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Comment by chiefalchemist | Hacker News Reader

I listen to NPR station in the car. Anecdotally, very little of the content is true journalism; much of it is effectively op-ed. That's not necessarily a bad thing, provived you understand what you're consuming.

The state-funded tag is a bit much. But to claim NPR is a pure journalism play isn't accurate either.

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My dad used to listen to NPR all the time growing up (WAMU). It was always liberal, but now it’s become this highly processed and refined sort of white sugar liberal that’s hard to stomach even for him.

Happy music and happy words when "preferred" people/ideas are the focus of the story. Sad music and choice words when "bad"/ideas people are the focus of the story.

It's maddening. Artisan hand-crafted propaganda.

NPR and The NYT have both jumped the shark. Sad really. Tho sadder is the fact that they're in denial about it.

I dont think they claim to be pure journalism:

"NPR is an independent, nonprofit media organization that was founded on a mission to create a more informed public. Every day, NPR connects with millions of Americans on the air, online, and in person to explore the news, ideas, and what it means to be human. Through its network of member stations, NPR makes local stories national, national stories local, and global stories personal."

[A] https://www.npr.org/about/ [B] https://www.npr.org/ethics/

I think in their statement about leaving Twitter he mentioned journalism. I was pointing out that - imho - it's mostly op-ed. Nothing wrong with op-ed but it should never be confused with journalism.

> very little of the content is true journalism; much of it is effectively op-ed

What is your alternative for a true journalism / non op-ed radio news station?

Other than some tech sites and link aggregators / discussion forums (hello hackernews), I limit my news-reading to the AP and Reuters sites. But I’d be interested in learning about radio-based news sources, provided that they’re either accessible in my area or online.

The problem with NPR right now is that good content and content creators get snatched up immediately by bigger organizations once they gain any traction at NPR.

Joshua Johnson and his show 1A was the main case of this for me. The guy was running a top-notch show before NBC yoinked him up to the big leagues.

Makes ya wonder if they're acquiring the person for the person, or to gain control of the ideas that person is able to promote, or not.

What's your definition of journalism?

This is handy for me:

https://www.openculture.com/2020/01/jim-lehrers-16-rules-for...

https://www.mixdexhq.com/tv-news/here-are-jim-lehrers-10-rul...

By definition they're state funded, but not state ran. The implications from the optics though may result in extreme takes. Though we could assume there's at least some influence the funding has.

Exxon gets a larger percentage of its income from the federal government in subsidies, yet we seldom (if ever) apply "government funded" to that organization.

What's your definition of "state funded"?

I'm saying that technically, yes, they are receiving state funds, regardless of amount, and if the label is going to be applied then it should be applied to all company accounts receiving government subsidies, Exxon and others included.

My stance is that if twitter, youtube, and the likes are going to be using these labels on accounts, then they should apply them to all organizations universally without bias/singling out of individual industries. Either apply across the board going by a technical definition, or don't apply them at all.

Not being snarky but...maybe we should label them as such. If it's accurate then so be it.

The irony? We'd have to rely on the media and "modern journalism" to apply the proper labels.

So Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City get labeled as "government funded?"

Yes

If they were truly state run, they would have been supportive of the past president... which they definitely weren't.

My comment clearly states "by definition". I'm going by the technicality, though I do agree with you that if there was any sway at all due to this funding, it's been minimal and did not reflect in the previous presidency.

NPR is not meaningfully state funded. They get less than 1% of their funding directly from the government. Local NPR affiliates get more, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. On average about 1/3 of their funding comes from the government, and a portion of that goes to NPR in the form of licensing fees for their programming.

In the end, erring on the side of overestimating the amount of government money going to NPR, it appears to be less than 10%. That is substantially less than a whole lot of other companies get, and those companies aren't considered "government sponsored".

> By definition

I was going by technicality, but am aware of those numbers and agree. Also, it's my belief that it should be applied to all companies receiving government funds, or shouldn't be applied at all.

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