NPR being state affiliated is false. NPR being funded by the state is not, but it leads people to believe that it's affiliated with the state, which is false.

Funding is a very important kind of affiliation, I would think.

It could be but it doesn't have to be. That's why editorial independence is a thing. And that's why you'll see broadcasters in Russia, North Korea, Iran and China try their level best not to criticize the ruling party and ruling individuals of the countries that they have their base in because if they did the consequences would likely be much further reaching than those related to funding.

The fact that this needs to be spelled out is a bit sad. One of the first things an editorial board of an actual news service does is to assert its independence, if it can't do that then they will resign in a very public way that leaves no doubt about what is going on.

For instance, the large number of people that resigned from Twitter when Musk took over (and that was besides the ones that he fired because he couldn't get them to do his bidding) made exactly such a statement.

You really believe that NPR and the BBC belong in the same basket as Russian and Chinese state media?

Fish don't know they're in water.

If you've been ingesting a narrative since middle school, and the BBC reinforces it, well that's just good neutral unbiased reporting.

I don’t regularly read the BBC or NPR. I have watched the BBC skirmish with government over their independence and it’s an active fight (see Gary Lineker fighter recently, interesting, on Twitter).

Do you see these fights for independence in Chinese and Russian news channels? And do you really think them similar to the BBC and NPR?

You will never, ever see a mainstream western news org demonize the US the way they do to Russia and China routinely.

Are they the exact same? No, but they're not so different when you zoom out. You don't need explicit censorship when you can manufacture consent at the hiring and promotion stages.

Do you think the US, China and Russia similar?

I have a lot of criticism for the US, but the US can at least punish its rulers at the ballot box. The US isn’t chucking journalists out the window or vanishing them on a regular basis. Objectively, it’s hard say the three are similar, as two of those countries deserve more criticism. They are not the same when you zoom out.

I am not an American.

I could criticize or compliment all 3 depending on the topic or my mood.

If we're so much better in the west, maybe we can hold ourselves accountable and question our own biases.

If we are so much worse, why isn’t accountability and criticism a thing in a Russia and China?

It's always telling when people with narratives to push don't directly answer questions.

Exactly, I have been trying to explain it to people here (Québec/Canada) Here people believe the CBC is an impartial view of reality, it’s through that filter they see all the events of the world.

Information that contradict their narrative become disinformation or conspiration. Or you get labeled racist/transphobe/Trump supporter at the first doubt

Give me little hope for our country at the moment.

It's not that it's impartial or unbiased. It's that it's not an editorial arm for the state. The United States doesn't even have a centralized, consistent state-run party that would exercise consistent pressure on NPR to publish certain stories or frame them in a certain way. It's an absurd comparison to link these to Chinese or Russian state-affiliated media.

The burden on is on you to provide evidence for your claims, not for me to go fishing for them.

Regardless, I doubt whatever you have in mind is anything similar to an authoritarian regime that literally murders critical journalists and poisons opposition politicians. It is an absurd comparison.

It doesn't have to be on the level of russia or china to be bad. What a weird arbitrary goalpost.

Russia and China didn’t start that way, it’s a process.

State funded media is a phrase, it has meaning beyond the literal meaning of the words. Wikipedia's 'State media' page seems to have it covered:

> State media or government media are media outlets that are under financial and/or editorial control of the state or government, directly or indirectly. [1]

Even that page makes a distinction between state funded and state media[2], but that is not how youtube[3] or others [4], [5], and I am sure many others[6 time based google] do not make the distinction. For better or worse 'State funded media' is often interchangeable with 'state media' and NPR is not state media even if some of its funds come from the state.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_media#:~:text=State%20me.... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_media#:~:text=Not%20to%2.... [3] https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/state-media-wa... [4]https://www.prindleinstitute.org/2019/03/whats-wrong-with-st... [5] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/194016122092283... [6] https://www.google.com/search?q=%22State+funded+media%22&rlz...