Media
Trudeau government agency suggests writing its own articles for ‘trusted’ media outlets
From LifeSiteNews
According to an October 28 article by Blacklock’s Reporter, a Trudeau government agency has floated the idea of producing its own material to be published by certain ‘trusted media platforms.’
A federal agency has suggested writing its own news stories for “trusted media platforms” to publish.
According to an October 28 article by Blacklock’s Reporter, the International Development Research Centre, a Crown corporation run by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, has proposed the idea that subsidized media outlets publish government-authored articles.
“Significant shifts in the overall media landscape have affected how people receive and perceive information,” the International Development Research Centre said to contractors. “In addition, while the rapid rise of digital information has made it easier to reach people, consumers’ attention is scattered and harder to get.”
“In such context the Centre invests strategically to connect with its target audiences,” it continued. “This project provides an avenue to reach them where they are, on trusted media platforms they already consult on a regular basis.”
The cost of the project was not disclosed, according to Blacklock’s, nor was it explained if the articles would be clearly state whether or not they were written by the federal government. According to the plan, the agency would pick news themes and have final say on “content for articles to be produced” and “review all proposed final articles for accuracy.”
The agency stated that their ideal platform is “a French language, mass audience magazine based in Canada.”
“The project will secure the production and publication of articles related to Centre-supported research, international development or foreign affairs in a renowned current affairs outlet,” said General Interest Articles. “These stories will contribute to showcase the importance and relevance for Canadians.”
While the plan suggests that the government penned articles would better reach Canadians, media payouts have many Canadians concerned with the objectivity of the media.
In fact, in September, House leader Karina Gould directed mainstream media reporters to “scrutinize” Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, who has repeatedly condemned government-funded media as being an arm of the Liberals.
Similarly, earlier this month, Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s department admitted that federally funded media outlets buy “social cohesion.”
While certain media has been funded by government for decades in Canada, the Trudeau government has ramped up such funding since taking power.
Beginning in 2019, Parliament changed the Income Tax Act to give yearly rebates of 25 percent for each news employee in cabinet-approved media outlets earning up to $55,000 a year to a maximum of $13,750.
The Canadian Heritage Department since admitted that the payouts are not even sufficient to keep legacy media outlets running and recommended that the rebates be doubled to a maximum of $29,750 annually.
Last November, Trudeau again announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets that coincide with the leadup to the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.
Similarly, Trudeau’s 2024 budget outlined $42 million in increased funding for the CBC in 2024-25.
The $42 million to the CBC is in addition to massive media payouts that already make up roughly 70 percent of its operating budget and total more than $1 billion annually.
I Testified Before a Senate Committee About the CBC
I recently testified before the Senate Committee for Transport and Communications. You can view that session here. Even though the official topic was CBC’s local programming in Ontario, everyone quickly shifted the discussion to CBC’s big-picture problems and how their existential struggles were urgent and immediate. The idea that deep and fundamental changes within the corporation were unavoidable seemed to enjoy complete agreement.
I’ll use this post as background to some of the points I raised during the hearing.
You might recall how my recent post on CBC funding described a corporation shedding audience share like dandruff while spending hundreds of millions of dollars producing drama and comedy programming few Canadians consume. There are so few viewers left that I suspect they’re now identified by first name rather than as a percentage of the population.
Since then I’ve learned a lot more about CBC performance and about the broadcast industry in general.
For instance, it’ll surprise exactly no one to learn that fewer Canadians get their audio from traditional radio broadcasters. But how steep is the decline? According to the CRTC’s Annual Highlights of the Broadcasting Sector 2022-2023, since 2015, “hours spent listening to traditional broadcasting has decreased at a CAGR of 4.8 percent”. CAGR, by the way, stands for compound annual growth rate.
Dropping 4.8 percent each year means audience numbers aren’t just “falling”; they’re not even “falling off the edge of a cliff”; they’re already close enough to the bottom of the cliff to smell the trees. Looking for context? Between English and French-language radio, the CBC spends around $240 million each year.
Those listeners aren’t just disappearing without a trace. the CRTC also tells us that Canadians are increasingly migrating to Digital Media Broadcasting Units (DMBUs) – with numbers growing by more than nine percent annually since 2015.
The CBC’s problem here is that they’re not a serious player in the DMBU world, so they’re simply losing digital listeners. For example, of the top 200 Spotify podcasts ranked by popularity in Canada, only four are from the CBC.
Another interesting data point I ran into related to that billion dollar plus annual parliamentary allocation CBC enjoys. It turns out that that’s not the whole story. You may recall how the government added another $42 million in their most recent budget.
But wait! That’s not all! Between CBC and SRC, the Canada Media Fund (CMF) ponied up another $97 million for fiscal 2023-2024 to cover specific programming production budgets.
Technically, Canada Media Fund grants target individual projects planned by independent production companies. But those projects are usually associated with the “envelope” of one of the big broadcasters – of which CBC is by far the largest. 2023-2024 CMF funding totaled $786 million, and CBC’s take was nearly double that of their nearest competitor (Bell).
But there’s more! Back in 2016, the federal budget included an extra $150 million each year as a “new investment in Canadian arts and culture”. It’s entirely possible that no one turned off the tap and that extra government cheque is still showing up each year in the CBC’s mailbox. There was also a $93 million item for infrastructure and technological upgrades back in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Who knows whether that one wasn’t also carried over.
So CBC’s share of government funding keeps growing while its share of Canadian media consumers shrinks. How do you suppose that’ll end?
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By A flurry of controversial bills in Canada, some of which became law, serve to cement this impression.
Now, as President Trump prepares to start his second term in office in the US, Canada’s “orphaned” ruling class continues with the “disinformation” narrative – either as a sign of long-term commitment or looking for new “disinformation partners” elsewhere in the world – or simply as a sign of inertia.
Time will tell, and it will be interesting to see, but for the moment, news out of Canada speaks about a report compiled by the House of Commons Heritage Committee, titled, “Tech Giants’ Intimidation and Subversion Tactics to Evade Regulation in Canada and Globally.”
How about the tactics deployed in Canada – and globally – using all manner of intimidation and subversion to evade citizens’ right to free speech?
Maybe another day, by another ruling coalition.
Right now, the Liberals, the New Democratic Party, and Bloc Québécois stand behind statements such as this one, found in the cumbersomely-named report:
“The Government of Canada notes some individuals and groups create disinformation to promote political ideologies including extremist views and conspiracy theories or simply to make money.”
This looks like a call to combine (yet more) censorship with (yet more) deplatforming. And the ones to “fix” things for Canada’s current government are companies behind major social platforms, like Meta and Google.
But the group of Canada’s MPs behind the report believes so.
They want mechanisms put in place “to detect undesirable or questionable content that may be the product of disinformation or foreign interference and that these platforms be required to promptly identify such content and report it to users.”
Does Canadian parliament’s pressure on US tech companies not count as “foreign interference”? Unclear. Another thing that’s unclear – as in, undefined in the report – is what its authors have in mind when they mention “disinformation” and, “conspiracy theories.”
It’s as if these terms have become “art for art’s sake.”
Whatever that may be, Canada’s ruling parliamentarians want specific actions against these undefined phenomena to be enforced by tech companies.
“Failure to do so should result in penalties,” reads the document.
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