Elon Musk’s Twitter just slapped a ‘state affiliated media’ title on NPR’s account and NPR is less than pleased. The National Public Radio company responded to the move calling it “disturbing.”
According to NPR CEO John Lansing, “NPR member stations are supported by millions of listeners who depend on us for independent, fact based journalism that we provide.” He added that NPR is a critical part of our American democracy and, “that it’s unacceptable for Twitter to label us this way.”
Twitter, for its part, said “state affiliated media is defined as outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures and or control over production and distribution.”
Elon Musk tweeted his agreement with his company’s classification of NPR, tweeting “Seems right.”
Trish Regan laughed about the news on her podcast saying, “Look, if you’ve ever read [or listened to] the NPR stuff, it’s pretty clear where their bias is coming from. But they’re not the only ones, right? Like, I actually think that Twitter is going to have an absolute field day, and maybe this is a little bit of a warning.”
Musk recently removed the official “blue check” from the New York Times page after the company refused to pay a monthly subscription page.
The Tesla CEO also recently called out a Reuters headline about Tesla’s sales numbers.
Regan predicted that this is probably just the beginning of so-called ‘news’ sites being called out on Twitter. Â “Watch out, world,” she said, “Because Elon Musk doesn’t play by the same kind of deep state rules as the rest of them.”
