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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

> the idea of citizens having an independent, impartial and transparent publicly funded media,

if its controlled by the state by definition it cant be neutral.

It's not controlled by the state, but funded by it. There's a kind of a people's council everyone can join and vote about stuff which in part control the direction of it, it's called SRG.

People in Switzerland still trust their state and institutions: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/democracy/why-people-in-switzer...

It's not funded by thew state but by it's citizens, enforced through serafe and the whole construct blessed by the state.

you typically dont behave the same way when you receive a check from someone. just like people dont openly criticize their boss at work.

Maybe Switzerland has a better system but in most countries state funded media ends up being the voice of the state

If it's like in Austria, then the state media doesn't receive cheques from the state government, but directly from the taxpayers via a separate tax collected by an independent agency granted power by the state, and not from the state itself.

On paper this makes it so that the state media is reporting directly to the paying citizens similar to a national Patreon, in practice IMO, it's still state control but with extra steps and middlemen designed to give the illusion of independence.

On paper it's not controlled by the state, but awarded independence by law. On paper. In practice, it's still subject to the laws and influence of the state it's funded by, so take that as you will.

At least here in Austria I can't put too much faith in the state media since they don't cover any major corruption scandals of the parties in power, but mostly report on neutral stuff like whatever new laws passed and that the sloth family at the local zoo had a baby.

Maybe not, but it's far more neutral than any other source of control.

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