The federal government media subsidies must end. He who pays the piper calls the tune. It’s always been that way. And that makes media outlets — tv, radio and print — beholden to whoever allows them to pay their bills, whether it’s a supermarket chain or the Government of Canada.How could it be otherwise? And in the latter case, it really doesn’t matter whether the government honestly means to just hand over the cash and walk away: Who would believe there wasn’t a quiet understanding, anyway? Nobody could ever be sure. Trust, tenuous enough as it is, would be totally removed..That puts Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre on the right side of the argument when in a press conference Monday he said, “Our party does not support tax dollars for media outlets because that’s when we wind up with biased media.” (Think the mainstream media are a bit biased?) Not that it makes us happy to agree with Poilievre, in this case. One cannot work in newspapers for a long time, or be a faithful reader over decades, and watch the destruction of old, familiar titles without a deep sense of discouragement. But, what’s the alternative? Pravda? You’re better off without it. So, it’s up to the news industry itself to solve its own problems, or disappear. And that could happen, whatever they try. The advertiser-supported business model has failed and newspapers have been haemorrhaging money for years. Even those that took government assistance have failed. It’s no better in the electronic media. After taxes, television broadcasters lost $352.8 million in 2022. However, there is one possible way forward. It’s called ‘rebuilding trust.’ It will be slow and it will be difficult. But as the experience of the Western Standard shows, people are still prepared to pay for news — if they trust the source. (To subscribe to the Western Standard, click here.) Believe it or not, government has a role to play. (Although probably not this one.) For where did the trust go, anyway? It's a sad story. The ideal in journalism was once that the reporter got both sides, wrote a fair account and the engaged reader made up their own mind. Not that reporters were always perceived as fair and balanced even then. Old editors speak of letters to the editor that arrived through the window, wrapped around a rock. But under the old model, fairness and balance were what j-schools taught, editors demanded and generally speaking, readers received. However, in the last 20 years, journalism schools have been teaching that it is not the job of readers to be engaged. It is the reporter, the journaliste engagee, who must lead the readers to the truth. The lumpenproletariat readers, poor souls, lack the wider context vouchsafed to the freshly minted j-school grad. So having decided which side of the story is 'correct,' the modern reporter provides everything the reader needs — to agree with him. Not surprisingly, people smell a rat. They may not be able to put their finger on it, but they will put down the paper and think something like, "You know, I'm sure there were hundreds of people at the meeting where they were taking signatures to recall the mayor. Not dozens. I was there, for heaven's sake. What's with those guys?" Do that a couple of hundred times a year and you have a reader who doesn't trust you. Keep doing it for 20 years and you don't have readers at all. And that's really what it's come to. Here however, is where the government that funds the journalism schools comes in. With some happy exceptions, the people who run post-secondary education are completely unprincipled and will do anything for money. The federal government is well aware of that, and therefore ties funding to desired results. As a research student, for example, you will not get funded for research that does not support Ottawa's climate change narrative. Until the Trudeau Liberals have gone, that's not likely to change. However, the nature of intellectual prostitution being what it is, provincial governments do have the power through their funding of post secondary institutions — if they care to use it — to insist that journalism be taught a certain way. (They could also fund climate research that did not presume the result before the study began, but don't. Just saying.) But staying with journalism, colleges that wish to produce biased journalists will be free to carry on doing what they're doing, but without the benefit of taxpayer money. Those whose conscience permits them to train journalists to offer fair and balanced reporting will be funded. Poilievre said he believed media should be "driven by readership, viewership and listenership. That is what allows it to represent the Canadian people rather than taking marching orders from the Prime Minister’s Office.” How often the PMO actually issues orders is a matter of speculation. They would probably say they never do, and I would tend to believe them. But that's what people are afraid of — that news outlets just 'know' what lines never to cross, so it is unnecessary to issue orders. That alone, is reason to stop media subsidies. Poilievre should run on that and when he forms government, do it.
The federal government media subsidies must end. He who pays the piper calls the tune. It’s always been that way. And that makes media outlets — tv, radio and print — beholden to whoever allows them to pay their bills, whether it’s a supermarket chain or the Government of Canada.How could it be otherwise? And in the latter case, it really doesn’t matter whether the government honestly means to just hand over the cash and walk away: Who would believe there wasn’t a quiet understanding, anyway? Nobody could ever be sure. Trust, tenuous enough as it is, would be totally removed..That puts Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre on the right side of the argument when in a press conference Monday he said, “Our party does not support tax dollars for media outlets because that’s when we wind up with biased media.” (Think the mainstream media are a bit biased?) Not that it makes us happy to agree with Poilievre, in this case. One cannot work in newspapers for a long time, or be a faithful reader over decades, and watch the destruction of old, familiar titles without a deep sense of discouragement. But, what’s the alternative? Pravda? You’re better off without it. So, it’s up to the news industry itself to solve its own problems, or disappear. And that could happen, whatever they try. The advertiser-supported business model has failed and newspapers have been haemorrhaging money for years. Even those that took government assistance have failed. It’s no better in the electronic media. After taxes, television broadcasters lost $352.8 million in 2022. However, there is one possible way forward. It’s called ‘rebuilding trust.’ It will be slow and it will be difficult. But as the experience of the Western Standard shows, people are still prepared to pay for news — if they trust the source. (To subscribe to the Western Standard, click here.) Believe it or not, government has a role to play. (Although probably not this one.) For where did the trust go, anyway? It's a sad story. The ideal in journalism was once that the reporter got both sides, wrote a fair account and the engaged reader made up their own mind. Not that reporters were always perceived as fair and balanced even then. Old editors speak of letters to the editor that arrived through the window, wrapped around a rock. But under the old model, fairness and balance were what j-schools taught, editors demanded and generally speaking, readers received. However, in the last 20 years, journalism schools have been teaching that it is not the job of readers to be engaged. It is the reporter, the journaliste engagee, who must lead the readers to the truth. The lumpenproletariat readers, poor souls, lack the wider context vouchsafed to the freshly minted j-school grad. So having decided which side of the story is 'correct,' the modern reporter provides everything the reader needs — to agree with him. Not surprisingly, people smell a rat. They may not be able to put their finger on it, but they will put down the paper and think something like, "You know, I'm sure there were hundreds of people at the meeting where they were taking signatures to recall the mayor. Not dozens. I was there, for heaven's sake. What's with those guys?" Do that a couple of hundred times a year and you have a reader who doesn't trust you. Keep doing it for 20 years and you don't have readers at all. And that's really what it's come to. Here however, is where the government that funds the journalism schools comes in. With some happy exceptions, the people who run post-secondary education are completely unprincipled and will do anything for money. The federal government is well aware of that, and therefore ties funding to desired results. As a research student, for example, you will not get funded for research that does not support Ottawa's climate change narrative. Until the Trudeau Liberals have gone, that's not likely to change. However, the nature of intellectual prostitution being what it is, provincial governments do have the power through their funding of post secondary institutions — if they care to use it — to insist that journalism be taught a certain way. (They could also fund climate research that did not presume the result before the study began, but don't. Just saying.) But staying with journalism, colleges that wish to produce biased journalists will be free to carry on doing what they're doing, but without the benefit of taxpayer money. Those whose conscience permits them to train journalists to offer fair and balanced reporting will be funded. Poilievre said he believed media should be "driven by readership, viewership and listenership. That is what allows it to represent the Canadian people rather than taking marching orders from the Prime Minister’s Office.” How often the PMO actually issues orders is a matter of speculation. They would probably say they never do, and I would tend to believe them. But that's what people are afraid of — that news outlets just 'know' what lines never to cross, so it is unnecessary to issue orders. That alone, is reason to stop media subsidies. Poilievre should run on that and when he forms government, do it.
