Many countries have tax funded public television. In many countries one could argue that public television (BBC,CBC,ARD,ZDF,NPR,etc) carry generally high quality programming and often hard hitting investigative features compared to private interests.
Government, as professional public service, does not have to mean executive branch and laws for separation of power exist
And, of course, to the point, many have a state paid public broadcaster for news and other programs (BBC, France does, Germany iirc does, Italy, etc) - and it's not some niche channels delegated to upper middle class viewers (like, I think, NPR is, if that's indeed public).
Just a small correction. They are not state-run but run by a sort of public trust. There are meticulous mechanisms that are intended to keep the public broadcasting system independent of government influence. These work to some degree, and are just ridiculous boongoggles in other cases. E.g. to be independent, they are not funded by taxes, but have their own non-government agency (GEZ) that collects broadcast fees. Nowadays every household has to pay, but even a couple of years ago you could opt out if you didn't have a TV or radio. The GEZ had a special squad of investigators to check if you owned a TV or radio.
All in all it works fairly well, but it is somewhat elitist and panders to a strange bouquet of special interests that strangely mirror the composition of its "neutral" governing body.
All in all though, German radio is pretty good and public television isn't dominated by ads and has high quality content, especially if you are into more high-brow cultural productions. And the news are excellent.
Well lots of countries do have public broadcasting. There is an extensive list compiled here. [1]
It even does have its uses, if it were not for the abomination it is in Germany. If it were not for the fact, that the public broadcasters are controlled by political parties and clearly are everything but unbalanced (ok, compared to the US they are, but non the less).
I would gladly pay the money for them, if it were not for the fact, that most of this goes into financing soccer rights and formula 1 rights. And some "Volksmusik" shit and such.
I have to pay (being a German citizen with our own household).
I could clearly see a real usecase for public broadcasting, not tied to advertising revenue, doing real investigative journalism and doing great documentations. But I am being naive here. And a dreamer.
Many countries have public media organisations that are funded by taxes or a license fee, and run in the public interest without a strong profit motive. The BBC is a well-known example, but many countries have their own version.
I don't think this is a solution though. These organisations are distrusted just as much as anything else.
Most western european countries have public media that operate independently from the government.
Many forms are possible: the British BBC single broadcaster model to the fragmented model of my country with many competing broadcasting associations. I think most models work out well enough.
Of course, comparing to Pravda is a straw man argument: I was promoting a balance between (independent) public and commercial media
Other (mostly European) countries rely on a tax to fund or partially fund state TV/radio so that the government doesn't broadcast government propaganda over state TV or control it by cutting their budget. It's also easier for them to make cultural shows as opposed to Oprah style reality TV that's the equivalent of clickbait and sells ads. In some of these countries state run TV is the most propaganda/advertising free TV. BBC is one example.
> If governments dictate when media outlets receive funding and how much, then it is unlikely that said media companies will be overly critical of the government
Often public broadcasters are set up where their funding doesn't come from taxes but from a license fee that they collect themselves.
What I've seen in these countries is that public broadcasters still have a bias (due to journalists generally coming from the same background/education/maybe even geography) but it's not strictly aligned with whoever is currently in the government.
State-funded doesn't mean state-run. On it's face, I agree that government being remotely associated with media is a bad thing. The fact of the matter is, though, that the quality of reporting that comes out of publicly-funded news organizations generally exceeds that of their private counterparts.
BBC news is one example (corporate alternatives? Telegraph/Daily mail). In the US, the only good national source of news on television is the News Hour on PBS. Frontline, as dramatic as it is, is much more palatable and thorough than its corporate investigative-journalist counterparts. Similarly, Public radio stands alone as a good source of news and commentary.
Many European countries have followed the model of the BBC, with very good results. Holland (where I'm living) has an interesting model where public broadcasting organizations make tv/radio programs, and those organizations are allocated money and airtime by the government based on their membership/viewer numbers.
Just because there are conflict-of-interest problems with public (government) money funding the press doesn't mean that there aren't equally serious conflict-of-interest problems between private (commercial) money doing the same.
Don't forget that public television funded from taxes and mandatory fees is under full control of the goverment and didn't publish a single piece of information that critiques government for years now.
To emphasise, our national broadcasters are not our only broadcasters, so the funding of our media is not dependant on the government. There are commercial broadcasters as well.
Democracy requires an informed electorate and publicly funded broadcasters are a means to achieve that. The government must have as little control as possible over their funding to ensure their journalistic independence.
That's the guiding theory at resulted in most European countries having some variation of a public broadcaster funded by TV (formally radio) licences.
There are many implementation differences between countries and none of them are perfect but I would argue that those I'm familiar with serve their purpose.
In Germany, we have had public radio and tv stations for decades, funded by a tax-like mechanism for people owing tv and radio recievers. Since they are public instituions, political influence is obvious.
Contrary to jerf's assertions, however, it seems to work both ways: It provides news that is often carefully balanced and 'factual' and there are also formats that pursue a political agenda and publish inconvinient stuff.
German public media is not state sponsored. It’s an independent entity which is paid for by public fees (not taxes, the money never goes through the governments coffers). There are some levers that could be used to exert some level of control, for example the height of the fee is set by a commission that is partly under government control and many ex-politicians get elected into high positions, but all in all, public media is fairly well removed from the governments control here. The constitutional court watches over this pretty well, too. The system has been set up in such a fashion exactly due to the experiences under the nazi rule.
I’m currently more concerned about private media having an agenda that promotes the right.
There is a subtlety in underst and who feeds them. Public broadcasters in established western countries are beholden to a social class, not to the government of the day.
This type of arrangement does actually exist already. The BBC in the UK, and the ABC in Australia are both openly critical of governments - I know that the political right in Australia finds the ABC overly biased to the left, and the political left finds it overly biased to the right (although the right seems to be a bit more serious about this - they routinely try to hamstring the ABC when in power, whereas the left tends to increase funding).
Anyway, the point is that publicly funded broadcasters can and do criticise their governments.
Government, as professional public service, does not have to mean executive branch and laws for separation of power exist
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