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Comment by candiddevmike | Hacker News Reader

RE: 4, NPR seems to do OK, same with the BBC.

You're choosing to implement all of these terrible things by continuing your employment, so you "not wanting them" is kind of moot. Find a different job if you genuinely don't agree with what you're building. I'm a firm believer that companies would stop doing this kind of crap if we, collectively as tech workers (even better as a union!), stopped implementing it.

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NPR stopped being government funded years ago. they're closer to a donation and syndication based NYT than they are to the BBC. https://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finance...

If it’s lucrative enough for the company, they will find an apathetic contractor who will put $LOVECRAFTIAN_HORROR_JS on the site, cash their check, and move on to the next thing.

So if a company hands you a gun and tells you to shoot someone you would pull the trigger because even if you refuse someone else would do it? Nothing but excuses for profiting off morally bankrupt behavior.

We're targeting ads here, not heads.

This is absolutely true.

NPR is very biased: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/business/media/npr-critic...

And to be honest, I don't think most of these things are terrible per se, albeit mildly annoying. Also, I don't see what you're suggesting as realistic, but idealistic. You can try to unionize developers, but good luck with that because you'll just be replaced with overseas contractors. I'd rather keep my job and feed my family, thanks.

Do you call that NPR story proof of a bias worse than what happens at other institutions? Or because it's biased in the direction that doesn't align with your views?

If NPR only represents a fraction of our nation’s viewpoints, they are not living up to their namesake of national public radio. If they wanted to call themselves progressive public radio I’d take no issue.

I think the biggest complaint about NPR having a bias - any bias - is that it's publicly funded.

Mostly, NPR isn't publicly funded. It gets about 1% of its funding from the federal government. Public radio stations that carry NPR shows get more, but it's only about 17% from federal, state, and local governments. Some of them are also funded by universities, some of which are public.

If donating to NPR is a tax write off, it is publicly funded. If the majority of those donors are politically biased, they will create a feedback loop where news is catered to those donating to them. This isn't wrong per se, but just what it is.

NPR used to be a very good news source, but during the Trump presidency it became an advocacy organization: https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-editor-how-npr-lost-americas-tru...

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