The end of the journalism world beckons and the industry pretends it’s not happening

Plus! Bell and Rogers join the corporate welfare queue as Mark Carney’s Liberals move to add hundreds of millions more in debt by directly funding “broadcasters,” too

Too often, I have told the story about how one’s world can collapse without realizing that it has. So forgive me if you’ve heard it before.

Many years ago, I was sitting with a group of newspaper publishers and editors in the Maple Leaf Lounge at Pearson airport and listening to a discussion regarding a recent decision that challenged what had once been an ethical line in the sand. One indicated that, hey, maybe it won’t be so bad because “remember how we all thought that putting ads on the front page would be the end of the world and it wasn’t?”

To which another replied, “ya but what if it was and we didn’t notice.”

I thought about that again - it has haunted me for a quarter of a century - the other day when debate erupted online following a news story posted by Blacklock’s Reporter. That report highlighted that National Observer, a profitable, Vancouver-based platform with a strong bias favouring a number of left-of-centre causes and environmentalism, was a leading recipient of a government fund. National Observer is also home to columnist Max Fawcett, who is as determined a fellow as you will ever meet when it comes to insisting that, if you don’t share his views, you may be suffering from some sort of cognitive disorder.

It also employed Bubble Pop girl Rachel Gilmore as a fact-checker during last year’s election.

In a world in which the press is free, the Observer is perfectly entitled to be whatever it wants, take money from whomever it wishes, oppose any and all pipelines and live or die on its beliefs and practices. In a world in which it is sustained and made profitable by tax dollars from people who don’t share its values, that freedom becomes more iffy. But that’s a debate for another day. To return to the topic at hand, Blacklock’s reported that, concerning National Observer and the Heritage Ministry’s Local Journalism Initiative:

“Payments totaled $1,377,773 in direct wage subsidies. The federal aid was in addition to $643,743 in separate grants paid by the heritage department to the National Observer under a Canadian Periodical Fund program, and $435,400 in sole-sourced federal news clipping contracts.”

This was over a five-year period of time (tougher to say on the clipping contracts). Unreported are the amounts it qualifies for from the Google fund - $185,822.33 last year - and tax credits up to $29,750 per newsroom employee. You can read the story here if you like, which details how National Observer successfully applied for LJI grants 23 times while its publisher, Linda Solomon-Wood, was a member of the panel deciding which applicants were successful. The Observer told Blacklock’s that Solomon-Wood recused herself from those decisions, but it is unclear what purpose it serves to have panel members who have to recuse themselves from doing the job they have been assigned or whether the recusal was in part. One would think assessing competitors’ applications would be as problematic as assessing one’s own.

All of which, lest people rush to conclusions, points to the need for more transparency from both the government and the industry regarding the dispersal of taxpayers’ money. To report on this should not be controversial; it should be routine.

So it’s good that Blacklock’s (which eschews government subsidies) is doing this, because outside of The Hub, also unsubsidized, no one else does except The Rewrite. Recipients insist there is no conflict in media taking government funds but then they won’t report on those government funds, which sort of proves there is a conflict.

Shining a little light on LJI, as with other funds, also serves the public by checking if it is operating in a fashion consistent with its mission statement, which is to:

“Support the creation of original civic journalism that covers the diverse needs of underserved communities across Canada.

“Communities are considered underserved if they are news deserts, communities where citizens do not have access to journalistic information about community issues and institutions because there are no daily or community newspapers or other media, for example community radio or television.”

That doesn’t sound like Vancouver, Fredricton, Winnipeg or Toronto, as another Blacklock’s story pointed out, but let’s move on. What really caught my eye was the response to the news from journalists themselves.

Adam Zivo, a well-respected freelancer and independent thinker, posted that “this story isn’t as scandalous as some people want it to be.” He went on to explain that’s because National Observer informs readers on its website that the government provides 20 per cent of its revenue. It does this while, regardless of this significant dependence, fiercely declaring itself independent.

Conservative commentator Michael Taube threw in with “The issue of the National Observer taking so much public funding isn’t important. Most publications/websites wouldn’t turn it down. It’s the fact that they get so much public funding that concerns me (and others).”

So, in only a few years, journalists‘ views have evolved to where it is now perfectly acceptable to take money from a subject of your coverage. It was left to former Edmonton Journal reporter and columnist Gary Lamphier to put the matter in perspective.

To top it all off, Marc Edge, a left-wing former academic, posted on Canadian Dimensions that government subsidies are not only harmless, they are essential. If you read it, you will find out that he tends to fetishize and was clearly alarmed by the “swarm” of “anti-subsidy” critics like me appearing before the Heritage committee.

And so it appears that the journalism world has indeed come to an end. And only a very few of us even noticed. It was a process.

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Speaking of collapse, the government stated in its economic update that it is planning to not only perpetuate its role in the newsrooms of the nation, it intends to expand it so that broadcasters - many of which are owned by massive, profitable companies such as Bell and Rogers - can also become government Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations. This will make them eligible for all the subsidies National Observer and others have been enjoying since 2019.

As Michael Geist noted, “Bell Media operates CTV News, the country’s largest private television news network, with more than twenty owned-and-operated stations, a 24-hour news channel in CP24, BNN Bloomberg, French-language Noovo Info, and news operations at over 100 iHeartRadio Canada stations. That is likely at least 1,000 employees.”

Multiply that by the $29,750 annual value of the Journalism Labour Tax Credit and the Big Telecom giant is looking at adding just under $30 million to its bottom line. Throw in access to the Canada Periodical Fund and Local Journalism Initiative and its take could be north of $40 million annually.

Thus will the nation’s legacy media status quo become more firmly frozen in time, making it even more difficult for anyone trying to conduct journalism without the government’s approval and assistance.

It might also mean the government is anticipating that the Online Streaming Act may not survive trade talks with the USA. The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission has/had been trying to use the legislation to create funding for licensed broadcasters’ newsrooms. Or, it could mean that Bell, Rogers, Corus et al could feed at a smorgasbord of troughs - the ones “newspapers” get and the ones licensed broadcasters get.

We shall see. But it looks like Mark Carney’s Canada is entering a whole new era of corporate welfare. He will be much loved in newsrooms for this.

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The journalism program at Langara College is shutting down after 50 years.

Multiple reasons are behind the move but department chair Barry Link provided the Vancouver Sun with a fine summary.

“More and more (students) will want to be things like YouTube influencers or podcasters, because that’s where they get their information from. It’s entirely online, social media, Tik Tok and so forth. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Technology changes, but the industry has never caught up to that, has never figured out how to make money from that and still do journalism.”

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My thanks to Brian Lilley for having me as a guest on his podcast, which I will share in the days ahead. My commentary in The Hub concerning ongoing demands from the news industry for subsidies can be found here and my thoughts on social media age limits are here.

Last but not least, here is another edition of The Full Press podcast featuring Harrison Lowman, Tara Henley and yours truly.

Congrats to the folks at The Line, another subsidy-free platform, for showing initiative and holding a successful fundraiser! Feel free to buy me a coffee. Until next week…..

(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)