Digital gorillas threaten Canadian news

In a moment, I will tell you how to access Canadian news without relying on Google and Facebook, which is now called Meta. They are the giant digital gorillas (DGs) in the room. But I want to begin by stating in the simplest terms their rationale for threatening to block Canadian news links from their sites. It is because the federal government has passed the Online News Act, or Bill C-18. It would require companies like Google and Meta to pay Canadian providers for using their news. They do not want to do that.

“Free marketing”

The DGs carry links to Canadian content provided by newspapers, magazines, radio, and television outlets, and on digital-only platforms. These news links make the DG sites more attractive to users, which in turn allows the giants to make millions from the ads they carry. The DGs argue that they should not have to pay for the news because their using it provides publicity for the originators. This is the so-called “free marketing” argument.

Here is an simple way to describe that argument. Have you ever been contacted and asked to make a speech, moderate at an event, lead a workshop, or teach a class? When the conversation comes around to what you might be paid, you are told, “I’m afraid we don’t have any budget for this, but it will be free publicity for you.” It is insulting. Those organizations want something for nothing. That is what is happening on a massive scale with the DGs.

Bill C-18

The regulations contained in Bill C-18 are slated to take effect by the end of 2023. Meta has brought out the big hammer and announced it will block access to Canadian news for users in this country. Google is still talking with the government.

There has been much debate about the merits of the legislation. I do not intend to go deeply into those arguments here. But I assure you that there are ways to have access to plenty of Canadian news without using the platforms of the DGs.

Paying for news

First off, I do have paid subscriptions to the New York Times, the Globe and Mail and several magazines. I also subscribe to the National Observer, a digital only publication that does a good job on environmental issues. I have a cable television package which allows me to watch news on all major Canadian and American networks, not to mention the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). That channel also carries the BBC television news and an impressive array of documentaries.

I believe in paying to support good journalism, but there are other sites where there is no cost for receiving news. You need only to download mobile device application (app), or to sign onto a mailing list to receive feeds.

News for free

• National Newswatch is a Canadian news aggregator for a wide array of print and broadcast news and opinion. It also caries some US and international news. Some of the posts are behind paywalls but many are not.
• CBC has a variety of apps available for downloading. There is a CBC News app for TV-related news, and CBC GEM for streaming live newscasts, as well as documentaries, and drama. If you download CBC Listen, you also have access to an astonishing variety of music. We do pay for this service through our taxes because the CBC is publicly funded, but the service is easily available to everyone without direct cost.
• BBC News app for a wider view of international affairs. Also Al Jazeera. I read excellent stories in The Guardian. I do not subscribe but I do respond to their occasional fund-raising requests.  I also follow, for free, The New Humanitarian, a digital only publication reports on the ground about humanitarian crises around the world.
• Closer to home, you can receive feeds from Rabble.ca and The Tyee, Press Progress, and The Breach, all of them feisty left-of centre digital publications.

Legacy media

As valuable as these publications are, they have limited resources to devote to long-term investigative stories, such as the Globe and Mail’s series about Canada’s broken access to information regime, or PBS documentaries about events in Iran, Ukraine, Russia, and elsewhere. It is important that these legacy media survive.

C-18 shortcomings  

The Online News Act will require the DGs to reach deals with Canadian news providers to pay for use of their content. Smaller outlets, such as Broadview magazine (which I also read), worry that they will not be included in any such deals. They fear that having the DGs block Canadian news might leave them vulnerable because they depend upon readers to share their content on those sites.

Alfred Hermida, a journalism professor at the University of British Columbia, is quoted on a CBC platform as saying that C-18 that doesn’t address big issues in the news industry, such as the concentration of private media ownership. Conglomerates like Bell and Rogers both have vast media interests. They, too, are digital giants and it is they who will benefit most if the DGs pay for Canadian news content. It appears also that the legislation does little, if anything, to support journalism startups, such as the ones I have mentioned here.

News in abundance  

I hope that these smaller providers and their subscribers can prod the government to find ways to assist them. But in the interim, there is no shortage of Canadian news available without relying on the medium provided by the digital giants.