> We'd have citizens being asked for their papers before they can travel freely or hold jobs.
Citizens being asked for papers before they get a job? What a horror!
>We'd have state media that ignores incredible corruption
We don’t have a state media, and I guarantee you that whatever corruption people know about, there is some media member talking about it.
Whether or not your ability to travel or have a job being tied up in bureaucracy is an unethical thing is kinda dependent on your perspective. As someone who grew up undocumented and who's had to deal with massive bureaucratic headaches whenever I got a job (even though it was legal), I'm quite critical of that.
As for the state-run media point... I'll try to do this without quoting Chomsky's Five Filters, but I do want to point out that what we consider state-run media in other countries is often much more independent than we realize and what we consider corporate media in the US is often much more heavily influenced by the state than we realize (an easy example might be Fox News' direct ties to the GOP).
But if you really want to see how much of a propaganda powerhouse the US really is, you'd have the best luck looking outside of the US. Read up on the International Broadcasting Bureau or the US' numerous state-controlled foreign media outlets like Radio Free Asia, Radio Liberty, or just the CIA's massive worldwide propaganda network:
https://www.nytimes.com/1977/12/26/archives/worldwide-propag...
I wouldn’t be bothered if I found out the propaganda arm of any country was disseminating propaganda. It’s just what they do.
You can't be that naive. You think every piece of corruption has been exposed? Usually when corruption is exposed it's about something that's been going on for years. Yet somehow you think all corruption as of right now has been exposed?
When the government calls for censorship of all media that oppresses their narrative and the media hires former CIA agents and parrots their talking points, you might as well have state run media.
I don’t think that every bit of corruption has been exposed, and indeed I didn’t say that.
I do not believe “the media” is actively working to hide corruption. Whoever “they” employ, there are simply too many media outlets for one to reasonably believe it is remotely state controlled.
Further, I find it laughable to believe, in the age of information, that any calls to censorship that you claim exist are remotely effective.
To be fair (And Balanced), they also hire people who applied to CIA and were "rejected". Being the son of a Voice Of America director probably helps too.
https://www.businessinsider.com/fox-news-host-tucker-carlson...
State funded media are news orgs that 100% run themselves, but are funded by the government. This is great for achieving good journalism because they're not incentivised to write clickbait or take advantage of outrage and bias generating sales to people that agree with the bias.
State run media is a terrible idea, for obvious reasons.
Plenty of well functioning democracies have the former, and it's important to identify if there's ever an attempt by the government to turn it in to the latter.
EDIT: apparently NPR is not majority funded by the government now, but was in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
EDIT 2: PBS is probably the better example.
If a new government did start meddling with the state funded media word would get out pretty quickly because all the people it's staffed with are used to not being meddled with and someone would blow the whistle.
Or phrased in another way: state funded, but not state controlled media is a symptom of quality governance as much as it is a reinforcing factor of quality governance.