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NPR Is Officially Done with Twitter

By Dustin Rowles | Social Media | April 12, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | Social Media | April 12, 2023 |


GettyImages-167851373.jpg

NPR is done with Twitter. The media outlet is the first major news organization to cease using Twitter, as it has made the decision to stop posting to its 52 Twitter feeds after Elon Musk decided to label the outlet as “state-affiliated media,” a label typically set aside for propaganda outlets in Russia, China, and other authoritarian countries.

Elon Musk recently revised the label to “government-funded media”, but NPR claims that even this is misleading. NPR is a private, non-profit company with editorial independence, and it receives less than 1% of its $300 million annual budget from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The label of “government-funded media” undermines the news organization.

CEO John Lansing argued that the degradation in Twitter’s culture, in addition to Musk’s hastily announced policy changes, were also contributors to NPR’s decision to withdraw from the site. Some journalists also fear that such labels could endanger them, particularly those reporting from areas government affiliation can get them in trouble.

Twitter, meanwhile, has placed the same label on PBS, which also receives money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as well as the BBC, which is funded by a uniform license fee charged to British television viewers. Most of NPR’s funding comes from corporate and individual supporters and grants. It also receives significant programming fees from member stations.

Source: NRP