Not completely accurate... at least not in the sense most Americans think of it. The Beeb is funded almost entirely by TV licenses. True, this is still technically a tax, but it's not like the BBC has a limitless slush fund of income tax to draw upon.

Wikipedia actually has a really great breakdown of the funding.

If the U.S. government wants to have a government-run newspaper corp, then fine. Have it wholly funded by newspaper sales, then I have no problem. But as soon as general tax revenue is used to fund it, then forget it.

I was trying to refute the argument that a government-funded news source is necessarily plagued by conflicts of interests and results in poor journalism.

As to your point about the source of funding... Given that most written news is moving online, would you support a tax on internet service to support written journalism?

I agree with your point, and taxing internet to pay for newspapers would be horrible... but it is the kind of funding scheme I would expect from the U.S. Congress.

NPR is very good.