Take past systems in DK. During the cold war a Moscow-friendly paper got subsidies on equal footing w/everyone else who qualified. Was that supporting dangerous propaganda or a tolerable result of a system that maximize for pluralism + minimize regulatory/political judgment of editorial content? 2/2

Agree no model is perfect, or will work everywhere. The 8 criteria for eligibility are a mix of objective criteria and criteria that will require at least a partially qualitative judgement by the independent media council. But none of them are "danger" or "propaganda" which are very subjective 1/2

What we can ask for is that they are honest about what they want and are willing to do - clarity on that rests on rivals challenging them, and civil society, journalists, and researchers continuing to independently assess priorities and whether words and actions are aligned. 4/4

Whatever you think about where public money is being invested, what the policy priorities are, we need to be clear: these decisions are taken by EU politicians - Merz, Macron, von der Leyen, Weber & co. They have a mandate, and should be held to account for how they use it. 3/4

Today, a Digital Omnibus being launched that European Digital Rights warns risks weakening "core EU laws like the GDPR and AI Act, and represent the biggest rollback of digital rights in EU history". 2/4

It is based on the work we did in a commission reviewing media subsidies in Denmark I had the privilege of chairing.

We were tasked with developing possible models for the future, and I have summarized key bits of our work here in the hope it will be useful elsewhere too. 2/2

Blaming it all on bullying may give them some temporary political cover. But the buck on this still stops in Europe, and we are the ones who will have to live with the consequences. 4/4

Maybe the Commission is seeking to roll back some of these rules because there are key people in Brussels and capitals across the continent who want to, rather than because someone in D.C. or on the West Coast want to? 3/4

It is obvious that there is a geopolitical dimension to this. But the EU and its biggest member states are not typically push-overs on the things that are actually important to them? 2/4

3) From a governance perspective, leadership needs a mandate from the board to handle crises. But public service media boards - due to the way they are composed - sometimes contain members that are critical of or hostile towards how the organization delivers on its mission. 3/3

2) As public service media are political creations, and the BBC formally &culturally committed to impartiality, it is hard to fight back against critics, whether political, from competitors, or others - any direct response risks coming across as partisan (and self-interested). 2/3

Whereas new political forces, including, for lack of a better term, 'populists' on both the left and the right, and many social movements, double down on digital platforms, despite all their built-in problems. 3/3

(Understandable given how some of them covered him.) It seems clear it is a shrinking number of establishment politicians who think of established news media as an important way to reach citizens (and even they often prefer social media rather than risk facing awkward questions) 2/3