Newspapers play vital role
The impending demise of the printed Star Metro Halifax removes yet another journalism voice from Nova Scotia’s media mix.
It’s bad for everyone when news outlets close. Newspapers are often the primary source for other reporting and fewer reporters means less accountability of local governance and less critical thought generally. In short, communities suffer.
The free commuter daily, one of five in Canada published by TorStar, ceases publication just before Christmas. It’s the last vestige of what once was the Daily News and continues a distressing trend of newspapers disappearing across the western world. Similar dailies in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto are also closing, putting 70 more journalists out of work.
But along with the handwringing that inevitably follows such closures our focus needs to turn to how best to support the local journalism that lifts our communities by provoking thought and action.
News, it has been said, is as vital to democracy as clean air, safe streets, good schools and public health. These days, as the very concept of news is under attack by fake news factories from the Balkans to the White House, it’s crucial that independent, local news organizations committed to delivering facts and context and speaking truth to power, must survive.
The federal government’s local journalism initiative and tax credits assist. But our political leaders shovel $1.2 billion in tax dollars annually toward the CBC while simultaneously allowing the Mother Corp to compete with private-sector newsrooms to the tune of another half billion dollars in advertising and licensing revenue a year.
And by bankrolling the CBC’s foray into digital media the feds are moving into local online news in a big way.
This is exactly the space where newspapers feel they have a chance for a future despite the fact that Canada’s media companies – taxpayerfunded CBC included – fight for a mere 15 cents of each digital dollar spent in Canada. Multinational digital behemoths Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google (known widely by the anagram FANG), who don’t pay any taxes in Canada, drain the remainder.
Additionally, Canada’s publicly owned postal service has taken aim at the newspaper industry’s advertising flyer business by using its monopoly on letter mail to subsidize flyer delivery – an important source of revenue for print media organizations in light of declining advertising.
Yes, the CBC and Canada Post provide critically important services but it’s hard to understand why private industry should have to compete in all aspects of the business with organizations that don’t have to worry about the bottom line.
Our federal politicians need to direct publiclyfunded Crown corporations to stick to their public service mandates and allow Canadian news organizations a fair field on which to compete.