The article does a good job unpacking why the "state-affiliated media" label is inappropriate for NPR (the state contributes 1% of their funding and does not influence the content of their programming), but the genuinely odd thing is that Voice of America, CBC News, and the BBC do not have the "state-affiliated media" label.
The independence of, for example, the BBC is being questioned [0] in ways that NPR's has not been, and if it's a question of funding rather than editorial control, there's no question that VoA has earned the label (it is editorially independent but it is undeniably funded by the USG).
If > 0% state funding is enough then it would apply to pretty much the whole member list of the European Broadcast Union as well https://www.ebu.ch/about/members
I think if both governmental editorial control AND government funding were required to justify the label, the use of the label to describe NPR (or VoA) would be very obviously inappropriate. Sorry if that was unclear. A person who wanted to (perhaps unkindly) apply the label to the BBC because of the unofficial influence the British government wields, in spite of stated editorial policy... I'd defer to a British person who knows the institution better on that one.
It would be nice to know what the "state-affiliated media" label is meant to mean, yes. Ideally before applying it...
The independence of, for example, the BBC is being questioned [0] in ways that NPR's has not been, and if it's a question of funding rather than editorial control, there's no question that VoA has earned the label (it is editorially independent but it is undeniably funded by the USG).
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64926923