NPR Contends That Twitter’s State-Affiliated Media Labeling is Detrimental to Its Credibility

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Elon Musk has mixed up Twitter’s record of free speech. One of the Musk-era innovations at Twitter is to name government-affiliated media outlets as “state-affiliated media.”

This was used to identify Russian and Chinese propaganda outlets via Twitter as well as NPR and the BBC.

Twitter took NPR’s complaints about its poor babies into account and changed its designations to reflect them.

NPR didn’t like it so NPR decided that they would take the ball and pout, and head home.

NPR made the world more aware by publishing an article on NPR. Sign up for the story. This isn’t at all tacky.

David Folkenflik writes that NPR will stop posting new content on its 52 official Twitter accounts. This makes it the first major news agency not to post on social media. He is speaking in the third person about NPR.

Folkenflik wrote that NPR could not handle the “government-funded” designation because it implied that NPR might have a bias.

John Lansing, NPR CEO, sent employees an email: “It would disservice your serious work here, to continue sharing it on platforms which are associating federal charters for public media an abandonment editorial independence and standards.”

Folkenflik said, “The news organization says that is inaccurate and misleading, given NPR’s private, nonprofit nature without editorial independence.” It gets less than 1 percent of its $300 million annual budget from the federally-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Okay. Yes, we are right. We cannot accept $3 million in federal funds as government funding.

NPR has boasted in the past about its dependence upon taxpayer money. This is strange.

Influence Watch reports NPR’s assertion that federal funding is essential for radio’s public service to the American people. “NPR’s website stresses that local journalism is dependent on federal funding.”

Musk pointed out that NPR has changed its tune since then.

NPR encourages its “editorial independence” on Twitter, but instead of encouraging it, NPR asks listeners for TikTok — the Chinese Communist Spyware social networking platform.

NPR, we are sorry. We can see past your childish pouting and foot-stomping toward Twitter. We don’t understand.

NPR: Do Twitter’s actions threaten your credibility? This is the world that conservative media has known for years.

Twitter and other large-tech conglomerates can make anyone feel weaker. This is not only us but also many conservative outlets. This works in this manner: Tech giants have the power to withhold money from articles when they find certain words, phrases, or topics. Reporting the truth costs us money, which is then used to pay staff and freelance writers. (Don’t worry, though. I’m not going to sing Sarah McLachlan’s “Angel” to pull at your heartstrings or tell you sad stories.

There are also the “fact-checkers.” They may be able to point out sources that make facts incorrect, but they also act as gatekeepers to The Narrative by applying fact checks to items that seem true but are not convenient to their left.