Comment by mattlutze | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattlutze | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

The public broadcasters in Germany aren't propaganda arms of the government and are generally respected across political affiliation, except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach. They may exhibit some editorial lean (https://www.dw.com/en/a-dual-broadcasting-system/a-435426), but from everything I've seen not even to the level that folks in the US complain about CNBC or Fox News.

Germany, in fact, comes in with one of the highest press freedom scores from Reporters without Borders:

https://rsf.org/en/germany , https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/germany-media-profile/

National public Radio and the Public Broadcast Company in the US, in further illustration, hasn't been Donald Trump's megaphone.

Just generally, independent journalism is important and can be subverted whether the sources are public or private. Open pluralistic oversight is most important to maintaining balance and Germany seems to get it right, while also making sure the media can be accessible to any resident.

Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.

> except perhaps by the sort of folks that think AfD has the right approach

Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter.

> They may exhibit some editorial lean

More than "some".

> CNBC or Fox News

Those are corporations that noone is not forced to fund if you disagree with them.

> Just generally, independent journalism is important

Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face.

Also, journalism is only a tiny part of german public TV channels. They also throw tons of money on sports broadcasting and game shows while promoting gambling. Add to that the insanity of having a local channel for every state. Even if you agree that public funded news is a good thing, the current setup is hardly an efficient way to accomplish that.

> Seems a not-awful approach to trying to ensure a more-educated population, which is also good for a democracy.

You can call it "education" if you want.

Finally, unlike taxes, the TV fee is not means tested in Germany meaning that if you have a low income and don't fall into the few groups that are excempt then it is a very real burden.

> Ah right, everyone that disagrees must be one of those people so their opinion doesn't matter. > More than "some".

This sounds like disgruntled opinion over having to pay 18 EUR/month for something you don't watch.

Please feel free to put something more substantial behind your snappy retorts. The studies and research I've read indicates that the people mostly trust and appreciate the balance in German public broadcasting, and most disgruntled with public broadcasting in Germany are on the radical sides. The second bit is more universally supported by psychological research indicating that the average person wants to watch stuff that confirms their biases.

> Except you can't give certain organizations a unique monopoly to collect fees from everyone and then call it independent with a straight face.

You're perverting the meaning of monopoly here, I think. There's a publicly funded infrastructure for broadcast programming, as well as privately funded sources of programming. ZDF and ARD don't have exclusive right to broadcast in any market in Germany as far as I know?

The publicly funded infrastructure includes representative oversight mechanisms from political and community sources, which provide a far more robust mechanism for neutrality checking vs the programming decisions of a profit-motivated private organization.

> Finally, unlike taxes

Means testing is a fantastic point, I whole-heartedly agree that statutory funding structures like this shouldn't overburden any slice of the population.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com