The stranglehold corporate media has had on the news is changing

Nick Fillmore

By Nick Fillmore – But times in the media world are changing, and the stranglehold corporate media has had on the news is changing too!

Corporate-owned media, particularly the newspaper sector, is struggling financially and is losing readers.

At the same time, the Internet is becoming the preferred source of news for a growing number of people. 

Traditional media — and by this I mean corporate-owned newspapers, TV and radio — are losing millions of dollars in advertising because Internet sites such as craigslist provide free classifieds. And when a newspaper sets up its own website, an ad that sold for $1,000 in its paper brings in only about $100 on the Internet. Then there are the millions of dollars traditional media has lost because of the poor economy.

So far the country has had only one daily newspaper close, the Halifax Daily News, because of economic problems. On the TV side, CTV globemedia closed its station in Brandon, and Canwest Global closed down operations in Red Deer.

One way that Canwest and Torstar, the corporate owner of The Toronto Star, are going to save money is a little unsavory: They’re firing highly skilled production workers and editors and contracting out their jobs to companies that will pay other workers much lower wages. Almost certainly other papers will do the same thing.

The entire television sector is in flux with the television companies and cable firms fighting over whether cable should pay to carry television signals, and the CRTC seemingly afraid to make a decision for fear it will be overruled by the government. With more specialty channels coming into the mix all the time, and the prospect of a lot more people watching programming directly via the Internet, the three main networks that the public relies on for most of its TV news — CTV, Global and the CBC — are likely to lose viewers, have financial difficulties, and face the prospect of further cuts to their news budgets.

Budget cuts result in poorer quality of news

Because of severe budget cutbacks, most newsrooms across the country are operating with far fewer resources than in the past, and its showing.

A scan of several daily papers reveals a serious shortage of in-dept, thoughtful articles dealing with important issues. There’s weak reporting by inexperienced journalists, gaps in coverage, and a failure to follow up on big stories. At the same time, considerable space is given over to dubious material: page after page is devoted to crime of all sorts, entertainment, fawning profiles of prominent people, U.S. stories written as though we were Americans, and too many “man bites dog” stories. Many weekly newspapers — once a source of interesting, colorful local information — have been snapped up by media corporations, and their unique character has been destroyed.

The quality of much of the country’s TV and radio news reporting has also fallen off. In particular, both CTV and Global national and local TV news programs are loaded with stories picked up from the U.S. networks that are basically “filler” and of little interest to most Canadians. Serious journalism is ignored in favor of “infotainment.” At the CBC, corporation executives turned Newsworld into a hyped, superficial, all-news channel, despite the fact that Canadians already have access to four similar channels. Graham Spry, the father of the CBC, has probably rolled over in his grave more than once because of the deterioration of the once-proud news service.

Will new owners invest adequately in Canwest papers?

Meanwhile, the fate of 10 former Canwest daily papers — which could be considered the backbone of daily journalism across much of the country — is in the hands of creditors who are looking for buyers. Historically, the papers have been vital to the development and well-being of their communities. Included are the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, the Montreal Gazette, The Ottawa Citizen, the Regina Leader-Post, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix, the Vancouver Province, The Vancouver Sun, the Victoria Times Colonist and The Windsor Star.

Tomorrow – Media circulation drops over the decades

The Globe and Mail reported in October that National Post president Paul Godfrey, formerly head of the Sun chain of papers, had secured the support of enough investors to make a bid for several or all of the 10 papers. Torstar, publisher of The Toronto Star, may bid for some of the Ontario papers, so there could be some rival bidding. No matter who acquires the papers, the most important question is whether the diminished economic realities will allow the new owners to restore the papers’ editorial departments to their previous levels of operation.