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> Want to get a higher budget next year? You better run some stories on the great work that the current government is doing or else...

This is why you fund public media sensibly, outside the control of any given administration. It is possible to do, though given the current state of US politics it doesn’t seem remotely likely.

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> This is why you fund public media sensibly, outside the control of any given administration.

That is a very nice solution but it doesnt work in practice. If the budgets are decided by the government then there is always the possibility that neutrality on some subjects may be missing or that some amount of pressure will be applied in order to get some stories buried or on the contrary exacerbated.

Since there is no way to know which is which then how can you trust it? Personally I don't.

It's as if many of you have never really understood the concept behind separation of powers. There is a very clear reason why the branches of government are constructed in partial opposition to each other, and the validity of that reason is readily demonstrated every day. Who cares if one branch of the government doesn't want to fund a particular story or slant: another branch should be happy to write that check to provide a counterbalance.

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