In the US any media outlet that sends people to the white house press briefings is state controlled, so basically all of them. There is no mainstream media that isn't state controlled.
If the state has such a stranglehold on the public channels then that is the underlying problem. It would have the same control over private media if it needed to.
Public media and/or limited state support for private news media is absolutely vital for a functioning democracy.
I'm afraid it usually is - just think of ways to sway it. Now, I would love to agree it shouldn't be, but there is no concrete system I can think of that could decouple it well. Ownership of media by the state oftentimes makes it a propaganda arm of whichever party is ruling. Private ownership, even in case of heavy subsidies, implies ownership by capital...
State controlled media is certainly bad, but that is not implied by state ownership. In my experience state owned organisations provide better quality journalism than their commercial counterparts, and the gap is widening as commercial media race each other to the bottom.
All modern nations ( especially major nations ) have state media. No nation can exist without state media. Propaganda is a necessary condition for a nation.
All the major media companies are part of the state. If you think the NYTimes, Disney, CBS, etc are not part of the state, then you really haven't been paying attention.
The difference is that in some countries the state uses the government to control propaganda, in other countries the state uses the political party to control propaganda, in other countries the state uses money to control propaganda and in other countries it's a mishmash of some or all of these controls.
Also, there is a difference in level of control. Some assert total control while other have degrees of control to create an illusion of free press.
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