Last year only 35% of Canadian homes subscribed to a newspaper
Nick Fillmore
Of all our traditional media, we should be most concerned about the future of daily newspapers because they’re the source of most of our news, even the news that’s available from dozens of Internet sites. Unfortunately, the decline of daily newspapers in Canada is mirrored in their declining circulation.
This falling off of sales didn’t coincide with the growth of Internet use — as a matter of fact, it began almost 60 years ago. Research carried out by Kenneth Goldstein of Communications Management Inc. of Winnipeg shows that during the 1950s the number of newspaper subscriptions exceeded the number of Canadian households. Last year, the equivalent of only 35 per cent of households had paid subscriptions.
Roger Parkinson, a former publisher of The Globe and Mail, said in an e-mail exchange that daily papers are in financial trouble because the traditional for-profit media model is broken. He said the costs of newsprint, printing and paper distribution are too expensive in light of the reduced revenue expectations. The papers with the best chance of surviving, Parkinson said, are “very high quality national papers with a thin, high demographic, highly educated audience who want and need specialized, high quality news and analysis, like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail.”
Future of traditional journalism can’t be predicted
Some of the world’s leading media experts say they don’t know what the future holds for traditional journalism. Chris Elliott, managing editor of the U.K. Guardian, which operates the world’s most successful news web site, said in an e-mail message that he doesn’t know how much quality journalism will be possible. “I think we will just need to have a lower cost base for many years while the revenue models re-calibrate. When Woodward and Bernstein broke Watergate in 74/75, the [Washington] Post had 320 journalists. Two years ago it had 90, now it has around 60 I believe. I think that says it all.”
A huge unknown factor is whether traditional media companies will be able to obtain large amount of money from charging for website content. Various marketing schemes are being developed that allow Internet users to get the first few stories free, but then they’d have to pay per article at a certain point. The editor of The Financial Times in the U.K., Lionel Barber, predicts that “almost all” news organizations will be charging for online content in less than a year.
If Barber is right, and if there aren’t too many news outlets that continue to give away information for free, traditional media companies will be able to tap into additional revenues, but it’s still too soon to say if those revenues will be enough to support quality journalism.
The public entrusted the corporate media decades ago with the responsibility of providing quality journalism. If, as the economy picks up, traditional media companies are unable to provide Canadians with news and information of high quality, what then? If corporate media manage to develop a new model that allows them to make reasonable profits, will they restore their news departments to the levels of a year ago? The history of media cutbacks in Canada shows that once journalists have been let go, they’re not usually replaced even when companies become highly profitable.
Citizens groups need to set up independent news outlets
With media companies unable to provide the news we need, and not knowing if they’ll rebuild their news services, I believe that the time is ripe for groups of people to explore setting up inexpensive, independent media outlets that could provide their communities with quality news and information. Non-profit media outlets could provide an alternative to corporate-owned media and their right-wing bias.
Considering the many challenges we face — from massive income disparity here at home to the crisis of global climate change — it’s important that people who care about the future get involved in creating a more open and democratic media that would make a priority of dealing with society’s most important issues. Responsible media is one of the four cornerstones of democracy so it should be operated by people who have the public’s best interests at heart. (My belief that the best, and perhaps only, way for us to have trustworthy, independent media in the future, will be to have partial arms-length support from government, will be discussed later in the series.)
People from all backgrounds — universities, faith-based organizations, labour organizations, community groups, journalism schools, as well as journalists — could work together to create new, exciting media projects. In the following articles, several ideas — ranging from inexpensive “mini-newspapers” to Internet-based projects — will be discussed.
Mr. Fillmore was an editor and producer with the CBC for 18 years and has been involved in several print media projects. A freelance journalist and media fundraiser based in Toronto, he is a founding member of the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE). He can be reached at fillmore0274@rogers.com
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