Hacker News Reader

Comment by matwood | Hacker News Reader

I don't want to sound like I'm defending Fox News (I'm not), but this is a cable news problem in general. Making every story somehow an outrage is how they get ratings. Whether CNN is following Stormy Daniels from strip club to strip club, or MSNBC is yelling about some random comment it's much of the same thing.

There just isn't enough news to fill 24 hours of content every single day across multiple stations.

View on HN

I wonder, were there ever a neutral state-owned news media in US that provided sensible news without much of the agitating fear-mongering that seems so prevalent? In many EU countries, Finland for example, there is a state-owned media organization (YLE) which main purpose is to provide unbiased and high-quality news reporting to all Finnish citizens.

It's not without its faults, but in general you can expect YLE to provide quality content that wouldn't be possible if its monetary value was the only concern. Also I like that there's no ads in YLEs programs. And you can watch most of them free on internet.

The US does have a television network called PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) which is a non-profit organization although it is only partially government funded (they generally ask for donations from viewers about once a year). The quality of the reporting is usually pretty good, but news is only a subset of their programming, so it doesn't compare to something like the 24-hour cable news channels.

And even though they strive to be even handed, one particular segment of the US claims that they belong to the opposite end of the political spectrum.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com