It's telling, though, that in Germany, it had to be an independent website (not funded by the public/government) that had to publish an investigation into government spying (netzpolitik). Not only that, netzpolitik got threatened with an investigation into possible treason.
So it seems in order to be independent from private influence, media has must depend on government funding. But, in order to be independent from government influence (and thus be free to report on government transgressions), a media organization must be privately funded. Which one should we be more scared of?
"So it seems in order to be independent from private influence, media has must depend on government funding."
Public funding has nothing to do with government funding.
Netzpolitik was indeed threatened, but not by public media. Public media strongly supported Netzpolitik when it became clear that investigations were going on against them.
So it seems in order to be independent from private influence, media has must depend on government funding. But, in order to be independent from government influence (and thus be free to report on government transgressions), a media organization must be privately funded. Which one should we be more scared of?