The state of Canadian journalism is terrible, a former CBC executive has testified at the Commons heritage committee. Legacy media are “memories of what they used to be” despite federal subsidies, MPs were told..“I was a journalist in Canada for ten years working in radio, television and online,” said Sue Gardner, visiting professor at McGill University’s Max Bell School of Public Policy. “I used to run CBC.ca. I used to run the Wikimedia Foundation.”.“I’d like to ask you about the state of journalism in this country as you see it,” asked Conservative MP Kevin Waugh (Saskatoon-Grasswood, Sask.). “It’s appalling,” replied Gardner. “It’s terrible. I don’t think anyone is arguing differently.”.“I had lived outside Canada for 11 years and I returned about a year and a half ago,” said Gardner, who left Canadian Broadcasting Corporation management in 2007. “The Globe & Mail is a brochure now. The institutions, even the ones that still exist, are hollowed out versions of their former selves. They’re memories of what they used to be.”.According to Blacklock's Reporter, Gardner spoke at committee hearings on Bill C-18 the Online News Act. The bill would compel Google and Facebook to pay newsrooms a portion of ad revenues generated by linked stories at a cost of $329.2 million a year, by Parliamentary Budget Office estimate..Bill C-18 “is a very bad bill,” testified Gardner. “Google and Facebook out-innovated the business side of the news industry and that is not a fairness issue, it’s not a moral issue, it doesn’t make them a villain,” she said..“If you imagine it’s the 1920s, I make buggy whips and you make cars and Bill C-18 is the government saying you need to give me money forever because nobody is buying my buggy whips,” said Gardner..Department of Canadian Heritage data show CBC.ca as the largest free news website in Canada would be the biggest beneficiary of Bill C-18. The CBC website, financed by a share of $1.3 billion in yearly network subsidies, claims an average 21.7 million unique visits per month..“By imposing a cost on news intermediaries for links to news content Bill C-18 threatens the efficiency of news retrieval on the internet and the ability of Canadians to access news content,” testified Philip Palmer, president of the Internet Society Canada Chapter. “Bill C-18 will raise the costs directly or indirectly of accessing news content in Canada.”.Independent publishers have criticized Bill C-18 as another federal subsidy for money-losing corporate media. “Struggling media corporations are using every last iota of their dwindling financial and social capital to lobby for subsidies,” Jen Gerson, co-founder of the online newsletter The Line, testified September 23 at the heritage committee.
