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Public Funding of Journalism Is the Only Way (www.hamiltonnolan.com)

submitted 9 months ago by alyaza@beehaw.org to c/usnews@beehaw.org

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[–] ptz@dubvee.org 23 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (23 children)

My only concern with that, which is likely shared by others, was addressed beautifully in the last paragraph of the article:

The second common objection is “Impartiality! We don’t want the government’s dirty money tainting the news!” Okay. Time to get over that. It is possible to insulate journalists from public money at least as well as they were insulated from the private money of advertisers. If your position is that public money will irrevocably taint journalism but the biggest companies in America buying ads will not, I submit that you have not thought about this issue very deeply. Furthermore, there are already existing examples of states funding journalism, evidence that the nature of this problem is dawning, at least in progressive states.

That is a very good point to which I have no counter-argument. In fact, if we look at BBC as an example, they're publicly funded and maintain high credibility and a high degree of press freedom.

TL;DR: Public funding definitely won't make the situation worse, and there is evidence that it would improve things. I say give it shot.

[–] Smoke@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago

In fact, if we look at BBC as an example, they’re publicly funded and maintain high credibility and a high degree of press freedom.

Indeed, the BBC cannot be seen to give in to government pressure.

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