NPR quits Elon Musk’s Twitter over ‘government-funded’ label

FILE - A sign at Twitter headquarters is displayed in San Francisco, Dec. 8, 2022. Billionaire Elon Musk has actually told the BBC that running Twitter has been & #x 201c; rather uncomfortable & #x 201d; but that the social media company is now approximately breaking even after he acquired it late last year. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File).
WASHINGTON - - National Public Radio is quitting Twitter over the social media business's recent actions under owner Elon Musk to mark it with labels the wire service states are implied to weaken its credibility.

" NPR's organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is doing something about it that undermine our credibility by wrongly indicating that we are not editorially independent," the news organization stated in a declaration Wednesday.

Recently, Twitter labeled NPR's primary account as "state-affiliated media" on the social media site, a label also used to identify media outlets that are managed or heavily influenced by authoritarian governments. Twitter later altered the label to "government-funded media" and provided it to at least one other public wire service, the BBC.

" We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in weakening our credibility and the public's understanding of our editorial self-reliance," NPR's statement stated.

NPR's primary interactions officer, Isabel Lara, stated in an e-mail that "NPR journalists and staff members will pick their own if they wish to stay on the platform, very same for NPR member stations as they're individually owned and operated.".

NPR does get U.S. government funding through grants from federal agencies and departments, along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The company stated it accounts for less than 1% of NPR's yearly operating expense.