Journos' long affair with Twitter/X may be winding down, Musk's just not into their links anymore
Plus! CNN builds a paywall, the Star goes rogue on Poilievre, science startles the Washington Post and Bari Weiss's Free Press tears a strip off the New York Times
Lots happening this week, but let’s dive in with some crystal ball gazing concerning future shifts - possibly seismic - in the way news is delivered and consumed. Then we’ll check out the latest exchanges of fire between media and the Conservatives.
Two major news organizations have announced that the free ride on their websites is over. CNN.com, which has more views in Canada than CTV.ca, will start charging $3.99 US per month for access in the USA, while Reuters will only be available to those willing to pay $1 US a month. The fees are expected to expand to more countries in the months ahead. It will be interesting to see if CTV.ca and CBC.ca - the two most popular Canadian news sites, follow suit.
A great many Canadian legacy media companies still appear frozen in the headlights of the internet, unable to acquire any new skills beyond getting better at soliciting government subsidies. But not Village Media, which boasts 5 million weekly readers through 147 local news sites, many of them new launches. The latest of those is in Toronto - a free morning newsletter cheekily entitled The Stir.
While much of the rest of the industry stares into the financial abyss created when the Online News Act pushed Meta into banning news links, Jeff Elgie’s Village Media team decided to create its own social media platform. It’s called SPACES and according to its website it will revive “the lost art of community engagement … SPACES aims to strengthen the bonds between neighbours, reignite local passions, and rebuild the trust that has been eroded by impersonal and divisive platforms.”
It launches in Sault Ste. Marie this month.
Elgie seems to have picked up on the fact that, even if news links are again permitted on Facebook and Instagram, the free ride there is over. Meta has been “de-emphasizing” news through its algorithms globally for some time now, particularly since media launched campaigns to make them pay for the privilege.
Elon Musk’s X is moving in the same direction. As that unfolds, there will be less incentive for journalists to be posting their opinions - often foolishly - along with links to their stories at the behest of their revenue-seeking employers.
X is now encouraging long-form comments and downranking links (ever since Substack introduced Notes, for instance, it has been a complete waste of time to try to promote its content on X. Trust me on that).
Bottom line for Canadian news organizations? Global social media just isn’t that into you anymore and it’s certainly not interested in being your fairy godmother. Or your sugar daddy.
So, maybe stop waiting for the government to solve your problems and, like Village Media, show a little initiative and innovation. Just a thought.
The fallout continued last week from CTV’s appalling decision to digitally manipulate clips to make Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre appear to be speaking words he never spoke.
Poilievre appeared on Bill Carroll’s 580 CFRA show in Ottawa and used the occasion to point out that the Conservatives and CTV were once again on speaking terms. He also gave a little background to his party’s history with Bell (which owns CTV and 580 CFRA), pointing to how his history as a supporter of foreign competition in the Canadian telecom industry likely made him not too popular with BCE Inc. CEO Mirko Bibic. We’ll get into the vertical integration of Canada’s communications industry in the future, but what Poilievre also did was call out anti-conservative bias elsewhere in media, using Canadian Press having to post four corrections on a story earlier this year as an example. Carroll mentions his own past frustrations with anti-conservative bias in newsrooms.
Inexplicably, the Toronto Star - in an otherwise professional report on the radio interview - couldn’t resist inserting this bizarre sentence:
“It continues a theme from Poilievre, who, in the days following CTV’s error, has accused the network of favouring the Liberals in its coverage, a claim the Conservative leader has also falsely levied (emphasis mine) against other outlets including the CBC, the Canadian Press and the Toronto Star.”
What the Actual is a phrase like that doing in there? If the Toronto Star wants to defend itself, let it do so on its editorial pages, not by its reporters calling Poilievre a liar (“falsely levied” is attributed to no other source) in the middle of a news story. At least dial it back by writing “… in its coverage, a contentious claim the Conservative leader has also levied against ….”
The Star appears, in its anger, to have reinforced Poilievre’s opinion regarding embedded anti-Conservative bias in the Parliamentary Press Gallery. Yeesh.
The need for more science grads in newsrooms and journalism schools was illustrated recently on the front page of the Washington Post. Anyone with the most cursory understanding of the earth’s history and the existence of fern fossils in the High Arctic would be aware that the planet has gone through many shifts in shape and climate.
Still, the Post found the news “surprising.” Enjoy.
Congratulations to the folks at Western Standard who, while eschewing the lure of government funds and feeling the pain of lack of access to Facebook, have still found a way to launch new products. West Coast Standard went up two weeks ago, Saskatchewan Standard early last week and Alberta Standard on Oct. 4. Western Standard will continue to function as an aggregator of news from all three.
Criticizing journalists is one thing. Assaulting them is quite another and that’s exactly what shockingly happened to Rishi Nagar, host and news director of 106.7 RED FM.
This Calgary Herald story contains a video link of the assault and it’s worth watching for the random and sudden nature of the beating Naga suffered, apparently due to his coverage of local Khalistani nationalists. Poilievre and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith both posted their concerns on social media. No comments, at time of writing, had come from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau or NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.
I have no problem with the Toronto Star being a champion of progressive causes. Nor am I concerned by National Post expressing a distinctly conservative view. That is what freedom of the press is all about. It is vital, however, that there be ideological diversity within the news ecosystem so that media hold each other to account.
Oliver Wiseman of The Free Press did a masterful job of just that recently when he summarized reporting on the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. It’s worth sharing.
“Perhaps you’ve heard the tragic news by now: Israel killed a charismatic and beneficent man of peace in Beirut on Friday. Okay, not exactly.
“I am referring to Hassan Nasrallah, the butcher who led Hezbollah, a ruthless terror organization, for 30 years. But to read some of the obituaries published since his death is to be left with a very different impression.
“The New York Times made Nasrallah sound a bit like Bob Marley, telling readers he “maintained there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews, and Christians.” The Associated Press went with “charismatic and shrewd” in the headline of their obit. And missing from NPR’s story: the words terrorist or murderer. Though they made sure to say that “his organization also provides social services.”
Thanks go out to the Toronto Star for publishing my op-ed on the CTV controversy and to Epoch Times Canada for hosting my take on Bill C-143, which would criminalize “downplaying” and other forms of residential school “denialism.” Also thanks to Jesse Brown at Canadaland for giving a shoutout to last week’s The Rewrite. There was a 30 percent increase in The Rewrite subscriptions last month. Thanks to every one of them and to all of you for the encouragement. Please feel free to share - ideally with a restack - to help continue to build readership.
Peter Menzies is a senior fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, a former publisher of the Calgary Herald and a previous vice-chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).
WAPO has been right there at the forefront of climate/insane "hottest day/month/year ever" nonsense, going back millions of years, then they publish a graph which shows that to the best of our knowledge we are living in the coldest period in 500 million years.
Which many of us already know, because we can read.
Thanks for republishing that.
And of course most of the major media opposes Poilievre. $$
I always appreciate your perspective.