No it’s completely accurate. That they receive a small amount of government funding just confirms that they receive government funding.
So yeah, like you said, state affiliated was misleading and they improved the label, and now they are complaining about the improved label.
They are not taking the high road in this case.
@volkris
Yes, they receive some government funding, but “Government funded” is ambiguous; the most obvious interpretation of labeling an organization that way in this context is that they receive a significant fraction of their funding from the government, enough to impact their independence, not just that they receive a non-zero amount.
There are many, many organizations that receive a small but nonzero amount of government funding; no others, as far as I know, have been labeled “government funded”.
Given these inaccurate and misleading actions by Twitter, it seems entirely reasonable for NPR and other organizations to choose to use other outlets instead.
You say government funded is ambiguous, and I say, YES, EXACTLY!
The most obvious interpretation is that the funding is significant? No, the label is ambiguous, so it would be foolish for a person to interpret it that way.
It’s not inaccurate, it is in fact accurate. You’re complaining that some people may jump to inaccurate misinterpretations of an accurate label, but that doesn’t make the label itself inaccurate.
Anyway, honest question, how would you phrase a label to more clearly represent the amount of government funding that the org gets? I haven’t been able to come up with one.
@volkris
“Ambiguous” and “accurate” are rather contradictory predicates, aren’t they? At least in cases like this, where one of the most obvious (I would say the single most obvious) interpretation is incorrect.
I think it would be sensible not to label an organization as “government funded” unless it receives most of its funding from the government, or at least enough that a reasonable person would conclude that it’s enough to doubt its independence.
Least objective might be to label an organization as “primarily government funded” when that’s the case, and not apply a label about government funding otherwise.
Well personally I do want to know when government is funding a news organization at all, no matter how little the government might be contributing to the bottom line.
It’s always a conflict of interests, even if one might say it’s only a small amount of money.
And hell, if it is so little money, I’d say #NPR and #PBS should simply stop taking it. If the funding is so insignificant, why open themselves up to that conflict of interest at all?
So yeah, this label is accurate, and if you have a more communicative label I’m interested since I haven’t really been able to think of one.
@volkris
The fact that it conveys what you personally want to know, doesn’t make it accurate. :) I think the most common interpretation would be a false one, and that that prevents it from being accurate in the general sense.
I imagine they accept the relatively small amount of government funding that they do, because they judge that the useful stuff they can do with it outweighs the relatively small effect of people who will think that it biases them toward the government.
I suggested a better label policy in the last post; but another possibility to accommodate your zero-threshold policy :) would be to have say three tiers reflecting roughly “receives from 1 to 30% of funding from the gov’t”, “receives 31-60%, and “receives 61% or more”, or other borders to that general effect.
Or a simpler system with only “receives a non-zero but insignificant amount” and “receives a significant amount” labels with a bit more subjectivity to it.
No what makes it accurate is that it is truthful!
@volkris
It is ambiguous, and only some of its meanings are truthful; this does not make it accurate. I’m not sure how to be any clearer than that!
No, I think you’ve been about as clear as possible 🙂
The news organizations accepting state funding don’t like to be called state-funded, and that really is the long and short of it.
There’s nothing to clarify there. It’s just what’s happening.
@volkris
Well, right, because “government funded” doesn’t unambiguously mean “receives >0 funding from the government”. Being ambiguous, as we agree the phrase is, means that it has more than one meaning. :)
Another, and in fact more salient in context, meaning is “solely, or at least mostly, funded by the government”.
NPR and PBS aren’t government-funded under that meaning, and that’s why they don’t want to be labeled that, especially in a context where that meaning is the most salient.
Seems sensible, doesn’t it?
Again, do you have a terse label that would easily convey “we accept money from the government we report on, just not very much”?
I’m seriously looking for a more effective way that the account could be labeled. I can’t think of one.
@volkris
Sure, it could say “some govt funding”, or even just have a little appropriate icon that would say that on hover, and let you click through to an explanation page, or etc. And of course that should appear with all organizations that receive any government funding, not just ones that the CEO is mad at today. :)
And there could be similar little icons for “some gunmaker funding”, “some oil funding” and so on; those would be quite useful.
No I think it’s particularly appropriate for the press that is reporting on the government.
SpaceX isn’t claiming to be a watchdog on the government. NPR is. The conflict of interest is particularly salient with the press, not so much with companies that are providing services to the government.
But I don’t think “some government funding” is particularly more accurate than “government funded”
It’s just harder to stick on the disclosure label.
@volkris
That’s fine; it’s okay if we disagree about various things. :)
@volkris
That wasn’t what it originally said, though. First it said “State affiliated”, which is simply wrong, then “Government funded” which given the small fraction of their funding that comes from the government is seriously misleading.