on Twitter” as they felt its credibility had been undermined by the factually accurate label. While NPR maintained they’re editorially independent, a brief examination of their content suggests they lean hard left

PBS will also stop actively tweeting, and while people claim the clash between Twitter and the media is a bad thing, it facilitates debate and discussion about authority. No media organization is beyond biased, especially when they take government money.  

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