Der neue NHK-Chef verspricht, den Rückgang der Einnahmen aus den Zuschauergebühren zu stoppen

It’s a tough problem isn’t it. As I understand it, the NHK was originally aimed to be decoupled from government influence by having a fee extracted from people who use the service. But I’m pretty certain that the government leans on the NHK to influence their stories anyway, 空気を読む, which really just makes NHK’s job harder to be relevant in any context. They do proper investigative journalism, and make life hard for the government, they get leaned on, or they do puff pieces and try to not step on anyone’s toes and become irrelevant.

I may be a bit biased, but Australia’s ABC seems a pretty good example for what works as an independent government funded broadcaster. Obviously there are problems, with the ABC head office raided by the government when they reported on [Australian war crimes in Afghanistan](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-05/abc-raided-by-australian-federal-police-afghan-files-stories/11181162?utm_source=abc_news_app&utm_medium=content_shared&utm_campaign=abc_news_app&utm_content=other), and then the very strange stuff going on with [FriendlyJordies, the ABC, organized crime and the government](https://youtu.be/HYIwk4qL2os?si=4ARpQUD-DCLGHs-v)