‘Band-Aid solution’: Ottawa sets aside $50 million to support local journalism

Our latest report discusses how to save local news in Canada, and how to best adapt the Australian model of negotiated compensation between Google/Meta and the news industry.

Many different approaches to support journalism, locally and beyond, have emerged in recent years in the wake of the sharp decline of traditional industry players. Public policy will play a crucial role in shaping the rules for ownership innovation and protected space for Canadian journalism.

In our study of 20 small and mid-sized Canadian communities, the number and depth of newspaper articles about civic affairs declined sharply between 2008 and 2017, leaving citizens less informed about their democratic institutions.

Democracy has been made vulnerable to attack by hate speech and disinformation on digital and social platforms. Policy must be implemented to reconcile freedom of speech and freedom of the press with these online news threats to democracy.

The media mirror — how media reflects the communities it represents — is shattered. Is a lifeline needed?

The federal government has followed through on its promise to support journalism over the next five years with three programs first unveiled in the fall economic statement.

The question of how, or whether, to demarcate who qualifies as a journalist has returned in louder, more insistent terms with the federal government’s pledge to introduce a tax credit rebating an unspecified percentage of the labour costs of newsrooms. Let's define journalists by what they do: "A definition does not infringe on anyone’s right to report and publish; it simply provides some with the advantage of a shield law or tax credit."

The Public Policy Forum is pleased that the production of independent, original journalism for Canadians will be supported by new measures announced in the government’s fall economic statement.

Radio Canada spoke with PPF's Carl Neustaedter about the report "Mind the Gaps: Quantifying the Decline of News Coverage in Canada". The report found that news coverage has dropped in local communities, and specifically there's less civic coverage of courts and city hall - civic institutions which are the pillars of democracy.

"The Canadian journalism industry may be able to learn a thing or two from the Saskatchewan Roughriders, according to a new report," reads the CBC News article about the PPF report What the Saskatchewan Roughriders Can Teach Canadian Journalism. "The report is one of two released on Tuesday by the Public Policy Forum. The other adds to concerns about the decline of the industry and says the number of articles published in newspapers across 20 small and mid-sized Canadian communities declined by 50 per cent between 2008 and 2017." Accompanying the article was a radio interview with PPF's CEO Edward Greenspon.

Local news across Canada has been cut in half in the last decade, writes Terry Pedwell of The Canadian Press. In this Globe & Mail article, he highlights a new PPF report “Mind The Gaps — Quantifying The Decline of News Coverage in Canada” which looks specifically at the decline in civic reporting of civic institutions like city hall, police stations and courts.

In this Op-ed, Ed Greenspon and Taylor Owens discuss some of the policy options which would help address the threats to democracy posed by hate speech and disinformation, and which has been empowered by a highly consolidated digital media landscape.

Ed Greenspon spoke on CBC's Power & Politics about different policy options which would help Canadian content creators and address threats to democracy posed by increasingly consolidated Internet media giants.

With the release of the PPF report "Democracy Divided", The Logic covers the threats that social media marketing tools and the highly consolidated digital media landscape creates for democracy in Canada and explains why this matters to Canadians.

In this Nieman Journalism Lab article we get an overview of the policy recommendations in the PPF report "Democracy Divided" as part of PPF's ongoing Shattered Mirror Series. The report addresses questions of disinformation and hate speech and its spread through social media marketing tools.

This model of 'journalism as non-profit' buys time, but it isn't necessarily a long-term solution, especially not on its own. Read what PPF's President and CEO Edward Greenspon told Nieman Labs following LaPresse announcement that it was going to become a non-profit entity.

Internet giants like Facebook and Google should play a direct role in investing in “trusted local journalism” and Canadian culture, Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly said

CBC's Ontario Today explores the future of news and the crisis of democracy caused by free digital media and social media marketing tools.