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Arnold Amber, Director of TNG Canada/CWA, giving
evidence to Heritage Committee
Key Recommendations
12 June 2003
Heritage Committee asks for freeze
on additional cross-media ownership
It's a good start — but there's a
long way to go
TNG CANADA | Analysis
Canadians have been provided with a two-step
blueprint from a Parliamentary committee seeking to protect
diversity of voices and democratic values in our news media — and
trying to arrest the worrisome convergence of content across
this nation's print and broadcast outlets.
The first step, proposed in a landmark,
872-page report issued June 11 after two years of work by
the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage, is to freeze
corporate concentration of TV and radio stations at current
levels.
This would be done by imposing a moratorium on the acquisition of additional
broadcasting properties by companies with existing newspaper and TV or radio
holdings.
The second step is a striking challenge to Parliament Hill to turn back the tide
of cross-ownership — and thus reverse, at least to the extent possible, the harm
already done to the public trust.
Identifying the underlying problems triggered by pervasive media cross-ownership
has been a relatively simple task.
Having such a key House of Commons committee conclude that dramatic action is
required to "protect the integrity of editorial independence and journalistic
freedom," as the committee phrased it, is a singular accomplishment.
Now, however, comes the really hard part — putting this sensible and encouraging
blueprint into effect.
It won't be easy. If you think the skirmishes against excessive media centralization
and control have proven messy during the convergence catastrophe of the past
several years, you are of course absolutely right.
But this battle promises to get much messier.
A passionate and difficult fight against deeply entrenched corporate and political
interests now appears inevitable. The public debate has to be carried forward
to its proper conclusion so balance and diversity can be restored to Canada's
media landscape.
A cynic would suggest the recommendations were launched into a void.
After all, Ottawa is in transition. The policy-development apparatus of the federal
government is virtually paralysed. The attention of the capital's movers and
shakers is focussed almost entirely on the jockeying around the Martin-Manley-Copps
leadership race. And the candidates and their handlers are even more leery than
usual of offending the nation's media kingpins or making public promises or commitments
that could provoke counter-strikes or retaliation, perhaps in the form of identically
worded "national editorials" published on the same morning in most
major metropolitan newspapers across the country.
To no one's surprise, the groundbreaking Heritage recommendations to defang corporate
media cross-ownership didn't garner any big headlines in any of the newspapers
published by Winnipeg-based CanWest Global Communications Corp., which controls
the nation's largest newspaper chain and its No. 2 private TV network.
In fact, The Gazette in Montreal didn't even run the story. The Vancouver Sun
dismissed it with a 71-word brief. The StarPhoenix in Saskatoon did only slightly
better, carrying 138 words. It was a shameful and chilling demonstration of the
problem at hand.
The Heritage report focussed on the future of Canadian broadcasting and opposed
an earlier recommendation by the federal Industry committee that foreign-ownership
restrictions be removed.
It also said the brakes should immediately be put on any further cross-media
ownership of the type exemplified by CanWest Global. That recommendation apparently
sprung largely from demonstrations furnished by Canada's largest media company
that it won't hesitate to use its public media platforms to promote private business
and political interests.
CanWest was widely tackled on the issue of corporate abuse of the public trust
after it imposed national editorials on its dailies across the nation in late
2001. It responded by invoking the doctrine of freedom of the press for corporations
while simultaneously denying this freedom to individual journalists in its employ.
Across the media spectrum, journalists and media owners share a profound and
visceral distaste for the concept of having any hand of government take the tiller
on newspaper editorial policy, regardless of the nature, capacity or competence
of the corporate or family hands currently in control.
Heritage strongly concurred with the widespread perception among journalists "that
too much (media) power is falling into too few hands."
The report asks that a new federal policy on media cross-ownership be announced
by June 30, 2004. Existing broadcast licences for cross-media owners, including
CanWest Global, BCE Inc. and Quebecor Inc., would continue for a maximum of three
years, expiring in 2006, the Heritage report recommended.
One way that serves the public interest while preventing Ottawa from seizing
control of newspaper editorial policies — whether from members of the Asper family,
the Peladeau clan or executives atop BCE — is to force a gradual corporate retreat
from cross-ownership using licencing powers already entrenched at the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC.
Heritage advised that the government and the CRTC must "develop clear and
firm policies to ensure that newsroom independence is maintained and that no
handful of large corporations can dominate either the local or national media
landscape."
That echoes themes struck repeatedly in recent years by TNG Canada officials
during testimony before Heritage and before the CRTC.
"Parliamentarians have clearly heard our message," says Arnold Amber,
Director of TNG Canada. On the questions of media concentration and convergence, "they
have now delivered the appropriate action plan," Amber adds.
But, he warns, "these recommendations won't go anywhere unless they are
pushed."
Lise Lareau, president of the Canadian Media Guild, welcomes the thrust of the
report: "There is no tougher way to send a clear message to Ottawa that
cross-media ownership needs to be dealt with in this country."
"The committee clearly heard messages delivered by the Guild and other media
organizations," Lareau says. "The report is tough on foreign ownership
and cross-media ownership and supportive about public broadcasting. There is
nothing in it that media workers cannot support."
However, "With so many clear and tough recommendations there's a risk that
a lot of it may be overlooked. It's our job to make sure that doesn't happen.
"We must remain focussed on this report and its recommendations, make sure
they're not forgotten, and turn them into a leadership issue and an election
issue."
OUR
CULTURAL SOVEREIGNTY
The Second Century of Canadian Broadcasting
Key Recommendations
11.1 Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC)
be directed to strengthen its policies on the separation
of newsroom activities in cross-media ownership situations
to ensure that editorial independence is upheld.
11.2 CRTC put in place a mechanism to ensure
the editorial independence of broadcasting operations. A report to Parliament
should be made by an appropriate authority (e.g. the Canadian broadcasting
monitor) on an annual basis.
11.3 Government of Canada issue a clear and
unequivocal policy statement concerning cross-media ownership before 30 June
2004.
11.4 Until the Government of Canada declares
its policy on cross-media ownership, the Committee recommends that:
(a) the CRTC be directed to postpone
all decisions concerning the awarding of new broadcast
licences in cases where cross-media ownership is involved.
(b) existing licence renewals that involve cross-media ownership
be automatically extended (i.e. an administrative renewal) for a minimum
of two years and a maximum of three years.
11.5 Existing foreign ownership
limits for broadcasting and telecommunications be maintained
at current levels.
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