00:02:42.180The world didn't end, but it ended up being rather fleeting.
00:02:46.380The Liberal government went back to banning independent media.
00:02:50.080You and I have not been able to cover their campaigns.
00:02:52.720And a lot of the mainstream media folks who stood up for us in that moment,
00:02:56.500their outlets have not really been advocates for anyone else accessing media and accessing government.
00:03:03.180So where do you think at the top level we are in this country?
00:03:06.520And how do you and Rebel fit into this landscape of independent media?
00:03:10.720Well, going back to your anecdote there, I think that those people stood up for us because we were in Europe.
00:03:17.360And I think they were the European correspondents.
00:03:19.960I'm not so sure if that same thing had happened in Canada, those people would have stood up for us.
00:03:24.840And we know that that's the case because they have never said that we should be allowed to report on the leaders' debates.
00:03:36.460We've had to sue twice and win twice to get into those.
00:03:40.020But with regard where are we in the media landscape, the state of journalistic freedom, I think it's never been worse.
00:03:49.520And the fact that it is so terrible seems completely normal to the journalists within all of this.
00:03:58.920They don't think that there's anything wrong with the federal government being their paymaster.
00:04:04.340They don't think that there's anything wrong with a prospective sort of Internet censorship, a ministry of truth by another name, bureaucracy coming to regulate what independent news networks say on the Internet.
00:04:19.520They don't think there's anything wrong with that.
00:04:22.060And they look at us sort of with disdain because they don't know why we won't just shut up and get with the program.
00:04:31.020Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to that.
00:04:33.600And I think one of the great things to see about even just the four outlets we have represented here today is how none of that's really stymied the success and growth we've seen.
00:04:43.440And I'll go to you on this, Roberto, because the post-millennial has not just expanded vastly within Canada and doing podcasts and news reporting, but also a lot in the U.S. as well.
00:04:53.300In fact, I think a lot of staff and end readers are in the U.S.
00:04:56.580So how do you view, I mean, at the top level, the state of independent media in Canada, but also what post-millennial is doing in that space?
00:05:04.180In Canada, the post-millennial, I mean, our game plan from the beginning was just to try to reach as many people as we could with a simple message and provide a voice that isn't provided by the other major players with CTV Global and CBC and basically all the rest.
00:05:21.140They're all basically the same kind of beast that you can't really differentiate one from the other.
00:05:25.460I mean, there is no real difference in what they stand for in any of that.
00:05:30.140Obviously, in the U.S., the media landscape is a little bit different.
00:05:33.020There is much more of a right wing representation in media, but we do have a bit of an outsider perspective.
00:05:38.080We have Canadians that cover American news, which is a little bit odd.
00:05:41.600I know for sure that Canadians aren't so gung-ho about, say, Americans covering their news, and that's something we definitely try to avoid.
00:05:51.300But when it goes the other way around, it does provide a perspective.
00:05:54.080I mean, there's been so many, I can list off plenty that come to mind of Canadian commentators that do American news.
00:06:01.640And I don't know if it's just because the more right wing Canadians are forced to go to a space where their voices are more welcome.
00:07:01.540I have the operational side, the business side running under us.
00:07:05.680And then we've got the editorial side.
00:07:07.280We've got separate opinion and news divisions there.
00:07:11.280From a press freedom perspective, I think this is probably the darkest point since at least the Second World War for press freedom in Canada.
00:07:20.300I think you and Sheila and Roberto have spoken to that well, and I don't need to repeat it.
00:07:26.500But at the same time, I look at this from a business perspective.
00:07:30.260And the mainstream media, they're the candle.
00:07:35.540And the light bulb has been invented for 30 years now.
00:07:40.280The federal government is subsidizing the candle 30 years after the light bulb has been invented.
00:07:45.820But there is no saving what they have in the long term.
00:08:03.220These subsidies might, in the best case scenario for the mainstream players, it might keep them alive long enough to eventually make a transition to the new reality of the marketplace.
00:08:14.640But it's the, you know, monopolies and olgopolies destroy themselves in the end.
00:08:20.900And, you know, from where me and Sheila are sitting in Alberta, all four major daily papers are owned by a single company.
00:08:26.860You know, so I'm writing a chapter on a book, in a book right now, kind of dealing with Canadian politics broadly, and I'm writing on the media and trying to, so I put a lot of thought into breaking this down.
00:08:38.160The Edmonton Journal, for example, has, they read 100% of the Edmonton Journal's readers get their news from someone who has nothing to do with Edmonton.
00:08:51.400They're getting it from a wire service like Canadian Press, or they're getting it from a pooled post-media correspondent on Parliament Hill.
00:09:00.020But people who are extremely unlikely to have anything to do with Edmonton.
00:09:04.460And all four major dailies in Alberta are the exact same thing, word for word.
00:09:10.560They're just, you know, Rick Bell might be in the Sun and Don Braid might be in the Herald, and that's the end of the difference.
00:09:15.760And then you have a similar media landscape in other provinces.
00:09:21.080Alberta might be particularly hyper-concentrated, but it's going to be similar in other provinces.
00:09:25.960And the light bulbs on the show here today, I think, representing probably a very large segment of the alternative or independent media, however we want to define that, were market disruptors.
00:09:40.500You can't stop Uber once it's been invented.
00:09:43.460There's no putting the genie back in the bottle.
00:09:44.780So while press freedom might be at an all-time low in Canada, I'm actually quite optimistic for the future of independent and alternative media, because it's a simple market force of nature that government cannot stop.
00:10:02.300I'm sure, Andrew, you're trying to keep us on track.
00:10:04.400But this had me thinking about just the collegial nature of this conversation, that we are competitors.
00:10:09.680Derek and I compete against each other in Alberta to some extent, and we compete with Postmillennial through some of our quick hit stories, and we compete with True North through some of our investigative journalism.
00:10:21.340But there's a space for all of us in this, because we also do something a little bit different than everybody else.
00:10:30.040And that is that we, as Derek says, we are disruptors.
00:11:10.500And we do something a little bit different here at Rebel News that I don't think any of us, any of the rest of you do.
00:11:17.140And that is when we see a problem, we try to fix a problem.
00:11:20.820And so, again, that makes us disruptors in the space, as Derek points out, that it's not for us.
00:11:29.880It's just not enough to talk about the issue, although sometimes when you talk about the issue, like with all things, you measure it, you change it.
00:11:37.420But I think that's why the dinosaur media look at us like we have three heads.
00:11:42.540They just, you know, they're, as Derek points out, they're protected from those market forces.
00:11:48.720They don't have to correct the problem because Justin Trudeau is like, here's some money.
00:12:56.080The establishment types look at our type of content and call it conservative pamphleteering, as was written in the CBC in an attack piece that obviously cited one of their experts.
00:13:08.040It was Alan Conter who decided to call us conservative pamphleteers.
00:13:13.820Obviously, if you just look up Alan Conter, you find out that he was an executive producer at CBC for years in the 90s.
00:13:46.220But while we all compete with one another, I want nothing but success for our independent voices because we provide something I think that's really valuable, that has space to grow, and people really like it.
00:14:02.440Yeah, I mean, I love nothing more than when we get to run a story at True North as first reported by Western Standard or as first reported by Rebel or Postmillennial.
00:14:12.240I mean, sometimes I say, oh, those jerks.
00:14:13.900I was trying to work on that, and I couldn't close.
00:14:16.980But we also get joy out of seeing the same in the inverse, seeing our stories be picked up by each other.
00:14:22.420And I remember, to go back to something that Ezra Levant, the publisher of Rebel, did some years ago, he was covering the Tommy Robinson trial in the United Kingdom.
00:14:31.980And rather than just sending the entire Rebel crew over there, he actually brought people from different outlets.
00:14:37.980And I was fortunate enough to be one of them.
00:14:39.740And his rationale, I thought, was quite sound, was, you know, let's actually have more voices that are talking about these issues rather than just one outlet with one voice.
00:14:49.340Because every now and then people will say, oh, you should merge with so-and-so or merge with so-and-so.
00:14:53.240I say, no, I'd rather have, you know, five different news stories that are published by five different outlets covering something from the perspective of liberty than just one.
00:15:02.620And then up against the mainstream media narrative.
00:15:05.380Because, Derek, to your point, I mean, there is a dying aspect of traditional media, but there still is a very large footprint.
00:15:18.420So for your statement and also what Sheila said, we're all referring to Sheila.
00:15:23.320I don't know how Sheila made herself co-host here.
00:15:25.200So, you know, we are competitors, but we're much less competitors than, say, Torstar is with Post Media, because they're doing the same thing.
00:17:38.740I think our strength is in the written word like a newspaper just online.
00:17:41.960We're trying to get better at both of these to catch up to you guys on the other fronts.
00:17:46.220But we're offering different products.
00:17:48.440Whereas Toristar, Post Media, Black Press, they're offering – you know, Globe and Mail, they're offering essentially the same product.
00:17:58.740So they're competing for a small, finite pie of advertising dollars and subscribers.
00:18:05.620Whereas our people will – we have members of the Western Center that are Rebel subscribers, Post Millennial subscribers.
00:18:13.960And they're not thinking, oh, I can only do one or do the other because they're getting completely different products, even if they're sometimes speaking to a similar audience.
00:18:22.740Yeah, I just have to say that you completely sidestepped True North and me when you were dishing out your compliments.
00:19:39.840Could I just say something, too, is that while it seems like they're getting worse, it seems like we're getting actually better at what we do.
00:19:49.780We're still learning our way around the block a little bit.
00:19:51.740But when you go on CBC and just read what they're saying and what they're putting out, these articles that are so out of touch from what regular people like.
00:20:00.480I mean, they put an article out that went down underneath everyone's radar because nobody reads them, just saying that Joe Rogan uses horse dewormer, saying that Black women should be working from home because they're protected from microaggressions.
00:20:16.820And that, you know, that Black women have battle fatigue from getting questions about their hair.
00:20:23.080I mean, these people are so out of touch and they're doubling down on their insanity.
00:20:27.620Well, it just seems like our message is becoming more and more effective.
00:20:30.800And honestly, the crazier they get, the better it is sometimes for us because we can point at them and say, look at how crazy those guys are.
00:20:37.640That's that's who we were competing against.
00:20:44.440You know, I tell our team all the time we exist because the mainstream media is so terrible.
00:20:49.800And so, you know, you go to these places and they're they're often a little bit prickly, the mainstream media, when we actually get allowed into places.
00:20:57.120And they sort of look down their nose a little bit at you.
00:20:59.740But I wouldn't be there if they were better.
00:21:02.700So if they want me to go away, please get better.
00:21:07.580And maybe there wouldn't be a space for me.
00:21:09.640But they're not ones to adjust their behavior based on viewer feedback now, are they?
00:21:14.780Yeah, I want to jump in on this, actually, because one challenge in Canada and in the U.S.
00:21:20.440It's very different because media criticism is a big thing in the U.S.
00:21:24.300You've got cable news shows that have entire staff positions dedicated to watching other news outlets and then reporting on their reporting.
00:21:32.340It's that idea of who minds the minders.
00:21:34.640And a lot of that is, I think, very incestuous and overly introspective.
00:21:40.060But I do think there is a place for it, for actually serving as a bit of a check on media coverage, especially since they're so quick to jump in with their Facebook fact checks and all of these other things and denounce things that in many cases are true.
00:21:54.420But even just pointing out the tone that media is taking, like just this is just one example from the last couple of days, a CBC story, gender fluid dressing could lead to renaissance in fashion, says Advocate.
00:22:08.340Now, setting aside that media outlets can cover whatever they want, this is CBC, the state broadcaster, one point however much billion dollars in funding to learn about the gender fluid fashion trend.
00:22:19.120Probably not money well spent, I would say.
00:22:21.680But for the most part, even if people didn't like that, no one would ever challenge CBC.
00:22:28.380No one would ever report on CBC funding, about the decline in the CBC audience, about all of these things that are part of it.
00:22:35.060And correct me if I'm wrong, but Derek, the only people that really pay attention to a lot of these things and the problems in the media status quo are independent outlets.
00:22:44.640Yeah, the one exception was briefly Sun News Network in its time.
00:22:56.780But you know what that experiment proved is that if you're going to operate in a media form, if you're going to use a medium of media that requires government licensing, it's highly unlikely that disruptors, especially non-establishment disruptors are going to be successful.
00:23:18.540For Sun News Network to have been successful, they needed to get mandatory carriage license.
00:23:23.900It's just to have an even playing field with the CBC, CTV, Global, Omni, million things in Quebec.
00:23:31.380It didn't work out and they were offering an alternative, even though they were, I mean, it's hard to, you know, Sun News Network and Fox News are hard to classify, because they're kind of mainstream because they're big and corporate, but they shy away from being considered mainstream.
00:23:46.760So they're kind of hard to pigeonhole in a sense, but the real lesson from Sun News Network was that if there's going to be disruptors, they're going to have to be aggressive upstarts.
00:23:59.520They're going to have to, you know, they might, they might, you know, we've, we've managed to achieve a bit of investment in us, but it's not a ton.
00:24:36.220So these things have to be a combination of genuinely independent.
00:24:41.180They have to be, they have to be underdogs, I think, to succeed.
00:24:44.360You're not going to succeed by, like the National Post was a valiant attempt under Conrad Black to take on the mainstream media.
00:24:53.160But then that got caught up in all sorts of corporate controversy.
00:24:55.860And now Post Media is probably the least bad of the big guys.
00:25:01.480It's actually, it's got a few bright spots that, that right in there on their opinion side, but their, their news side is just mainstream pablum, repeating the same crap, not doing much.
00:25:12.140So, and, but I would, I would take from that, even if they were exactly where you wanted them to be on content, the problems that you outlined earlier on, on business model are, and ownership are still going to be there.
00:25:25.420And I think the demise of Sun and the start of Rebel is a good way to talk about the business model.
00:25:31.920And I'll, I'll go to you on, on this first, Sheila, because I know that one of the things Rebel did very uniquely, because we're talking about 2015 when, when Rebel was built in, in Ezra's living room and has since grown considerably from there.
00:25:44.360It was entirely not dependent on the traditional infrastructure of mandatory carriage of the CRTC.
00:25:51.820It was based on donations, on subscriptions, and on some advertising.
00:25:56.860But I don't think advertising is, is that big a part of revenue, if I'm not mistaken.
00:26:01.640So, you've got people that believe in it and want to put some money there, and people that want to get access to some premium content.
00:26:08.120And since then, we've seen aspects of that in other work.
00:26:11.780I know that Postmillennial has its subscription models.
00:26:16.560And all of this, and True North is a bit different because we're structured as a charity.
00:26:20.560But even then, a very unique business model that's not dependent on, on the old way of doing things.
00:26:25.740Because the problem with the bailouts, and Derek mentioned this before, apart from just the morally wrong aspect of it, is that there's no off-ramp.
00:26:34.560These are basically now part of the indefinite existence of these outlets.
00:26:39.760So, independent media is doing something that traditional media could do.
00:26:50.160They're still sticking to this thing that's not working and then going to the government cap in hand.
00:26:54.380Well, and I also appreciate when the mainstream media journalists sort of look down their smug noses about us.
00:27:00.500When we ask our viewers and our subscribers to support us, they say, ugh.
00:27:04.840And then they look at Justin Trudeau with their little tin cup and shake it at him.
00:27:08.580No, okay, sorry to interrupt, but you're right about that.
00:27:10.740The judgment to crowdfunding, I don't understand it at all.
00:27:15.740They're saying like, oh, you're asking people for money.
00:27:18.260I'm like, what is every person, every news outlet with a newspaper sales department doing?
00:27:24.380Yeah, well, and it's, it's, I think Rebel was sort of born out of whatever that Sun News did that failed.
00:27:34.640So being tied to sort of those old terrestrial ways of doing television, but also the things that we are fundamentally opposed to morally and ethically, like taking government handouts.
00:27:46.520Those were the two things that sort of created how Rebel was born.
00:27:51.920So we're not going to take money from the government, but also we're not going to be beholden to big corporate interests or any one super investor, because then that can sort of sway your reporting.
00:28:04.020So the more independent, the smaller the donations are, the more honest we are, and the more independent we are, but also going directly to YouTube at the time before YouTube became a censorship platform.
00:28:16.200You know, it went around all those reasons why the Sun News Network failed, but, and also addressing the issue of the things you see in the mainstream media, Andrew, that you brought up and you're like, nobody cares about this stuff.
00:28:31.600And Roberto, you too, when you had talked about, you know, I, we actually talked about that same story on the live stream this morning, the, how you have to work from home because your colleagues, your white colleagues are super racist about your hair or something.
00:28:46.480You know, I saw an article the other day about how climate change is going to give you kidney stones.
00:28:54.060And then a similar article in a similar vein, a couple of months ago, how it was giving koalas STDs.
00:29:34.540Koalas, we don't even have koalas, let alone koalas with STDs.
00:29:38.480The reason that's in your newspapers is because the liberals paid a journalist, gave Post Media a grant to have a journalist write it.
00:29:45.440Yeah, no, I think you're very right to point that out.
00:29:50.820I was trying to think of some like koala STD pun, and I couldn't come up with one in time.
00:29:54.500So it'll come in the after show, I guess.
00:29:57.360Roberto, Post Millennial has dealt with the revenue thing very acutely.
00:30:02.420I know it's been a victim of its own success in some ways, targeted by a lot of these very left-wing activist groups trying to demonetize it, get advertisers to cancel.
00:30:12.500And some of these groups have had some success with Post Millennial getting advertisers to say no.
00:30:18.360I know Breitbart was targeted back in the day.
00:30:20.940How has that actually been realistically?
00:30:24.220Because I know they claim victory and, you know, make it seem like they've shut you down if they get someone to say, yeah, I'm going to spend $5 elsewhere.
00:30:37.720You know, this all started a little while back by, I can't remember the exact activist name, Chad something that he started to go after Surfshark,
00:30:47.680accusing one of our journalists, our editor at large, Andy Ngo, of providing kill lists for white supremacists or some other insane claim, obviously untrue.
00:30:58.200And Surfshark just, you know, did not have our backs and just decided to, you know, part ways with us.
00:31:19.980But obviously, when a challenge appears, you assess the situation and you try to adjust.
00:31:26.560And we have, I mean, we've done a really good job.
00:31:28.420We've been asking for support through donations and subscriptions.
00:31:31.440And for the most part, it's actually worked quite a bit.
00:31:34.560I mean, we don't have the infinite tap of government money that places like the CBC have.
00:31:40.400I mean, just before this interview, I was just having fun going through the CBC kids, which is one of the worst things I've ever seen.
00:31:49.700And this is what you can do with unlimited government money.
00:31:52.220I mean, I was just looking at one because I couldn't remember if I remembered it right.
00:31:55.620It's a little unrelated, but it was a story about, I think, Megan Thee Stallion, this rapper, accused Tory Lanez, a rapper, of, like, beating her or something.
00:32:04.340And they ran that story on the same day that Falcon 9 went to space.
00:32:08.900So we have unlimited government money.