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by babyloneleven 2607 days ago
It shouldn't be part of the Executive but its own branch, as independent as the judiciary
3 comments

How is it going to work?

The judiciary is nominated by the executive, which I can’t see working well for this. Presidents from both parties would universally opt to staff the branch with journalists that were soft on government and politicians in general.

Same problem if they get appointed by congress.

As for elections, yea what could go wrong there? America is pretty level headed. We would never elect some kind of partisan maniac to an important position like this.

All the branches of government are inherently political.

Well, this is strictly theoretical. I can't imagine our politicians wanting to launch a news service, let alone an unbiased one.

But if they did, one option would be to hire an editorial board from nationally esteemed people from outside the political system. You know, draw the membership from Nobel prize winning scientists and authors, Olympic medal winners, people like that. They would then hire and oversee journalists who knew how to journalism.

If you're worried that would lead to olympic medals becoming politically biased, you could have the committee appoint their own replacements.

"Entirely unbiased" may be impossible, but "relatively less biased than Fox News or The Guardian" sounds achievable.

Basically, we should fund PBS to BBC levels
Basically, we should fund PBS
He said unbiased. No matter the quality of reporting, NPR has a clear bias. As does BBC for that matter, even less obscured.
> independent as the judiciary

In theory or in practice, because what we have now (and what many would argue we have always had) is not very independent.

Senior Judges are appointed by the executive