Juno News - Can the CBC be saved？

00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:00:09.200 Non-subsidized media, independent media, it is a relatively small community in Canada.

00:00:14.980 One of the best in this space, though, is The Line, founded by Jen Gerson and my old talk radio colleague, Matt Gurney.

00:00:21.120 Great to have Jen Gerson with us in person here. Jen, welcome.

00:00:24.960 Thank you for having me.

00:00:25.820 You were speaking on a panel that actually got, it was one of the more engaging panels because there was a fair bit of contrast about the internet regulations.

00:00:33.580 And there are a great many of them from C11 to C18 and now C63. 0.99

00:00:38.160 At its core, you had said something that I found quite interesting, which was that, you know, yes, you're against a lot of what the government's doing.

00:00:44.400 But you're also concerned about a media ecosystem in which there's only a particular type of media left.

00:00:50.460 I mean, frankly, one in which True North fills that void.

00:00:53.180 And I was wondering if you could just expand on that a bit.

00:00:55.200 Yeah, I mean, this goes back to my argument, and it's a very unpopular argument in this room, and it will definitely be an unpopular argument with your audience,

00:01:03.300 is that I do think there's an important role for an organization like the CBC to play, especially when we're talking about a population.

00:01:10.480 We don't have the same population density in the U.S.

00:01:13.100 We don't have the same economies of scale that the U.S. has.

00:01:16.200 And therefore, it's a really, really hard place for private media organizations to cover extensively, particularly when we're talking about local news, right?

00:01:24.660 I'm not talking about Calgary or Toronto.

00:01:26.580 Those places are well served.

00:01:27.840 What about Medicine Hat?

00:01:28.660 What about Lethbridge?

00:01:29.560 What about Moose Jaw?

00:01:30.300 Places like that.

00:01:31.140 These places have become news deserts, and I think it becomes really difficult not only to govern countries that don't have access to good quality journalistic media,

00:01:40.580 but also how do we maintain a sense of national identity and a sense of national cohesion in a media environment where private media has essentially vacated this field.

00:01:50.400 This is where I think that there could be a role for a radically reformed or radically rethought out CBC or something like it to be able to, by statute or by mandate,

00:02:02.460 provide good quality, basic, objective journalism in, say, every town over 100,000 people in this country.

00:02:09.420 I think the counterpoint to that is that that was supposed to be what CBC was doing,

00:02:13.380 and they've had a fair bit of mission creep in the sense that they haven't wanted to do that.

00:02:17.420 I mean, when CBC launched its online opinion section, it's like, can anyone say that opinions on the Internet are in short supply, that we need a government?

00:02:23.780 Oh, dude, I'll go further.

00:02:25.040 Why do we have a CBC gem?

00:02:26.480 Why do we have a CBC streaming service?

00:02:28.240 Did you know that CBC actually is trying to duplicate Duolingo with an app to teach people French and English?

00:02:33.280 I mean, these are things that are radically beyond what most of us would understand the CBC mandate to be.

00:02:39.020 However, the answer to that question isn't necessarily to defund the CBC.

00:02:42.500 The answer is a radical mandate review.

00:02:44.120 And the other thing that I would do is I would take the CBC out of the Broadcasting Act, where it currently nestles and has a very unclear and fairly vague mandate,

00:02:51.740 which permits that kind of a mission creep, and I would create a CBC Act.

00:02:55.220 I would essentially put the CBC in statute, and I would enshrine things like their journalistic standards of practice.

00:03:00.620 I would enshrine a standard of journalism that I think most taxpayers could get behind.

00:03:04.120 And I would enshrine things like every, let's say, for example, every town over 100,000 people needs a CBC reporter, for example.

00:03:11.300 The other thing that I would do with the CBC, I mean, if I were in charge and got, you know, that's going to happen.

00:03:15.780 Well, we probably have wins.

00:03:16.960 We can put your resume to the top of the pile for taking over.

00:03:19.800 I would also say everything that the CBC produces should be open source.

00:03:23.440 So every news organization, left, right, center, whatever, should be able to take the CBC's written and visual content and audiovisual content.

00:03:30.060 Canadian press might not like that, but let it be a public good.

00:03:33.200 But it's a public good.

00:03:34.040 If we're going to fund it like a public good, we should treat the resources of that thing like a public good.

00:03:37.740 I would have the CBC imagine itself more as a library, like a library of journalistic knowledge and resources.

00:03:42.520 The other thing that I think people are not remembering as well is that the CBC is a huge store of archival information, digital and physical archives.

00:03:49.100 This is the repertoire or the reservoir of a huge amount of Canadian culture and history.

00:03:55.080 And I think that we need to treat it as such and put some serious investment into maintaining those archives and those archive services for the purpose of maintaining a Canadian culture thing.

00:04:05.240 The other thing I would do, and I would just say this, I would also have the CBC see itself as a training apparatus or a training role.

00:04:12.220 So perhaps you go to the CBC if you want to start a podcast in Lethbridge.

00:04:16.440 Well, maybe you can go to the CBC and get a workshop about how to do podcast editing.

00:04:19.520 Maybe you can go to the CBC and rent out a room.

00:04:21.300 Maybe you can go to the CBC and rent out your equipment, that kind of thing.

00:04:24.400 So I could see them as being a real hub for being a support for creating an innovative media model in a country like Canada,

00:04:32.420 where we have some unique sort of market-based challenges by virtue of our size and lack of population density.

00:04:38.000 To go back to the local aspect for a moment, one of the challenges with a true north is that, you know, and the line in particular, we're lean operations.

00:04:44.460 We can also find a coalition to support what we're doing nationally.

00:04:49.100 It would be incredibly difficult, if not possible, to do that at a local level.

00:04:52.620 It's a hard, the numbers are really hard.

00:04:55.400 Because, you know, how many people do you need to make a living?

00:04:58.600 Well, you really need about a base of about a thousand people who will pay for you.

00:05:01.840 I mean, it's not huge. It's not unattainable.

00:05:03.680 It's the old 1,000 true fans argument.

00:05:04.880 It's the 1,000 true fans, right?

00:05:06.060 So, okay, that's easy when you have, well, it's not easy, but even in a country of, what, 40 million people, what are our fan bases?

00:05:14.020 Our fan bases are maybe large enough to support our income and a small team around us.

00:05:18.220 They're not large enough to support the 20, 30-person newsrooms of yore.

00:05:22.100 And I think that's just a reality that mainstream media has got to get used to.

00:05:25.180 But if we're talking about, well, how do we ensure that people in Sparwood have good access to local information?

00:05:33.200 Are there going to be 1,000 paying people in Sparwood?

00:05:35.320 Well, maybe for some people they're really good.

00:05:38.560 But, you know, if what you're producing is the local football team, the local basketball team, your local city council, your local court cases, those sorts of things,

00:05:47.720 it's really hard to make the economy of scale work there.

00:05:51.180 And that might be a reason or an argument for some kind of help in the form of maybe it's just the CBC is in that space and supporting any kind of local startups,

00:06:01.180 but also serving that community in that space.

00:06:03.040 I think the CBC also does need to get back into the mindset of, like, its job isn't to be a top-down creator of culture and meaning for people.

00:06:11.800 It's there to serve the people.

00:06:13.020 It's a service that the people need to buy into to understand its value.

00:06:16.440 If you lost the audience in your CBC plan, I think you can get them back on this one,

00:06:20.300 because you had also made a comment in your remarks on stage that was, I think, probably the most controversial thing you'd say to some people,

00:06:26.520 which was that we need to get comfortable with the idea of things going out of business.

00:06:31.140 And we need to get comfortable with this idea of collapse, because there is never going to be that reinvention without that death.

00:06:37.080 And what we have now is this weird, you know, indefinite life support model where we're keeping industries that don't want to reform a board for what?

00:06:46.440 Well, that's the question.

00:06:47.680 And also, I mean, the line has made a particular point of not accepting government subsidy in any form.

00:06:53.000 Not only do we not accept government subsidy in any form, www.readtheline.com, please subscribe. 0.97

00:06:57.660 Got to get that bitch in. 1.00

00:06:58.580 I subscribe, by the way. 1.00

00:06:58.960 Like and subscribe.

00:06:59.700 But we think that's a bad business model.

00:07:02.980 Not only does it compromise your independence and your integrity and the credibility that you have with an audience,

00:07:08.820 but it's terrible.

00:07:10.220 It's a terrible way to build a sustainable business model, because it means that the next time a government comes in and out of power,

00:07:15.400 your money can get turned off like that.

00:07:17.320 That's not a way to run a business.

00:07:19.240 Now, I understand that to some degree there's always going to be some aspects of subsidy in a country like Canada.

00:07:24.680 You know, okay, fine.

00:07:25.620 I'm fine with the local journalism initiative that supports local reporters.

00:07:28.980 I don't really have an issue so much with that.

00:07:31.280 I do also understand that there's going to be some subsidies for organizations that are purely cultural.

00:07:36.880 So maybe there's going to be some arts magazine subsidies, those sorts of things.

00:07:40.420 Fine.

00:07:40.760 You know, I'm not too fussed about that.

00:07:42.560 I think that's the table stakes of a country like Canada.

00:07:46.120 There's nothing to be done about it.

00:07:47.260 It's nothing I'm going to get too worked up over.

00:07:49.480 But no, we can't.

00:07:50.940 What we've done is we've moved into a model where basically every single private media outlet,

00:07:55.620 with the exception of maybe you and me, are government subsidized.

00:07:59.840 That's not sustainable.

00:08:01.120 That's insane.

00:08:02.320 That's completely insane.

00:08:03.860 And the taps are, I think, when Pierre Polyev becomes prime minister,

00:08:07.080 and I think at this point it's very likely to happen,

00:08:09.040 the taps are just going to get turned off on you.

00:08:10.460 And then what are you going to do?

00:08:11.620 You haven't reformed.

00:08:12.600 You haven't sustained.

00:08:13.380 You haven't built something viable for yourself.

00:08:15.480 You're still bloated.

00:08:16.320 You're still debt-ridden.

00:08:17.560 And you've still lost your advertising monopoly.

00:08:19.800 Now what?

00:08:21.000 There's no there there.

00:08:23.240 There's no future in that.

00:08:24.640 Well, and it cements that path dependency because now you can't take it away

00:08:28.040 because, well, we've built our entire businesses around that.

00:08:30.160 Well, and also you've destroyed your brand models in the process

00:08:32.520 because now you've taken money from the government so nobody trusts you.

00:08:35.740 Right?

00:08:36.340 Yeah, very well said.

00:08:37.120 And if you want to see, if you believe that money doesn't sway coverage

00:08:42.120 in how things are covered, look at the way that the media who are the recipients

00:08:46.720 of, for example, C63's, Google's money.

00:08:50.420 Go look in the past and look at how they covered C63.

00:08:53.440 It was almost a...

00:08:55.140 C18.

00:08:55.680 You're right.

00:08:55.840 I'm sorry.

00:08:56.080 Yeah, C63 is the online harm's one.

00:08:57.420 I'm talking about the online news app.

00:08:58.660 All the numbers blur together.

00:08:59.920 That's a problem.

00:09:00.520 I'm sorry.

00:09:01.000 But go look at how they covered themselves in that.

00:09:02.980 There was very, very little coverage outside of the independent media.

00:09:06.220 Organizations like mine, organizations like yours, and academics like Michael Geist.

00:09:10.480 There was very little critical coverage of that.

00:09:13.300 So you can see in real time how money affects the way people approach problems and coverage.

00:09:18.760 And by the way, I don't think that that's even unique to government money or advertising money.

00:09:22.980 The people who cut the check kind of get to set the rules.

00:09:25.960 I mean, we're right now, the line is 100% reader funded.

00:09:29.460 Everybody who supports us supports us because they find value in our product.

00:09:32.820 The risk of that kind of a model is audience capture, right?

00:09:35.740 How do you make sure that you're providing stuff that's true to yourself and demonstrates integrity for your own beliefs and not just pander to your audience because you know that's what they're going to pay for, right?

00:09:45.300 That's a risk.

00:09:46.120 When you have an advertising-based model, you run the risk of being swayed by your advertisers.

00:09:52.000 That's a risk you have to deal with.

00:09:53.580 And when you're predominantly subsidized by government, yeah, the government and power is going to affect your ability to pay your rent.

00:10:01.900 Of course, that's going to sway the way that you view news and the way that you're shifting your mindset.

00:10:06.780 That is unavoidable.

00:10:07.780 But the way to avoid that is to try and create as many different revenue streams as possible so that you can avoid too much dependence on one kind of revenue stream.

00:10:16.640 And the other thing is to do is just to try and maintain your integrity as much as possible with a high diversity of revenue streams, but also not making yourself solely dependent on one revenue stream like the government.

00:10:27.620 Which is also true of you because even though you run the line, you're publishing everywhere.

00:10:31.420 I see you all the time and I love it.

00:10:32.880 But there's no purity here, right?

00:10:34.340 And there can't be because in an environment where everybody takes government money, if I want to do any freelancing on the side, yeah, I mean, I guess I have to, I'm going to the CBC.

00:10:43.000 I'm going to take a fee for going to the CBC, but I'm also going to take a fee if I go to write something for the Star or the Globe.

00:10:48.820 So you're respectable.

00:10:49.440 You get invited to all these places.

00:10:50.660 I don't.

00:10:50.780 Yeah, well, that's, I mean, I'm working on it.

00:10:53.800 I mean, one of the funny things of the panel today is that I suddenly realized that I'm not the bomb thrower in the room anymore.

00:10:58.120 And that was a real shift for me.

00:10:59.580 Yeah, Viva Fry took that role on your panel. 1.00

00:11:01.360 Yeah, he took that role and I became the adult in the room.

00:11:02.880 And I'm like, I got a new suit, but my God, like, I didn't think that this had happened.

00:11:06.360 Like, I'm an old, I'm the old respectable lady now.

00:11:09.340 Like, how did that?

00:11:09.960 He's more of a burn it down person than you are on this.

00:11:13.000 Yeah.

00:11:13.440 Yeah, I mean, it was.

00:11:14.280 And then Michael Geist was like the government defender for a moment.

00:11:16.720 Which is hilarious because Michael Geist is not a government defender in everything.

00:11:21.720 I think David and I sort of just agreed on a couple of points.

00:11:24.400 And that was one of them being, there are aspects, for example, of the Online Harms Act that are probably good and worth preserving.

00:11:30.320 There's a lot of problems with the Online Harms Act.

00:11:32.200 And I mean, both Michael and I have written in depth and at length about what we think those problems are.

00:11:37.860 I kind of disagreed with David.

00:11:39.180 I think he's got a misapprehension of why mainstream media is in trouble.

00:11:43.140 It's not for the reason that people like to think it is.

00:11:45.300 Most people, especially conservatives, like to think that mainstream media is in trouble because mainstream media doesn't align with their viewpoints and therefore they've lost audience.

00:11:53.900 I think that's contributing, though.

00:11:55.680 I think there is a, I think the trust.

00:11:57.060 I don't think you can separate the trust deficit from the business issues.

00:12:01.060 Yes, there's a trust deficit and there's a decline deficit.

00:12:03.920 But the primary, and I think that those are accelerating right now and have accelerated in the last five years.

00:12:08.640 But if you want to go back 10, 15 years where the problems with media started, the problems with media started with the collapse of the ad monopolies.

00:12:15.440 And you need to fundamentally understand that.

00:12:17.520 And as the collapse, the money got sucked out of the industry, the industry became more and more beholden to a kind of ideological viewpoint.

00:12:26.080 And that contributed to the trust deficit.

00:12:28.100 They became more dependent on government money.

00:12:29.540 That contributed to the trust deficit.

00:12:31.420 But it doesn't start with the trust deficit.

00:12:33.240 It starts with the collapse in the ad monopolies.

00:12:35.520 And this is why you see the same issues affecting mainstream media and legacy media, regardless of whether or not they're left or right.

00:12:41.640 Because the reason why these organizations traditionally were able to print money is because they had an absolute ironclad monopoly on the ad market and particularly on classifieds. 0.98

00:12:50.500 The second newspapers lost classifieds, they were in deep shit. 0.99

00:12:53.840 Yeah, fair enough. 0.99

00:12:54.680 Right?

00:12:55.040 All right.

00:12:55.460 Well, that's the first time that word has ever been uttered on True North.

00:12:57.640 Sorry.

00:12:57.800 That's okay.

00:12:58.080 Oh, wow, really?

00:12:58.640 Well, because we have the clean tag on Apple Podcasts that we forever lose.

00:13:02.420 I'm so sorry.

00:13:03.280 She has gone more irreverent than me, which is, I think, a great testament to the work of the line.

00:13:07.500 So, Jen Gerson, I love the line.

00:13:09.460 I read the line.

00:13:10.120 You should as well.

00:13:10.820 But it's great to talk to you in person.

00:13:12.060 You too.

00:13:12.340 Thanks.

00:13:12.940 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.

00:13:15.360 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.

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Juno News - May 07, 2024

Can the CBC be saved？

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