Print journalism is essential

Re Liberals struggle to keep policies consistent, Hébert Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly looks to update Canada’s cultural policy, and starts off with financial help for Netflix. It adds to the list of government support, grants, subsidies and tax breaks to for-profit cultural organizations: film and television producers, sports teams, performing arts groups, publishers and broadcast television. Canadians generally believe this is important for our country and the economy.

Left out is perhaps our most important social institution, daily print journalism, which is now facing a unique challenge. As we move further into the digital age, we see news being reduced to 30-second sound bites, opinion and gossip, 140-character comments, unverified remarks on social media sites and so on. We become further inclined to see things not as they are, but as we are. We have recent examples of what may be the result.

Print newsrooms have reporting and investigative standards. They have a critical role as a public watchdog of government and its agencies, especially as transparency is becoming more opaque. They can fill this role at the local level.

It is work that is in the interest and to the benefit of all Canadians. Maybe one day digital outlets will offer the same but today, this is seldom the case. Without the local newspaper, or its digital equivalent, who will do the work? It is too important for Minister Joly to ignore. Mike Brown, Burlington