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Comment by tjmc | Hacker News Reader

> There is absolutely, positively no such thing as a free press sponsored by public funds directed by the government.

Care to cite any references? What about the BBC and (Australian) ABC? Both have been huge thorns in the side of their respective governments over the years. In the case of the ABC, they definitely lean towards a liberal editorial view and this was maintained throughout 12 years of the previous conservative government's rule.

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If you actually dig into the de facto structure of the government, rather than the de jure, I bet you'd find that the conservatives never actually controlled the purse strings. Remember, there's more to controlling the purse strings that first-order apparent raw voting power. What would it have cost the conservatives to shut off the money flow? If the liberals made it more than the benefits, then regardless of the de jure structure of governmental power, the conservatives never had de facto power to cut the funding off.

He who pays the piper calls the tune. If you think you've found a place where there's an exception, you haven't correctly identified the payer.

That's a false dichotomy; it's not a question of whether specific public broadcasters have or have not been a "thorn in the side" of the governments that sponsor them. And even that is a subjective assessment, since we don't know what hasn't been reported as a result of political influence, or whether intra-governmental conflicts haven't been affected by some factions having more influence over the press than others.

I don't think jerf was making an empirical claim - a "free press" dependent upon political financing and governance is a contradiction in terms.

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.

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