This article originally appeared in The Hub.
By Peter Menzies, March 25, 2025
Media’s dependence on government inches towards permanence
For the first time in the nation’s history, almost all the media covering an election have a direct, even existential, stake in the outcome.
And when the votes are all counted, a great many if not most of those on the losing sides will blame it on the reporters, editors, headline writers, and producers who will be managing the coverage in the weeks ahead. It’s an open question whether they will be forgiven. Some may be. Most probably won’t.
The blame game began last week following an awkward news conference in which Liberal leader Mark Carney turned his nose up at the insolence of Globe and Mail reporter Stephanie Levitz. Her sin was asking a question suggesting some of Carney’s invested millions could represent a conflict of interest. When CBC News presenter Rosemary Barton followed up, Carney accused her of being motivated by “ill will” and instructed her to “look inside” herself, presumably to reflect on her bad behaviour. Perhaps a time-out was in order?
This led to Barton, whose outspokenness has caused Conservatives to see her as the epitome of pro-Trudeau CBC bias over the past decade, suddenly being bashed by Liberal supporters as some sort of right-wing shill—as remarkable an allegation as has ever been made.
Less noticed was a question asked of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre by a reporter for TheReview.ca at an event in L’Original, Ontario, where American tariffs have prompted layoffs at the steel mill. The story was professionally done, but within it was this:
“When asked specifically about the future of the Local Journalism Initiative (LJI) program which funds journalists who cover politics and other civic issues at the community level, Poilievre said the Conservatives actually plan to implement an alternative which would give a better and stronger voice to community-based sources of news. He said further details will be revealed as the Conservative election platform is released.”
That means two things. One is that the election won’t be about whether news organizations get government support or not—it will be about how they get it. The other is that candidates can expect to get questions from journalists about the security of their jobs.
The Liberals put most media (The Hub is one of a handful that refuses on principle to participate) on the dole in 2019 when they introduced—at the request of failing newspaper proprietors—the Journalism Labour Tax Credit and Local Journalism initiative. Both were announced as temporary but, as is the nature of such programs, have been doubled and extended.
What will Poilievre’s “defund the CBC” Conservatives come up with? Pray that it will be a policy that rewards and incents the consumption of news as opposed to the current framework that subsidizes content creation regardless of whether anyone consumes it.
There is no public good involved in the production of news on outdated and increasingly irrelevant platforms that have no appeal to consumers. What is required for the public good of social cohesion is not that the National Observer or Financial Post survive but that citizens have regular access to shared and trustworthy information they can use to form their opinions and organize their lives. Subsidies that fail to focus on that outcome might just as well be cash delivered in a dark alley.
We shall see. If the current framework is confirmed through the election of another Liberal government, Canada risks becoming a nation within which the press is permanently dependent upon that party’s persistence in power. Which means it will no longer be free.
Friends of friends
In my March 17 Substack column, I noted that the Canadian Media Guild, which represents journalists at CBC and Canadian Press, had launched a campaign warning the public of (hint, hint) “increased threats” to Liberal funding of journalists’ jobs. Last week, the Friends of Canadian Media, formerly known as The Friends and before that, The Friends of the CBC, launched a well-produced “Fund the CBC” campaign cleverly playing on the enduringly popular “F*&% the CBC” sentiments of many. Yes, indeed, this election, while about a lot of things, will involve a debate concerning the fates of those covering it. And their Friends and unions have already picked a winner on their behalf. Or so it appears.
God bless the curmudgeons
It’s probably unkind to criticize news outlets for failing to express concern about Carney naming a cabinet with only two MPs representing the one-third of Canadians—13-plus million—who live, work, and raise their families west of Ontario. (The 834,000 people who live in New Brunswick got the same number).
Even the reliably outraged Western Standard was relatively mute on the humiliation as Carney built a cabinet with the fewest Western MPs since before Alberta and Saskatchewan were provinces. But not stalwart old-school curmudgeon columnist Rick Bell of the Calgary Sun. He gets a bouquet this week for refusing to bow to Laurentia. God bless the Dinger.
A final plug (or two)
Make sure you catch the Full Press podcast this week, and follow me at The Rewrite where I will be doubling my efforts to keep journalism on the straight and narrow.
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.
