The National Telegraph - Wyatt Claypool - August 04, 2023


Save TNT： Fight Back Against Trudeau's Bill C-18


Episode Stats

Length

4 minutes

Words per Minute

187.17505

Word Count

828

Sentence Count

53


Summary

Bill C18 has destroyed our ability to be a financially viable news company in Canada and we need your help to keep us afloat. The National Telegraph is no longer financially viable in Canada because of Bill C18.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 All right everyone, I'll get right into it. Bill C18 has destroyed our ability to
00:00:05.240 be a financially viable news organization in Canada. The National
00:00:09.360 Telegraph, we started in 2019 because we thought, hey, Canada could use more
00:00:13.080 independent voices that are counter to the mainstream narrative, blah blah blah.
00:00:17.040 You know why people start online news companies, and it was doing well, and we're
00:00:21.100 growing, and then Bill C18 came in. So there might be some people here from the
00:00:28.400 true non-crew who'll be like, it doesn't destroy, it doesn't kick you off of
00:00:32.240 Facebook and Google. Yeah, it just means we can't be searched in Canada. So either
00:00:36.420 get a VPN to see your news, or you just don't get news through Meta, Facebook, and
00:00:41.960 Google, which are the two primary sources of income for a news company, right? We
00:00:49.140 put our stuff up on Google, and Facebook, and Twitter, and all these other places,
00:00:52.900 and it directs traffic to our site. There we get the ad revenue, there we get
00:00:56.340 whatever it is we get, you know, people come to us, and this is how it works.
00:01:01.620 However, if you severely depress our reach by making it impossible for Canadians to
00:01:08.160 see us on the two biggest sites that carry news in the entire world by a far margin,
00:01:13.840 it's nice that Twitter X is catching up, but it's not enough to sustain the National
00:01:19.920 Telegraph. We'll just be honest and come out and say that. We don't like, you know, doing this.
00:01:25.220 It's uncomfortable for everyone involved, but we need help. We need help, and it's just
00:01:31.040 honestly, it's financial help. The government has destroyed our ability to make money the
00:01:36.160 normal way a news company would make money through advertising and blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:01:41.160 You get it. If we're not allowed to use the two main distributions, like if you can't be
00:01:44.560 on Google, do you even exist? If you can't be on Facebook, it's the biggest site for news
00:01:48.820 distribution. It's not good for a news company. And the Trudeau government has done this,
00:01:53.080 in my opinion. I think this is a continuation of their targeted attack on independent media.
00:01:59.600 They're propping up of mainstream media. We didn't get any of the $600 million, right?
00:02:04.740 We don't get to be qualified as a valid news organization by the government. Never really
00:02:09.720 wanted like government approval anyway, but after you get the billions of dollars they dump on
00:02:14.480 independent media. And we don't think you're independent when you take millions of dollars
00:02:19.200 from the government, right? People funded by the government aren't independent. So it's not just
00:02:25.320 that we don't qualify or we're not able to get any of their government funding. Now we can't even get
00:02:28.940 normal traffic, you know, standard, you know, revenue because the government has destroyed our
00:02:37.780 distribution method overnight. So National Telegraph got hit by the C18 laws. And I understand
00:02:46.120 Facebook and Google's point of view. Like it makes no sense. This is, it's ridiculous. Like they
00:02:50.880 already contribute, like we use them for free and they distribute our stuff and people come to our
00:02:55.500 sites off of their sites. It's a symbiotic relationship that we've had with Google and
00:02:59.740 social media, right? Yes, they don't ideologically align, but they've let us use their stuff. And
00:03:04.700 now we can't use that. And we still want to keep going. We still want to write articles. We still
00:03:10.780 want to do stuff like there's going to be some changes. We're going to have to focus on a lot
00:03:14.740 more video content so you can just see it. We're going to still do the writing stuff because it's
00:03:18.920 very important, but it's just no longer financially viable in any way because of the government of
00:03:23.740 Canada. So we are asking you, if you like what we do, please support us. We set up
00:03:29.600 Give, Send, Go, which is much better than GoFundMe. We know it won't get pulled.
00:03:35.400 They are, you know, they are very helpful. So please, if you support independent media and
00:03:40.560 you support the National Telegraph and you want this to keep going, we need to now rely upon the
00:03:44.620 kindness and generosity of the Canadian public. Maybe elsewhere. Hey, you can donate from America,
00:03:49.120 Cambodia, wherever. If you like what we do and you want to see independent media succeed and you
00:03:53.800 want to show the Trudeau government that the Canadian people are willing to step in
00:03:58.980 and support things that the government wants to destroy, then we would be really appreciative
00:04:05.200 of just anything and give us $1, $2, $10, $5, $5 million. Hey, Rupert Murdoch. Is he dead?
00:04:11.240 I can't remember. Anyway, we appreciate your time. Thanks for listening and thanks for donating.
00:04:16.440 We really appreciate it. And we do want to keep going because I'm spiteful. And you try and
00:04:22.640 taking my news company. I'm going to try and keep it.