It depends on the perception one has of the US govt. If one considers them benign and aligns with their policy, 1% seems is not a big deal. If one doesn't, even 1% funding is considered influence. Imagine one politician you don't like receiving 1% from the Russian or North Korean government, or say from the Meta corp, I wouldn't have a problem calling out them as being "funded" or even "influenced".
> What business would turn around and say : "We don't need that 1%, you can have it back".
The one which would try to claim independence and non-influence from said entity?
> It's state affiliated. Like Tesla. Like any company who received covid relief. Tax breaks etc.
So... everyone and everything is state affiliated and should be labeled as such?
That's obviously not the case. State affiliated should be limited to organizations that are influenced/controlled significantly by the state, which NPR is not. This is actually the definition that Twitter advertises.
I believe the "state affiliated media" tagline is as you might guess, intended for media who's editorial opinions should be taken with their state affiliation in context. What utility does it serve to label SpaceX, Tesla, Lockheed, Boeing, or any other company that does not publish editorial opinions as "state affiliated". I don't get what people don't understand here.
NPR and PBS would not exist right now or in the future if their government funding grants were revoked. That puts a nonexistent bias on their editorial decisions. I seem to remember NPR "leaking"/breaking the story on WMDs in Iraq with one of their journalists directly quoting internal contacts in the Pentagon as their source. They are clearly far from immune to being used as agents of propaganda. That being said, I personally hold both NPR & PBS Newshour in very high regard. I do think that placing them in them in the same categorisation as RT or even the BBC is reductionist. Perhaps there should be varying levels of "state affiliated media" labeling.
This isn't just about NPR itself. They depend on local broadcast networks to reach their audience. How much does government grants influence the local stations? I know in my state, the majority of local public radio funding comes from the government.
if "every penny counts", and the federal government gives them a single penny, then by definition they owe their continued existence to the federal government.
there is a difference between a company that makes electric automobiles, and a company that influences the thoughts and (crucially) feelings of the populace through opinion and reporting.
we all agree that all of these things are true for government-dependent media organizations outside of the West, but for some reason many refuse to believe that the same thing happens here domestically.
In 2022, CPB got $465M from the Federal government. Of that, $72M goes to "Direct grants to local public radio stations", $24M to "Radio National Program Production and Acquisition grants" and $7.3M to "Radio Program Fund".
Using 4.5% as the percentage of of the $72M from CPB that ends up as part of the 1/3rd of NPRs revenue. 4.5% x 33% = ~1.5%.
I gather then that even though it's a small part of NPR's revenue, it's very high leverage in helping to keep all of the member stations afloat. I guess that's how they can simultaneously downplay the dollar amount while also speaking of how critical it is.
> Because the bulk of NPRs funding comes from the dues of member stations most of which are non-profits and receive funding from a myriad of sources.
From wikipedia:
Although NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding from the federal government, member stations (which pay dues amounting to approximately one third of NPR's revenue), tend to receive far larger portions of their budgets from state governments, and also the US government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
31% of their funding comes from member stations. 13% of member station funding comes from government sources. In total that would make about 31% * 13% = 4%.
It doesn't really change anything, either way NPR have stated that federal funding is essential to their operation.
Doesn't seem outlandish to call them government funded if the government is funding essential operations. Some of the same people who go on ad nauseam about how Tesla and SpaceX have received government funding are curiously resistant to the idea though.
> It doesn't really change anything, either way NPR have stated that federal funding is essential to their operation.
Every organization on earth refers to every penny of its budget as "essential" as to not lose any of it. Obviously they could still exist and find a way to replace 1% of their total budget if necessary.
> Every organization on earth refers to every penny of its budget as "essential" as to not lose any of it.
Untrue.
> Obviously they could still exist and find a way to replace 1% of their total budget if necessary.
They chose to represent themselves as having their essential operations funded by the government. Even if that was a lie, perceptions are very important when it comes to conflicts of interest, transparency, public funding, politics, and independence. The entire basis of their protest to Twitter is about the perception created by the "government funded" label. So lying to the public about something like that for an allegedly insignificant amount of money would be a singularly idiotic thing for NPR to do.
Right, organizations routinely admit they are getting too much funding and ask for it to be reduced. There are so many examples of this, perhaps you could provide just one?
> They chose to represent themselves as having their essential operations funded by the government
Again, so they don't lose that funding. I don't think any of them could have predicted a right wing billionaire would buy Twitter and give them a misleading label because he doesn't understand the difference between state and public media.
> Right, organizations routinely admit they are getting too much funding and ask for it to be reduced. There are so many examples of this, perhaps you could provide just one?
I have been in several situations where I have been asked to prioritize and categorize essential and non-essential funding. Not for public / public funded / government jobs, so it's not necessarily made public. But it obviously happens.
If they don't want to outright admit it so openly is one thing, but lying about their operations and public funding is quite another.
> Again, so they don't lose that funding.
That didn't address the content of my reply. You're just repeating the same thing again lol, so same reply applies.
> I don't think any of them could have predicted a right wing billionaire would buy Twitter and give them a misleading label because he doesn't understand the difference between state and public media.
The label that might mislead people into believing the government provides essential funding for their operation?
>I have been in several situations where I have been asked to prioritize and categorize essential and non-essential funding. Not for public / public funded / government jobs, so it's not necessarily made public. But it obviously happens.
What you were asked to do sounds more like an audit, which isn't what i'm talking about. Government organizations (or non-profits, NGOs, etc.) don't announce to the world they don't need as much money as they are getting. Or if they do, i'm still waiting on an example.
> but lying about their operations and public funding is quite another
Don't know how you got there, clearly not what i'm saying.
> The label that might mislead people into believing the government provides essential funding for their operation?
I have a question. The House GOP tweeted out "Defund @NRP" - Elon tweeted the same thing a hour later, highlighting the "essential funding". How does that work? How does the entire right wing internet get behind the same talking points all at once?
Losing 1% (or 4% depending how you look at funding) will not make any organization go away, use basic logic. They are clearly saying that as to not disrupt future funding.
> What you were asked to do sounds more like an audit, which isn't what i'm talking about. Government organizations (or non-profits, NGOs, etc.) don't announce to the world they don't need as much money as they are getting. Or if they do, i'm still waiting on an example.
So, goalpost moving?
> Don't know how you got there, clearly not what i'm saying.
Sounds like you are. Either they're lying or the government funds essential operations.
> I have a question.
How about you address what I wrote first before you keep deflecting. I don't give a rats ass about "the house GOP" and they have nothing to do with what we're talking about.
> Public radio stations receive annual grants directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that make up an important part of a diverse revenue mix that includes listener support, corporate sponsorship and grants. Stations, in turn, draw on this mix of public and privately sourced revenue to pay NPR and other public radio producers for their programming.
The numbers I am last aware of, while ten years old now, were that Federal funding was roughly 10% of their operating budget, with 90% coming from other sources.
This came more or less directly from our NPR station in DC as they talked about fund raising in their many, many drives. And this wasn't for the station itself, I believe this was for NPR, since they then went on to talk about how many stations, mostly in rural areas, had a funding inverse of that.
Basically, if you are listening to NPR outside a major population center, then its almost certainly because Federal dollars make that possible. And if you listen and contribute to a major station, then you are one of the few that pay the 90% or so of the budget for the content on NPR.
You’re conflating the local NPR affiliate with the news company and radio content aggregator. It like you’re saying that my local NBC station is owned by NBC News, when it’s locally owned (well, in my case owned by a company with a lot of stations, but not NBC itself).
Less than 1% of NPR’s budget comes directly from the government itself through competitive grants, etc.
Some of the budget comes from member stations (presumably more than 1%) who themselves receive some level of state or federal funding. Those are the entities that receive ~10% of their budgets from a government of one kind or another (the rest coming from donations or other non-profit funding). But those stations can get content from a variety of other public radio sources. I believe NPR can (did?) handle some of the distribution of non-NPR content via their satellite services.
Originally NPR was directly funded by the CPB to a much greater extent. However that changed substantially in the 80s when the stations themselves started receiving funding from the CPB instead of NPR.
> The numbers I am last aware of, while ten years old now, were that Federal funding was roughly 10% of their operating budget, with 90% coming from other sources.
If that's accurate, then I'd love for NPR to explain the order of magnitude gap between their claim of 1% and that 10% figure. That's a huge difference.
to upon_drumhead: Federal funding laundered through sub-orgs that share the same "NPR" branding is still federal funding.
>Most of NPR's funding comes from corporate and individual supporters and grants. It also receives significant programming fees from member stations. Those stations, in turn, receive about 13 percent of their funds from the CPB and other state and federal government sources.
NPR is one of several providers to individual public radio stations. The government supports those individual stations; they use some of that support to purchase programs from NPR, American Public Media, PRX, etc.
If you look at the breakdown lower in the page, 31% of NPR's revenue comes from member station licensing fees and of the member station funding 13% comes from government sources, so in total that would be 4%.
I think it has more to do with preserving the fiction that they're significantly more independent from commercial interests than other news media. Losing dedicated public funding would make them a commercial network that also begs for donations a few times a year, probably harming donation and removing some of the halo-effect that advertisers are looking for by "sponsoring" them (paying for ads).
In short, it'd push them farther out of the ad niche they've carved for themselves, which could have serious revenue consequences beyond that 1%.
Grocery stores traditionally or supposedly only make 1% to 3% profit. These days it's probably 1%. So I'd say 1% is a lot if it's the thing keeping the company from going under if that income disappears.
Disconnect between direct federal funding and aggregate funding from a variety of public institutions or grants from publicly funded NGOs at national/state/local levels I imagine.
Let’s graph all their sponsors and their connection to the corporations that also puppet our elected officials. My guess is the vast majority of their funding looks like:
Let's say you're being paid $1k per month by your job. You would say you receive almost nothing, right? Simultaneously, you would also say what you do get is essential to your livelihood. Same here, larger scale.
That's not an accurate analogy if what you're saying the $1k/month is your entire pay.
More accurate would be saying I make a $100k/month of which $1k comes for a certain source, and then me saying that thousand is essential to my livelihood. I'd be lying if I said that; I make a whole lot less than $100k/month and I could easily forgo $1k/month today which just goes into my savings anyways.
It's disingenuous to talk as if the relationship to NPR content to their funding is some simple linear relationship.
Every penny of their income is important. If they had less content to provide to member stations, those stations would have less content and would pull in fewer donations. It then becomes a death spiral since less content results in fewer donations.
While federally originated dollars are a small portion of NPR's total income they're not unimportant since they can't be replaced by other sources. A 1% reduction in income means they need to reduce expenses by 1%.
In your analogy, $1k/month goes into savings. Losing that wouldn't break you financially. You're not spending your all of your income. If you were you'd need to cut your expenses by the $1k/month. In that case you'd consider that 1% pretty important.
What's there to address? 1% stable funding is still 1% you can rely on, just because you receive additional funds from private sectors or alternative sources that are unreliable, doesn't negate this. You can literally see this in CPB funding, where private sources are incredibly variable, and that is what CPB gets, NPR is only allotted a portion.
Why do they keep saying they receive almost nothing, yet at the same time say government funding is essential to their operation?