The return of The Donald confirms the end of an era for mainstream media as major influencers
Plus! CBC issues Indigenous bodies correction and how the industry defends activist journos on the left, but not the right. We're back.
Five weeks ago, I wrote this:
“It says here that if Trump wins (and it is looking more likely than it was a couple of weeks ago) the game is up for the Big Cable news networks as influencers. If Harris wins, it’ll prove they still have a heartbeat even though the vital signs aren’t great.”
And now, erstwhile President Donald Trump has become incoming President Trump and is already doing what he does best - creating chaos and uncertainty in the minds of those with whom he negotiates, just as he has done with media for the better part of a decade.
As Sean Speer of The Hub wrote on Nov. 9:
“One anonymous television executive put it this way in the lead-up to election day: If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form.”
It is indeed over for the big cable news networks and newspapers. No sooner was Trump elected than Comcast was spinning off cable assets such as MSNBC and staff at CNN are bracing for massive layoffs. Oh, the networks will stagger around like too many of Canada’s zombie media are doing, but it’s an online and podcast world now.
Trump’s tariff threats bringing Canada and Mexico to heel were made in a social media post. His victory drive was fuelled by his appearance on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast. These matters rarely boil down simply, but now there are some, like James Carville, who are raking the Democrats over the coals for not putting Kamala Harris on Rogan’s show, too.
You can read and listen to more about that here but suffice to say Carville delivers a delightful dressing down of the young progressive whippersnappers who counselled Harris to the end of her career. Here’s a snippet:
“If I were running a 2028 campaign and I had some little snot-nosed 23-year-old saying, ‘I’m going to resign if you do this,’ not only would I fire that motherf---er on the spot, I would find out who hired them and fire that person on the spot!" he added. "I’m really not interested in your uninformed, stupid, jacka-- opinion as to whether to go on Joe Rogan or not."
Rogan, it appears, is the new Barbara Walters and, yes, I’m ageing myself with that comparison.
Here in Canada, we can remain grateful that, after considerable nagging by the Online Streaming Act’s (Bill C-11) critics, the government ordered the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to keep its meddlesome mitts off the podcast world (I am not convinced they will, btw). We can be less happy though that the CRTC, which often appears oblivious to the size of the change shaping the way people create and consume media, is planning a monster hearing to discover how it can subsidize the dying world of cable-based news and, maybe, newspapers too. Should be fun.
Speaking of on the ropes entities, the CBC was the first broadcaster to have one of its panelists compare Trump to Hitler. Democrat strategist Aisha Mills dropped the H bomb fairly early in the election coverage evening and it can be found at the 1:40 mark here.
Now that Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge is back from a brief parental leave, she should be introducing the CBC’s new mandate any day. In the meantime, both outgoing president Catherine Tait and her incoming successor, Marie-Philippe Bouchard, have been called before the House of Commons Heritage Committee and will, at last report, be appearing again this week.
Hopefully Bouchard will make it clear to the news division that it has to clean up its act. The Corporation has zero hope of surviving a new government so long as its reporters are free to constantly blab their opinions on social media. Plus, they need to do better than Eli Glasner did in his interview with Irish actor Cillian Murphy when he said that in Canada we are “still finding bodies of Indigenous children in the ground.”
CBC issued a correction, stating, in part, that: “We have removed this portion of the interview. Searches at the sites of former residential schools using ground-penetrating radar have found evidence of possible unmarked graves.”
Bouchard will probably want to look into her senior management structure, too. One way or another, she will be an agent of change and in order to achieve that, she’ll need allies on the inside. That means she won’t be able to wipe out the entire senior tier being paid, as Blacklock’s reported, half a million bucks a year each, but if she wants anything but vicious compliance from newsrooms, she’s going to have to cull that herd.
Other highlights from that report: Tait said, “CBC is a lifeline that links this vast country,” while Liberal MP Michael Coteau described it as “a big part, I believe, of our heritage in this country.”
It’s certainly a big part of our past. The question today is whether it will be part of the future. It’s not looking good, is it?
Rob Breakenridge of Calgary’s QR 770 was one of several victims of another round of Corus Entertainment layoffs last month. I was a guest several times on his show and was sad to hear that. Then I became suspicious when, shortly after, Corus announced the launch of a new nationally-syndicated show based out of Toronto’s AM 640 featuring Ben Mulroney.
An earlier version of this post said Mulroney hasn’t shown up on QR’s schedule in lieu of local voices. And he hadn’t, until Monday when reader Pat Robinson tipped me, I checked, and Mulroney’s show has indeed filled the slot - a truly horrible decision. Nothing against Mulroney but a national show replacing a local show during daytime hours really makes a mockery of a local radio license. Expect other licensees to follow suit.
A brief word on the federal government’s decision regarding TikTok, a major carrier of information, particularly for teens and 20somethings. Following a security review, Innovation, Science and Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne announced that the app would continue to be available for use in Canada but that TikTok Technology Canada, Inc. had to shut down, which makes no sense.
This move is perfectly consistent with the current government’s incompetent handling of pretty much anything to do with the Internet. If the data TikTok is collecting poses a security risk, it won’t be alleviated by the redundancy of its Canadian employees. We’ll see what comes of TikTok’s plans to launch a legal challenge of this bizarre decision.
Last, but not least, I would be remiss if I did not mention the recent arrest of Rebel News owner Ezra Levant by Toronto police. In appealing to government for the smorgasbord of subsidies they have solicited, lobbyists for the nation’s media have consistently described themselves as vital to the survival of democracy. But from what I could see, only True North, Western Standard, Fox News, AM 640, the Jewish Journal and The Times of Israel provided news coverage of Levant’s arrest, with columns appearing in the National Post and Toronto Sun.
This is appalling. Yes, Ezra is an activist journalist but so is Brandi Morin and when she was arrested last February in Edmonton, the Committee to Protect Journalists, UNIFOR, the Edmonton Journal, CBC, the Coalition for Women in Journalism, Reporters sans frontieres, The Guardian, the Globe and Mail, The Tyee, APTN, the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ), the Toronto Star and others were all on the case. The CAJ went to considerable lengths as recently as Friday to defend online left wing provocateur Rachel Gilmore, who attracts a lot of reactions to her videos (a topic worthy of a more thorough discussion on another day.) If you want, you can read the thread here.
A media that won’t even report - or will only do so selectively - on the arrest of journalists and stand up for Freedom of the Press is not of the slightest value when it comes to the preservation of democracy and the public good. None. Nor has the CAJ, in displaying bias - flaunting it, even - done the craft any favours in terms of public perception.
My thanks to Arlene Bynon of SiriusXM for having me on her show last week and to Howard Law of Mediapolicy.ca for an upcoming Q and A on CBC. Also to The Hub for publishing my essay on the state of the Online Streaming Act, Epoch Times for my take on Australia’s plan to make social media available only through age verification and Matt Gurney and Jen Gerson at The Line for giving me space to vent about the UK’s heavy-handed approach to free speech and police investigations of journalists for Tweets. This week I will be in Vancouver to interview Bari Weiss of The Free Press, which should be fun and, yes, I suck at being retired.
(Peter Menzies is a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, former vice chair of the CRTC, current Senior Fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and a consultant and commentator on media and regulatory affairs)
“This move is perfectly consistent with the current government’s incompetent handling of pretty much anything to do with the internet.”
Let me edit that sentence for you, Peter, in the interest of accuracy: “This move is perfectly consistent with the current government’s incompetent handling of pretty much anything.”
There. That’s better.
Please don't "properly retire". You provide too much value and insight in your "improper" retirement.