PORTLAND, Maine — Maine Public announced Thursday afternoon it will be suspending Twitter activity after the social media company recently labeled the National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service "government-funded media."
The Maine TV and radio affiliate joins NPR in its move away from Twitter on Wednesday after the social media company labeled NPR first as "state-affiliated media," and then shifted to "government-funded media."
Those labels are typically reserved for "propaganda outlets such as China's RT and Russia's Xinhua news stations."
Maine Public CEO Rick Schneider said in the Thursday announcement, "The false implication of government influence on journalism originating from public media organizations like NPR and, by association, Maine Public, strikes at the very foundation of public media."
Schneider explained roughly 14 percent of $16.3 million of Maine Public's revenue for this fiscal year comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with the majority of the affiliate's funding coming from "individual donors, foundations and corporate support from Maine businesses."
Maine Public also receives funding from the State of Maine to maintain the infrastructure of Maine's Emergency Alert System, Schneider added.
On the national scale, NPR says it receives funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which accounts for less than one percent of its $300 million annual budget, and PBS says approximately 15 percent of revenue is provided by federal funding.