On Tuesday of this week, Twitter labeled NPR’s main Twitter account as “US state-affiliated media.” It’s a term the platform applies to propaganda outlets in countries without a free press, a guaranteed right in the United States. As a result, anytime you see an NPR tweet, it now comes with the label “US state-affiliated media.”
KCRW will no longer post on Twitter from its main accounts as of today. We want you to understand why we are taking a stand against public media being labeled as propaganda. It is an attack on independent journalism, the very principle that defines public media.
There is a chance that Twitter will remove the label from NPR. Even so, we no longer have confidence that Twitter is a credible platform.
Thanks to a community of individuals like you, KCRW and NPR* are not beholden to (or influenced by) any single large funding source. Be a part of the community that protects independent public media for all.
*NPR receives less than 1% of its direct funding from federal government grants, and, like KCRW, maintains journalistic editorial independence.
