In ways obscure and by edicts barely seen, the federal government is taking control of Canada’s news organizations.Which means in effect that it is taking control of what and when you the citizen can and cannot say.For in the anglosphere, there are no special newspaper rights. Newspapers (and the electronic media) simply use the common right of any citizen to say what he thinks, limited only by some fairly obvious and supportable libel laws. In other words when the government makes a move against the press, this is not just a media issue.It’s also a ‘you’ issue.Last week Blacklock’s Reporter, with its customary zeal for the obscure and edicts barely seen, turned up a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement prepared for Heritage Canada. The burden of it was that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission may create a code of conduct for newsrooms.A government-mandated newsroom code of conduct….We will not detain you with a lengthy history of how we got to this point. Suffice it to say that he who pays the piper calls the tune, so the moment news organizations whose business models had failed started accepting government bailouts, it was inevitable.Years later, the ill-advised and ultimately unsuccessful attempted shakedown of Meta (Facebook,) through Bill C18 and the consequent further decline in newspaper readership — because Facebook was the best paperboy you never had to pay — left the legacy media even further behind. To compensate for the revenue the legacy media thought it was going to get, the government authorised further payouts to the legacy media.As this was playing out, Ottawa passed bill C-11 — the Online Streaming Act — that gave the CRTC, already tasked with maintaining drawing-room standards for the nation’s broadcasters, increased powers to regulate all online content.Hear that, you podcasters? Careful what you say, now. If you’re too small, they’ll simply let your carrier know you’re being a little too bold and they’ll pass along the message, or face consequences themselves.Here’s a practical example. The picture illustrating this article shows a lawn sign intended, says the estimable Ezra Levant, publisher of Rebel News, to sell his book about the Liberals. Great idea, guerrilla marketing, Levant claims. However, Elections Canada saw it as undeclared election expenses. (Levant was not running for anything, it should be noted.)Elections Canada won the case; Levant was fined $3,000.A code of conduct would be one more rule for newsrooms, during elections or any other time.And of course for you the citizen.A lot of people wonder why other people in the news business are obsessed with free speech. It's simple. We only exercise a right that's common to all of us. We lose it, you lose it. And if you don't care about it, we will lose it.There is no special 'newspaper right.' There is only the right of the citizen to say what he believes. Governments will always object to this.And unless citizens are brave, and wise, they will get away with it. It’s worth remembering that the free-speech traditions that have informed politics in Canada for nearly 200 years owe a lot to Joseph Howe, who was both brave and wise. He was the Nova Scotia publisher who printed details of government corruption in the then-colony.You can know with certainty that his actions would not have been covered by any ‘newsroom code of conduct,’ because the Nova Scotia government prosecuted him criminally. (As the law then allowed: the crime was ‘seditious libel,’ saying things that is, that would bring the government into disrepute.)Howe was actually guilty by law, but a jury of his peers would not convict him.Thing is, the article that offended the authorities was not even written by Howe. It was the work of an ordinary Nova Scotia citizen, who had something to say and claimed the right to say it.Nothing about that has changed since 1834, not the citizen’s right, not the newspaper’s right and certainly not the attitude of governments to news they don’t want to hear.As I said folks, this is a ‘you’ issue.
In ways obscure and by edicts barely seen, the federal government is taking control of Canada’s news organizations.Which means in effect that it is taking control of what and when you the citizen can and cannot say.For in the anglosphere, there are no special newspaper rights. Newspapers (and the electronic media) simply use the common right of any citizen to say what he thinks, limited only by some fairly obvious and supportable libel laws. In other words when the government makes a move against the press, this is not just a media issue.It’s also a ‘you’ issue.Last week Blacklock’s Reporter, with its customary zeal for the obscure and edicts barely seen, turned up a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement prepared for Heritage Canada. The burden of it was that the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission may create a code of conduct for newsrooms.A government-mandated newsroom code of conduct….We will not detain you with a lengthy history of how we got to this point. Suffice it to say that he who pays the piper calls the tune, so the moment news organizations whose business models had failed started accepting government bailouts, it was inevitable.Years later, the ill-advised and ultimately unsuccessful attempted shakedown of Meta (Facebook,) through Bill C18 and the consequent further decline in newspaper readership — because Facebook was the best paperboy you never had to pay — left the legacy media even further behind. To compensate for the revenue the legacy media thought it was going to get, the government authorised further payouts to the legacy media.As this was playing out, Ottawa passed bill C-11 — the Online Streaming Act — that gave the CRTC, already tasked with maintaining drawing-room standards for the nation’s broadcasters, increased powers to regulate all online content.Hear that, you podcasters? Careful what you say, now. If you’re too small, they’ll simply let your carrier know you’re being a little too bold and they’ll pass along the message, or face consequences themselves.Here’s a practical example. The picture illustrating this article shows a lawn sign intended, says the estimable Ezra Levant, publisher of Rebel News, to sell his book about the Liberals. Great idea, guerrilla marketing, Levant claims. However, Elections Canada saw it as undeclared election expenses. (Levant was not running for anything, it should be noted.)Elections Canada won the case; Levant was fined $3,000.A code of conduct would be one more rule for newsrooms, during elections or any other time.And of course for you the citizen.A lot of people wonder why other people in the news business are obsessed with free speech. It's simple. We only exercise a right that's common to all of us. We lose it, you lose it. And if you don't care about it, we will lose it.There is no special 'newspaper right.' There is only the right of the citizen to say what he believes. Governments will always object to this.And unless citizens are brave, and wise, they will get away with it. It’s worth remembering that the free-speech traditions that have informed politics in Canada for nearly 200 years owe a lot to Joseph Howe, who was both brave and wise. He was the Nova Scotia publisher who printed details of government corruption in the then-colony.You can know with certainty that his actions would not have been covered by any ‘newsroom code of conduct,’ because the Nova Scotia government prosecuted him criminally. (As the law then allowed: the crime was ‘seditious libel,’ saying things that is, that would bring the government into disrepute.)Howe was actually guilty by law, but a jury of his peers would not convict him.Thing is, the article that offended the authorities was not even written by Howe. It was the work of an ordinary Nova Scotia citizen, who had something to say and claimed the right to say it.Nothing about that has changed since 1834, not the citizen’s right, not the newspaper’s right and certainly not the attitude of governments to news they don’t want to hear.As I said folks, this is a ‘you’ issue.
