Western Standard - Peter Menzies speaks on Bill C18 and Media freedom...

00:00:00.000 C-18 came in this week. Prior to that, C-11, which was a year ago called C-10 before the government fell, was reintroduced. We've still got the online harms bill to come.

00:00:13.480 The government seems very determined to control the internet, and that kind of makes me sad because the internet is such a dynamic and wonderful thing. Yes, it has problems. Yes, there are issues with it.

00:00:30.100 Yes, there are areas that, you know, in terms of privacy, data collection, and that sort of stuff with big tech that you want to look at for regulation.

00:00:38.260 But these guys are kind of funny. They keep saying that free speech will be protected in one breath, and in the next breath, they say, well, we have to do this to stop disinformation.

00:00:49.980 So one of the problems, one of the things you have to live with, with free speech is a certain amount of disinformation.

00:00:55.940 So there you go. That's, you've got, you're looking down three barrels at the moment, and I'm really quite concerned that the interaction between funding for media and that sort of stuff is going to interfere with the debate.

00:01:17.120 Well, that's something I was kind of ranting about before. I mean, in a bit of a self-serving way, but it's the truth.

00:01:22.880 You're going to be beholden to whoever pays your bills, and if that turns out to be the government at some point, well, then chances are you're going to be a lot less inclined to be critical of the government at the time because you just don't want that boat to be rocked.

00:01:35.120 Right. I mean, Bill C-18, you know, for your viewers and listeners who aren't familiar with it, it forces big tech companies like Facebook and LinkedIn and Google to pay money to news organizations.

00:01:50.520 Not just any news organizations, but we're going to approved news organizations that the federal government has set up a panel to approve what is a real news organization and what isn't a real news organization.

00:02:05.280 You guys applied for that just to see what would happen. You got a couple raised eyebrows, but a nod, and then you politely declined to take the cash, which I think speaks well of you because as a former newspaper man, I'm shocked at the extent to which today's publishers are willing to accept this contradiction in their independence.

00:02:35.280 To their independence like that. Anyway, C-18 forces the Facebook, et cetera, to feed money to these companies for a fantasy commercial exchange, and it really puts the big publishers in the pocket of the government in, not directly, but in indirectly enough that it's going to make,

00:03:01.900 I think it's going to undermine their credibility with their readers and listeners.

00:03:06.900 Well, absolutely. I mean, they're kind of pointing out, some pointed back and said, well, I see the standard qualified, you know, they're not unfair as a committee.

00:03:13.900 But the thing was, if we had accepted that, and then we became dependent on that shakedown, as the term has been put, for the social media giants to get that money, well, we are always going to be fearful, though, of losing our status as an approved media outlet.

00:03:26.900 So, I mean, if that rug could be yanked out from under us at any given time, we're not going to be fully independent, and we're going to always have that in the back of our minds, even if unintentional when reporting on anything, and that's not good.

00:03:37.900 Yeah, and, you know, even if you are pure as the driven snow, people who consume your product will wonder if you are, right?

00:03:48.460 So, like, these conflicts of interest, like, really interesting going back, been involved in a few of these, you know, you hear people say, hey, I know when I'm in a conflict of interest, you know, I'm okay, you know, it doesn't matter that, you know, this story is about the priest at the church I went to, I can still report on it fairly.

00:04:05.640 Well, you know, perhaps you can, but the point is, you should not, because other people will think you can't, and that's the way conflict of interest works.

00:04:15.480 So, that's what happens with these sort of connections, where you are always thinking about it in the back of your head, and it informs your behavior, right?

00:04:27.000 I mean, one of the things with C-18 as laid out, right, the Facebook, let's use Facebook as an example, has to come to an agreement with, call it the National Post, right?

00:04:39.840 And as part of that agreement, they have to assure that the money they are sending them is spent on national, you know, Canadian news, right?

00:04:51.320 And then, after that, the CRTC has to approve that agreement, right?

00:04:59.160 So, just like you said, when you're building that agreement about how that money gets spent, you're going to build it knowing that you are seeking the CRTC's approval, right?

00:05:10.720 So, essentially, through this system, whether intended or otherwise, you have the behaviors of the newsrooms of the nation being, they are being overseen by an arm of government.

00:05:26.200 And I just find that, no matter how benign the intentions, I just find that terrifying.

00:05:35.040 Well, that's it.

00:05:35.820 And, I mean, any developed democracy always will have a clause somewhere in their constitution or their charter or whatever, making sure to protect free press.

00:05:43.900 I mean, they recognize how important it is to have media feel comfortable with the ability to be critical of their own government.

00:05:51.900 If you lose that, you can be into a great deal of trouble.

00:05:55.080 And, of course, whether well-meaning or not, you know, authoritarian regimes do not like a free press.

00:06:01.100 So, that's one of the first things they'll always control.

00:06:04.140 Yeah.

00:06:05.200 And when we get into this, we're talking about sort of misuse of language, right?

00:06:10.100 This is a free and independent media.

00:06:12.160 Everybody says that, right?

00:06:15.440 Our media are free and independent.

00:06:17.740 Russia TV, you know, was in the news recently, RTV, right?

00:06:21.620 I mean, the Russians claim it's a free and independent media.

00:06:24.140 One of the things we have to be careful about when we do these things is, well, we may assume that we have the high moral ground on things that we do, is that we are not using the exact same arguments as other nations who are less democratically inclined than, say, we are and think it's okay because we're better.

00:06:45.320 You know, the argument is either good or the argument is bad.

00:06:48.540 So, you either have an independent press or you don't.

00:06:51.800 Just because you're getting your money from a Justin Trudeau government as opposed to a Vladimir Putin government doesn't mean you're not taking the government's money.

00:07:01.700 Well, that's it.

00:07:02.200 We're in a period of great flux.

00:07:04.400 And, I mean, I understand people are also mistrustful of some of these social media giants.

00:07:07.320 I mean, they exert a great amount of influence on the information that's going out and our abilities.

00:07:13.220 Facebook frustrates us to no end with the Western Standard because they're very essential to us to be able to share our stories to a broad audience.

00:07:19.980 But, at the same time, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship.

00:07:24.880 I mean, we're providing content for them.

00:07:26.300 It's good for them.

00:07:27.300 And they provide a platform for us to share it out.

00:07:30.240 But we can be pushed around a bit by some of those bigger ones as well.

00:07:34.080 But, I mean, you know, letting those relationships evolve on their own should be able to let the chips fall the right way.

00:07:39.680 We don't need the government in there stirring it up in the meantime.

00:07:41.940 Yeah, but, I mean, you raise a good point there.

00:07:44.460 And you raise one in which I think there's a legitimate case for some oversight.

00:07:49.160 Not by the government itself, but from, you know, an arm's length agency.

00:07:53.820 And, like, I'm a senior fellow with the MacDonald-Laurier Institute.

00:07:57.820 And my former chairman at the CRTC, Conrad von Finkenstein, is a senior fellow at the C.D. Howe Institute.

00:08:04.640 And we actually created a policy paper that said, okay, if you're going to do this stuff, this is how you should do it.

00:08:10.580 And we called it the Social Media Responsibility Act.

00:08:16.080 And the idea behind that is to make sure that companies like Facebook who are, let's face it, are in a pretty dominant position in the marketplace, right?

00:08:25.800 It's not a full monopoly, but it's as close as you're going to get, right?

00:08:32.920 If you want to reach audiences, you don't have too many options other than to go through Facebook.

00:08:36.800 It's to make sure that they're behaving themselves and they're treating everybody equally and fairly and they're upholding free speech.

00:08:45.620 That's a different approach than the one that the Canadian Department of Heritage has been taking, which is much more hands-on.

00:08:53.120 We want to make our suggestion is that if you're going to regulate the Internet, you make sure that you regulate not the Internet, but these large dominant companies to make sure that they are treating people fairly and giving everyone an equal voice.

00:09:09.320 So if you get booted off for saying something bad, somebody on the other end of the spectrum gets booted off for saying the same thing that's bad.

00:09:20.940 You have the same rules and the same application of the rules.

00:09:23.700 Yeah, which is, you know, always difficult to come up with, but not impossible.

00:09:28.440 Media, though, is in a general period of flux.

00:09:31.520 You know, we're in a transition right now that we've never seen before.

00:09:36.380 You know, the conventional outlets are having a very hard time.

00:09:39.740 There's no denying that.

00:09:40.780 I mean, I've talked about that before.

00:09:42.700 The advantages we have, we've set up, you know, at some degree of expense, a studio and a broadcast and a publication now and everything, which took some investment.

00:09:52.400 But, I mean, not even a tiny fraction of what it would have cost 20 years ago if you wanted to open a television studio or a printing press or things like that.

00:10:01.740 So, I mean, the older institutions and the mainstream media outlets that still have those large infrastructure and overhead, they are having a really hard time competing with outlets like ours right now.

00:10:14.340 And, again, I mean, I'm a free market guy.

00:10:15.700 I just kind of say let the chips fall where they may, but it still is putting a lot of pressure on the entire industry right now.

00:10:21.000 So, how can we work with that transition?

00:10:23.780 Oh, yeah.

00:10:24.480 I mean, we're going through a transition right now that's every bit as profound as the invention of the printing press, right?

00:10:29.660 I mean, people need to get their heads around that.

00:10:31.680 There's a lot of people in the traditional fields who are kind of like, well, this is like the new, you know, Internet.

00:10:38.400 This is like the new cable or is this what this?

00:10:40.800 No, this is something entirely new, right?

00:10:43.260 And it's had a devastating effect on the old newspaper industry and that sort of stuff.

00:10:49.320 So, if governments are looking to support, you know, if people are worried about the state of journalism, which is a legitimate worry.

00:10:56.420 I mean, you can worry about it for all kinds of reasons.

00:10:59.160 But if you're worried about it, you know, and having a financial foundation, what you should be investing in or what you should be getting out of the way of.

00:11:07.640 And this is I'm a bit more like you in this is where can government get out of the way, right?

00:11:13.700 And and allow for innovation to flourish, right?

00:11:17.160 So, like your media and there's some others around, you know, it'll work or it won't.

00:11:23.600 Nobody knows yet, but you probably are making adjusting things all the time on the way you go.

00:11:28.740 But you are innovating.

00:11:30.120 You are being entrepreneurial.

00:11:31.620 And that's what you need to do.

00:11:33.220 What the government's doing right now with C-18 is it is propping up failed, clearly failed business models.

00:11:40.460 What it should be doing, if it does anything, is getting out of the way of innovation for innovators such as yourself and also seeing if these guys, helping these guys transition into whatever it is that's going to work for the next stage.

00:11:54.840 But all that big old infrastructure, all those collective, expensive collective bargaining agreements, they're not sustainable.

00:12:02.580 No, we just have to accept that it's going to change and some people have to flex and there's still room for some some great media professionals.

00:12:10.500 I mean, it's worked in our benefit in some ways.

00:12:12.460 You know, we've gotten a hold of Dave Naylor here in our newsroom and we have columnists, people you've worked with, familiar with, such as Makachuk and others.

00:12:20.040 And they've moved on to the new format right now, though it's still difficult because, I mean, it's not as lucrative as it used to be.

00:12:25.700 I mean, one of the things people forget is classified ads that you would know as well as anyway.

00:12:29.440 That was a huge part of the revenue stream for newspapers and they're gone now and they've got to figure out how to cope with that.

00:12:34.880 No, and they've been gone for a long time.

00:12:36.380 Classified basically paid for the newsroom, right, in terms of profit and maybe even more than that, right?

00:12:43.200 So losing that and that's like a remarkable, right, because it's initially you were losing it to other online, you know, revenue or companies and that sort of stuff who were still charging.

00:12:55.580 And then Kijiji came along and has given it away for free. 0.98

00:12:57.760 How do you compete against that?

00:12:59.560 Here, you've got something that, you know, a job ads, you know, the employment section, that sort of stuff.

00:13:06.920 Those are all new things.

00:13:09.180 Attaching a subscription to things and proving your value to readers is really important.

00:13:16.940 It seems to be working.

00:13:18.240 You guys do it.

00:13:20.100 Nobby's putting the old band back together, all that sort of stuff, right?

00:13:24.320 So, yeah, I mean, keep innovating.

00:13:27.640 That's what new companies should be doing.

00:13:31.620 One of the things that concerns me about C18 is that by propping up the failed business models, they're actually handicapping entrepreneurs like you.

00:13:41.140 Yeah, well, and slowing that evolution.

00:13:44.300 I mean, to a degree, you can think it's doing a disservice to some of the established journalists who, you know, unfortunately might have to move on from those legacy outlets, but they delay it too long.

00:13:55.580 I mean, it's a boat that's sailing.

00:13:57.420 I used the analogy the other day.

00:13:58.780 I mean, I started in the conventional survey industry.

00:14:00.600 I had to learn optical survey and all of that.

00:14:02.360 And then GPS came along and wiped out all my training.

00:14:05.500 A guy could learn in 20 minutes, you know, with a digital unit what took me years of getting abused by a surveyor to figure out how to do with a transit.

00:14:11.620 But your options as a surveyor were to embrace GPS and move on to the new technology or be left behind.

00:14:18.580 And if somebody had artificially held up the old survey source, some guys would have stuck with it, but they would have paid a bad price for it in the long run.

00:14:28.000 Absolutely.

00:14:28.660 I mean, you've got to be able to change.

00:14:30.180 And it's very, I remember when I was in the newspaper business, somebody used to say, the moment you see a trend arrive on the pages of a newspaper, you know it's over.

00:14:40.400 Which was like, they were big, like oil tanker type vehicles.

00:14:47.900 They were very powerful, very strong, very, very rich at their time.

00:14:53.480 But they were pretty hard to turn around in a hurry in terms of that.

00:14:58.240 So, I mean, you know, the dinosaur analogy isn't fair, but, well, in a sense it is.

00:15:06.440 I mean, it wasn't the dinosaur's fault that the asteroid hit, right?

00:15:11.680 And, you know, the internet is the asteroid that hit the newspaper industry.

00:15:16.260 There's no doubt about that.

00:15:18.020 I think there's always going to be a market for good, fair, unbiased news.

00:15:22.440 I think people really need to get back to their basics and become reporters.

00:15:27.120 There's way too much journalism going on, you know, activism blended and that sort of stuff.

00:15:33.700 People always just wanted, tell me what happened and let me make up my own mind, right?

00:15:38.940 That's always what worked.

00:15:41.260 There's no reason why it can't work again.

00:15:43.300 And if people get back to that straight news, let it go.

00:15:47.600 There's a lot of young people running around Parliament Hill right now that's their first job.

00:15:51.380 They've, I'm not sure if they can, I don't want to insult some of them, but certainly all of them.

00:15:58.520 But there's some of them that I'm not sure you could trust to cover a motel fire.

00:16:03.600 You know, it's a craft.

00:16:05.160 You need to get good at it.

00:16:06.800 It's not, you're not on a mission to do anything other than gather the facts and present them in a fair and unbiased fashion to your audience.

00:16:14.780 I think, I think that's the prayer people should hold to.

00:16:19.680 Yeah.

00:16:19.840 Well, and those principles can be reestablished with new outfit, you know, new outlets and new outfits.

00:16:25.280 Like here, I won't write a paragraph of news copy.

00:16:28.420 I'm not appropriate for it or capable for it.

00:16:31.100 I'm an opinion guy.

00:16:33.040 And likewise, as you said, Nobby keeps a high standard and makes sure that all of our reporters are sticking to journalistic standards.

00:16:39.320 And, you know, if we can do that, other outlets can.

00:16:41.460 And that's part of what's been our success so far.

00:16:43.860 Yeah.

00:16:44.680 And, I mean, you know, all this funding going to what we call legacy media and the big companies, Bell and Shaw and Rogers and, I mean, Bill C-18, the biggest beneficiary of that is going to be the CBC, which isn't an extremist at all.

00:17:00.640 How does that work?

00:17:01.800 I mean, you're creating a fund to help people who are, you know, whose businesses are dying.

00:17:05.700 And the CBC comes along, all of a sudden just bellies up to the bar and says, make that around for me as well.

00:17:12.300 Right.

00:17:12.940 Away you go.

00:17:13.540 But there might be some advantage to entrepreneurs like Western Standard now to be able to label yourself as we don't take the money.

00:17:23.220 We are unapproved.

00:17:24.520 You know, we don't count.

00:17:26.320 The only approval we want is from readers.

00:17:28.940 We don't care about the government's approval.

00:17:30.620 You'll do so at some expense to yourself, but that's short-term and long-term, it might actually really work for you.

00:17:39.880 Yeah.

00:17:40.380 Well, I like to think it's going to benefit us much more than any expense, yeah, the short-term pain.

00:17:45.060 So in kind of closing up, though, we've got all these bills, they're pending right now.

00:17:48.880 As you say, it's a multi-front thing.

00:17:50.020 We've got C-11, we've got C-18.

00:17:52.800 With the Liberal NDP coalition, it's pretty likely they're going to pass without issue.

00:17:57.760 How can we fight back against this?

00:17:59.620 Well, I think there's still some opportunities left in the committee process, right?

00:18:04.260 There's, when you get into that, it's not like question period where people have, or politicians have to perform theatrics.

00:18:12.000 And I have seen in the past, once they get into the committee process and people start proposing amendments, that there are points at which somebody might say, you know, you kind of got a point there, right?

00:18:21.760 We can reword this to this and that.

00:18:23.660 So the legislation will pass, maybe with some impact, but, I mean, people should do their best to follow this, make noise with their MPs and make noise with Heritage Canada and other places, and even with their local media, you know, who are benefiting from this, and ask for more information.

00:18:47.720 It's been kind of frustrating for somebody like me, who's, I realize I'm really close to it, and there's some sort of risk of me coming across as too policy wonky.

00:18:58.520 But, like, if people can get that upset about wearing a mask, how can you not get upset about losing your freedom of speech?

00:19:05.380 How can you not get upset about your media, right, taking money from the government, being dependent on the government, right?

00:19:14.860 Like, I'm not saying being upset about a mask doesn't have value or isn't purposeless, but, you know, it's temporary, right?

00:19:25.780 This other stuff is going to last for a very long time, and we'll have a creep to it that is worrisome.

00:19:35.960 Yeah, it's always a lot harder to get rights back than it is to give them away.

00:19:39.200 Oh, yeah.

00:19:39.880 Once they're out the door, they're gone.

00:19:41.460 Well, we'll see how it all develops.

00:19:45.160 You know, it's troublesome, but, I mean, I'm looking still to the future with a lot of optimism.

00:19:49.380 I mean, we're doing well.

00:19:50.620 You know, we'll keep pushing through no matter what, as will a number of other outlets and people with, you know, an integrity and ambition.

00:19:57.540 There just might be some bumps in the road along the way.

00:20:01.020 So, I appreciate you.

00:20:02.680 Keep your head up because C11 applies to all online audio and video.

00:20:07.680 Oh, I know.

00:20:08.660 I'm watching it closely.

00:20:09.180 That's what we just did.

00:20:11.440 And I'm not always one who's, you know, unafraid to ruffle some feathers with stuff I do, and there's that risk.

00:20:17.220 I could tick off the wrong person and something gets interpreted through that, and suddenly they pull the plug on our broadcast.

00:20:22.600 I do worry about that, but I can't let that change how I'll approach things, or there just won't be much point to the show anymore.

00:20:29.880 That's right.

00:20:30.300 I really, as I said, appreciate your voice.

00:20:33.720 How can people find out more information?

00:20:35.480 You're with the McDonnell Laurier Institute as well.

00:20:37.520 I mean, when I was trying to look up the one-line description of what you're up to these days, it was just so long.

00:20:41.720 You're a busy man.

00:20:43.020 Oh, yeah, I'm there.

00:20:44.120 Yeah.

00:20:44.620 No, I usually just go with former newspaper executive and past CRTC vice chair.

00:20:51.500 That tightens it up a little bit.

00:20:54.660 I would encourage people to, you know, go online and go to places like michaelgeist.ca.

00:21:02.540 Michael's a law professor at the University of Ottawa, the Canada Research Chair in Internet Law, and he is a very articulate critic of this,

00:21:14.400 and he manages to analyze it legally but still make his analyses accessible to those of us among the great unwashed when it comes to that sort of stuff.

00:21:26.480 So Michael's actually very good at translating things like that.

00:21:30.080 I expect there will be some reporting on platforms such as your own, independent platforms.

00:21:38.140 Black Locks Reporter is another one.

00:21:39.880 I think the line is another group that's not taking the money.

00:21:44.640 So find the truly independent media and look for commentary and stories on those posts because I'm afraid we can't expect right now within our major media to see much pushback on any of these bills.

00:22:00.480 No, unfortunately.

00:22:01.780 And as you said, that's that consequence perhaps of making them a bit dependent on that in the first place, which is sad to see.

00:22:07.760 It is.

00:22:08.240 And it's sad to see that they're actually so desperate that this is happening, too.

00:22:13.240 You know, nobody wants to see that happen.

00:22:15.220 Nobody likes to see people get laid off.

00:22:17.000 Nobody likes to see companies fail.

00:22:19.140 No, and that's why I hope and I like talking about a transition rather than, you know, the dynamiting of an old institution.

00:22:24.820 And I do, I get on the case of establishment media a lot, but I do like to put out the caveat now.

00:22:30.380 And there's still some very fantastic skilled journalists out there in those legacy outlets, including even the CBC.

00:22:36.540 I just wish they'd move on to private ventures.

00:22:39.760 Yeah, no, I agree.

00:22:40.760 There's some there's some really, really good journalists.

00:22:42.700 And, you know, like the old phrase used to be newspapers don't report when airplanes land safely.

00:22:48.360 So, you know, people don't react when they see good journalism as much as they react when they see bad journalism.

00:22:54.400 Right.

00:22:54.800 So that's it makes me angry, I guess it makes me frustrated or I'm disappointed is probably a better way to say it when I see bad journalism, because it drags down the good ones.

00:23:05.760 And there are a lot of good ones.

00:23:07.340 And as you said, including at the CBC.

00:23:10.640 So we need to make sure they make it through this.

00:23:14.720 Absolutely.

00:23:15.360 Well, again, I really appreciate you joining us today.

00:23:17.580 I hope we get the chance to talk again soon.

00:23:18.960 Maybe we'll have a positive development media to discuss at that time.

00:23:21.840 Well, we'll we'll continue to make sure this works right on.

Western Standard - April 12, 2022

Peter Menzies speaks on Bill C18 and Media freedom...

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