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TSPR Twitter Statement

We are turning away from Twitter but not from our audiences and communities. There are still plenty of ways to stay connected and keep up with NPR's news, music, and cultural content. Audiences can turn to NPR.org, the NPR app for on-demand listening, our newsletter portfolio, liveblogs and push notifications. We will also continue to maintain a presence on our other social platforms.

Last week Twitter labeled NPR as “state-affiliated media,” a label reserved for government-controlled media outlets. According to Twitter’s own definitions, NPR does not meet the qualifications of this designation.

After requests by NPR to have the label removed, Twitter changed the designation to “government-funded media”, which is also inaccurate. I have shared information about NPR’s funding and editorial independence below.

On Wednesday, April 12, NPR announced that it would pause posting to its 50+ official twitter accounts as a result of Twitter’s actions. You will find NPR CEO John Lansing’s statement on this decision below.

After consideration and discussion, Tri States Public Radio will be joining NPR and will pause posting content to Twitter. We believe strongly in Public Media’s mission to provide free access to news and information, and social media is a way to provide this access. However, it is clear to us that Twitter, in particular its ownership, is trying to undermine the product we work to provide to the public everyday.

While we are not actively posting to Twitter, there are many other ways to keep in touch with Tri States Public Radio:

  • Tune in on the radio at the signal closest to you: 91.3FM Macomb, 106.3FM Burlington, 89.5FM Warsaw/Keokuk and 90.7FM Galesburg.  
  • Stream the station at tspr.org.  
  • Sign up for our TSPR News Weekly HERE.  
  • Ask Alexa or Google to “Play Tri States Public Radio”.  
  • Follow us on Facebook @TriStatesPR or Instagram @TriStatesPublicRadio. 

Please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns you may have. Thank you for listening to TSPR.

Heather Norman
General Manager

NPR Funding and Independence

NPR is not directly funded by the U.S. government, although it does receive some funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967 to promote public broadcasting. However, this funding only accounts for a small portion of NPR's total budget, and NPR is required by law to maintain editorial independence from the CPB and any other government entity.

NPR is governed by a Board of Directors, which is composed of NPR member station managers, journalists, and representatives from the public, who oversee the organization's operations and make strategic decisions. This board is responsible for ensuring that NPR adheres to its mission of providing high-quality, independent journalism and programming.

Finally, NPR's editorial independence is further protected by its code of ethics, which outlines the principles and standards that guide its reporting and programming. NPR journalists are expected to maintain their independence and objectivity, and they are not subject to editorial direction or pressure from any outside sources. NPR's funding sources, governance structure, and commitment to editorial independence all provide evidence that NPR is not state-run media, but rather an independent, non-profit organization dedicated to providing high-quality journalism and programming to the public.

Statement from NPR CEO John Lansing 

NPR’s organizational accounts will no longer be active on Twitter because the platform is taking actions that undermine our credibility by falsely implying that we are not editorially independent. 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.

The public media system was created by Congress more than 50 years ago to provide free over-the-air and now online news, information, and educational programming to all Americans. These services are especially valuable to those living in communities with little or no access to other outlets. Actions by Twitter or other social media companies to tarnish the independence of any public media institution are exceptionally harmful and set a dangerous precedent.

Millions of Americans depend on NPR and their local public radio stations for the fact-based, independent, public service journalism they need to stay informed about the world and about their own communities. They depend on your work, the rigorous reporting they need to exercise their rights as citizens and the music and entertainment that brings them moments of joy. It would be a disservice to the serious work NPR does 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.