Hacker News Reader

Comment by sajithdilshan | Hacker News Reader

Don’t forget the mandatory radio broadcast fee every household has to pay even if you don’t read or watch any of those propaganda channels

View on HN

And if we are comparing USA vs Germany, taxes to gas (car fuel) which is much more expensive in the EU, because of taxes.

Same in Denmark, and it really boils my piss. DR (Danmarks Radio) is 80% trash. If I was dictator in Denmark I would abolish it on the spot. I won't deny that DR produces things that are not trash or only mildly trash, but I have no interest in it. People who want it can fund it themselves. State financed reality TV is an abomination.

It doesn't seem to be the same then as in Germany. German public broadcast is arguably fine, when compared to private TV and radio broadcasters, many private newspapers and probably all social media platforms.

I don't know how bad it is in Denmark, but keep in mind that journalism that is not subject to profit seeking and independent on whatever billionaire owns the outlet, is not only valuable because you personally consume it, but also because it shapes the public discourse and thus indirectly may have influence on political decisions.

i agree that the private TV is no better, and the public TV has some good stuff. but what confuses me every time is that the law in germany expressly forbids the public funding of printed newspapers because it could be used as a propaganda tool but the same law does allow the funding of radio and TV and internet publications (the last is now really weird of you consider that printed newspapers are now online too)

But a state financed news outlet is no better, because it invariably ends up being government propaganda, since that's the hand that feeds it.

There is no perfect world, and so it isn't perfect, but the separation between financing and content selection is there.

IMO it doesn't need to be perfectly neutral and independent to be valuable for the population and the democracy. I'd love for it to be without the flaws the system has, I just think it is hard to install the perfect system, given the incentives of the involved decision-makers.

So then you can choose to pay for it but don't force those of us who vehemently disagree to pay as well.

That is such a lame demand. Everybody being forced to pay for public broadcast is just the same as for every tax and the mandatory social security. People not reading books pay taxes that go to public libraries. People rich enough to send their children to private schools still have to pay taxes that go to public schools. People very much opposed to nuclear energy have payed taxes that went into nuclear power plants. People much opposed to the closure of the nuclear power plants payed taxes that were used to close down those power plants. That's how the system works, for better or worse.

No, it is specifically totally-not-a-tax because a tax for propaganda would be unconstitutional. Nor would the salaries it pays as well as the money it pumps into further private companies be even remotely acceptable for public institutions.

No the ÖRR are not fine. Making students pay so talkshow millionaires can live luxurious lifestyles is not fine. Forcing people to fincance propagande against their own interests is not fine. Giving completely one sided reporting such a special platform is not fine.

A horrible regressive tax that should be abolished, as should be the "news" and entertainment it pays for, but it's not very relevant cost for someone one who makes close to 100k.

Is there any news source you wouldn't call propaganda?

Yes, one I could choose to not financially support when its clearly acting against my interests.

Not really, there are certain very well researched and written articles which present the facts as they are and letting the audience to use their own judgment and form an opinion in few news outlets. But most of the time every news outlet is just pushing their own political, cultural or doomsday agenda.

The German public broadcasters, especially the Tagesschau, are the worst. Also this is a really good video that explains how crazily the public broadcasters are creating the propaganda in a subtle manner to push their own agenda rather than being neutral. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46MP_G8CKFA)

I watched the first minutes of the video, but the narration is pretty cringe, I couldn't bear it. It didn't say anything about subtle propaganda, seemed to be mostly Schadenfreude.

the key criticism seems to be that they interviewed people on the street that turned out to be either known political activists or their own employees or contractors. in other words instead of asking random people they picked people they knew.

one criticism i didn't get towards the end is that one particular politician would always give the same response to the same question. that confused me because why wouldn't she? why is that poor? doesn't make any sense to me. but that's unrelated to the criticism of the TV reporting.

Check the timestamp from 4:00-5:10 and 5:50-6:30. One would actually think that those were just random people on the street and their opinion, but they were strategically placed insiders.

The solution to this is making sure to watch news from opposing viewpoints, not avoiding news though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com