[joebiden2]

If something is funded by a government and employs folks, they will feel obligated to agree to some official government position. Even in germany this is observable.

Insofar I simply don't share your view, but this is fair to me. I can agree with your last sentence, it would probably be better this way.

[vintermann]

I agree, but two points:

1. It's not unique to government, this is exactly how, say, Rupert Murdoch or Jeff Bezos exercise their media power as well.

2. The sense of loyalty comes before the paycheck. You don't get to make decisions in the first place unless the people who appointed you are very confident that you see things their way.

[joebiden2]

Also agree. There should be tags for "Amazon Affiliated" or "Murdoch Affiliated", but there should even more be a tag for "Independent Journalist".

The latter are, unfortunately, mostly in jails today, be it in Russia, in China or even in the US.

[Timon3]

Wouldn't the tag "independent journalist" make you dependent on Twitter? Following the analogy of "government funding necessarily means government influence", Twitter can give and take these labels arbitrarily (as they've done with NBC). Any independent journalist would be careful about stories on Twitter, since they might take away the tags, no?

[vintermann]

True, but you don't need Twitter's permission to start doing journalism on Twitter (nor do you have to care much about how they label you).

You absolutely need NBC's permission before you can start doing journalism on NBC.

My whole point was that governments don't need to get heavy handed to get a compliant press, since they can engineer it up front. The important filtering of news happens not at the desk, but at the hiring.

[Marsymars]

I think also, notably, “advertiser-funded media”.