It’s pretty funny that two big dramatic things in #USPolitics right now is Thomas taking vacations with friends (how dare he not disclose that?!) and NPR accepting money from the US government (how dare #Twitter disclose that?!).
Well, funny might not be the right word.
It’s sad. But this is Fediverse.
The excuses that NPR has been putting out have been particularly silly.
It just always strikes me that, if the government funding is so miniscule then the journalistic organization should stop accepting it just to kill that as a controversy.
But I guess the contributions must not be so minuscule since they keep accepting the controversy to take the money.
@volkris There's always the hope that a more sympathetic govt might up the donation to NPR and PBS which I think they should. I think they we need public broadcasting.
Right but they can’t have it both ways.
Either they are government funded to a significant amount or they’re not.
If the funding is significant great! They need to own that they are government funded. If the funding is not significant, then they need to cut it off because it doesn’t matter because it’s not significant.
They just can’t have it both ways.
@volkris even if it's ten percent that's not govt funded, that's govt funding ten percent. 90% still comes privately.
That is not relevant really.
The question is, if they are 10% government funded, is that 10% so important to them?
If it is so important to them, then I guess they are subject to being influenced by the government to keep it. If it is not so important to them, then maybe they ought to not take it.
It just comes down to their choice.
B government funded or don’t be government-funded. It’s up to them to decide how important that is, and if it is important then they are signing that deal.
They just need to be honest about it.
@volkris They are not subject to being influenced by the government to keep it because they're approach to politics and life has gone on unchanged whatever the administration. It's part of the deal, the understanding, that they'll be objective. They have integrity there. If they seem "too liberal" to you, it's not because they're pleasing the govt--they were the same when Bush and Trump et al were there--it's because in their objective reporting they're seeing the actual state of the USA.
I mean that’s nice, but if this money is so irrelevant then they should let it go.
But if it is so important for them to keep, then they are beholden to the government.
You can say whatever you would like, but I’m just talking about the conflict of interest involved in this funding.
@volkris There never has been a conflict of interest. They are supposed to be publicly funded. They were created to be publicly funded. It's a publicly funded media venue. Donations and govt. They do it without acting on any conflict of interest. So there isn't any. The money is relevant--for paying ten per cent of their bills. They are nonprofit.
Of course there’s a conflict of interest! They are reporting on the government that is giving them money. That is absolutely a conflict of interest, regardless of whether it was intentional or not.
@volkris But they show no bias. They never have. They do own it--it's in their list of funding sources. But it's not such a significant amount. The reason they downplay it is because they want the public to step up and donate. They don't want to give the impression that "we don't have to donate because the govt has that covered." Regular folks constitute their main source of income.
We can disagree about whether they show bias. IMO they’re bias is just dripping from them, but that doesn’t actually matter here. We can speak purely about the magnitude of the funding, whether it is significant or not.
Is the funding significant?
Again, questions about how they are trying to spin it in the PR, their strategies to get money out of individual donors, all of that, is beside the simple question, is their level of government funding significant or not?
It’s great that they are trying to downplay it. I think it’s funny that you acknowledge that representation as a positive thing, but whatever.
It all comes back to the question of whether the level of funding is significant or not.
@volkris I think it'd be great if they were 100% govt funded. They are a little on the liberal side, but then they sometimes give some rightwing operatives a voice too. I think their bias is toward accuracy and accuracy is progressive.
@volkris They're not influenced. It would be evident if they are. It isn't. When I was in the Coast Guard, as a young man, I was "government funded". It didn't affect my vote.
Whether they are or are not is a separate question.
I just focus on the simple fact that they are accepting funding from government, and if the amount is so small has to be irrelevant then why take it at all? Unless it’s enough to be significant, in which case why deny it?
They are trying to have it both ways, and we should call them out on that.
If they are accepting a significant amount of government funding then they should own it, they should proudly say that the public is supporting them and they are doing good work with that public funding.
Or if they are not accepting a significant amount of government funding then why accept it at all?
@volkris Also, I read that: Presently, NPR receives funding for less than 1% of its budget directly from the federal government, but receives almost 10% of its budget from federal, state, and local governments indirectly.
So almost ten per cent from this or that govt.
@volkris Of course, the friend often didn't go on the vacations, just paid for them, and they were super lavish and he just happened to be a billionaire with business before the court more than once.
NPR has always, always had some govt subsidy. this is a big reveal now? I think NPR is probably just saying "yes we get some, but it's not enough to cover our budget, and it's not making us prejudicial."