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Comment by oroul | Hacker News Reader

> Reversing the decline is a monster task — and one that some journalists and news organizations have taken upon themselves. They're going to need help — perhaps from America's CEOs.

Is this a bad joke? Distrust of media is largely brought about because it is (mostly) in the private sector and therefore always puts the sustainability of its business model above objective reporting. We've known for a while now that negative news sells, clickbait sells, and media organizations are all too happy to push it out there if it helps their struggling bottom line.

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France has a public agency, AFP, being the news arbiter (it’s the Reuters competitor). Yet, information is bullshit. They choose to report on some topics and not others, and they choose to publish extremely biased news without quoting the opposing side to interview their defense. Happens with the wage gap, happens with the Traoré, happens with Sarkozysm, happens with Fillion... It sways elections.

Owned 56% by the state.

That doesn't rule out public ownership as a necessary condition - only as a sufficient one.

State ownership is just one small step above private ownership. A far more interesting organization would be a news co-op, preferably one not backed by ads. Unfortunately there are massive hurdles in front of such an organization existing. Not least of which, they might actually report things that it does not do to worry the public over.

> happens with Sarkozysm, happens with Fillion... It sways elections.

In which sense did it happen? They didn't report on it or they did without "quoting the opposing side"? Specifically in the case of Fillon, the guy was caught stealing from the state in a pretty obvious manner ( his wife was receiving a salary for being his parliamentary assistant for like 15 years, while never having received a pass to actually get in the parliament). There was little of substance he could say, and when he did say it, it was obviously complete bullshit. Yes, it swayed the elections ( he was the favourite to win) and thankfully, that's not the type of person anyone should want running the country.

The judge admitted she received pressure to investigate this affair.

All deputees use the assistant salary evasive mission loophole, only candidates who are potent competitors are found out by journalists. Meanwhile Macron’s assistant had 6 diplomatic passports and a gun after being fired for mugging political opponents (!), yet journalists uniformly said that it probably was a honest mistake by the passport department.

State-owned AFP and most journals being >1/3rd sponsored by the government is clearly helping the mugging of political opponents in France, whether through the use of media, judges or by simple private thugs armed with guns and diplomatic passports.

> Is this a bad joke? Distrust of media is largely brought about because it is (mostly) in the private sector

You think the 82% of Republicans who distrust the media is due to being in the private sector? And that they would trust it more if it was government run?

The thing is, trust isn't universal.

Do I trust CEOs to run businesses? Yes (at least, more than I trust either the government or the media).

Do I trust CEOs to tell me whether the media is trustworthy? Very much no. (What reason would I have to trust them on such a topic? None.)

> sustainability of its business model above objective reporting

Wouldn't publicly-funded media be the same? if a conservative govt wanted to cut the media budget would we not see one-sided negative reporting targeting conservatives?

It's a very valid question. My personal opinion is that public media isn't by default better due to its ability to operate at a loss - in fact it could be argued that the only reason an administration would allow it to run at a loss is if it saw the operation as advantageous to its political objectives.

I think the real answer that nobody wants to hear is that media at this scale cannot exist without bad actors trying to manipulate it. There is no "web of trust" at the scale of millions.

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