Wow, back when I visited ZH I would always be in this cognitively dissonant place where I was getting a lot of value out of the market-related articles and cringing at all the conspiratorial political stuff. I can't believe I never considered the idea that it's sponsored by the Kremlin.

This is a really good article. I guess the best way to get top-notch investigative journalism is to personally threaten a journalist

read the article, it's not very convincing to be honest. it's a long winded biography of the owner of the site who is bulgarian. the evidence is that the reporting content is right-leaning/conspiratorial and that he is bulgarian basically.

> Zero Hedge may be an outlet for a state level actor.

So is the NPR and the BBC, so I'm not sure how much this means.

It's best to take what everyone says with a grain of salt and piece things together from the evidence presented. I certainly don't believe everything posted by any of the outlets.

ZH definitely plays more fast and loose with things, though.

How is NPR an outlet for state level actors? Which state level actors?

They're an arm of the US Government. If that's not a state, I don't know what is.

"While NPR does not receive any direct federal funding, it does receive a small number of competitive grants from CPB and federal agencies like the Department of Education and the Department of Commerce. This funding amounts to approximately 2% of NPR's overall revenues."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding

Other quotes from the same article:

"NPR differs from other non-profit membership media organizations, such as AP, in that it was established by an act of Congress[2] and most of its member stations are owned by government entities (often public universities)."

"Typically, NPR member stations receive funds through on-air pledge drives, corporate underwriting, state and local governments, educational institutions, and the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). In 2009, member stations derived 6% of their revenue from federal, state and local government funding, 10% of their revenue from CPB grants, and 14% of their revenue from universities.[24][41]"

Depending on whether the universities are public or private, this accounts for something approaching 30% of their budget.

So that 2% figure doesn't really give the full picture.

Sure, and claiming that NPR is an arm of the state is disingenuous at best.

You're shifting claims, originally we were just talking about whether it was an "outlet for state level actors." It's deeply enmeshed with government organizations at all levels.

Moreover, I've never said that was a bad thing, in fact I've argued against it. There are plenty of these all over the world and I take what everybody says with a grain of salt and look at the evidence presented rather than the opinions given.

Ok, it's still disingenuous to claim that it is an outlet for state level actors.

It publishes news from a US perspective, was founded by, and is deeply enmeshed at all levels with the government, etc. If that's not an outlet for the US Government and if the US Government is somehow not a state level actor... then I don't know what those words even mean anymore.

Or maybe they are being framed for calling out the bullshit in other mainstream media.

Some of their work is, indeed, calling out bullshit.

Much of it is bonkers-insane, ah, bullshit of a different flavour.

People wouldn't be reading the second, if they didn't print the first.