Media and Journalism Research center director, Marius Dragomir, was quoted in the article as saying that “you can’t put on the same level state-controlled media with independent public media simply because in the latter you don’t have any form of state control. To label the latter as state-influenced, state-controlled or state-affiliated is quite misleading and dishonest.” 

It is indeed an unexpected decision as our State Media Monitor project shows that NPR is anything but state controlled, being financed through a variety of sources that assure its financial and editorial independence. Financing sources range from corporate sponsorship to station dues, and account for more than 70% of NPR’s total budget. Editorial independence is also paramount at NPR where there is no evidence of government control over its editorial coverage. Specializing in news and cultural programming, NPR hosts under its umbrella more than 1,000 public radio stations across the United States. Furthermore, NPR periodically receives comments and feedback from the general public. 

Newsweek remarks that labeling NPR as state affiliated media comes in disagreement with Twitter’s own guidelines, which state that “state-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy.” Shortly after labeling, Twitter removed NPR from its policy. 

Photo by Alexander Shatov on Unsplash

The program, which featured Dragomir, Paul Thompson, chief executive and editor- in-chief of Radio New Zealand, Jacinta Mwende Maweu, senior lecturer in philosophy and media at the University of Nairobi, and host Julian Morrow, focused on the state of public service media around the world. It focused prominently on our State Media study, which is now available as the world’s most complete state media database.

Marius Dragomir talked in general about the public service media in the world, saying the model of independent PSM is on the brink of extinction for multiple reasons.

He talked about the three sets of criteria the state media database uses to determine where a media outlet falls in the state media matrix: funding, governance structure and editorial independence. He pointed out that editorial independence is the most important criteria, as you have examples of public media that are funded by the government but managed to preserve their editorial independence, and you have examples where the government manages the public media but they still are editorially independent.

He talked about the impact of the platform economy, both negative and positive, on public service media and on media in general. He called for a new vision for public service media and he gave examples of best practices, found in countries as different as Germany, Lithuania, Taiwan and South Korea.

As for the importance of public service media, he said that countries with good public service media had a healthier information system.

The recent crises such as the pandemic or the war in Ukraine show that countries with good psm have better sources of information for the citizens.

Moreover, he pointed out that public service media are part of the bigger global news content market.

Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash

Link: 

Listen to the program

He presented his study on the sorry, sorry state of state media in 151 countries that he wrote in 2021 and was published by the Center for Media, Data & Society that he previously led. The project is now run by a consortium of academic institutions led by Media and Journalism Research Center.

He talked about the state media matrix, the new state media typology developed to have a more nuanced understanding of state media types, ranging from independent public media to state controlled media. He pointed out that independent public media have become a rarity, with a shockingly low number, 18 of them identified in the study. He said media capture was on the rise. During the discussion, he explained the concept of media capture, its different manifestations and why governments strive to capture the media.

Asked about the potential impact of state funding for independent media, he said governments had a tendency to interfere with the editorial agenda of the media outlets they provided funding for, but state support did not need to be a problem. The important thing is to have transparency mechanisms in place and to ensure editorial independence.

He also talked about the importance of professional norms. He said statutes that guaranteed the independence of public media and the assessment or monitoring of public media independence were very important for independent public service media. 

The list of panelists included Minna Aslama Horowitz, Docent at the University of Helsinki, a researcher at Nordic Observatory for Digital Media and Information Disorder (NORDIS), Nicola Frank, Head of Institutional and International Relations, European Broadcasting Union, Ara Shirinyan, Chair of the Council of Public Television and Radio Company of Armenia and Luc van Bakel, editor-in-chief of the research unit of VRT NWS (public service media in Belgium). The discussion was opened by Teresa Ribeiro, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media and moderated by Andrey Rikhter, Temporary Adviser, OSCE RFOM.

Link: 

Watch a recording of the event

Read the report (in Greek)