Canada’s CBC Says Twitter ‘Not Critical’ After ‘69% Authorities-Funded Media’ Label

(Reuters) – Public broadcaster Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) on Tuesday pushed again towards Twitter’s transfer to label it “69% authorities funded media,” saying it had full editorial independence.

The Elon Musk-owned social media platform had on Sunday stamped CBC with a label that stated it was government-funded media, after putting related notices for U.S. broadcasters NPR and PBS.

“Canadian Broadcasting Corp stated they’re ‘lower than 70% government-funded’, so we corrected the label,” Musk stated in a tweet on Monday.

In an emailed assertion, a CBC spokesperson stated that Twitter’s response was not “critical.”

“The actual subject is that Twitter’s definition of government-funded media means open to editorial interference by authorities. Because the Editor-in-Chief of CBC Information has stated the federal government has no — zero — involvement in our editorial content material or journalism,” the assertion quoted Editor-in-Chief Brodie Fenlon as saying.

CBC obtained C$1.24 million ($926,064.23) in authorities funding within the 2022 monetary 12 months, in contrast with income from promoting, subscriptions and different sources of C$651,000, in line with its annual report.

Twitter defines its “government-funded media” label as “the place the federal government supplies some or the entire outlet’s funding and will have various levels of presidency involvement over editorial content material”.

Twitter didn’t instantly reply to Reuters’ request for touch upon CBC’s response.

CBC has paused its Twitter actions over the labeling, a spat that has additionally drawn in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Conservative rival Pierre Poilievre.

($1 = 1.3390 Canadian {dollars})

(Reporting by Akanksha Khushi and Lavanya Ahire in Bengaluru; Modifying by Sandra Maler)

Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.