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Comment by nerdbert | Hacker News Reader

We can play that all day. Pharmaceutical, oil, car, agribusiness, and other companies that receive massive amounts of government subsidies, contribute a huge share of every major media outlet's ad revenue.

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The corresponding problem for ad-supported media isn't that the media won't criticize the government, it's that the media won't criticize the interests of the advertiser, e.g. by opposing pharma subsidies. But the viewer can see who the outlet's advertisers are and impute their bias, because they can see the ads.

How about when NBC, one of the main cheerleaders for the homicidal war in Iraq, was owned by a defense contractor that made billions selling weapons (GE)?

NBC would then be a media organization with significant government funding, so it should get the tag.

They're not owned by GE anymore though. They're owned by Comcast, which... maybe it should still get the tag.

If you can agree that it is objectively true that it is state funded, why are you uncomfortable with labeling it as such?

Because the important distinction here is between (1) media that is state-funded in the sense that the state owns it and guides its editorial priorities, and (2) media that is state-funded in the sense that like almost every other enterprise, some small share of its operating budget is a consequence of state spending.

Calling (2) "state-funded" when the signal was clearly intended to indicate (1) is disingenuous and eliminates the value of the signal.

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