I'd say the label is an improvement for NPR since it's both more literal and allows that the organization is more independent, more credible.
To me "state-affiliated" comes across as a state run mouthpiece.
In fact, when I popped over to Wikipedia to refresh my member of examples, I see the page already uses exactly this language to differentiate the two.
"Government-funded" instead of "state-affiliated" is about journalistic independence in this way.
Well, FWIW, when I read such a term that's not the impression I come away with.
I do like a label when a government has any financial association with a news organization, but off the top of my head I can't think of a quick label that might be more clear how small the financial association is.
It also reminds me of news orgs themselves (NPR in particular) having disclaimers in their reports, again without getting into the magnitude of the association.
@volkris No, the problem is that this suggests a significant (or even ALL) of its funding comes from the government, for example like the BBC, which is (AFAIK) completely government funded. NPR is 1%. That's in the noise. Elon is just being a jerk, as usual.