$350M fund to rescue journalism

Newspaper publishers, TORONTO crippled by the digital content revolution that is destroying their business model, have banded together to ask the federal government to create a $350 million fund to aid the print and online media industry.

The Canadian Journalism Fund would reimburse newspaper and Web-based journalism providers 35 per cent of a journalist’s salary, capped at $85,000, “in line with five-year union rates,” says the proposal from News Media Canada, created last fall through a merger of the Canadian Newspaper Association and the Canadian Community Newspapers Association.

The publishers say they are only asking for the kind of support that governments funnel to other media: the government increased the CBC’s budget by $135 million a year; the Canadian Media Fund contributed $371 million to TV and digital projects in 2015-16; the CRTC will introduce $90 million in new supports for local TV in September; and the Canadian Periodical Fund currently funnels $75 million a year to magazine publishers.

“Put it all together and you’ve got a pretty uneven playing field,” said Bob Cox, publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press and chair of News Media Canada.

The Canadian Journalism Fund would fold in the $75 million from the Canadian Periodicals Fund, and would finance both newspaper and magazine journalism.

MPs on the House of Commons heritage committee announced support for the fund in a report, released Thursday in Ottawa. The Trudeau government will now have to decide whether to act.

Paul Godfrey, CEO of Postmedia Network Inc., praised the committee for recognizing the newspaper industry is in crisis.

“I take my hat off to the Liberal government,” he said. “They were smart enough to notice that if they did nothing there will be no media in Canada.”

Godfrey noted that Postmedia is hemorrhaging ad revenue, which has declined about 20 per cent per year. Postmedia is Canada’s largest publisher of newspapers including this paper. Its competitors all support the creation of the fund.

Cox and Godfrey said they do not fear the fund would create a lap-dog news media that curries favour with government to keep the public funds flowing.

“If you believe that newspapers provides a watchdog, and provides entertainment and education to Canadians, and the government wants it at arm’s length, then there is nothing to fear,” Godfrey said.