The letter carrier knows the truth

The other day I was sitting with an acquaintance who works for Austrian Post, one floor below the Board of Management. When we had a few beers, we somehow got on the subject of newspaper deliveries. He told me that virtually all newspapers in Austria declare a significantly higher circulation than they actually sell, so that they receive correspondingly higher subsidies from the state. Pallets of daily newspapers are destroyed by the post office every day. The post office is playing along, because it is also ringing the cash register.

I really get a thick neck there, because I have been a vehement opponent of any press funding for decades, and then he tells me this story. Why should any newspaper or other media receive press funding from taxpayers’ money at all? Anyone who writes junk that no one is interested in should bake bread, but should not continue to exist as a publisher at taxpayers’ expense.

If there were no press subsidies, half of the mainstream media, which in recent years have obediently ranted against vaccination opponents, would probably no longer exist. Who bites the hand that feeds them?
If this practice has been common practice for decades, as he told me, then it is time to write a few lines about it, although it is not to be assumed that any leading media would take this up, because after all they want to continue to exist at our expense.