The ongoing funding, subsidies and bailouts the Trudeau Liberals extend to legacy media does little to instill public confidence, witnesses told the Commons Heritage Committee Tuesday. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s administration has poured taxpayer dollars into the failing media giants, but the committee hears soliciting and pocketing subsidies has only damaged newsrooms’ credibility, per a report from Blacklock’s Reporter. The federal government approved a $595 million media bailout in 2019, including annual payroll rebates of up to $13,750 per newsroom employee. Two years later, in November 2021, the Trudeau government doubled annual rebates to a maximum $29,750 at an additional $129 million.“Legacy and new media lobbying for government money and accepting it does little to enhance confidence in their independence or reliability,” testified broadcaster John Gormley, former Conservative MP and 1988 chair of the Commons Communications Committee. “Does government funding pay for better journalism? Does it restore credibility and trust?”“I don’t necessarily accept the supposition Canadian media is in trouble because it is underfunded by government,” testified Gormley, now-retired host of John Gormley Live on Radio CKOM Saskatoon and CJME Regina. “The government has nothing to do with this.”“Media is in trouble because it did two things,” said Gormley. “It bet on a modernized definition of journalism that backfired and lost audiences. Secondly it whistled past the graveyard as the internet and social media developed the technology to migrate content and revenue away from media which was entirely predictable.”“Any funding from the government that flows to media at this point would hinder our attempts to rebuild trust,” testified Tara Henley, Toronto author and host of the Lean Out podcast on current affairs. “There is evidence to suggest subsidies have created an environment in which segments of the public believe media has been bought off."“Without trust we have no audience. Without an audience we have no revenue. Without revenue we have no path forward.”“Canadian media does need to be saved, that is very true,” said Henley. “My message is simple. The government cannot save us. We have to save ourselves.”In November, Statistics Canada found the public rated media as less trustworthy than police or politicians. The government research organization conducted a study through Canadian Social Survey questionnaires, where they asked Canadians, “Using a scale of one to five where one means ‘no confidence at all’ and five means ‘a great deal of confidence,’ how much confidence do you have in the Canadian media?” Stats Can found “less than a third of Canadians nationwide, 31%, expressed a “good or great deal of confidence in media.”Canadians by comparison were more likely to trust Parliament (32%) the courts (46%) the school system (47%) and police (62%).
