NPR makes a good case that the “funded by the state” clause isn’t applicable to them. Directly is knockdown, they have that “less than 1%” statistic. Indirect funding clause seems like a wash - they are supported by member fees, which some members pay with state grants and others pay with revenue.
Distribution is also clearly not controlled by the state, production is less clear but probably still not materially so.
Which leaves “state editorial control” as the likely cause of this. Many people would say the state doesn’t have editorial control of NPR, many others would say it does. Editorial influence likewise.
Please ignore the $465M that NPR affiliated stations received from Federal government.
See also https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... where NPR makes the opposite argument, namely, that "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR."
That $465M number is how much government grant money goes to the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”. The two obvious questions are 1. how much is that as a fraction of the total income of the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”, and 2. how much of NPR’s revenue is from member fees. Searching around, the first is variously quoted as 6%, 11.4%, or 16%, while second seems to be consistently quoted as about 50%. So the loose bounds on indirect Federal funding for NPR are “more than 3% and less than 16%” - not a very compelling fraction, but not insignificant, so therefore it’s a wash.
In any case, Federal funding is just one clause of the “state controlled media” qualification and the argument for or against NPR receiving this status largely rests on the other clause that is concerned with state editorial control. This is a more subjective question and one that Elon (and thus Twitter) appears to have answered in the affirmative.
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NPR makes a good case that the “funded by the state” clause isn’t applicable to them. Directly is knockdown, they have that “less than 1%” statistic. Indirect funding clause seems like a wash - they are supported by member fees, which some members pay with state grants and others pay with revenue.
Distribution is also clearly not controlled by the state, production is less clear but probably still not materially so.
Which leaves “state editorial control” as the likely cause of this. Many people would say the state doesn’t have editorial control of NPR, many others would say it does. Editorial influence likewise.
Please ignore the $465M that NPR affiliated stations received from Federal government.
See also https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance... where NPR makes the opposite argument, namely, that "Federal funding is essential to public radio's service to the American public and its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR."
That $465M number is how much government grant money goes to the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”. The two obvious questions are 1. how much is that as a fraction of the total income of the group “stations who are paying NPR member fees”, and 2. how much of NPR’s revenue is from member fees. Searching around, the first is variously quoted as 6%, 11.4%, or 16%, while second seems to be consistently quoted as about 50%. So the loose bounds on indirect Federal funding for NPR are “more than 3% and less than 16%” - not a very compelling fraction, but not insignificant, so therefore it’s a wash.
In any case, Federal funding is just one clause of the “state controlled media” qualification and the argument for or against NPR receiving this status largely rests on the other clause that is concerned with state editorial control. This is a more subjective question and one that Elon (and thus Twitter) appears to have answered in the affirmative.