3 ms·

> State financing and governmental curation of content is the worst thing you can think of if you want freedom of the press. You can have public funding with i

> State financing and governmental curation of content is the worst thing you can think of if you want freedom of the press. You can have public funding with independent editorial control and content curation. This is how most publicly funded news outlets work in liberal democracies, such as the BBC.

smsm42 9y ago
What's "independent"? If someone doesn't work for government, it doesn't mean he is "independent" - everybody has their opinions and biases and peer networks and so on. If somebody does work for the government, they are certainly not "independent" in any sensible meaning of the word. How would you ensure that "independent editorial control" would not oppress unpopular opinions? Institute yet another independent curator of curators? And then the third one and fourth one? Why not just leave the people alone and instead of having a dozen curatorial organizations just let them themselves choose what they want to read and listen to? You think they are not able of figuring it by themselves? > This is how most publicly funded news outlets work in liberal democracies, such as the BBC. Most of those outlets are very biased and open only to particular set of opinions. Including, of course, BBC. While they manage to occasionally produce high-quality content, they certainly nowhere near providing an adequate representation of the spectrum of opinion existing in the society. Fortunately, in most liberal democracies state-run media does not enjoy the monopoly on information, thus this bias is easily corrected by a gamut of other media outlets. However, since private media is capable of representing the whole gamut of opinions anyway, and to produce high-quality content too, and there is no discernable advantage in public media in that regard, what's the point of having it at all?

3 ms·

> State financing and governmental curation of content is the worst thing you can think of if you want freedom of the press. You can have public funding with i

by 96aeb1e335 9y ago

smsm42 9y ago
What's "independent"? If someone doesn't work for government, it doesn't mean he is "independent" - everybody has their opinions and biases and peer networks and so on. If somebody does work for the government, they are certainly not "independent" in any sensible meaning of the word. How would you ensure that "independent editorial control" would not oppress unpopular opinions? Institute yet another independent curator of curators? And then the third one and fourth one? Why not just leave the people alone and instead of having a dozen curatorial organizations just let them themselves choose what they want to read and listen to? You think they are not able of figuring it by themselves? > This is how most publicly funded news outlets work in liberal democracies, such as the BBC. Most of those outlets are very biased and open only to particular set of opinions. Including, of course, BBC. While they manage to occasionally produce high-quality content, they certainly nowhere near providing an adequate representation of the spectrum of opinion existing in the society. Fortunately, in most liberal democracies state-run media does not enjoy the monopoly on information, thus this bias is easily corrected by a gamut of other media outlets. However, since private media is capable of representing the whole gamut of opinions anyway, and to produce high-quality content too, and there is no discernable advantage in public media in that regard, what's the point of having it at all?