Jean-Pierre Defends NPR When Asked About Twitter Putting In ‘Same Category As Russia Today Or Chinese Media’

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended National Public Radio when she was asked about Twitter putting the outlet “in the same category as Russia Today or Chinese media.”

This week, Twitter added a label to NPR’s account that reads “U.S. state-affiliated media,” despite the fact that at the time they took that step, their own guidelines listed NPR as an example of an outlet that would not fit that designation:

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.

The guidelines also note the ways in which such a label limits the reach of these accounts, and of posts containing links from any of these accounts.

Twitter’s solution was to leave the guidelines substantially the same, but to stealth-remove the reference to NPR.

At Wednesday’s press briefing, Jean-Pierre was asked about the move, and while she would not comment on Twitter’s policy decisions as a private company, she defended NPR’s editorial independence vociferously:

Q Thank you. Twitter labeled National Public Radio as a government-influenced entity, putting NPR in the same category as Russia Today or Chinese media. Do you have a comment?

MS. JEAN-PIERRE: Yeah, so, social media companies make their own independent decisions about content rules, so I won’t comment on Twitter’s rules.

But what I will say — more broadly, I’ll say: There’s no doubt of the independence of NPR’s journalists. And has been — if you’ve ever been on the receiving end of their — of their questions, you know this; you know that they have their independence in journalism.

NPR journalists work [diligently] to hold public officials accountable and inform the American people. The hard-hitting independence nature of their coverage speaks — speaks for itself. And so I’ll leave it there.

Watch above via The White House.