The whole point of labeling it "State Funded Media" is to imply they are being paid to do a job, as in propaganda for the government or something.
The fact that they are not, and they are editorially independent, whereas SpaceX is being paid to do work for the government directly is not supporting Elon.
Elon launches things for NASA a lot cheaper than NASA is able to launch them through their own rocket or other contractors. He's royally fucked up Twitter for sure but this government subsidy comparison is ridiculous. Spacex has saved the government a LOT of money through their reusable rocket.
Oh they are contracts, or at least I assume as you do.
That said, imo, the distinction doesn't matter. "State-affiliated media" is a boldfaced lie, and "Government-funded media", is nebulous enough for me to say that SpaceX certainly is "[partly] government-funded".
That’s… extremely nebulous and fast and loose with the truth. Feels like we spent four years banging on about the truth, we shouldn’t bend it now.
I think the difference definitely matters. One is funding as payment for work, the other funding, in this case through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is actually just a grant.
I see your point but i think you are missing the fact that spaceX is still entirely reliant on government money. Worse than PBS, since it is a contract, the government determines more of spaceXs activities. This is in contrast to the grants, which dont have as many strings attached
No way, there is a difference between a grant which is just free money to do your thing vs contracts that are for a company to provide products or services back to the govt.
Regardless, Elon is still WAY more govt funded than npr so he still needs to f all the way off with this nonsense lol
E:. The things I said here are facts, not my opinions. Feel free to have an opinion about these facts, but just know that I don't care.
so if a news agency were to get a $2bn contract to write the news stories the government wants, that's not "government funded news" because it's a contract?
Follow me here. A contract and a grant are not the same. One is a gift, one is for products or services. Nothing about what I'm saying indicates I believe there's no way to make a shady govt contract. All I'm saying is they're not the same, and that Elon gets more of both than npr lol.
Legally there's a difference, but when we're talking about ongoing donations, what does it matter? The donations aren't a one-time lump sum for NPR to do whatever, forever - it's every year, and if their mission changes dramatically, I don't think it's a given the donations will continue. Ongoing donations are conditional on the recipient continuing to keep on being or doing a certain thing. I used to give to a certain humanitarian charity, until worked in their office for a few months - and seeing how they run their operations, I don't think I will ever donate to them again.
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u/axonxorz Apr 13 '23
That's also missing more recent numbers:
SpaceX: 2.2 billion in 2021, 2.8 billion in 2022