Well, one is funded by the public, and the other is run by the govt.
It’s the difference between CBC, BBC, and NPR vs TASS or Russia Today.
I’m not sure how best to explain it. If you can explain what it is about apples and orange trees that you have difficulty distinguishing, then maybe I can help you out.
And if you truly do not see a difference between CBC and TASS, then any claims you make about biased media should be dismissed as the ravings of an idiot.
If a news source is funded by the public, how is that different from being run by the government? I get how NPR gets it funding. But where does CBC get its funding?
There’s a distinction between a government funding a news organization, but allowing it to operate independently (and even cover news events or presenting opinion in which the government is criticized), and a government controlling what that news organization covers, and what it says (which nearly always amounts to presenting the government in a favorable light). That is the difference.
Once the government funds a news organization, what prevents it from controlling it? It doesn’t seem like government-funded media has a good track record.
If something is run by the govt, then the govt determines who it hires and fires, what stories it runs.
If it is funded by the public, then that is not the case. It is an independent entity that makes its own choices as to staffing and coverage.
Do you really think that there is no difference between CBC and TASS?
If it’s a functioning democratic republic, which doesn’t generally try to crush public dissent, and which has set up its state-funded news organization with an independent board of directors and editors, which are allowed to present all sides of a story, that’s what prevents it.
On the other hand, if the government in question is an autocracy or totalitarian regime, odds are really high that they are also going to be controlling the output of their state-run news organization.
Also…
The BBC, for one, has an outstanding track record. Government-funded media in countries which also pursue other means to suppress public discourse doesn’t have a good track record, no.
I mean, nothing, I suppose, it could choose to take them over and run them like TASS. But that is the case with any media outlet. The govt could choose to take over FOX or MSNBC.
Really? So you really think that the BBC, CBC, NPR, PBS and the rest have a poor track record?
Again, using the BBC news operation as an example, as it is described in Wikipedia:
This certainly does get questioned, of course, though by both the government and the opposition; as Wikipedia goes on to state:
Can we stop calling political commentators and news readers journalists?
My bad – I should have said “If it’s a functioning democratic state.” The United Kingdom, one of the examples we’re talking about, isn’t a republic. 
Sur - that’s why I always read the weekend newspaper for an in-depth summary and analysis of the week’s events. Daily analysis isn’t as effective, IMHO.
It’s so amusing when someone admits their strong opinions on a subject are based on . . . absolutely nothing!
Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Well, that’s horsepuckey, of course. We are not entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our informed opinions. Without research, without background, without understanding, it’s nothing. It’s just bibble-babble. It’s like a fart in a wind tunnel folks.
Harlan Ellison
Now, @EastUmpqua if you’d be so kind, stay downwind.
Isn’t the BBC funded by the television license fee, which is completely separate from normal taxes in the UK? That’s what I remember being a big argument of how it remains independent of the government.
I also note that, well, they report on other countries. Back when I still checked the news every day, it was usually from the BBC website, as I knew they wouldn’t have any US biases. (I realized that doing this caused me a lot of anxiety about things I couldn’t control, so cut back on news consumption.)
I also would never recommend getting actual news from the 24-hour networks. I may go there for some analysis (which I treat the way I could any possibly biased analysis) but not for the news itself. I still try to go for the least sensationalist news I can find for actual news (and not just entertaining/heartwarming stories, which I also seek out for balance).
I think I and the OP can find common ground in the idea that cable news isn’t good. I just don’t think CNN is an especially bad example.
I don’t think qualifications would work.
e.g. Tucker Carlson recently used the defense in court that his show should not be taken seriously by a reasonable viewer. In a sane world, that would be far, far more damning to his audience even than his lack of qualifications in journalism or politics. But no, his audience watch his show to confirm their beliefs, they are of course not interested in hearing that he’s an unreliable source.
My opinion about regulating the news remains that we need to get to a place where a mainstream news broadcaster should be as wary of making up shit about election fraud as they would be about making up shit about Disney.
I haven’t figured out how it would work in practice though. Exactly who should be able to sue who, and whether the punishment should be fines or disclaimers or whatever. My opinion is that it’s possible and I don’t believe it affects freedom of speech (you can say what you like, but if later it turns out to have been wild claims without any sources, there’s consequences for that).
I remember when the whole “fair and balanced” thing, before the phrase was stolen by Fux Noize, started in the 1990s. CNN was notorious for having the most RWNJ commentators they could find, for the “balanced” part.
Needless to say, that didn’t last very long.
And I’ll never forget the summer of 2010, when CNN was all day, all the time, “You shouldn’t bully gay teenagers, because it might make them commit suicide.” I remember the year because of some other things that were going on in my life at the time.
I’d love to think there would be room for that, but I’m skeptical that the nature of today’s journalistic landscape would allow for something like that to be anything other than something individuals opt into.
Even if the “real” journalistic outlets required some kind of society membership or held their employees accountable for breaches of the code, you’d still have your National Enquirers, NewsMaxes, and the like that are more concerned with things other than journalistic integrity, and in all likelihood would press for more lurid/sexy/angering stories despite the code, because that’s what makes money.
And that’s ultimately the problem here; since the consumer has multiple choices, the competing news sources all have to essentially choose what market segments they’re going to compete for. NPR and Fox News aren’t really competing for the same set of people for example, and what’s going to make for compelling and interesting news for an NPR consumer isn’t going to be the same for a Fox News consumer. So while journalism still has its place, it’s not necessarily the primary thing people look for when choosing their news provider.
This seems to be a rather pervasive modern thing- we have way more choice in almost everything than in the past, and it has IMO, caused our society to be more fragmented in more dimensions than ever before. People didn’t have the same variety of churches, news outlets, restaurants, grocery stores, sports teams, sports themselves to follow, TV shows, etc…
It’s the former. I’ll own that. I thought this forum (BBQ pit) would be a good venue to talk about media bias. I’d trust the CBC over Tass any day. But Russia isn’t a Stalinist dictatorship these days.
Of course I see the difference. I don’t trust media funded by the government. Nor media funded by click bait. There must be a better way.
Yes, media funded by unicorn farts.
BBC and NPR are among the most trustworthy news sources, and both get some funding from the government. Both are more trustworthy, or at least more informative, than any of the cable news sources, more trustworthy than nearly all newspapers. They both do groundbreaking investigative work, expose problems with government. NPR always discloses when an article covers one of their sponsors.
What other way do you think there is?
You can have it funded by the public or you can have it funded by private interests. There really are no other options to fund something.
As far as private interests, there are some options. The most common, that of sponsorship by advertisers, is the clickbate that you bemoan.
The other options would be some sort of subscriber or patron model. But in that case, the journalism needs to please the individuals that are giving it money.
In addition, you also have people who claim to be more than journalists. Michael Moore (who is basically irrelevant these days, but I still think is a good example) once said this about himself when asked if he considered himself a journalist.
So how the hell would you classify something like that?