Elon Musk is right: Transparency in journalism is essential
Brady Leonard
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Elon Musk’s journey from climate change hero to the Left’s public enemy No. 1 continued apace when he made the decision to smack NPR with a “government funded media” tag on its Twitter profile. Similar “state-affiliated media” tags have been present on the profiles of Russian, Chinese, and other state-run media outlets for some time.
Predictably, NPR took offense and ultimately quit using the platform in protest. “It would be a disservice to the serious work you all do here to continue to share it on a platform that is associating the federal charter for public media with an abandoning of editorial independence or standards,” NPR CEO John Lansing told staff.
TAXPAYER-FUNDED NPR UNCRITICALLY PROMOTES MUTILATION FOR ‘TRANSGENDER’ CHILDREN
Whether or not NPR’s acceptance of taxpayer dollars affects its “editorial independence” is subject to debate, but Republicans have a long history of advocating cutting NPR’s funding, and Democrats often pledge to dole out more state money to the outlet. Funding aside, from its Hunter Biden coverage, or lack thereof, to any of the cultural issues of the day, NPR always seems to find itself on the side of protecting Democrats in power.
The fact of the matter is that we are living in a time when governments lie with impunity to protect their own interests. It is not just nefarious foreign actors such as the Russians; our own government has repeatedly lied to its people in recent years, from President Joe Biden lying about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines to former President Barack Obama’s humdinger “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” The Bush administration’s lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction caused the deaths of thousands of American service members and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, not to mention the trillions of dollars added to the national debt.
The line between government and the press has been blurred dramatically by the revolving door of former high-level Democrats retiring from positions in the White House and intelligence agencies to take cushy jobs at CNN and MSNBC. But at least those outlets are not overtly affiliated with the state, even if their reportage could lead an honest observer to that conclusion.
Lies from the legacy media are commonplace; cable news networks on the Left and Right have even settled defamation suits in recent years. CNN’s lies about conservative teenager Nick Sandmann cost it a pretty penny, and this week Fox News settled its defamation lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for a whopping $787 million after promoting lies about the 2020 presidential election.
Most people probably expect the media to lie or at least to “get it wrong” from time to time. But government has made it a habit to lie about the most pressing issues we face as a society. Any media organization with financial ties to the state should be labeled as such so that social media users can understand the potential biases of the folks who are bringing them the news.
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Brady Leonard (@bradyleonard) is a musician, political strategist, and host of The No Gimmicks Podcast.