National Public Radio (NPR) said on Wednesday it will no longer post fresh content to its 52 official Twitter feeds after the US organization was labeled as “state-affiliated media” by the social media platform.
“We are officially de-emphasizing Twitter across the organization,” NPR said in a statement, adding that it had made the decision after Twitter refused repeated requests to remove the “inaccurate label”.
Public TV broadcaster PBS also suspended tweets, citing the same reason. A PBS spokesman, Jeremy Gaines, told the Washington Post: “We don’t have any plans to return.” The broadcaster did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for a comment.
Twitter labeled both public media organizations as “state-affiliated media” before changing the wording to “government-funded media”. The BBC and Voice of America were also tagged.
Twitter was not immediately available for comment. Before a takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, the label was reserved for propaganda networks like Russia’s RT and China’s Xinhua News Agency.
NPR is a non-profit media organization, based in Washington, that syndicates more than 1,000 local public radio stations across the US. Some public radio stations – including KCRW in Santa Monica, California, and WESA in Pittsburgh – also announced they would stop using the platform, though affiliated member stations were not tagged as “government funded”.
The majority of NPR’s funding comes from corporate and individual supporters and grants. The organization also receives programming fees from various member stations. The member stations receive about 13% of their funds from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other state and federal government sources, NPR said.
“The whole point isn’t whether or not we’re government funded,” said the organization’s CEO, John Lansing. “Even if we were government funded, which we’re not, the point is the independence, because all journalism has revenue of some sort.”
Lansing echoed his message in a staff-wide email, saying: “It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards.”
The organization is setting up a two-week grace period so social media managers that run its accounts can revise their social media strategies.
According to Lansing, NPR staff can decide for themselves whether they will continue remaining active on the platform.
The organization’s decision has prompted a slew of responses online, including from its own journalists.
Scott Detrow, NPR’s White House correspondent, wrote: “NPR is stepping away from Twitter. It’s the right move and I’m proud of us for taking it.”
Geoff Brumfiel, an editor and correspondent on NPR’s science desk, tweeted: “Twitter doesn’t make or break anything we do as an organization, and so there’s not much benefit for staying.”
Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists has called on Twitter to reconsider its decision, with its program director, Carlos Martínez de la Serna, saying “it is imperative”.
“NPR receives public funding, but is not state-controlled, meaning Twitter’s listing could pose risks for journalists reporting from areas where suggestions of government affiliation have negative connotations,” he said.
Barry Malone, the deputy editor in chief of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, tweeted: “NPR leaves Twitter – the first major media org to do so. An influential newsroom with almost 9 million followers. Hard not to interpret this as a big blow to the platform.”
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) had also objected to Twitter labeling it as “government-funded media” on the company’s main account.
Elon Musk, Twitter’s billionaire owner, said the social media platform will now change the BBC’s label after the broadcaster objected.
In an interview with the BBC, Musk said he had the “utmost respect” for the outlet.
“We want [the tag] as truthful and accurate as possible. We’re adjusting the label to [the BBC being] publicly funded. We’ll try to be accurate,” he added.
The Tesla, Twitter and SpaceX chief made the announcement during a wide-ranging interview with the BBC in which he said that his pain level from running the site had been “extremely high” but that the business was now “roughly breaking even”.