The official Twitter account of the news outlet CBC has become the third establishment publication to be slapped with a “government-funded media” label following the PBS and NPR accounts.
Earlier this month, Twitter CEO Elon Musk removed the “state-affiliated media” on NPR’s account and replaced it with a “government-funded media” label, following suit with PBS.
The “government-funded media” label is used for outlets “where the government provides some or all of the outlet’s funding and may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content.”
Last week, NPR confirmed they were leaving Twitter after being slapped with the label.
“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,” NPR said in a statement, Fox News reported.
“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 statement continued.
“We are turning away from Twitter but not from our audience and communities. There are plenty of ways to stay connected and keep up with NPR’s news, music, and cultural content,” they added.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre later asked Musk to add a “government-funded” label to the CBC account.
Poilievre tweeted on in response to the news that the “CBC officially exposed as ‘government-funded media.’ Now people know that it is Trudeau propaganda, not news.”
Days later, CBC was slapped with the label.
CBC is a Crown corporation and is “wholly owned by the state but operated at arm’s length from government,” the outlet states.
The outlet also boasts in its Twitter it is “Funded by and serving all Canadians.”
CBC corporate spokesperson Leon Mar reacted to the news in the following statement:
“Twitter’s own policy defines government-funded media as cases where the government ‘may have varying degrees of government involvement over editorial content,’ which is clearly not the case with CBC/Radio-Canada,” he said.
“CBC/Radio-Canada is publicly funded through a parliamentary appropriation that is voted upon by all Members of Parliament. Its editorial independence is protected in law in the Broadcasting Act,” Mar said.
According to its annual report, CBC received $1.24 billion in government funding between 2021 and 2022.
In addition to $651 million in revenue, the majority coming from advertising, CBC reported $1.39 billion in government funding and $504 million in revenue in the 2020-2021 fiscal year.
There have been calls for the British state-owned media outlet, the BBC, to receive the government or public funding label.
