There's a third issue. There's no evidence that the money has saved a single job. It certainly hasn't reversed the decline, nor does it seem to have slowed it at all.
I think that's true, but it's hard to demonstrate an effect either way so I decided to leave that argument for another day. I sure notice every newsroom that closes since one of our many heritage ministers said his goal was to keep newsrooms open.
I absolutely loath how Canada has become a nation where so many appeal to government right away to resolve every dispute (appeal to authority), and expect government handouts from big corporations to the homeless. We need more DIY (Do It Yourself) in our nation.
I absolutely love the “can do”’spirit of Koreans who in 25-30 years went from dictatorship to democracy, and from one of the poorest nations to one of the richest.
Why is there no reference to history in this debate? Government support of the media goes back for centuries. Joe Howe's father was editor of the official government news service when Joe was a boy. Government spending on ads and announcements was a key support for media in following centuries. We decided we needed the CBC if we were not to be overwhelmed with US radio broadcasts a century ago. Google, Meta et all present the same challenge today. The righteous declarations of independence from government support today are ahistorical and either naive or hypocritical. From the beginning, keeping ourselves informed about who we are and what we can do together has always been a challenge. So far it has seemed worth the effort.
To me the most galling part of the government initiatives to “save” the industry was to read what the CBC’s take from Meta was going to be while they bray loudly for even more public funding. I may not agree but I do understand that saving the independent journals may have some merit but with the vast majority of the funding going to the largest players there is no initiative to improve the floundering giants that the vast majority of Canadians already distrust. Government pay will only worsen that situation.
I'm skeptical of the argument that government support of newspapers to strengthen democracy instead leads to the corruption of media and by implication, the corruption of government.
Firstly, what is government to do, in the context of democratic institutions and the public's confidence in them being eroded by bad actors writing bad things? Helping to strengthen the legacy media long depended upon to hold up journalistic standards seems a good start. If there is an inarguably successful alternative than money with no strings attached, I have not yet heard it proposed.
It cannot be demonstrated that this money has bought favours. Chatham Capital-Post-Sun-Media has probably sucked up most of it, and they bite the hand that feeds them all day, everyday. As does the CBC (which, incidentally is no less than they did when Mr. Harper presumably pulled their strings).
I'm also sceptical of the agenda of the signatories of this "declaration", conservatives with an axe to grind, who possibly never met a government program they didn't want savaged. Is the spending of public money really their concern? Do they have tangible alternatives to propose that will strengthen the media, or is this just another "let the market decide" experiment, with a typically conservative disregard for the consequences? Should Mr. Poilievre be promoted, he will almost certainly maintain this subsidy program, considering that it pays for the 24/7 Chatham Capital-Post-Sun-Media attacks on his opponents, and glowing accolades of himself. Will the signatories feel the same way then?
That Kafkaesque access to information regime, which the feds keep saying they are improving, is the number one reason we need to fund the check and balance of real journalism in Canada. Who will get in their face on the regular if you don't? Keep it up!
I find CBC news (At Issue and Power & Politics, especially) and the Toronto Star very biased towards supporting Trudeau. They both receive substantial subsidies. Many small local news outlets are not receiving subsidies while the larger ones are.
I believe these smaller outlets are needier and more deserving. They are struggling. My local paper, Beach Metro in Beaches East York is one example.
Where I’m inclined to disagree: many industries benefit enormously from government subsidies of various kinds, and yet I never get the sense they’re beholden to government when it’s time to speak about policies they disagree with (see for example, oil and gas). Nor do I think it’s reasonable, on the basis of actual work product of its journalists, to think that CBC/Radio-Canada has let the fact that the government holds the purse strings influence their political coverage.
So I struggle with the idea that these subsidies necessarily result in a reasonable perception of bias.
Is there a larger recipient of this money than the Postmedia newspaper chain? I believe that their only biases are on the subject of whether Justin Trudeau deserves the bastinado, or a wood chipper.
Ho hum. Media are biased, no matter what. Most are biased towards serving a corporate agenda and never upsetting the applecart. If indeed most subsidies go to so-called legacy media, that's a problem because, as Paul notes, the business model of most legacy media is kaput and they no longer serve the community. Our local Ottawa Citizen -- a poor excuse for a newspaper -- is a case in point.
But there are lots of new or newish digital news media that survive through a lot of sweat equity. They deserve encouragement so they can expand capacity and pay their journalists a decent wage. A sunsetting program with clear metrics of success would be good (but I guess that's not what the Liberals are cooking up).
I was most upset by the Declaration's paternalistic statement that subsidies for "some minority" news media would be ok when they're not commercially viable. Identity politics -- for selected identities only.
My day for this on substack, I guess. I Just left a comment at Justin Ling's substack salon that praised him and substackers in general for their independence. And The Guardian, a reader-supported, ad-free newspaper run by its own people, not owned by a rich family like nearly every newspaper.
Substackers and The Guardian prove the possibility. If good journalism is possible without advertising or billionaire largesse, then reader attention and trust should flow to them.
It's great that Paul was frank about being forced into this; but hey: nobody on the Mayflower wanted to leave home. We cheer them as heroes anyway.
"The Guardian, a reader-supported, ad-free newspaper..."
Er, not really. The print edition regularly carries enough advertising - including four-colour full page ads - that would be the envy of any North American newspaper publisher.
Thanks, cool to know. I'll have to look at a print edition, some time when I'm on vacation in the UK.
The online edition is a balm of relief in a web world where the ads are not just present, but won't stop jumping into my face and demanding to be dealt with.
Canadian news readers want to do it on the cheap, expecting quality news content for free, and yet media outlets are collapsing even if they give their product away.
In that light, there is nothing wrong with Mr. Wells or anyone else to charge a Substack subscription fee or an appearance fee to CBC or CTV. Journalists have to make a living too, and Canadians can sort out the wheat from the chaff and decide what kind of content they want to read or watch.
There's a third issue. There's no evidence that the money has saved a single job. It certainly hasn't reversed the decline, nor does it seem to have slowed it at all.
I think that's true, but it's hard to demonstrate an effect either way so I decided to leave that argument for another day. I sure notice every newsroom that closes since one of our many heritage ministers said his goal was to keep newsrooms open.
Happy to support you Paul.
And yes, I greatly appreciate your independence.
I absolutely loath how Canada has become a nation where so many appeal to government right away to resolve every dispute (appeal to authority), and expect government handouts from big corporations to the homeless. We need more DIY (Do It Yourself) in our nation.
I absolutely love the “can do”’spirit of Koreans who in 25-30 years went from dictatorship to democracy, and from one of the poorest nations to one of the richest.
Why is there no reference to history in this debate? Government support of the media goes back for centuries. Joe Howe's father was editor of the official government news service when Joe was a boy. Government spending on ads and announcements was a key support for media in following centuries. We decided we needed the CBC if we were not to be overwhelmed with US radio broadcasts a century ago. Google, Meta et all present the same challenge today. The righteous declarations of independence from government support today are ahistorical and either naive or hypocritical. From the beginning, keeping ourselves informed about who we are and what we can do together has always been a challenge. So far it has seemed worth the effort.
To me the most galling part of the government initiatives to “save” the industry was to read what the CBC’s take from Meta was going to be while they bray loudly for even more public funding. I may not agree but I do understand that saving the independent journals may have some merit but with the vast majority of the funding going to the largest players there is no initiative to improve the floundering giants that the vast majority of Canadians already distrust. Government pay will only worsen that situation.
I'm skeptical of the argument that government support of newspapers to strengthen democracy instead leads to the corruption of media and by implication, the corruption of government.
Firstly, what is government to do, in the context of democratic institutions and the public's confidence in them being eroded by bad actors writing bad things? Helping to strengthen the legacy media long depended upon to hold up journalistic standards seems a good start. If there is an inarguably successful alternative than money with no strings attached, I have not yet heard it proposed.
It cannot be demonstrated that this money has bought favours. Chatham Capital-Post-Sun-Media has probably sucked up most of it, and they bite the hand that feeds them all day, everyday. As does the CBC (which, incidentally is no less than they did when Mr. Harper presumably pulled their strings).
I'm also sceptical of the agenda of the signatories of this "declaration", conservatives with an axe to grind, who possibly never met a government program they didn't want savaged. Is the spending of public money really their concern? Do they have tangible alternatives to propose that will strengthen the media, or is this just another "let the market decide" experiment, with a typically conservative disregard for the consequences? Should Mr. Poilievre be promoted, he will almost certainly maintain this subsidy program, considering that it pays for the 24/7 Chatham Capital-Post-Sun-Media attacks on his opponents, and glowing accolades of himself. Will the signatories feel the same way then?
That Kafkaesque access to information regime, which the feds keep saying they are improving, is the number one reason we need to fund the check and balance of real journalism in Canada. Who will get in their face on the regular if you don't? Keep it up!
I find CBC news (At Issue and Power & Politics, especially) and the Toronto Star very biased towards supporting Trudeau. They both receive substantial subsidies. Many small local news outlets are not receiving subsidies while the larger ones are.
I believe these smaller outlets are needier and more deserving. They are struggling. My local paper, Beach Metro in Beaches East York is one example.
Where I’m inclined to disagree: many industries benefit enormously from government subsidies of various kinds, and yet I never get the sense they’re beholden to government when it’s time to speak about policies they disagree with (see for example, oil and gas). Nor do I think it’s reasonable, on the basis of actual work product of its journalists, to think that CBC/Radio-Canada has let the fact that the government holds the purse strings influence their political coverage.
So I struggle with the idea that these subsidies necessarily result in a reasonable perception of bias.
Is there a larger recipient of this money than the Postmedia newspaper chain? I believe that their only biases are on the subject of whether Justin Trudeau deserves the bastinado, or a wood chipper.
I don't know what a bastinado is but the context tells me it must be bad! 😂😂😂
The oil industry is highly subsidized
Ho hum. Media are biased, no matter what. Most are biased towards serving a corporate agenda and never upsetting the applecart. If indeed most subsidies go to so-called legacy media, that's a problem because, as Paul notes, the business model of most legacy media is kaput and they no longer serve the community. Our local Ottawa Citizen -- a poor excuse for a newspaper -- is a case in point.
But there are lots of new or newish digital news media that survive through a lot of sweat equity. They deserve encouragement so they can expand capacity and pay their journalists a decent wage. A sunsetting program with clear metrics of success would be good (but I guess that's not what the Liberals are cooking up).
I was most upset by the Declaration's paternalistic statement that subsidies for "some minority" news media would be ok when they're not commercially viable. Identity politics -- for selected identities only.
My day for this on substack, I guess. I Just left a comment at Justin Ling's substack salon that praised him and substackers in general for their independence. And The Guardian, a reader-supported, ad-free newspaper run by its own people, not owned by a rich family like nearly every newspaper.
Substackers and The Guardian prove the possibility. If good journalism is possible without advertising or billionaire largesse, then reader attention and trust should flow to them.
It's great that Paul was frank about being forced into this; but hey: nobody on the Mayflower wanted to leave home. We cheer them as heroes anyway.
"The Guardian, a reader-supported, ad-free newspaper..."
Er, not really. The print edition regularly carries enough advertising - including four-colour full page ads - that would be the envy of any North American newspaper publisher.
Thanks, cool to know. I'll have to look at a print edition, some time when I'm on vacation in the UK.
The online edition is a balm of relief in a web world where the ads are not just present, but won't stop jumping into my face and demanding to be dealt with.
I've never written for a subsidized organization. In fact, I was barely paid in all of the Canadian newsrooms where I worked:)
It’s a vicious circle.
Canadian news readers want to do it on the cheap, expecting quality news content for free, and yet media outlets are collapsing even if they give their product away.
In that light, there is nothing wrong with Mr. Wells or anyone else to charge a Substack subscription fee or an appearance fee to CBC or CTV. Journalists have to make a living too, and Canadians can sort out the wheat from the chaff and decide what kind of content they want to read or watch.
Kudos - this declaration of journalistic independence (if I may be so bold in calling it so) is much needed to refresh the public’s trust and respect.
Being a longstanding advocate a free press unfettered or influenced by governments, I was attracted by your connection to the Ottawa Declaration.
"I’m one of the signatories."
I have subscribed to your e-zine and commentary for this. It helps that you're a good and interesting writer.
Well done, Mr. Wells. You're a man of principle and integrity.
Bill Donaldson
Victoria
Good for you for taking a principled stand.
I am grateful for what you and a few other terrific journalists bring to my tiny little screen every morning. It's a bargain for the price!