Fair enough, but without doing linguistic gymnastics, "State-affiliated" should also be seen by any reasonably educated adult to indicate "State-edited". "State-funded" is an appropriate tag! I'd recommend this, actually.
NPR show Frontline is a great place to start this education.
Attempting to place NPR and that kind of sentiment in the same conversation as anything other than a great example of how Gov't funds can be provided without such _control_ is disingenuous at best.
Virtually no media companies admit to being state edited, even if they are literally a department of the government. Heck it's common even for government agencies to claim they are independent of "the government" despite being a part of it. So if that were the bar, there'd be no such labelling at all.