This article originally appeared in The Hub.
By Peter Menzies, July 16, 2026
The most significant thing about the latest report from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism isn’t that trust in Canada’s government-dependent media continues to decline.
It’s that, for the first time in its 15-year history, the report shows that consumption of news via social media and online video surpassed traditional sources. Combine that with the expectation that, by the end of this year, the majority of Canadians will have unplugged from cable, and it’s almost as if there’s something revolutionary going on in the communications world.
Just don’t tell that to the federal government, which, at last report, was still beavering away at how to expand the smorgasbord of subsidies it has developed to try to maintain products incapable of or disinterested in serving readers, viewers and listeners in the manner they prefer.
First, though, a quick look at the Reuters Institute trust numbers.
Only 37 percent of Canadians have trust in news—down two points from a year ago and a whopping 21 points from 2018. That was the year before the federal government caved in to years of lobbying driven largely by Postmedia, the Toronto Star and the Globe and Mail and began subsidizing the nation’s media.
Trust among those consuming Canada’s English-language media is at 35 percent, and while the number in French is notably higher at 44 percent, it is still also an all-time low.
Over that same eight-year period, the number of people who definitely don’t trust media has grown from 17 percent in 2018 to 30 percent. Distrust among those who lean to the political Right is 43 percent, while among Left-leaners, distrust sits much lower at 27 percent. Trust on Right and Left sits at 35 and 45 percent respectively.
The entire Canadian breakout of the report is here. But, assuming you’re rushed for time, here’s what you need to know:
Overall news trust continues to decline slowly in Canada, reaching its lowest score for both French and English markets this year. Individual Canadian brands retain relatively high trust. Public broadcasters, despite frequent debates about their relevance and impartiality, are trusted by a majority of Canadians.
Significantly, “almost half (45 percent) of respondents still prefer news which does not take sides, and a similar share (46 percent) also believe consuming news which does not take sides is best for others in society.
“At a time when commentators often assert that the idea of impartiality is now in the past, audiences (including younger ones) remain supporters of it in the main.”
In other words, as newsrooms increasingly abandon the aspiration to produce news in an objective fashion, readers, viewers, and listeners continue to want to be provided with news in an objective fashion. The government, meanwhile, is completely comfortable funding news organizations that practice journalism in a style inconsistent with the wants and needs of consumers. Those dissatisfied consumers may have applied economic pressure on the industry by withdrawing their subscriptions and eyeballs, but it is now government policy to use their tax dollars to support that which they do not want.
Never mind all that, Rogers is one of the companies that has been asking for newsroom subsidies from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) and could benefit from the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ lobbying for an extension of the Journalism Labour Tax Credit to licensed broadcasters. Still, it continues to display little respect for its public reputation, its business partners, and the regulator.
Never mind that Canada has been hosting a World Cup and that the federal court had urged the CRTC to get OneSoccer carried on Rogers cable in time for the world’s most popular sports competition, that didn’t happen.
Apparently emboldened by its ability to ignore the regulator and just having tightened its grip on the Toronto sports market by paying $4.35 billion to acquire all of MLSE (which owns the Toronto Maple Leafs, Argos, Raptors, and Toronto FC), Rogers enraged Calgarians in particular by throwing 230 people out of work and shutting down six radio stations. Those included NewsRadio 95.7 in Halifax, 570 NewsRadio in Kitchener, News 1130 and Sportsnet 659 in Vancouver and, in Calgary, 660 NewsRadio and, most controversially, Sportsnet 960 The Fan.
The latter move left the Calgary Flames—who said they were blindsided by the news—without a radio broadcaster for their NHL games. There’s a fair argument about whether the audience size of these particular broadcasts justified the investment for a private company. But what’s undeniable is that the optics of Rogers holding its hands out for public subsidies while callously cutting these local jobs with no consultation will only further tarnish media’s reputation. That lack of consultation appears even more strange given that Rogers’ Sportsnet broadcasts Flames games on TV. However, given that it puts relatively minimal effort into the production quality of games for NHL teams it doesn’t own, perhaps the treatment of a business partner in this fashion makes sense. The insensitivity of Rogers in making this announcement during Stampede week in Calgary was further noted.
All of which makes it very likely that trust in media will continue to decline in Canada. And the government will likely expand its subsidies to include Rogers. This, friends, is quite a country.
Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, a Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, and a former vice chair of the CRTC.
