Leaf&Core

NPR and PBS Leave Twitter Behind

Danielle from Leaf and Core
Reading Time: 2 minutes.
Screenshots of NPR and PBS' Twitter pages, both showing "government-funded media."

Screenshots via Twitter

NPR is taking a page out of Leaf and Core’s playbook. They saw the journalistic integrity of this little blog and said, “Yes, she’s got the right idea.”

Okay, fine, it was actually due to Twitter mislabeling the news publisher as “state-affiliated media.” NPR is publicly funded primarily through donations. They do receive a very small amount, less than 1% of their annual budget, from “federal sources.” Tesla and SpaceX, both owned by Musk, receive far more money from the U.S. government. The government has no say in NPR’s publication. The label is supposed to be fore state-ran media sites, so viewers can easily tell if a source is government propaganda, like Russia’s RT. While many networks banned RT due to pro-war propaganda supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Twitter, proudly, isn’t one of them, though they did give Putin’s propaganda network the same label as NPR.

NPR had enough and decided to make their leave from Twitter official and indefinite. After NPR’s announcement, PBS, another publicly-funded broadcaster that Twitter erroneously labeled, also announced they’re leaving the network behind. Musk may have tried to update the label to read “government-funded media,” but this also isn’t accurate and doesn’t fix the problem.

Elon Musk is deciding who is allowed in the public square. Those stirring up violence against certain people are allowed to stay. Legitimate news sources and the victims of online hate will have to find somewhere else. I have some thoughts on that.

Legitimate News Sources Leaving Twitter

You don’t build a tower atop shifting sands. Twitter’s owner, Elon Musk, has proven his platform to be an unreliable one. One day you can lose your checkmark, your job, your entire platform. That alone would be a reason not to involve yourself or your platform with Twitter, but the political leanings of its owner also leaves it as a disadvantage, as a platform. Musk injects himself into discussions, elevating hate and accounts accused of stochastic terrorism while labeling news organizations like NPR, a publicly-funded organization, a state-sponsored news site. That’s a label typically reserved for government-ran propaganda, why would he apply it where it clearly doesn’t belong?

“We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence.”

– NPR CEO John Lansing

Screenshots via Twitter

Notably, Musk has only attributed a softer “Publicly funded media” label to the BBC, and specifically no label for BBC News, despite, presumably, having the same funding sources. The BBC, it’s worth noting, receives a larger percentage from the UK government through licensing fees than NPR does. Like NPR, however, it claims the government makes no decisions on publication. So why did Musk treat them better? Could it be their publication of a transphobic article that claims a narrative disproved by studies? The BBC’s political leaning? It’s a mystery!

Musk gave NPR and PBS an untrue label, maybe to discredit them, or potentially because he just is ignorant. He removed NY Times’ checkmark when they spoke out against his pricing, stating they wouldn’t pay for a checkmark. Paying for legitimacy does not define legitimacy. With Musk discrediting legitimate sources of news, it’s not hard to see where Twitter will end up. Twitter is increasingly becoming a place for hate more than news or discussion. You wouldn’t see NPR, PBS, or the NY Times sharing to Parler, Truth Social, or 4chan, so why would they stay on a platform like Twitter?

Why would you?

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