The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) wants Ottawa to alter its definition of what constitutes a ‘journalist’ under the Online News Act — Bill C-18 — to include sound and video engineers and technicians, among others.In its submission to the Heritage department’s proposed regulations, the CAB — the professional association which represents Bell, Roger’s and the CBC — wants the present definition of a ‘journalist’ expanded to include: “A full-time employee or a full-time equivalent employee of an eligible news business or its subcontractors, where the eligible news business adheres to Canadian journalistic codes and standards, that spends at least 75% of their time engaged in the production of original news content, including researching, collecting information, verifying facts, conducting interviews, photographing, filming, recording, writing, editing, video-editing, audio-editing, designing, assembling and otherwise preparing, delivering and/or presenting original news content.” .Why would they want to do that?According to media critic Michael Geist, the answer is quite simple: to gain an even bigger slice of the C-18 pie Ottawa aims to extract from media giants Meta and Google to the detriment of smaller online news organizations (including The Western Standard) and local community newspapers.“The expansive definition prioritizes many broadcasting jobs, which would mean conventional newspaper services likely would get even less than the current estimate of 25% of revenues,” he wrote on his blog on Monday.“If accepted by the government (it) would significantly increase the likelihood of Google blocking news links in Canada.”.That’s notwithstanding that the CBC already gets $1 billion a year from the federal government and legacy newspapers such as PostMedia and Torstar get $595 million.It’s significant because the proposed cost sharing formula is ostensibly based on the number of full-time equivalent journalists any given news organization has, which inherently favours legacy or mainstream media.Google has argued broadcasters should be excluded altogether and that the law should focus solely on the struggling newspaper sector. If adopted, it would leave even less for the newspapers it is supposedly meant to help..The Western Standard does not receive any federal funding.Furthermore, CAB is proposing the reimbursement requirement extend to ancillary ‘aggregator’ services such as YouTube — owned by Google — that don’t redirect news and which amounts to a form of double indemnity. “The CAB’s poorly drafted proposal may be (rightly) rejected by the government, but it highlights how the Canadian media sector is still betting that Google will pay anything in order to continue linking to Canadian news content,” Geist wrote. .“That bet has proven costly in the case of Meta and were the government to follow the CAB’s advice, it seems almost certain to drive the world’s leading search engine out of the Canadian news market. If that happens, no platform will be subject to the law and the CAB’s members will receive a larger portion of nothing.”Media critic Michael Geist
The Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) wants Ottawa to alter its definition of what constitutes a ‘journalist’ under the Online News Act — Bill C-18 — to include sound and video engineers and technicians, among others.In its submission to the Heritage department’s proposed regulations, the CAB — the professional association which represents Bell, Roger’s and the CBC — wants the present definition of a ‘journalist’ expanded to include: “A full-time employee or a full-time equivalent employee of an eligible news business or its subcontractors, where the eligible news business adheres to Canadian journalistic codes and standards, that spends at least 75% of their time engaged in the production of original news content, including researching, collecting information, verifying facts, conducting interviews, photographing, filming, recording, writing, editing, video-editing, audio-editing, designing, assembling and otherwise preparing, delivering and/or presenting original news content.” .Why would they want to do that?According to media critic Michael Geist, the answer is quite simple: to gain an even bigger slice of the C-18 pie Ottawa aims to extract from media giants Meta and Google to the detriment of smaller online news organizations (including The Western Standard) and local community newspapers.“The expansive definition prioritizes many broadcasting jobs, which would mean conventional newspaper services likely would get even less than the current estimate of 25% of revenues,” he wrote on his blog on Monday.“If accepted by the government (it) would significantly increase the likelihood of Google blocking news links in Canada.”.That’s notwithstanding that the CBC already gets $1 billion a year from the federal government and legacy newspapers such as PostMedia and Torstar get $595 million.It’s significant because the proposed cost sharing formula is ostensibly based on the number of full-time equivalent journalists any given news organization has, which inherently favours legacy or mainstream media.Google has argued broadcasters should be excluded altogether and that the law should focus solely on the struggling newspaper sector. If adopted, it would leave even less for the newspapers it is supposedly meant to help..The Western Standard does not receive any federal funding.Furthermore, CAB is proposing the reimbursement requirement extend to ancillary ‘aggregator’ services such as YouTube — owned by Google — that don’t redirect news and which amounts to a form of double indemnity. “The CAB’s poorly drafted proposal may be (rightly) rejected by the government, but it highlights how the Canadian media sector is still betting that Google will pay anything in order to continue linking to Canadian news content,” Geist wrote. .“That bet has proven costly in the case of Meta and were the government to follow the CAB’s advice, it seems almost certain to drive the world’s leading search engine out of the Canadian news market. If that happens, no platform will be subject to the law and the CAB’s members will receive a larger portion of nothing.”Media critic Michael Geist
