Never knew news websites could survive without ads

As someone else has said it is publicly funded, it's the same with Australia's ABC news [1]. When you watch it on TV, I guess there are ads for its own shows but other than that they are not allowed run ads. Funnily there are ads shown on its stories on apple news, I always wondered if that was in some violation of the Australia Broadcasting Corporation Act [2].

[1]: https://www.abc.net.au [2]: https://www.legislation.gov.au/C2004A02723/2022-02-18/2022-0...

Re: Never knew news websites could survive without ads

#7

Post by blell » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 11:33 AM UTC

expedition32 wrote: post #5

jckahn wrote: post #4

Yes, when they are publicly funded. Are you a regular donor?

In my country the government sponsors a national independent news organisation. But this wouldn't work in America because it would immediately turn into Trump/Christian propaganda. The concept of organising your own opposition because journalism is one of the pillars of democracy.

There is publicly-funded media in my country too. Guess how they lean politically.

Re: Never knew news websites could survive without ads

#8

Post by GJim » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 11:44 AM UTC

blell wrote: post #7

expedition32 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country the government sponsors a national independent news organisation. But this wouldn't work in America because it would immediately turn into Trump/Christian propaganda. The concept of organising your own opposition because journalism is one of the pillars of democracy.

There is publicly-funded media in my country too. Guess how they lean politically.

> Guess how they lean politically.

I don't know. Tell me.

FWIW, our own publicly funded media tends to get criticised equally from fruitcakes at both ends of the political spectrum, so they are clearly doing something right!

Re: Never knew news websites could survive without ads

#9

Post by happymellon » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 12:50 PM UTC

GJim wrote: post #8

blell wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is publicly-funded media in my country too. Guess how they lean politically.

> Guess how they lean politically. I don't know. Tell me. FWIW, our own publicly funded media tends to get criticised equally from fruitcakes at both ends of the political spectrum, so they are clearly doing something right!

At least from observations in my country, our publicly funded media news is right wing, but get called out by right wingers as not being right wing enough and (falsely claimed to be centrist/left wing because they mention a right wing politician being a pervert).

After enough complaints they manage to move the overton window and the news is slightly more right wing. Repeat.

Re: Never knew news websites could survive without ads

#10

Post by botanrice » Mon, Mar 16, 2026, 4:31 PM UTC

akst wrote: post #6

As someone else has said it is publicly funded, it's the same with Australia's ABC news [1]. When you watch it on TV, I guess there are ads for its own shows but other than that they are not allowed run ads. Funnily there are ads shown on its stories on apple news, I always wondered if that was in some violation of the Australia Broadcasting Corporation Act [2]. [1]: https://www.abc.net.au [2]: https://www.legislatio…

heyo! you responded to a comment I made two months ago complimenting my personal site (https://concourse.codes & https://borice.exposed) and asking if I made the pixel art myself. I'm not sure how HackerNews notifications work so I'm just seeing it and wanted to say thank you, and also no, sadly, I did not make the pixel art myself. I am learning how as a separate endeavor, but in this case I fine-tuned midjourney on a set of windows 98 icons and then fed it photos of various things that I wanted to convert to pixel art. It works quite well and is fun tbh. anyways, thanks again & hope you're doing well <3