Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) President Brent Jolly said working in retail is unsuitable for journalists who face layoffs without taxpayers’ aid, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. “What are they going to do?” said Jolly in a speech to the House of Commons Heritage Committee.“Are they going to work at Home Hardware?”Jolly made the remark while appealing for the renewal of a 100% wage subsidy for employees in select newsrooms. He said he did not “think that working retail is really befitting of treating people with professionalism.”The Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) was set to expire on March 31. However, cabinet decided on Friday to extend the LJI for three years at a $58.8 million cost. The LJI is in addition to the $595 million media bailout introduced in 2019 and $129 million in expanded rebates announced in November. If it ended, he predicted it would be cataclysmic. He said he was worried. “Journalists in Canada are hurting,” he said. “We are hurting emotionally, oscillating between the challenges of navigating an increasingly hostile world while trying to ignore the deep feelings of anxiety.” With the LJI, Jolly said there are hundreds of early career journalists working in communities across Canada. “Rather than thinking about their next assignment, I suspect many of their minds are on whether they will have jobs,” he said. Cabinet launched the LJI with an initial $50 million budget in 2019. Newspaper publishers awarded rebates to themselves as members of News Media Canada (NMC). Records showed Canada’s National Observer publisher received grants to hire two reporters while serving as director of the NMC panel divvying up grants. The Winnipeg Free Press publisher received funding to hire two reporters and served on the same NMC panel. Subsidies paid a maximum $60,000 per year to cover a reporter’s salary. “It is no panacea to save journalism forever more,” said former assistant deputy heritage minister Jean-Stephen Piche. “But it will allow us to take the first steps to ensure news coverage where there is nothing at the moment, at the local level.”Other successful grant applicants included the Toronto Star to hire a housing reporter and the Montreal Gazette to hire a legislature reporter. The Narwhal received a grant to hire a climate change reporter in Whitehorse. The Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) confirmed in January it was completing a first-ever review of media subsidies. READ MORE: PBO to conduct first review of media bailout“I am requesting specific data,” said Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux. Figures included the number of newsroom employees identified in media bailout claims and what salaries they were paid. No date was fixed for the release of Giroux’s analysis.
