How is independence defined? In France, every big newspaper is funded partially by the state. The total amount is close to 2 billions euros, with big news paper getting from 5 to 7 millions a year. Without this they will close. Sure, on the surface they criticize some government action, but the real control is more about the questions they don’t ask, the topics they don’t cover and the not-so-subtle political orientation of every article published. Control by big entreprise is the second factor that make they not really independent. Again, this make the newspaper not challenging anything when is comes to corporate interests. In a way it’s better in the Hungarian case because things are really obvious so it may trigger people to take action for a change.
Funding != control. Newspapers are floundering all over the world. It's great that the state ensures the continued existence of a healthy and diverse press through independent grants. The potential for abuse is low if the rules for awarding those grants are transparent and the comitee that oversees it is plural.
Because the choice isn't "government money" or "no money", it's state (democratic) money or corporate (undemocratic) money! Looking at things like the murdoch empire we can see which we prefer.
There's usually a relationship between being funded by and being critical of something. That may not be true in all cases, but it's true often enough that we ask everyone to disclose it when they speak on something/someone they get money from.
This doesn't even have to be an explicit thing. You don't need to threaten people to cut their funding, they will like the system the way it is set up, because they profit from it being set up that way. You can't be independent from something if you depend on it to pay your bills.
I think you’re right. The best guarantee would be not to depend too much from any single source (ads, subsidies, private investment, etc).
A democracy has a vested interest in keeping independent newspapers afloat. Subsidies are not shocking, provided that this is impartial ans according to well-defined criteria, and that it does not become the main source of income for the media.
France has the Canard Enchaîné, which is thriving and funded only by sales and subscriptions, although it is well integrated in the political landscape. There are other examples in other countries but far too few.
Around the world there are numerous instances of Government-funded news publishers and broadcasters that have superior editorial independence than their commercial competitors. The BBC in the UK and the ABC in Australia come to mind.
Funding CAN mean editorial control if the funder deems it so, but that's equally true of commercial media as it does public broadcasters. Unless you happen to like the political bias of Rupert Murdoch, it would be hard to argue that he doesn't exert more influence over his publications than the British and Australian governments do theirs.
What’s more ominous in France is the decline of journalists-owned newspapers.
> In a way it’s better in the Hungarian case because things are really obvious so it may trigger people to take action for a change.
That sounds dangerously naïve. I know gloom and self-hate is de rigueur in a broad part of the French population, but going from “also, France is bad” to “actually, maybe Hungary’s better” on a piece about the death of a democracy is a bit much.
