PBS has stopped posting its articles on Twitter. The platform has also stopped tweeting from its main account after being hit with a ‘government-funded media’ label. All this is happening just after its fellow public broadcaster NPR took similar steps.
PBS Articles on Twitter
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) has now stopped tweeting from its primary Twitter account after it was reportedly given a “government-funded media” label. And as of the time of this writing the @PBS official account has not tweeted anything since April 8th, and the organization has since then confirmed that it presently has “no plans” to resume its posting to the social media platform Twitter.
“PBS stopped tweeting from our account when we learned of the change and we have no plans to resume at this time,” PBS spokesman Jason Phelps revealed to Bloomberg. “We are continuing to monitor the ever-changing situation closely.” And while PBS is not tweeting from its main account at the moment, it has continued to put out content on affiliated accounts such as @NewsHour, which have not had the “government-funded” label applied to it.
National Public Radio (NPR) Made a Similar Move
The decision in question by the public broadcaster follows a very much similar move made by National Public Radio (NPR), which officially announced that it would be leaving the social media platform Twitter after it was labeled as government funded. Twitter initially labeled NPR as “US state-affiliated media,” making use of a terminology that is usually reserved for state-backed outlets that are not editorially independent such as RT or China’s Xinhua News. It however later changed the label to “government-funded media.”
What NPR CEO Has To Say about the New Twitter Development
“We are not putting our journalism on platforms that have demonstrated an interest in undermining our credibility and the public’s understanding of our editorial independence,” NPR CEO John Lansing in a memo to staff stated.
Elon Musk’s Relationship with the Media
The new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, who has long had an antagonistic relationship with the media, has now doubled down on the decision to apply the labels to US public broadcasters. In a host of tweets, the CEO called for NPR to be defunded and also said that the organization was hypocritical for terming its federal funding essential while also promoting its very own editorial independence in the process and all the while.
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