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by bruce511
1342 days ago
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I didn't down-vote you, but your argument has holes. Yes, people elect the govt, but they don't get to oversee every decision. So most people simply vote along part lines, because when you have a choice of 2, party affiliation is the only criteria that matters. And those people are only on the ballot in the first place because they are overwhelmingly party loyal. So then fundamentally media funding would be based on viewer numbers, not quality. I'm not sure that incentivising a pure head-count would lead to better quality. Facebook has fantastic viewer numbers, but is tgst the standard of journalism we aspire to? A better argument _against_ govt funding is that the media is there to hold power to account, which would seem to be impossible for the media to do if power was paying the bills. |
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Im assuming that you are talking about the Angloamerican political context because your arguments seem to be ones which people who are used to only that context make.
In the majority of the world, there arent 'party lines'. There are party PROGRAMS. Each party publicizes their program if they get elected, and ask for votes based on the program. If a coalition government is founded, the program of the government is created by negotiations in between the member parties by combining their programs based on their electoral weights. It works very well.
The same party programs would decide how to distribute the public funding, and based on what criteria.
> And those people are only on the ballot in the first place because they are overwhelmingly party loyal.
It doesn't work like that outside the US or the UK where FPTP is used. A large swath of parties in Europe use internal elections in which the leadership is elected based on their own program, just like how a party is elected to the government based on its program.
> So then fundamentally media funding would be based on viewer numbers, not quality. I'm not sure that incentivising a pure head-count would lead to better quality. Facebook has fantastic viewer numbers, but is tgst the standard of journalism we aspire to?
Facebook does not classify itself as a news organization. If it does, it will have to oblige by the journalism regulations in those countries. The US has practically none, obviously, so it wouldnt make a difference. But for the rest of the world that isnt a problem.
> A better argument _against_ govt funding is that the media is there to hold power to account, which would seem to be impossible for the media to do if power was paying the bills
That's the case with private media as of this moment.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/five-reason...
And that's the UK. And that's the most blatant and unrepentant. The US is phenomenally worse with ~3 corporations consolidating a whopping 90% of the media and news and the people have absolutely no say in it since there is absolutely no alternative that can compete against those due to the capital difference.