Some long time ago, the J-schools started teaching that it was OK for every account of something that had happened to include the writer’s opinion on how the reader ought to look at it, understand it, feel about it, and react to it. All of a sudden, everybody was a “journalist”, and reporters were extinct.
Now look at us! Should we be surprised at the lack of trust?
Just tell me what happened, and make the telling prompt and accurate. I’ll figure out where it fits in The Great Scheme of Things, based on my not inconsiderable education, experience and (dare I say) intelligence. And I’ll form my own reaction, thank you very much.
I agree and if someone did that I would probably sign up. But, I think that ship has sailed for our MSM which relies on marketing to niches and not reporting facts.
We live in a very strange country where money is taken from citizens and given to news organizatiosn they do not consume. The idea of user pay is becoming very foreign.
I am very happy to pay for The Line because I read The Line.
Excellent and true. It's strange that in dictatorships newspapers are undermined by censorship by the state, whereas in our democracy newspapers are (likely to be) self-censored from within. Same result but more expensive.
Had a grim chuckle at the reference to "equity-seeking" groups. In left circles; even funnier is that the new term for these groups is "equity deserving."
Essentially MSM has been bought by government using monies confiscated via taxes from various sources to fund this bit of larceny. Is it any wonder that readers have turned away from the MSM who can now be viewed as mere mouthpieces for the dissemination of government approved propaganda. The MSM has gone from reporting news in an impartial fashion which respects the intelligence of the reader to nothing more than a bunch of personal opinion biased diatribes.
An excellent article which all so-called journalists at the public teat should read. The public understands what is taking place -- they aren't paying attention to legacy newsrooms -- the industry obviously doesn't understand. Or they are just plain lazy and prefer to feed at the public trough.
What amazes me is not that the Canadian media now mouthpiece for the government and approved elite perspectives but that they, and even the CBC, still occasionally speak against their pay masters and status masters.
However, things like their reporting on the truckers convoy show that any such optimism must be gauged against very low expectations. Foreign media did a lot better job of reporting on this story than did the established Canadian media who almost entirely pushed the government / elite consensus view. Many current stories of importance similarly get terribly one sided reporting even when covering other perspectives would improve viewer engagement...
The public’s view, she (Marla Boltman) told the committee, should be taken with a “grain of salt.”
No sense of entitlement with that one, is there. Until the people who continue to throw money at a dying industry (in it's current state) remain in the positions they are in, it will only get worse.
I am thankful for outlets such as this one and will support it as long as it remains in operation. If the Lib/NDP alliance get their way, outlets like these will soon be illegal.
If you took away subscriptions to libraries, politicians and their staffs, people in the news businesses I would think the readership would drop substantially. No amount of money will save newspapers or legacy media. People aren't reading newspapers or watching formulaic if not stupid TV news. Stop pissing away my tax dollars!
Instead of tax breaks for old media, let me reduce my taxes by supporting the Line, the Real Story, Paul Wells, Bug-eyed, the Bureau, Michael Geist, Found in Translation, Turning Points and Regs to Riches -- Jeez I'd better cancel my newspaper subscriptions to keep paying for my substack habit!
I have several of the same Substack subscriptions as you, but I still have subscriptions to 'legacy' newspapers because Substacks aren't in the news business, they're in the opinion business. Substacks may bring things to my attention that I wasn't previously aware, but IMO they're no substitute for newspapers. I don't agree w/gov't subsidies for news orgs, but have no idea what they should replace them with to ensure financial survival.
kaycee, you and I cross in a couple of Substacks and I enjoy reading your commentary, much of which I agree with but some I respectfully ......
I will refer you to something I believe young Gurney said on one of the weekly videos in the last while (undefined term there). It is my recollection he said that when he was in the newspaper business he and / or a couple of his peers sat down one time and figured out that they could put out a newspaper for a whole lot less than what the particular publication that he was at (I am guessing it was the Post at that point) and that the problem for the legacy media was just that, i.e. the legacy costs that were and are eating them alive.
Currently, most of the Substacks are opinion oriented because it is far cheaper to start up an opinion rag than to staff up an actual newsroom, etc. Put differently, anyone can launch a website and say, "Here is what I think about that." much more cheaply than hiring twenty staff to go around the area and report on this, that and the other thing.
Having said that, it seems to me that there are actual kinda, sorta, somewhat news oriented sites that are starting up, often appealing to left or right oriented readers because that is where the first wave of interest lies. Once the legacy media zombies do actually die off then I expect that more such news sites will develop and, possibly, a well funded news organization will become interested in going further down that particular rabbit hole.
So, put differently, I think that we are in an interregnum that is being extended and the "successor" model is being much deferred by all this damned government funding. I am in my mid seventies and I expect that if we can get rid of this government financial interference there will start to be green shoots of a new organism start quickly but will probably take a further, oh, fifteen to twenty years to actually flourish; in other words, likely beyond my lifetime but, really, a blink of an eye in a larger sense.
Canadian Press will sell their articles -- presumably more fact based but runs about 400/month. When their legacy customers have finally died off they may look to provide a retail service for a more reasonable retail cost. I would love a fee from CP and Blacklocks and pay something like 300/year for the combo.
I pay for papers too. Don't know for how much longer. I do like the sports, puzzles and some business stories but most of my papers seem to be the opinion business. My Torstar news still tastes of LPC and the TorSun smacks of CPC. G&M still favorite and may be the only survivor when its time to resubscribe.
Most of the folks I watch or read in the subsidized media would do just fine in the Substack/Youtube era I suspect. Even the local Global TV Morning show.
I'm really of two minds about this. I'm heavily biased in favour of legacy media as I spent more than four decades at The Canadian Press news agency. The writer talks about the media being far to slow to adapt. Adapt to what? From a technology point of view, what is there to adapt to? God knows it took too many media outlets (hello, Toronto Star) an eternity to figure out you don't give away what you product. But really, isn't it more about a mass resignation of the public from legacy media? Most simply are not interested in the stories it publishes and sitting down precisely at 5pm to watch a newscast is quaint, to say the least. Social media has robbed legacy media of tons of people who simply are not coming back. Lots of them like nice, short snappy stories with a grabbing headline. For free. I don't think a lot of people have an attention span that would allow them to read an 800-word story in the Globe and Mail. So, legacy media - in print anyway - seems to be something enjoyed by a shrinking group of people that enjoy serious stories penned by responsible journalists who will admit they're wrong and publish corrections. So, is it correct for legacy media to accept government money, from a moral point of view? Probably not. But I wouldn't turn it down.
Canadian Press (owners TorStar, Globe and Mail, and Power Corp.) is high on the list of untrusted Trudeau propaganda outlets, the list topper being CBC with TorStar right up there. I don’t want someone’s “opinion” of the news. I want the facts. I’ll decide.
If you knew anything about The CP you would know its content is completely unbiased. It doesn't do opinion pieces. This is what trusted news agencies like CP, the AP and Reuters do. If you have specific examples otherwise, we would love to see them.
With CP, the bias isn't always in the story, but in the provided headline and attached image. Look at their Mulroney death announcement for the latest example.
I am an extremely strong critic of the legacy media. Yet I hold a subscription to G&M because - despite some head scratching opinion pieces - they do great investigative journalism. I appreciate that and I like to read it and so I pay for it. It is not that difficult. You print good stories, people will pay to read it. You print sh*t stories about DEI and nothing else, nobody will read it - even if they are paid to do so.
Some people will pay to read good investigative pieces, but the majority won't. IMO, there are a lot of people who want their 'news' in sound-bites & they have no interest in paying for news because they think it should be 'free'. I pay for G&M & Tor Star subscriptions (in addition to The Line & a few other Substacks) , but I'm pretty much in a minority of one among my friends & family :-(
"penned by responsible journalists who will admit they're wrong and publish corrections" -- a dying breed if I ever saw one. One could post many examples just from the CBC.
MM, you say, in part, " .... Adapt to what? From a technology point of view, what is there to adapt to? ..."
Well, there is that old phrase, "If you can't beat them, join them" which comes to mind. My point is that you go on to bemoan a great deal of the change - as do I, for that matter - but the legacy media have not tried to "become" a version of social media. I don't mean the sniping, opinion based social media but, how about something interesting with snappy headlines, etc.? How about holding the government - or corporate masters, for that matter - to account? How about, how about, how about? In other words, there is much in the internet marketplace that could be mimicked. Whether successfully or not is quite another matter, but if you don't try ......
I will be moving in a few months and to where I will be moving my local paper will not deliver. I will miss sitting with my wife over coffee and reading the morning two (real skinny) sections and I will become (unhappily, to be sure) one less reader for the Calgary Herald - sorry, Peter! But I will still be a news consumer and, as near as I can tell, I will find my desire for news to be a bit more uneven but it will be doable. Why can't the legacy media, i.e. those creeps who take tax money and actually ignore me, manage that but all sorts of start up can?
So, please, MM, do not make excuses for the legacy media but, instead, ask why the Hell they are so stupid and so obtuse to not see the writing on the wall and actually change, particularly after all these years?
I spent a decade in print journalism (2006-2016) and have very conflicting feelings about it. I got into that losing proposition because I truly did love NEWS. Still do. I want to know what's happening, everywhere, all the time. I do not want my precious tax dollars propping up every dying newsroom in the country, however. It taints the product, whatever that product may be. And yet, I want newsrooms to survive.
I've long stated that among journalists - at least the ones I encountered - roughly 80-90 percent are the worst people you'll ever meet, and the remainder are the best. Personal bias increasingly got in the way of facts. Certain people will only hold the party they don't plan on voting for to account. And hey, we're all biased. But the Borg-like ideological monoculture that I saw emerge roughly 15 years ago isn't the group you'd task with holding anyone left-of-center accountable. The stories I could tell, you'd think it was an over-the-top conservative fever dream about how the media operates.
I'm talking vocal celebrations in the newsroom over (recently retired) Jim Flaherty dropping dead of a heart attack. Disgusting stuff that made me yearn to be anywhere else. I drive a large truck now, keep in mind. At least it's an honest living.
That Millennial-age ideological conformism helped spawn the briefly popular but ultimately failed outrage-for-clicks "journalism" of the 2010s, which only served to turn off scores of traditional MSM readers and give the profession even more of a "do not trust" label.
So, I don't know what the solution is, but it obviously isn't THIS. And as much as I loathe large swaths of what remains of the media, I'll watch a cigarettes-and-typewriters gumshoe reporter film from the 1940s while clasping my hands together and wishing it still were so. Sites like this one give me hope. Keep it up.
There is nothing more pressing in modern society that the need for a functional independent 5th estate. We need facts, not opinions. Tabloid journalism belongs at the supermarket checkout. All that is missing is a solution for a response when their economic function model collapsed.
That's the billion dollar question isn't it. It used to be funded by advertising. As pointed out here numerous times, the internet has destroyed that funding model. But in the absence of accurate facts, democracy dies. The US is teetering because of it. We're in no less a danger.
Facts are facts not false or accurate imho. I don't think it's misinformation that is killing democracy. I think it is that no parties truly occupy the centre where most Americans and Canadians live. The fringes on the left and right control the agenda because they are active, put up the money, lobby effectively and they are the tails that wag the dogs. They have co-opted the nomination process in the US so if you won't pander to the fringe you won't get nominated. Parties play along because this is how they get the money.
No question, the outer limits get a ton of attention because they make a lot of noise. Don't get me started on lobbyists and consultants who I see as little more than financial deadwood that contribute nothing useful to society. Sure are a lot of them making lots of money though....
Can the Gov. not just tax the digital advertisers, since they are the ones with deep pockets? Everyone else, including Google, Meta etc is a middleman no? Apply a ‘news levy’ to gst when advertising online and let that build a fund to be distributed to legacy and emerging digital media? The justification being that news orgs do provide a service by helping the public interpret events and advertisers benefit from that regularization of information (yes yes there are some actors who make things worse I know). Serious suggestion, been rattling around my head for a while and not sure where the holes are in this suggestion.
But to what end do you tax advertisers if nobody reads legacy media? Lets not tax anyone more than we are taxed now. The public doesn't want help interpreting events so much as they want facts to make their own judgements. When media "helps the public interpret events" then they are back to marketing to niches. How exactly do advertisers benefit from "regularization of information" and what exactly do you mean by that phrase?
There is no question the media has erred in not being clear on what is fact and what is editorial, but the realities of the 24 hour news cycle where CNN adopted the mantra of get the story out first and fix it later is the author of distrust of the media. There used to be time to filter through the details before the news came out. That's gone. MY go to example will always be CNN reporting a Lufthansa B737 crashing in Toronto 4 seconds after the Air France A340 crashed in Toronto. Get it out, and fix it later is a prescription for failure.
David, I agree that, "... the media has erred in not being clear on what is fact and what is editorial ..." I believe that in much of the media today what passes for news stories could reasonably be called a "factorial;" in other words, a fact built around a slanted "news" story.
On the other hand, I absolutely also believe that a large part of the problem lies with the viewers / readers / listeners who should demand that accuracy should be paramount. To use your particular example, one could have reported a large passenger jet crashing with details to follow and it would be accurate. If the public doesn't care about details then our news outlets won't either.
It's an interesting debate. I've been furious about 90% of the US media, for example, ignoring the blatantly fascist actions of the GOP for the last 3 years.....out of fear of being slanted, no doubt. So they didn't call a spade a spade, to avoid appearing biased. Now, the non-propaganda news is finally calling it what it is. But with all the "fake-news" doubt sowed by the propaganda networks, there is doubt.
Newspapers in Canada all used to have a certain editorial slant. You knew that and could factor it into your reading of a story. Maybe I haven't been reading enough, but I still think that's mostly the case today, except for those rags that went full tabloid and are now bird cage liners.
You're quite right that they should have said "we have reports of an airliner crash in Toronto", and then added facts as they became available. None of this was ever a real issue before the 24 hour news cycle.
But I still think the fare bigger problem is how the news media can sustain itself. Hungary is the perfect example of what happens with state controlled media.....same as Germany in the1930's. Factual information matters, but I have no idea where we're going to get it from.
My understanding is that pre-internet it was advertising that kept print media financially afloat (Craigs list broke that model).
By ‘regularization’ I mean journalists help the public interpret events by providing facts (ignore the biased sycophants for now) otherwise there would be more confusion and chaos/ misinformation in the public sphere.
The main point I’m making is taxing advertisers is what was done pre-internet anyway. How the pot of cash is divided among media is a different problem. Ideally based on readership numbers but no doubt the lobbyists would be lining up a the trough for their cut. All I’m suggesting here is a way to raise cash from a wide range of advertising companies so media is not dependent on a few entities like Google or the government.
If by interpreting events you mean providing historical context then fine. Otherwise, if you give me the facts, I will make my own interpretation. Pre-internet, we did tax advertisers outside of corporate taxes based on profits. Advertisers paid for space on the air or in print and print included newspapers, flyers, yearbooks, church bulletins etc. That's what they do now. Unfortunately, since fewer people buy papers, they attractive fewer advertisers. The same can be said about the CBC. The only way to make it work is to provide a product people are willing to pay for. When they do that, and they have an attractive population and demographic the advertisers will come... and then they will start to pimp themselves to them and the cycle starts over.
You used the phrase, "taxing advertisers" as if it would easily provide funding. Okay, say that is done. Who aggregates that "tax," I ask you? The government? Well, isn't that precisely what is happening now? The only difference is that you have added another tax, with another level of bureaucracy to administer that tax but the government still gets to collect the bucks and then decide which "worthies" qualify and which don't. Still completely odious and, worse, completely useless.
That’s a fair point. I would prefer free market approaches but how do you prevent news deserts and neglect of small town local news?
We pay green levies when we buy airfare and pass through airports, who collects that? The dishing of the funds is certainly a nest of problems not easily solved. Keep the CRTC and Gov. out of it as much as possible imo.
The intent of my pitch was on the revenue generating side, rather than news media hitching their futures to the whims of the PMO and some big Tech, why not add the levy when ads are purchased? Possibly set up a consortium of legacy and new digital news who could determine how it gets distributed.
This isn't that far away from what C11 tried to do. The result was the Meta said it was not in their business interest to continue with those links. They have lots of other content people engage with more.
The other side of it is how do you decide the distribution of money? Let's say they collect $100 million. Who gets how much? Does the CBC get a cut? Torstar? Do you base it on readership? Volume of content? How cozy they are with the current government? All of these approaches will create incentives that are bad for the quality of news.
Good points. When C-11 went after Meta and Google it took aim at middlemen platforms who just provide access and a potentially unlimited payout (‘link tax’). I was only suggesting to go upstream of meta/Google and put a ‘news tax’ on the businesses placing the ads - like a ‘green levy’ we pay when flying or going through an airport.
The distribution side is a whole other problem. One would hope it gets distributed on a needs basis: enough subsidy to keep local towns covered and where the demand is high (a proxy for in-demand service) but whatever system it is it would need to be transparent (so no CRTC/ PMO/ lobbyist interference) and have the public trust.
Well there’s that appearance with the current system. Raising revenue from thousands of advertisers and flowing it through a transparent mechanism to media who need it as support would be an improvement over kissing the ring of a single tech giant or going hat in hand to the PMO.
I recently have or have had subscriptions to the NY Times, the (London) Telegraph, Torstar, Globe and Mail, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Regina Leader Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal and National Post (and before it, its pedecessor The Financial Post), and a more than passing acquaintanceship with the Vancouver Sun and Victoria Times Colonist when travelling in their vicinity. I recognize many of the ills you speak of. Sad that Canadian news sources have lost the ability, due to budget constraints, of having boots on the ground internationally and rely on wire services (which may or may not be fastidious in fact checking) for events reporting. And yet major newspapers, if they choose, still retain the capacity to create in-house, thoroughly researched and well written pieces essential to our times, which is a tribute to their journalism staff and shows their preeminent salvageability if corrective action can be taken.
The loss of traditional media would be one of our greatest tragedies not only in terms of those employed in media, but especially for the public at large. I believe Canadians today are the least informed of any generations in recent history, first because of dumbed-down school and post-secondary curricula and second because, having rejected traditional media, they haven't encountered a legitimate replacement. Many accustom themselves to the bad and the ugly of whatever pops up on their phones, social media or indiscriminate web browsing. The end result is a good contingent of our population is without the background to discern truth from fiction or right from wrong, or to judge the nuances inherent in either choice, a situation clearly evident today where politicians are chosen on the basis of manufactured public image and governments are some of the worst in history.
Countries that don't respect our best interests are barking at the door and our allies become more impatient every year with our stubborn irrationality. Knowledge is the key to recognizing and electing informed, credentialed politicans who can form good government and build a bulwark against our enemies. Mainstream media at one time took their role seriously in being a reliable source of timely, accurate reporting of events and provision of facts essential to maintaining an formed and knowledgeable population. Canada needs its media to step up once again to be that educator. The light is still shining brightly at private media sources, thankfully, but they can't do it alone. Mainstream media must find ways to regain its integrity and audience so it can again be a force in the battle against ignorance and disinformation.
Have a core legion of fans that love them and tout their brilliance despite all self-evident voluminous evidence to the contrary.
Those that produce them hate their audience (except for taking their money).
Take up resources & viewing space that could be better used to produce interesting, thoughtful, movies with well written scripts and better acting & direction.
Tired, repetitive, and self-derivative plotting and characters, most of which are technically dead, but still move and destroy or consume everything in their path.
The few non-zombie characters in the movies heroically try to survive but are eventually drug down by the more numerous zombie characters.
I've always been willing to pay for "quality journalism" and for quality information in general, and I think I get it from sites like Unherd, Racket News and The Free Press--as well as from my home library of eight thousand books. Why, then, do I subscribe to neither The Globe and Mail nor the Toronto Star? Is it because I'm an alt-righter turned off by leftist media? But I've always voted NDP. Is it because I'm too uneducated and apathetic to take any interest in public affairs and issues? But, then, what about my two graduate degrees, my subscriptions to other sites, and my willingness to post to forums like this one? Is it an affordability issue, a need to carefully ration money? Explain, then why I was able to help both my daughters buy houses of their own, with my investment account barely noticing the withdrawals.
Maybe I just don't know quality when I see it. That's possible. But I'm a retired reference librarian, accustomed to navigating the realm of information, and never once in my career did my employer suggest I was helping others do so unreliably. As it happens, both the history of journalism and the history of publishing are longstanding reading enthusiasms of mine. One high school summer I even worked as a journalist for a major Toronto daily, as part of a training program that saw me spend two weeks each in Entertainment, Sports, and on the Courts and City Hall beats. My copy was regularly published, too.
From many points of view you'd think I'd be the ideal target market for Canada's mainstream media; yet Messrs. Jolly and Deegan seem uninterested in my consumer preferences, and Ms. Boltman clearly doesn't want to hear from me. This is a puzzle. What's certain, though, is that for at least a decade the Globe and Star have published very little that's in conformity with my own understanding of quality, and/or 'need to read'--though in fairness I should add that the Globe hasn't fallen quite as far as the Star, which clearly has given up the struggle to meet even basic standards of competence, objectivity and journalistic ethics.
Just blow it all up, all of it except for perhaps the small community papers where public notices and obituaries are posted. We still need a common forum for notices and Facebook sucks for anything important. They can use that government ad and posting revenue to keep going. Let each province and town decide for themselves if they want to subsidize it.
But for anything the feds touch, blow it all up. All of it. The tax credits, the grants, the CBC, all of it. No one outside their partisan social class even takes them as a trusted voice anymore. For the good of society, kill it.
Quebec will want to leave Canada if they can't keep one of their most important sacred cows subsidized they say... (Even the cows are sacred there). Call their bluff, give it all to the Quebec government to fund and run, including Radio Canada. Lock, stock and barrel. If any other municipality or province wants to take over their legacy Ottawa subsidized media, let them.
Those small community papers could also be funded by their local community to provide hard news. That can then be shared amongst them, CP style but without the official Ottawa stink.
The important thing is that Ottawa cannot be trusted with media anymore. It's too broken, it's too far gone. The Laurentian elites killed it by treating it like a spoiled child.
If people and communities care about subsidized media, let their budgets do the talking, locally.
Hooray for this! The problems lie within.
Some long time ago, the J-schools started teaching that it was OK for every account of something that had happened to include the writer’s opinion on how the reader ought to look at it, understand it, feel about it, and react to it. All of a sudden, everybody was a “journalist”, and reporters were extinct.
Now look at us! Should we be surprised at the lack of trust?
Just tell me what happened, and make the telling prompt and accurate. I’ll figure out where it fits in The Great Scheme of Things, based on my not inconsiderable education, experience and (dare I say) intelligence. And I’ll form my own reaction, thank you very much.
Fred
I agree and if someone did that I would probably sign up. But, I think that ship has sailed for our MSM which relies on marketing to niches and not reporting facts.
Hit the nail on the head !
We live in a very strange country where money is taken from citizens and given to news organizatiosn they do not consume. The idea of user pay is becoming very foreign.
I am very happy to pay for The Line because I read The Line.
Excellent and true. It's strange that in dictatorships newspapers are undermined by censorship by the state, whereas in our democracy newspapers are (likely to be) self-censored from within. Same result but more expensive.
Had a grim chuckle at the reference to "equity-seeking" groups. In left circles; even funnier is that the new term for these groups is "equity deserving."
Essentially MSM has been bought by government using monies confiscated via taxes from various sources to fund this bit of larceny. Is it any wonder that readers have turned away from the MSM who can now be viewed as mere mouthpieces for the dissemination of government approved propaganda. The MSM has gone from reporting news in an impartial fashion which respects the intelligence of the reader to nothing more than a bunch of personal opinion biased diatribes.
An excellent article which all so-called journalists at the public teat should read. The public understands what is taking place -- they aren't paying attention to legacy newsrooms -- the industry obviously doesn't understand. Or they are just plain lazy and prefer to feed at the public trough.
What amazes me is not that the Canadian media now mouthpiece for the government and approved elite perspectives but that they, and even the CBC, still occasionally speak against their pay masters and status masters.
However, things like their reporting on the truckers convoy show that any such optimism must be gauged against very low expectations. Foreign media did a lot better job of reporting on this story than did the established Canadian media who almost entirely pushed the government / elite consensus view. Many current stories of importance similarly get terribly one sided reporting even when covering other perspectives would improve viewer engagement...
The public’s view, she (Marla Boltman) told the committee, should be taken with a “grain of salt.”
No sense of entitlement with that one, is there. Until the people who continue to throw money at a dying industry (in it's current state) remain in the positions they are in, it will only get worse.
I am thankful for outlets such as this one and will support it as long as it remains in operation. If the Lib/NDP alliance get their way, outlets like these will soon be illegal.
If you took away subscriptions to libraries, politicians and their staffs, people in the news businesses I would think the readership would drop substantially. No amount of money will save newspapers or legacy media. People aren't reading newspapers or watching formulaic if not stupid TV news. Stop pissing away my tax dollars!
Instead of tax breaks for old media, let me reduce my taxes by supporting the Line, the Real Story, Paul Wells, Bug-eyed, the Bureau, Michael Geist, Found in Translation, Turning Points and Regs to Riches -- Jeez I'd better cancel my newspaper subscriptions to keep paying for my substack habit!
I have several of the same Substack subscriptions as you, but I still have subscriptions to 'legacy' newspapers because Substacks aren't in the news business, they're in the opinion business. Substacks may bring things to my attention that I wasn't previously aware, but IMO they're no substitute for newspapers. I don't agree w/gov't subsidies for news orgs, but have no idea what they should replace them with to ensure financial survival.
kaycee, you and I cross in a couple of Substacks and I enjoy reading your commentary, much of which I agree with but some I respectfully ......
I will refer you to something I believe young Gurney said on one of the weekly videos in the last while (undefined term there). It is my recollection he said that when he was in the newspaper business he and / or a couple of his peers sat down one time and figured out that they could put out a newspaper for a whole lot less than what the particular publication that he was at (I am guessing it was the Post at that point) and that the problem for the legacy media was just that, i.e. the legacy costs that were and are eating them alive.
Currently, most of the Substacks are opinion oriented because it is far cheaper to start up an opinion rag than to staff up an actual newsroom, etc. Put differently, anyone can launch a website and say, "Here is what I think about that." much more cheaply than hiring twenty staff to go around the area and report on this, that and the other thing.
Having said that, it seems to me that there are actual kinda, sorta, somewhat news oriented sites that are starting up, often appealing to left or right oriented readers because that is where the first wave of interest lies. Once the legacy media zombies do actually die off then I expect that more such news sites will develop and, possibly, a well funded news organization will become interested in going further down that particular rabbit hole.
So, put differently, I think that we are in an interregnum that is being extended and the "successor" model is being much deferred by all this damned government funding. I am in my mid seventies and I expect that if we can get rid of this government financial interference there will start to be green shoots of a new organism start quickly but will probably take a further, oh, fifteen to twenty years to actually flourish; in other words, likely beyond my lifetime but, really, a blink of an eye in a larger sense.
Canadian Press will sell their articles -- presumably more fact based but runs about 400/month. When their legacy customers have finally died off they may look to provide a retail service for a more reasonable retail cost. I would love a fee from CP and Blacklocks and pay something like 300/year for the combo.
Blacklocks and Western Standards already share stories from their respective regions and cities. It will happen organically
I pay for papers too. Don't know for how much longer. I do like the sports, puzzles and some business stories but most of my papers seem to be the opinion business. My Torstar news still tastes of LPC and the TorSun smacks of CPC. G&M still favorite and may be the only survivor when its time to resubscribe.
Depends on the Substack. Sam Cooper and Paul Wells are both breaking news.
Most of the folks I watch or read in the subsidized media would do just fine in the Substack/Youtube era I suspect. Even the local Global TV Morning show.
Ya got that right.
I'm really of two minds about this. I'm heavily biased in favour of legacy media as I spent more than four decades at The Canadian Press news agency. The writer talks about the media being far to slow to adapt. Adapt to what? From a technology point of view, what is there to adapt to? God knows it took too many media outlets (hello, Toronto Star) an eternity to figure out you don't give away what you product. But really, isn't it more about a mass resignation of the public from legacy media? Most simply are not interested in the stories it publishes and sitting down precisely at 5pm to watch a newscast is quaint, to say the least. Social media has robbed legacy media of tons of people who simply are not coming back. Lots of them like nice, short snappy stories with a grabbing headline. For free. I don't think a lot of people have an attention span that would allow them to read an 800-word story in the Globe and Mail. So, legacy media - in print anyway - seems to be something enjoyed by a shrinking group of people that enjoy serious stories penned by responsible journalists who will admit they're wrong and publish corrections. So, is it correct for legacy media to accept government money, from a moral point of view? Probably not. But I wouldn't turn it down.
Canadian Press (owners TorStar, Globe and Mail, and Power Corp.) is high on the list of untrusted Trudeau propaganda outlets, the list topper being CBC with TorStar right up there. I don’t want someone’s “opinion” of the news. I want the facts. I’ll decide.
If you knew anything about The CP you would know its content is completely unbiased. It doesn't do opinion pieces. This is what trusted news agencies like CP, the AP and Reuters do. If you have specific examples otherwise, we would love to see them.
MM, I vote strongly with Penny Leifson and with kaycee in contrast to your dated view of CP.
With CP, the bias isn't always in the story, but in the provided headline and attached image. Look at their Mulroney death announcement for the latest example.
Surely, you jest!
Yes, I would also like to see your specific examples of Cdn Press offering their opinion on news reports.
I am an extremely strong critic of the legacy media. Yet I hold a subscription to G&M because - despite some head scratching opinion pieces - they do great investigative journalism. I appreciate that and I like to read it and so I pay for it. It is not that difficult. You print good stories, people will pay to read it. You print sh*t stories about DEI and nothing else, nobody will read it - even if they are paid to do so.
Some people will pay to read good investigative pieces, but the majority won't. IMO, there are a lot of people who want their 'news' in sound-bites & they have no interest in paying for news because they think it should be 'free'. I pay for G&M & Tor Star subscriptions (in addition to The Line & a few other Substacks) , but I'm pretty much in a minority of one among my friends & family :-(
"penned by responsible journalists who will admit they're wrong and publish corrections" -- a dying breed if I ever saw one. One could post many examples just from the CBC.
MM, you say, in part, " .... Adapt to what? From a technology point of view, what is there to adapt to? ..."
Well, there is that old phrase, "If you can't beat them, join them" which comes to mind. My point is that you go on to bemoan a great deal of the change - as do I, for that matter - but the legacy media have not tried to "become" a version of social media. I don't mean the sniping, opinion based social media but, how about something interesting with snappy headlines, etc.? How about holding the government - or corporate masters, for that matter - to account? How about, how about, how about? In other words, there is much in the internet marketplace that could be mimicked. Whether successfully or not is quite another matter, but if you don't try ......
I will be moving in a few months and to where I will be moving my local paper will not deliver. I will miss sitting with my wife over coffee and reading the morning two (real skinny) sections and I will become (unhappily, to be sure) one less reader for the Calgary Herald - sorry, Peter! But I will still be a news consumer and, as near as I can tell, I will find my desire for news to be a bit more uneven but it will be doable. Why can't the legacy media, i.e. those creeps who take tax money and actually ignore me, manage that but all sorts of start up can?
So, please, MM, do not make excuses for the legacy media but, instead, ask why the Hell they are so stupid and so obtuse to not see the writing on the wall and actually change, particularly after all these years?
Ugh, what a close-to-home topic for myself.
I spent a decade in print journalism (2006-2016) and have very conflicting feelings about it. I got into that losing proposition because I truly did love NEWS. Still do. I want to know what's happening, everywhere, all the time. I do not want my precious tax dollars propping up every dying newsroom in the country, however. It taints the product, whatever that product may be. And yet, I want newsrooms to survive.
I've long stated that among journalists - at least the ones I encountered - roughly 80-90 percent are the worst people you'll ever meet, and the remainder are the best. Personal bias increasingly got in the way of facts. Certain people will only hold the party they don't plan on voting for to account. And hey, we're all biased. But the Borg-like ideological monoculture that I saw emerge roughly 15 years ago isn't the group you'd task with holding anyone left-of-center accountable. The stories I could tell, you'd think it was an over-the-top conservative fever dream about how the media operates.
I'm talking vocal celebrations in the newsroom over (recently retired) Jim Flaherty dropping dead of a heart attack. Disgusting stuff that made me yearn to be anywhere else. I drive a large truck now, keep in mind. At least it's an honest living.
That Millennial-age ideological conformism helped spawn the briefly popular but ultimately failed outrage-for-clicks "journalism" of the 2010s, which only served to turn off scores of traditional MSM readers and give the profession even more of a "do not trust" label.
So, I don't know what the solution is, but it obviously isn't THIS. And as much as I loathe large swaths of what remains of the media, I'll watch a cigarettes-and-typewriters gumshoe reporter film from the 1940s while clasping my hands together and wishing it still were so. Sites like this one give me hope. Keep it up.
There is nothing more pressing in modern society that the need for a functional independent 5th estate. We need facts, not opinions. Tabloid journalism belongs at the supermarket checkout. All that is missing is a solution for a response when their economic function model collapsed.
What exactly do you mean by a functional independent 5th estate? How would it be funded?
That's the billion dollar question isn't it. It used to be funded by advertising. As pointed out here numerous times, the internet has destroyed that funding model. But in the absence of accurate facts, democracy dies. The US is teetering because of it. We're in no less a danger.
Facts are facts not false or accurate imho. I don't think it's misinformation that is killing democracy. I think it is that no parties truly occupy the centre where most Americans and Canadians live. The fringes on the left and right control the agenda because they are active, put up the money, lobby effectively and they are the tails that wag the dogs. They have co-opted the nomination process in the US so if you won't pander to the fringe you won't get nominated. Parties play along because this is how they get the money.
No question, the outer limits get a ton of attention because they make a lot of noise. Don't get me started on lobbyists and consultants who I see as little more than financial deadwood that contribute nothing useful to society. Sure are a lot of them making lots of money though....
All that party's are lacking is vision and focus.
Can the Gov. not just tax the digital advertisers, since they are the ones with deep pockets? Everyone else, including Google, Meta etc is a middleman no? Apply a ‘news levy’ to gst when advertising online and let that build a fund to be distributed to legacy and emerging digital media? The justification being that news orgs do provide a service by helping the public interpret events and advertisers benefit from that regularization of information (yes yes there are some actors who make things worse I know). Serious suggestion, been rattling around my head for a while and not sure where the holes are in this suggestion.
But to what end do you tax advertisers if nobody reads legacy media? Lets not tax anyone more than we are taxed now. The public doesn't want help interpreting events so much as they want facts to make their own judgements. When media "helps the public interpret events" then they are back to marketing to niches. How exactly do advertisers benefit from "regularization of information" and what exactly do you mean by that phrase?
There is no question the media has erred in not being clear on what is fact and what is editorial, but the realities of the 24 hour news cycle where CNN adopted the mantra of get the story out first and fix it later is the author of distrust of the media. There used to be time to filter through the details before the news came out. That's gone. MY go to example will always be CNN reporting a Lufthansa B737 crashing in Toronto 4 seconds after the Air France A340 crashed in Toronto. Get it out, and fix it later is a prescription for failure.
David, I agree that, "... the media has erred in not being clear on what is fact and what is editorial ..." I believe that in much of the media today what passes for news stories could reasonably be called a "factorial;" in other words, a fact built around a slanted "news" story.
On the other hand, I absolutely also believe that a large part of the problem lies with the viewers / readers / listeners who should demand that accuracy should be paramount. To use your particular example, one could have reported a large passenger jet crashing with details to follow and it would be accurate. If the public doesn't care about details then our news outlets won't either.
It's an interesting debate. I've been furious about 90% of the US media, for example, ignoring the blatantly fascist actions of the GOP for the last 3 years.....out of fear of being slanted, no doubt. So they didn't call a spade a spade, to avoid appearing biased. Now, the non-propaganda news is finally calling it what it is. But with all the "fake-news" doubt sowed by the propaganda networks, there is doubt.
Newspapers in Canada all used to have a certain editorial slant. You knew that and could factor it into your reading of a story. Maybe I haven't been reading enough, but I still think that's mostly the case today, except for those rags that went full tabloid and are now bird cage liners.
You're quite right that they should have said "we have reports of an airliner crash in Toronto", and then added facts as they became available. None of this was ever a real issue before the 24 hour news cycle.
But I still think the fare bigger problem is how the news media can sustain itself. Hungary is the perfect example of what happens with state controlled media.....same as Germany in the1930's. Factual information matters, but I have no idea where we're going to get it from.
My understanding is that pre-internet it was advertising that kept print media financially afloat (Craigs list broke that model).
By ‘regularization’ I mean journalists help the public interpret events by providing facts (ignore the biased sycophants for now) otherwise there would be more confusion and chaos/ misinformation in the public sphere.
The main point I’m making is taxing advertisers is what was done pre-internet anyway. How the pot of cash is divided among media is a different problem. Ideally based on readership numbers but no doubt the lobbyists would be lining up a the trough for their cut. All I’m suggesting here is a way to raise cash from a wide range of advertising companies so media is not dependent on a few entities like Google or the government.
If by interpreting events you mean providing historical context then fine. Otherwise, if you give me the facts, I will make my own interpretation. Pre-internet, we did tax advertisers outside of corporate taxes based on profits. Advertisers paid for space on the air or in print and print included newspapers, flyers, yearbooks, church bulletins etc. That's what they do now. Unfortunately, since fewer people buy papers, they attractive fewer advertisers. The same can be said about the CBC. The only way to make it work is to provide a product people are willing to pay for. When they do that, and they have an attractive population and demographic the advertisers will come... and then they will start to pimp themselves to them and the cycle starts over.
David, I have a problem with your model.
You used the phrase, "taxing advertisers" as if it would easily provide funding. Okay, say that is done. Who aggregates that "tax," I ask you? The government? Well, isn't that precisely what is happening now? The only difference is that you have added another tax, with another level of bureaucracy to administer that tax but the government still gets to collect the bucks and then decide which "worthies" qualify and which don't. Still completely odious and, worse, completely useless.
That’s a fair point. I would prefer free market approaches but how do you prevent news deserts and neglect of small town local news?
We pay green levies when we buy airfare and pass through airports, who collects that? The dishing of the funds is certainly a nest of problems not easily solved. Keep the CRTC and Gov. out of it as much as possible imo.
The intent of my pitch was on the revenue generating side, rather than news media hitching their futures to the whims of the PMO and some big Tech, why not add the levy when ads are purchased? Possibly set up a consortium of legacy and new digital news who could determine how it gets distributed.
This isn't that far away from what C11 tried to do. The result was the Meta said it was not in their business interest to continue with those links. They have lots of other content people engage with more.
The other side of it is how do you decide the distribution of money? Let's say they collect $100 million. Who gets how much? Does the CBC get a cut? Torstar? Do you base it on readership? Volume of content? How cozy they are with the current government? All of these approaches will create incentives that are bad for the quality of news.
Good points. When C-11 went after Meta and Google it took aim at middlemen platforms who just provide access and a potentially unlimited payout (‘link tax’). I was only suggesting to go upstream of meta/Google and put a ‘news tax’ on the businesses placing the ads - like a ‘green levy’ we pay when flying or going through an airport.
The distribution side is a whole other problem. One would hope it gets distributed on a needs basis: enough subsidy to keep local towns covered and where the demand is high (a proxy for in-demand service) but whatever system it is it would need to be transparent (so no CRTC/ PMO/ lobbyist interference) and have the public trust.
Then the journos work for the government, just like the cbc.
Well there’s that appearance with the current system. Raising revenue from thousands of advertisers and flowing it through a transparent mechanism to media who need it as support would be an improvement over kissing the ring of a single tech giant or going hat in hand to the PMO.
I recently have or have had subscriptions to the NY Times, the (London) Telegraph, Torstar, Globe and Mail, Saskatoon Star Phoenix, Regina Leader Post, Calgary Herald, Edmonton Journal and National Post (and before it, its pedecessor The Financial Post), and a more than passing acquaintanceship with the Vancouver Sun and Victoria Times Colonist when travelling in their vicinity. I recognize many of the ills you speak of. Sad that Canadian news sources have lost the ability, due to budget constraints, of having boots on the ground internationally and rely on wire services (which may or may not be fastidious in fact checking) for events reporting. And yet major newspapers, if they choose, still retain the capacity to create in-house, thoroughly researched and well written pieces essential to our times, which is a tribute to their journalism staff and shows their preeminent salvageability if corrective action can be taken.
The loss of traditional media would be one of our greatest tragedies not only in terms of those employed in media, but especially for the public at large. I believe Canadians today are the least informed of any generations in recent history, first because of dumbed-down school and post-secondary curricula and second because, having rejected traditional media, they haven't encountered a legitimate replacement. Many accustom themselves to the bad and the ugly of whatever pops up on their phones, social media or indiscriminate web browsing. The end result is a good contingent of our population is without the background to discern truth from fiction or right from wrong, or to judge the nuances inherent in either choice, a situation clearly evident today where politicians are chosen on the basis of manufactured public image and governments are some of the worst in history.
Countries that don't respect our best interests are barking at the door and our allies become more impatient every year with our stubborn irrationality. Knowledge is the key to recognizing and electing informed, credentialed politicans who can form good government and build a bulwark against our enemies. Mainstream media at one time took their role seriously in being a reliable source of timely, accurate reporting of events and provision of facts essential to maintaining an formed and knowledgeable population. Canada needs its media to step up once again to be that educator. The light is still shining brightly at private media sources, thankfully, but they can't do it alone. Mainstream media must find ways to regain its integrity and audience so it can again be a force in the battle against ignorance and disinformation.
The legacy media are like zombie movies.
Way too many of them.
Uninspired.
Sensationalist by nature.
Have a core legion of fans that love them and tout their brilliance despite all self-evident voluminous evidence to the contrary.
Those that produce them hate their audience (except for taking their money).
Take up resources & viewing space that could be better used to produce interesting, thoughtful, movies with well written scripts and better acting & direction.
Tired, repetitive, and self-derivative plotting and characters, most of which are technically dead, but still move and destroy or consume everything in their path.
The few non-zombie characters in the movies heroically try to survive but are eventually drug down by the more numerous zombie characters.
They. Just. Won't. Die.
I've always been willing to pay for "quality journalism" and for quality information in general, and I think I get it from sites like Unherd, Racket News and The Free Press--as well as from my home library of eight thousand books. Why, then, do I subscribe to neither The Globe and Mail nor the Toronto Star? Is it because I'm an alt-righter turned off by leftist media? But I've always voted NDP. Is it because I'm too uneducated and apathetic to take any interest in public affairs and issues? But, then, what about my two graduate degrees, my subscriptions to other sites, and my willingness to post to forums like this one? Is it an affordability issue, a need to carefully ration money? Explain, then why I was able to help both my daughters buy houses of their own, with my investment account barely noticing the withdrawals.
Maybe I just don't know quality when I see it. That's possible. But I'm a retired reference librarian, accustomed to navigating the realm of information, and never once in my career did my employer suggest I was helping others do so unreliably. As it happens, both the history of journalism and the history of publishing are longstanding reading enthusiasms of mine. One high school summer I even worked as a journalist for a major Toronto daily, as part of a training program that saw me spend two weeks each in Entertainment, Sports, and on the Courts and City Hall beats. My copy was regularly published, too.
From many points of view you'd think I'd be the ideal target market for Canada's mainstream media; yet Messrs. Jolly and Deegan seem uninterested in my consumer preferences, and Ms. Boltman clearly doesn't want to hear from me. This is a puzzle. What's certain, though, is that for at least a decade the Globe and Star have published very little that's in conformity with my own understanding of quality, and/or 'need to read'--though in fairness I should add that the Globe hasn't fallen quite as far as the Star, which clearly has given up the struggle to meet even basic standards of competence, objectivity and journalistic ethics.
I can't wait for the CRTC's consultation for who gets how much of the $100M from Google. It is going to be some legit Hunger Games dynamics there.
Just blow it all up, all of it except for perhaps the small community papers where public notices and obituaries are posted. We still need a common forum for notices and Facebook sucks for anything important. They can use that government ad and posting revenue to keep going. Let each province and town decide for themselves if they want to subsidize it.
But for anything the feds touch, blow it all up. All of it. The tax credits, the grants, the CBC, all of it. No one outside their partisan social class even takes them as a trusted voice anymore. For the good of society, kill it.
Quebec will want to leave Canada if they can't keep one of their most important sacred cows subsidized they say... (Even the cows are sacred there). Call their bluff, give it all to the Quebec government to fund and run, including Radio Canada. Lock, stock and barrel. If any other municipality or province wants to take over their legacy Ottawa subsidized media, let them.
Those small community papers could also be funded by their local community to provide hard news. That can then be shared amongst them, CP style but without the official Ottawa stink.
The important thing is that Ottawa cannot be trusted with media anymore. It's too broken, it's too far gone. The Laurentian elites killed it by treating it like a spoiled child.
If people and communities care about subsidized media, let their budgets do the talking, locally.