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Comment by anindha | Hacker News Reader

If you consider accurate journalism as a necessity of a well functioning economy and democracy then an argument can be made that it should be government funded and independent. Think BBC.

I don’t think the current model is working as well as it could.

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Government funded is incompatible with independent. By definition such an organization is dependent on continued government funding.

This is one of those platitudes that are designed to make you feel smart about yourself despite being pretty silly when taken seriously.

Consider this: The funding of the judiciary comes from the executive and legislative branches of government. Yet, funding is never brought up as an argument in discussions of whether the judiciary is independent.

The reason is of course threefold: there is a large societal consensus that the judiciary should be independent; the independence of the judiciary is established in constitutions; and political norms, as eroded as they may be in some parts of the West, aren't sufficiently eroded that politicians feel like they can play hardball over funding with the judiciary.

All these factors could be established for an independent, government funded media as well.

Every government should fund journalism, and every citizen should read from several news sources (from different governments). The BBC is great, but you should not get your news about Britain from the BBC, get it from say Le Monde or NYT. And vice versa for France and the US.

I’m curious: why should one not rely on the BBC as a primary source of news about Britain?

Because BBC is influenced by the British power structure.

Not sure why you're getting down voted whereas I got upvoted.

Whether it's conscious, most people/groups/governments have an easier time rationally evaluating others vs themselves. Just like I'm doing right now.

As long as funding is guaranteed by law then it’s possible to be independent. BBC works like this.

Aren't PBS and NPR government funded and independent?

https://www.thedailybeast.com/why-npr-and-pbs-should-stop-ta...

Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets $450 million/year.

PBS: “less than 1%” of its “operating budget comes in the form of grants from CPB and federal agencies and departments.”

Looking at PBS [1] and CPB [2] budgets from 2014, it appears that PBS gets more than 1% from CPB (if I am reading it right) but it is still a small percentage. Thanks!

1. http://www.pbs.org/about/about-pbs/financials/

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadca...

The BBC isn't government funded though. It's funded by the licence fee (which is deliberately set up as a fee not a tax for that reason)

> government funded and independent

Pick one, please.

I disagree.

The German public broadcasters are well known for biting the hand that feeds them.

There is a subtlety in underst and who feeds them. Public broadcasters in established western countries are beholden to a social class, not to the government of the day.

> it should be government funded and independent

You can be government funded or independent, but not both.

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