You may be happy with the state sponsored options now, but will that always be the case? Would you feel the same if you living in the Soviet Union or Germany circa 1940?
I trust state paid media in the EU, way more than any US news media.
The reason why most EU countries have state paid media, is so that its non commercial, non partisan, and cant be bought. There are different principles in place, so government has no say, in what is broadcast/not broadcast. This also means that all political parties get the same amount of exposure etc.
The problems with Fox News and Sinclair aren't based on advertising, they are based on ownership. State sponsored media isn't going to be any better under an autocrat and will in fact be worse than the situation in the US because there may not be any other options.
Not well, and I'd add MSNBC to that list, however much I may be a dirty pinko who agrees with their editorial stance. NPR and PRI do what they can, but I really wish we had something like the BBC here, with non-corporate funding and a remit to report current events.
Those are three publications that have sent shockwaves around the world with their privately-funded investigative journalism.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/08/business/new-york-times-c...
What I dislike about all news sites is that they are inconsequential. They throw sooooo many different news items at you that it really does not matter. Today's outrage will be quite forgotten two days later, or two weeks if it was something really bad. They should instead follow a few selected topics long-term and investigate what happens, and point readers to ways to affect a change. That means not reporting on each and every little thing as extensively any more but instead focus on a few things over a very long time. Just being fed thousands of news stories is McNews - you get short term satisfaction and a feeling that you stuffed something into your brain, but it feels hollow quickly because it's not very nutritious.
And don't get me started on all the Russia hype, one would think those guys in their in large parts poor 3rd world country have capabilities far beyond what the orders of magnitude richer West does not (I speak some Russian and was there a few times, also in Ukraine). That all the media jumped so willingly on this wagon is quite amazing. Note that I don't doubt they (Russian) did most of what is claimed, but when, for example, sums of money spent for the campaign are mentioned it's so little that it's obvious it could not have had a significant impact, at least not on the scale fitting the amount and the tone of the reporting. What is also missing is that they take the opportunity to talk about the many ways the US and the West has influenced internal politics of other countries. For controversial topics they usually try to give such views some room, but Russia seems so incredibly overblown and one-sided to me - so impossible, and it all looks like that recent video about Sinclair where they all say the exact same things and one can see not much effort went into that reporting. I don't know, it all feels very weird - and very wrong, like when you put on very strong glasses and the world looks weird.
I’m currently more concerned about private media having an agenda that promotes the right.
If all your eggs are in one basket what happens when something goes wrong with that basket?
(As a sidenote because it's confusing for people from both sides: In Germany we differentiate between taxes which end up in the general budget and can be used for everything and fees which are purpose-bound from the moment of collection, e.g. in this case the levied money must be used for broadcasting. This differentiation is not common elsewhere.)
Of course, sometimes fees and fines can be seen as "stealth taxes" when they intrude too far into everyday life, particularly when state monopolies are involved. For example, the cost of First Class postage with USPS is technically a fee for an optional service, but the USPS monopoly on First Class letter delivery makes it at least partly a tax, to the extent that another carrier might have provided the same service for a lower price in the absence of the monopoly.
I agree.
But I'm guessing that it's the same in Germany. They call them "fees" but they're really taxes. Except that they can't be used for other purposes.
In Germany that may be true, but I was speaking of the US, where the terms are used differently. There is no expectation here that "fees" can only be used to defray the cost of providing specific services.
Anyhow, newspaper advertising isn't personally targeted by tracking readers, so it's a lot more palatable.
That's a direct result of online advertising eating most of the advertising dollars, making the big papers less valuable advertising venues. Cutoff the things that make online advertising uniquely valuable, like the flow of personal data that enables far more focussed targeting, and that’ll shift back.
> Anyhow, newspaper advertising isn't personally targeted by tracking readers
No, instead it's targeted by every business decision of the paper ultimately being made against a backdrop of how it impacts the papers size and demographics of readership, which is how it sells itself as an advertising venue, which ends up with the major media all being crafted to narrowly appeal to the most valuable advertising audience.
To get the most ad revenue they need to cater to the majority. See e.g. clickbait. For stable income, finding a group and catering to their opinions/narratives is also an option, and is also not independent news. See e.g. infowars. Finally, to get any ad revenue, they need ads. Unlikely many corporations will run ads on anything that is perceived even slightly controversial nowadays. See e.g. YouTube.
None EU media would still exist.
Several UK media outlets use paywalls already, presumably they too would remain.
Strong emphasis that I'm not equating those to your examples. Rather, pointing out that even a subtle version of undesirable or extreme politics can lead to a similar concern.
Given the wild political swing going on in about half of Europe, it's a legitimate concern today, no need to look back 80 years. Not to mention persistently growing censorship and criminalization of speech in more liberal countries such as France.