Twitter owner and advocate of “free speech” whether factual or not, Elon Musk acknowledged a change in NPR’s status on the social media site as “state-affiliated” media — which is sorely untrue.
On Tuesday, Musk tagged the non-profit media company with the same label Twitter uses to designate official state mouthpieces and propaganda outlets in countries such as Russia and China.
NPR operates independently of the U.S. government. And while federal money is important to the overall public media system, NPR gets less than 1% of its annual budget, on average, from federal sources.
NPR is an independent, non-profit media organization that gets the bulk of its direct financial support from two sources: sponsorships and fees paid by hundreds of member stations, as its website states.
NPR receives federal funds indirectly because they play a vital role in supporting member stations through annual grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But those stations also rely on audience donations and other revenue — and they purchase programs and content from across the public media ecosystem, not solely from NPR.
A very limited portion of NPR’s budget comes from direct federal sources. “On average, less than 1% of NPR’s annual operating budget comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and departments,” according to NPR’s website.
NPR
Donald Trump Jr. posted a clip (while illustrating a possibly coke-induced lisp) to celebrate and endorse the use of Twitter as Musk’s personal political toy.
In 2018, a report showed that Tesla, the EV company owned by Musk, received $713 million in government subsidies in comparison with a $312 million profit.