NPR Walks Away As Scandal Brews!

(DailyVantage.com) – National Public Radio, known more commonly by its abbreviation NPR, announced on April 12 that it would leave Twitter after the social network placed a government-funded media disclaimer on NPR’s account.

In a statement, NPR CEO John Lansing said the organization would refuse to use social media platforms “that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility” and the public’s trust in NPR’s “editorial independence.”

Lansing rejected Twitter’s government-funded media label and argued that it undermined NPR’s credibility, despite the fact that NPR has publicly stated that federal funding is “essential” to the organization and other radio stations.

According to the website Influence Watch, while less than 1 percent of NPR’s budget comes from the federal government directly, 10 percent of its budget comes indirectly from “federal, state, and local” governments.

Twitter’s policy defines government-funded media as any media outlet that receives either full or partial funding from the government.

The official NPR Twitter account made its final series of posts on April 12, encouraging readers to subscribe to its newsletter and to follow the media organization on other social media platforms.

NPR White House correspondent Scott Detrow confirmed that NPR was “stepping away” from Twitter in his own statement. Detrow said he was proud of the company for making the decision, calling it the “right move”.

Twitter gave NPR a state-affiliated media’ label this month before changing the disclaimer to ‘government-funded’. The social network attached similar disclaimers to the BBC and Voice of America. Such tags have long been applied to Russian, Chinese, and Iranian state media organizations, such as RT, Sputnik, the Global Times, and Press TV, but until recently they were never applied to similar state-funded organizations such as the UK’s BBC and the US’ Voice of America.

Some state-funded and state-owned organizations have continued to evade Twitter’s disclaimer policy, including Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Canada’s CBC, and Germany’s Deutsche Welle.