NPR temporarily stopped it's twitter accounts in a "state-media" beef with Elon Musk

[Mark Roberts]

Musk, Boebert call to ‘defund’ NPR after it quit Twitter

Elon Musk and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) called for NPR to be defunded after the outlet announced it would no longer use Twitter due to the social media platform slapping it with a “government-f…

thehill.com

Update this gets crazier Lauren Boebert is ranting about "Defunding NPR." First of all this affect CPB that funds some of the Smaller NPR affiliates will be affected by this. This is while some NPR affiliates have joined with NPR News and shut down their twitter feeds. Note This is subject to change. First of all its Reuters that have extensively covered some of Elon Musk's current lawsuits at Tesla over racism and privacy issues at his other company. NPR had nothing to do with anything here.

I guess we're not that different from Argentina, where a leading politician, who likes to say incendiary stuff, is saying he will shut down Radio Nacional if he becomes president. His considered argument? "You finance (public media) with taxes and taxes are financing at gunpoint. Are you in favor of financing things at gunpoint? ... It's a moral horror." Yeah, sure.

In Spanish: Javier Milei afirmó que va a cerrar Radio Nacional si es electo presidente

Closer to home, I don't pay much attention to the blatherings of MuskOx. He's part of that Stanford crowd who thinks they're smarter than everyone else because they have a lot of money when the reality is that they just got lucky.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Tesla hit with 'right to repair' antitrust class actions

Tesla Inc has been sued in a pair of proposed antitrust class actions accusing the company of unlawfully curbing competition for maintenance and replacement parts for its electric vehicles, forcing owners to pay more and wait longer for repair services.

www.reuters.com

Tesla, Musk sued by shareholders over self-driving safety claims

Tesla Inc and its Chief Executive Elon Musk were sued on Monday by shareholders who accused them of overstating the effectiveness and safety of their electric vehicles' Autopilot and Full Self-Driving technologies.

www.reuters.com

Musk says he can't get fair trial in California, wants Texas

Elon Musk doesn't think he can get a fair trial in San Francisco. Instead, the billionaire wants a federal judge to shift a shareholder lawsuit trial to Texas.

apnews.com

Women sue Musk's Twitter alleging discriminatory layoffs

Two women who lost their jobs at Twitter when billionaire Elon Musk took over are suing the company in federal court, claiming that last month's abrupt mass layoffs disproportionately affected female employees.

apnews.com

Twitter faces lawsuits over unpaid rent for US HQ, UK office

LONDON (AP) — More landlords are taking Twitter to court over unpaid rent, this time at the social media company’s headquarters in San Francisco and its British offices — the latest sign that owner Elon Musk's extreme cost-cutting strategy includes simply not paying the bills .

apnews.com

This is a partial picture but the second News outlet that has covered Elon Musk's companies getting sued extensively is Associated Press along with Reuters. There is no proof that NPR or their Affiliates has aired anything against Musk for now. If they did post anything about Musk's lawsuits they have to be citing AP news and Reuters. All Elon Musk did was open himself up to defamation against NPR.

 

[Kelly A]

Correct! According to this, SpaceX gets almost $5 Billion!

But, to be fair, SpaceX provides earth orbit delivery services for a fraction of the cost of former NASA, ESA, or Russian space delivery systems. And because of the reliability of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch platforms, insurance premiums to satellite owners are much lower as well.

That said; even though Elon requires that he be the exclusive media front man for everything SpaceX, Gwynne Shotwell is the one who runs SpaceX. There are a lot of very talented people who make up the majority of SpaceX and Tesla, even though Elon, and his impulsive ego, is the one always front and center.

Have to put this into perspective too. The revenue and value of companies like SpaceX and Tesla, make anything like public or private radio, look like an ant standing next to One World Trade Center.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

WESA says it's 'pausing' Twitter use due to 'company's antagonistic relationship with NPR'

The news organization said the social media network is "falsely implying that we are not editorially independent."

www.cbsnews.com

WEKU ends content sharing on Twitter

WEKU permanently ends content distribution on Twitter

www.weku.org

WEKU Lexington, KY and WESA Pittsburgh joins in and ends all post on Twitter to support NPR of the State Media Label.

 

[sdwulfdawg]

Let's face it, it's sad, but National Public Radio (NPR) is becoming obsolete and irrelevant in the new media world in 2023.

Their "news" coverage so often has a real political slant (although they vehemently deny it). It's other programming, except for "All Things Considered" is also becoming extinct. That they are harboring a 30 million (US) dollar budget shortfall is an indication that it has become a decrepit dodo bird. Then the news of the ridiculous child-like behavior of its staff in light of the budget cuts makes them seem all the more out of touch with accusations of "racism" from the laid off employees.

Tensions Flare Inside NPR After Staff Layoffs and Town Halls

NPR has held multiple all-hands meetings in the days since its layoffs, and some employees say they’ve lost trust in management

www.bloomberg.com

Now they are in a firefight with Twitter taking their toys and leaving the sandbox when their participation on Twitter gave them all the more coverage of their news and program offerings. They are at risk of becoming even more irrelevant not working with Twitter to find a compromise on how they address how they want to be identified. While they do not get all of their budget from the federal government, they still have a connection to the U.S. Government in spite of their editorial independence, especially compared to the Voice of America service. Their only recourse would be to not take any money from the federal government.

This battle is for them to ultimately lose, in my opinion.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Twitter’s ex-CEO sues company after legal turmoil

Parag Agrawal and other executives allege they have spent more than $1m out of pocket on fees

www.theguardian.com

Here is another lawsuit connected to Twitter directly. In this case it's ex Twitter execs that are suing Twitter.

“Plaintiffs have incurred significant expenses, including but not limited to attorneys’ fees and costs, in connection with several proceedings in which plaintiffs are involved by virtue of their former roles as officers of Twitter, and plaintiffs accordingly are entitled to advancement of those fees and costs,” the lawsuit said.


All three executives were terminated from the company when billionaire Elon Musk took over in October 2022 and implemented a chaotic flurry of cost-saving measures, cutting the staff from 7,500 to about 2,000 employees as of December.

The suit, filed in Delaware chancery court, cites legal expenses related to a 2022 inquiry by the US Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) for which Agrawal and Segal provided testimony.

Gadde was named as a defendant alongside Twitter in a 2021 lawsuit in which a user alleged he was “doxed” on the social media app as a white supremacist. She also had to testify before the US Congress in a hearing on free speech, which came after Musk released the “Twitter Files”, internal documents calling attention to the site’s previous content moderation policies.

Several more companies are suing Twitter, claiming it owes them around $230,000 in unpaid bills and they don't know if they'll ever be paid

The companies said in the class-action lawsuit that Twitter has approved the invoices but that they don't know when or even if they'll be paid.

www.businessinsider.com

These are all Elon Musk Related lawsuits under his Twitter leadership. Note we don't know how specific this is though.

In the proposed class-action lawsuit filed April 4 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, the companies accused Twitter of not paying around $230,000 in bills.

It's not the first time Twitter has been sued by companies claiming that their bills have gone unpaid. The allegations range from unpaid invoices to marketing companies for branded merchandise to rent for Twitter's offices. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter in late November, he's been on a cost-cutting spree. As well as laying off the majority of the social-media company's workforce, cutting back on free food, and auctioning off Twitter merchandise,

Tuesday's lawsuit was filed by captioning services company White Coat Captioning; leadership coaching provider and consulting company YES Consulting; and Cancomm, doing business in the US as Dialogue and in Mexico as Dialogue Mèxico, which collectively form an international PR and communications firm.

 

[TheBigA]

The revenue and value of companies like SpaceX and Tesla, make anything like public or private radio, look like an ant standing next to One World Trade Center.

That's irrelevant. The czar of twitter wants to label users that receive government funding. That's his justification for this new label he imposed on NPR. Nowhere does he talk about the value.

 

[TheBigA]

Let's face it, it's sad, but National Public Radio (NPR) is becoming obsolete and irrelevant in the new media world in 2023.

That's no reason for the CEO of a social media company to impose his own label on the company, ignoring the fact that it's wrong. In this country we have freedom of speech and due process. At twitter, there's a dictatorship where if you get on the wrong side of the CEO, he labels you in a way that questions your independence as a news organization. That's not fair.

 

[Kelly A]

That's irrelevant. The czar of twitter wants to label users that receive government funding. That's his justification for this new label he imposed on NPR. Nowhere does he talk about the value.

Actually I was comparing the value(s). Radio as a contributing industry is a tiny speck compared with the companies that Musk puts his name on.

 

[Mediafrog+]

I guess we're not that different from Argentina, where a leading politician, who likes to say incendiary stuff, is saying he will shut down Radio Nacional if he becomes president. His considered argument? "You finance (public media) with taxes and taxes are financing at gunpoint. Are you in favor of financing things at gunpoint? ... It's a moral horror." Yeah, sure.

In Spanish: Javier Milei afirmó que va a cerrar Radio Nacional si es electo presidente

Interesting. Perhaps David Eduardo has some insight into any Radio Nacional political controversy, having worked in Argentina.

Of course you see this sort of “defund” argument in other countries. There are voices out there that would do away with the BBC, CBC, and Australia’s ABC.

 

[Hyrum]

A lot of what Musk has done, especially once he took over Twitter, seems counter-productive to good business sense, and even common sense. Remember, Musk paid $44Bn for Twitter and as of about 3 weeks ago he said he valued it at about $20Bn at that point. That means that, by his own admission, it's worth less than 1/2 of what he paid for it not terribly long ago.

A lot of business people buy lemons hoping to make them into lemonaid. Perhaps he will be successful. He cut a lot of dead wood out of the organization and is getting for gen z crybabies left to work a 40 hour week inside the office. I read that it's closer to actually making a buck today than it has been in the past. Time will tell. One thing for sure is that he got the organization in the news and a lot of people are talking about it so there is that. I'd also suggest what someone else wrote earlier....If you don't like the product, don't use it. It's like radio stations in that there are a million choices. If you hate Elon don't drive a Tesla or use his social media service. He'll probably be ok with that.

 

[TheBigA]

Actually I was comparing the value(s). Radio as a contributing industry is a tiny speck compared with the companies that Musk puts his name on.

That doesn't give him the right to impose his views on others. Stick to the subject here.

 

[Kelly A]

That's no reason for the CEO of a social media company to impose his own label on the company, ignoring the fact that it's wrong. In this country we have freedom of speech and due process. At twitter, there's a dictatorship where if you get on the wrong side of the CEO, he labels you in a way that questions your independence as a news organization. That's not fair.

It's even worse than that. After attending the Superbowl last year, Musk flew back to Twitter, gathered all the remaining engineers late at night, and asked them why The White House was garnering more followers than his account was? One senior engineer raised his hand and said that since his purchase of Twitter Elon had lost hundreds of thousands of followers. Elon didn't like that answer, and verbally fired many of the senior engineering staff right there on the spot. The last of the engineers were told to work through the night if necessary, to alter the source code so nobody's follower count could exceed Musk's.

Narcissistic? Sure. Evil and inhumane? One could certainly argue that. Illegal? Nope. Twitter is now the most expensive toy in Elon's toybox. And Elon will play with it how he chooses.

 

[Kelly A]

That doesn't give him the right to impose his views on others. Stick to the subject here.

Really? So not that he ever would, but say Elon bought a radio group and decided to 24/7 carried programming with him blathering on about crypto, rockets, nutty conspiracy theories, and whatever else came to his mind. Wouldn't that be the same thing?

 

[FreddyE1977]

Let's face it, it's sad, but National Public Radio (NPR) is becoming obsolete and irrelevant in the new media world in 2023.

Their "news" coverage so often has a real political slant (although they vehemently deny it). It's other programming, except for "All Things Considered" is also becoming extinct. That they are harboring a 30 million (US) dollar budget shortfall is an indication that it has become a decrepit dodo bird. Then the news of the ridiculous child-like behavior of its staff in light of the budget cuts makes them seem all the more out of touch with accusations of "racism" from the laid off employees.

Tensions Flare Inside NPR After Staff Layoffs and Town Halls

NPR has held multiple all-hands meetings in the days since its layoffs, and some employees say they’ve lost trust in management

www.bloomberg.com

Now they are in a firefight with Twitter taking their toys and leaving the sandbox when their participation on Twitter gave them all the more coverage of their news and program offerings. They are at risk of becoming even more irrelevant not working with Twitter to find a compromise on how they address how they want to be identified. While they do not get all of their budget from the federal government, they still have a connection to the U.S. Government in spite of their editorial independence, especially compared to the Voice of America service. Their only recourse would be to not take any money from the federal government.

This battle is for them to ultimately lose, in my opinion.

NPR management has said that the label is unfair because they only get around 1% of their funding from the Federal Government.

If that is true this is easily solved. Congress could eliminate that money from the budget.
Then they'd have no ties to Federal funding and the label would come off.

If it's only 1% NPR should be happy with that resolution, but something inside me suspects they would not be.

 

[Mark Roberts]

Really? So not that he ever would, but say Elon bought a radio group and decided to 24/7 carried programming with him blathering on about crypto, rockets, nutty conspiracy theories, and whatever else came to his mind. Wouldn't that be the same thing?

That would be more interesting than KGO.

 

[Kelly A]

That would be more interesting than KGO.

And I'm sure Musk would be the first to buy up whole bunches of beleaguered AM stations if people under 50 listened. But, they don't.

 

[Mark Roberts]

And I'm sure Musk would be the first to buy up whole bunches of beleaguered AM stations if people under 50 listened. But, they don't.

He seems to have an inordinate need for feedback, or at least approbation, which would make a one-way communications medium such as radio probably unsatisfying for him. Insecure rich people do crazy [things]. He doesn't seem to adhere to the business model of buy low, sell high either. In the case of Twitter, he bought high and has destroyed more capital than most radio chains.

 

[TheBigA]

Really? So not that he ever would, but say Elon bought a radio group and decided to 24/7 carried programming with him blathering on about crypto, rockets, nutty conspiracy theories, and whatever else came to his mind. Wouldn't that be the same thing?

No, he has freedom of speech like everyone else. The issue is not his opinion of NPR. He's welcome to say "defund NPR" or whatever he wants. It's using that opinion and labeling their site in a way that limits the distribution of the tweet because of its funding. He has imposed a label on a user site that can't be changed by that user. So every tweet they put out says at the top that NPR is "government funded media," when 98% of their funding comes from other sources. It's not truthful or factual.

 

[TheBigA]

If that is true this is easily solved. Congress could eliminate that money from the budget.
Then they'd have no ties to Federal funding and the label would come off.

There's no line in the budget for NPR. The funding goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and they distribute it to thousands of places including NPR. So it's not something that congress can eliminate. The funding is there because it's in the Public Broadcasting Act, that laid out the funding structure for public broadcasting.

Actually congress hasn't passed a budget in about 10 years. Every year, they simply pass a continuing resolution that approves the funding from the previous year. Congress can't agree on basic things as funding social security, so NPR is way down the list.