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Notes -
ABC Australia and the SBS have also been labelled, but they have given signs that they don't plan to throw a fit about it.
I wonder what the difference is.
It might be that the abc and sbs have a better relationship with the public - even though they often push progressive propaganda, they still have an affectionate place in a lot of Australians' hearts, because even in the 21st century there were a lot of places in Australia where they were the only television channels you could access. There have been some big pushes by some of the conservative media in Australia to get the government to reduce their funding, but they get a lot of push back from more rural areas.
The CBC used to be this at least through the 90s -- I used to have the radio on in the background essentially all through my waking hours.
Now I basically only listen at all in the truck, and play a kind of social justice bingo where I switch the station after hearing two egregious CW statements by hosts or 'expert guests'.
I can usually get through the hourly news, but that's about it -- there's roughly four half-hour segments per week that I don't mind listening to, plus a bunch of Toronto bubble stuff that's not that interesting but fairly unoffensive. (mainly unfunny comedians that can't survive on their own merits)
This is actually pretty sad for me -- to the extent that "government funded" is not a sin in and of itself, I appreciated the radio as a way of tying the country together -- Peter Gzowski, or political comedy shows that lampooned all the silly politicians equally I would argue had value inasmuch as they could espose the nation to quirky stories that they wouldn't otherwise hear about. It's a big country after all. This activity probably wouldn't be commercially successful, but did create a cohesive national identity -- so as government functions go, there are worse ones.
Now that it's all white-guilt all the time, might as well burn it with fire I guess -- but the dream would be to fire virtually everyone and send offer letters to the people still slogging it out in small-town newspapers across the country, with a mandate to inform instead of indoctrinate. (burn it with fire it is, then)
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