What’s in name? A lot, when it comes to carbon taxes.That’s because Canada’s mainstream media paper of record has decided to update its style guide to change the term ‘carbon tax’ to ‘carbon pricing’ to conform with official government policy.The venerable Grey Lady informed readers of the change in a correction to one of its articles. The irony is that the Globe and Mail, which touts itself as an independent media voice, receives as much as half of its payroll from government media subsidies.The story in question was headlined “Singh signals NDP plan to oppose Liberal version of carbon pricing, says it puts burden on ‘backs of working people’” was changed from its original version and tagged with an editor’s note highlighting the change..“A previous version of this article used the phrase "carbon tax," which contradicts The Globe and Mail Style Book. It has been updated to use the phrase carbon pricing,” it said.That aligns with the Liberal government’s efforts last February to rebrand the carbon tax rebate to eliminate the word ‘tax’. Instead, Ottawa refers to it as a carbon ‘price’ even though every other party and provincial government — and now the NDP — calls it for what it is. A tax.However, the Globe is less inclined to explain to its readers the term "subsidy" and how much it receives to tow the government line. In addition to direct wage subsidies covering up to half of a reporter’s salary earning $85,000 per year, the Globe is also eligible for various tax credits covering everything from digital subscriptions to print costs. That’s despite the fact it prints less than 95,000 copies a day, down from more than a million in 2013.In addition it received more than $2 million in untendered government advertising contracts last year. Exact figures are hard to come by, but some mainstream outlets like Postmedia receive more than $150,000 under the government’s $595 million bailout plan based on financial statements. .Then there are the as-yet undetermined payments to come from the Online News Act when organizations like Google negotiate to divvy up $100 million in contributions it will make to keep Canada’s floundering mainstream media giants alive.According to polling Public Square Research for TheHub.ca this summer, barely 4% of Canadians are even aware of the various subsidies while 24% were “aware” the government was funding private media companies.In any event, 70% were opposed to the idea and more than 76% agreed that the subsidies “negatively impact journalistic objectivity.” A further 66% said government shouldn’t decide which specific news organizations are qualified to receive handouts and 67% said they don’t trust the government to define what qualifies as news.No surprise, less than half of Canadians trust media sources — falling to 40% from 55% in 2016.The Western Standard does not receive any direct government subsidies.
