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May 2005 TNG Canada brief presented to: The Senate of Canada Standing Committee on Transport and Communications RECOMMENDATIONS
TNG Canada represents some 9,000 media-industry and other workers across Canada, in all chains, in all forms of media. This includes newspapers big and small, news agencies, radio, television and new media. We are the union for institutions across Canada such as the CBC and The Canadian Press. We speak for more than just front-line journalists and news gatherers, the reporters, photographers, copy editors and other editing personnel including newsroom support staff. We also represent those who carry out a broad spectrum of other media operations, including staff in reader sales and service, business office, electronic data processing, technical, mailroom, classified advertising and other functions. And we believe all citizens have the right to freedom of
the press. We provide three achievable policy recommendations, in the order addressed in this brief, to:
And we seek to leave this message, based on our own reflection
and experience. The situation is not trivial; it is not desirable;
it is not inevitable. The situation is not trivial This is not the first time Canadians have loudly articulated concern about their media. Following intense periods of mergers and newspaper closings, the work of Senator Keith Davey, Tom Kent and their associates yielded more than inquiries and recommendations. These expressions of public agitation about media concentration also provided valuable Parliamentary Reports. Recent years have ushered in a fresh spate of media mergers, trumpeted under the buzzword of convergence and brought on by dot-com technology and an irrational stock market. Every generation must re-fight the battle for a free press and for a freer press, for media that best serve citizens and democracy. That battle is currently under way again and your Committee is at present the major institutional forum to deal with it. Media corporations and their supporters suggest that concerns such as ours are alarmist. Little came of the Davey and Kent recommendations, they say, and democracy survived. It is true that the type of major media legislation recommended by the Kent Commission was not enacted. However, measures were instituted. The same era saw, in relation to media and beyond it, development of foreign investment rules and the Competition Bureau. More specific to media, a cabinet directive in 1982 instructed the CRTC to prevent cross-ownership between broadcasting and newspapers. The cabinet directive arrested the process of continuing concentration, but only briefly. Regrettably, the 1982 directive was revoked in 1985, following a change in government. Had the ban on cross-ownership remained in effect, the mergers of the early 2000s could not have taken place. Today, the only rule left prevents foreign ownership of
the media (the reason that Canadian media are still, for
the moment, controlled in Canada). As you heard directly
from their officials, media concentration has been permitted,
even encouraged, by the CRTC and the Competition Bureau. If you think it’s bad now, it can get a whole lot worse Witnesses have spoken to you of the problems already attributable to concentration including less diversity, substantial cuts in resources devoted to news-gathering and reporting and the steadfast erosion of local decision-making in coverage choices by media outlets. You have heard considerable evidence that the public trust has been broken. We believe your Committee has a crucial role in ensuring that the public trust is restored. It cannot be assumed that the current situation is the end of consolidation. Without proper safeguards in place, all portents point to worse to come. We are convinced that Canadians have yet to experience the full reverberations of the Québecor / TVA, CanWest / Southam and Bell Globemedia / CTV mergers. For example, the Southam chain, now owned
by CanWest, threw money into a new national newspaper, the
National Post. But it did this at the direct expense of its
metro dailies across the country where, under CanWest ownership,
local staffing has been steadily eroded in recent years.
Now, the money once lavished on the National Post has been
withdrawn. None of it is, however, being returned to the
regional papers in the form of restored or additional local
resources. Canadian Press could disappear An even more chilling example is The Canadian
Press (CP). As you’ve already heard (and included in
your Interim Report), CP is under attack. Based on its actions,
CanWest appears to be preparing to withdraw. As the predominant
owner of English-language newspapers in Canada,1 CanWest’s
withdrawal would cripple CP, and perhaps even kill the national
news-gathering co-operative. A survey conducted for the Canadian Media
Guild in February 2005 revealed that 60 per cent
of news management personnel at dailies and at radio stations
in Canada [the latter use
Broadcast News (BN), CP’s audio arm] fear for
CP’s
future. In fact, their concern is that CP will simply
disappear.3 Subsequently across a number of other CanWest metro papers, at Winnipeg’s orders, CP copy has been quietly banned from designated sections varying by city for temporary periods, to determine if and how entire newspaper sections could avoid using CP completely. Following the formal withdrawal of the National Post from CP, the second shoe has started to drop. CanWest has begun to evaluate in detail how CP could be done away with altogether, using copy from CanWest News Service or other news services as a substitute. That would be a prelude to the death of CP at least as we now know it. Already, overall across the CanWest dailies, there is a general understanding that CP copy should be used as little as possible. It’s all part of the ongoing exercise, driven by CanWest’s head office, to evaluate whether and how CP can be dispensed with entirely by the chain. The shutdown of a newspaper would be more noticeable to many readers than a closure of CP. The Canadian Press co-operative is part of the media’s less-visible infrastructure, long-serving and necessary but, largely because of the dictates of the newspapers which own it, not prone to attracting attention to itself. If a newspaper closes, that makes news; affecting advertisers as well as readers. However, if CP were to disappear, it would diminish the quality and breadth of news coverage for readers across the country who rely on this core element of Canadian media infrastructure. For almost 100 years, CP has facilitated the exchange of reports between its member media outlets and built up its own corps of specialized staff skilled in explaining different parts of the country to each other. For print and for broadcast. What if CP does disappear? For their part, 80 per cent of the newspaper editors surveyed in February 2005 felt it would be somewhat or very difficult to replace the service. The figure was similar for broadcasters. Of course, even CanWest understands that a national news service is crucial. But instead of an independent service, as CP is, CanWest has already set up its own news service, rewriting copy from its many dailies and weeklies. Supporters of concentration might tell you that it would be no big deal if the CanWest News Service were simply to supplant CP. Don’t believe them. It would have serious and unacceptable consequences:
It is vital to emphasize that the media outlets relying on CP have orbits extending far beyond CanWest’s already-large stable of Canadian papers and TV stations. The dominant newspaper chain would own and operate the sole significant national wire service. By pulling out of CP, CanWest could precipitate a new and unprecedented level of concentration and centralized control of content. This would put quick pressure on CanWest’s competitors, forcing them to rely on their rival for much of their news and, effectively, their news judgment. Nor would it necessarily stop there. Early in the last century, the railway provided locally-owned Western Canadian newspapers with American wire copy and some Canadian content to go with it. But in 1907, the railway unilaterally raised rates and cut back on Canadian content,4 throwing local newspaper proprietors into disarray. What is likely to happen if CanWest continues on its present course regarding CP? Canada’s ability to appropriately exchange news stories between regions would be substantially and indeed dangerously eroded. Newspapers not owned by CanWest would be forced to turn to an alternate supplier to replace CP. CanWest appears to be positioning itself to be that supplier. Witness the deals it has struck with the Winnipeg Free Press and the Osprey chain to use its services. That puts newspapers which may remain in competition with CanWest in some markets in a very uncomfortable position. It also means that CanWest would have been able to use its market clout to remove a more comprehensive product from the marketplace — and then sell its own product in the ensuing vacuum. Unquestionably, CanWest’s emergence as owner/operator of the sole major national wire service would leave Canadian citizens with a huge erosion of diversity. Killing CP would deprive hundreds of television and radio stations from coast to coast of the services of Broadcast News, which does for them what CP does for newspapers. There’s more. No media organization would play that crucial bridging role between French and English. Because CP is also PC — la Presse Canadienne. Its members include Canada’s francophone press. CP / PC supplies English-language papers with what our francophone colleagues are covering. Simultaneously, it supplies French-language papers with news from outside Quebec. Senator Jim Munson raised this as a concern
with CanWest at your Committee hearing, when he asked CanWest
executives who would fill the French-English gap if CP were
driven out of business. CanWest sidestepped the question.5 CP: Comprehensive, independent, bilingual Here are the facts: In sharp contrast to the CanWest News Service, CP is a fully integrated news service operating in both French and English, with bilingual capacity most notably in Ottawa and Quebec. Presse Canadienne and NTR, BN’s French-language affiliate, are widely used in Quebec and as important there as CP and BN are to the rest of the country. Given the smaller size of the French-language market in Canada, it can easily be argued they are even more important on the francophone media landscape than on the English-language side, at least on a proportional basis. These French-language services provide a window on the world to some extent, as well as the rest of Canada and offer in-depth sports, business reports as well as general news. They produce material in both languages tailored to different markets, as opposed to translations, although of course translations going both ways still play a significant role. A Winnipeg-based CanWest News Service is simply incapable of supplying the array of invaluable material originating from the Presse Canadienne service. And it is impossible to imagine CanWest properly supplying French-language stories about English Canada to Quebec media. In Montreal, The Gazette is the closest paper to the French-language Quebec media, but itself doesn’t have sufficient staff to monitor and translate, even before the effect of newsroom staff cuts imposed under CanWest’s ownership. And in the absence of a sharing agreement, there’s a copyright problem. There are additional layers of problems across the country in this regard. In a nutshell, without CP-PC, English-language papers across the country, inside and outside CanWest ownership, would miss much of what our francophone colleagues are reporting. Vice-versa for the francophone papers. So the answer to Senator Munson’s question is simple: Much or all of this would be lost. That would be unforgivable, and unacceptable, for a broad variety of reasons. The potential death — or at best the prospective evisceration — of CP is, at this point, the most immediate of TNG Canada’s concerns regarding CanWest. We have therefore focused on it in this brief, and in our earlier testimony. The CP situation is urgent. Various witnesses have touched on CP’s importance to small member papers. Fewer have brought up its role (since the 1950s) in bridging the Two Solitudes. Imagine the consequences of CP-PC (and BN-NTR) going dark just as national unity again rises to the top of Canada’s public agenda. We ask you to consider our concerns — and act on them — so that the steady recent erosion of this precious national resource is reversed, or at least halted: Presentations to this committee have reaffirmed our long-held conviction that a healthy, coast-to-coast-to-coast, bilingual newsgathering and news-disseminating co-operative, operating for the mutual benefit of its members but independently of its corporate masters, is a key element of the open discourse and free flow of information that Canadians have a right to demand of their media. As to remedies, The Canadian Press — and we include Broadcast News and Presse Canadienne — was not established by statute, and would not be comfortable with such a status. CP continues to change with the times, offering new services to boost its utility and its bottom line, but this in itself provides no guarantee of its survival in the current corporate media environment. CP was reformed under a 1923 act of Parliament, into the co-operative it is today. Given the CanWest threat that now hangs over it, the time has come for Parliament to again formally recognize CP’s past contributions and ensure its future importance. Some permanent body should be designated to monitor the
health and vitality of this essential national resource,
and made responsible for recommending immediate remedies
to Parliament should these be endangered. As the Canadian Media and Telecommunications Commission,
such a body could also be tasked with implementing any other
proposals or regulations your committee deems necessary for
the continued health of all Canadian media, from enforceable
codes of conduct to the simple ownership safeguards that
we propose elsewhere in this brief. This isn’t happening in a vacuum While considering our recommendations regarding CP, Senators are urged to bear in mind that TNG Canada and others have already provided abundant evidence of a disturbing variety of other instances where CanWest has killed diverse voices by imposing far fewer choices on readers, all via centralized corporate decision.6 The “national editorials” affair was one of many elements that triggered this inquiry. Events in Ottawa involving former Citizen publisher Russell Mills were another. There have been far too many controversial actions by CanWest to list each here. We again urge you to consult the authoritative record we have prepared, placed in a timeline and abundantly documented with the original source material.7 This is a compelling and chilling body of evidence. Yet the most senior CanWest executive to appear before this Committee testified before you on April 13, 2005, that “much of what you have heard about CanWest is either patently untrue or greatly exaggerated.” 8 The claim is as sweeping as it is misleading and incorrect. There was mention during the April 13 hearing of a CanWest code of conduct, which was certainly news to CanWest’s unionized employees. To our knowledge, none of our members in any CanWest operation have ever been furnished with any such document. Nonetheless, the guiding principle across Canada’s dominant media operator appears to be simple enough to discern: dissent and opposition are to be deprived of voice, by all internal and external measures available to the corporation. From our perspective, employees or freelancers working for CanWest who exercise free-expression rights or push internally for pluralism in subject areas where the proprietors or their managers disagree are marginalized in the daily scheme of things — effectively deprived of power over news and analysis decisions and access to readers or viewers. This was perhaps most dramatically exemplified by the remarkable blackout across the news pages of The Gazette in Montreal, the newspaper most directly involved over the byline withdrawals, when “national editorials” were imposed by CanWest in December 2001. It was distressing but unsurprising that this news blackout was instantly apparent across all CanWest-controlled media properties, in print, over the airwaves and on the web. CanWest’s track record and its well-documented command-and-control structure speak for themselves. We have no alternative but to anticipate that continuing challenges to diversity of viewpoints and freedom of expression are likely, both within the corporation and with regard to readers and viewers. Witnesses before the Committee in Vancouver remarked on the ever-present chill among CanWest employees, preventing even such innocuous activities as their open participation in such forums as the list-serve operated by the Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ-L).9 It is true that the Montreal Newspaper Guild won a landmark settlement of the gag-order grievance at The Gazette in Montreal in early 2004. The pact formally affirmed the fundamental freedoms of at least the CanWest-employed journalists at that paper to “contribute to and participate in open public debate” over its newsgathering policies, its editorial direction or any other subject.10 But over the past year, there has been a deafening absence of CanWest-employed journalists at your hearings. Not just in providing coverage of them for readers and viewers across Canada, but also in simply testifying at them. You could have no more telling proof of the continuing chill,
given your Order of Reference encompassing the current state
of Canadian media industries; emerging trends and developments
in these industries; the media's role, rights, and responsibilities
in Canadian society; and current and appropriate future policies
relating thereto. The Straight is great, but it’s not the Sun The Tyee, a website in British Columbia,11 recently carried a story of how the ownership by CanWest of the Vancouver Sun, the Province and 12 nearby community newspapers, not to mention two major B.C. television stations, has meant that, instead of convergence producing more reporting, consolidation has merely produced more recycling. Some witnesses have told you that news websites such as The Tyee, papers such as The Georgia Straight and the lower Mainland’s many ethnic media outlets are themselves the counter-balance to the domination of the media chains. This trivializes the situation. It is true that alternative media, ethnic media and independent websites are crucial to democracy, free speech and diversity. The existence of a multitude of information-packed websites doesn’t necessarily make the information found on them fair, balanced or accurate. So in a world of so much information, having reliable information becomes even more important. The Internet world is really two worlds, one controlled by giant media companies able to attract large audiences to a few web sites and the other populated by the world of “citizen bloggers or niche web sites.”12 Even the most reliable independent websites (if there were a way to divine them!) cannot be invoked to dismiss concern about media consolidation for the same reason that a proliferation of alternative media and radio and television stations cannot be used for that purpose. That’s because the local daily newspaper retains the greatest newsgathering capacity, with the greatest number of reporters and editors and the most sustained coverage of events in town. And it’s often the daily local newspaper that reaches more citizens than any other single information source. It’s no secret that radio and television news services often take their lead from the newspapers. Because of that, newspapers generally set the agenda for which issues receive public attention. So, a central barometer of a free press and a democracy has to be the state of the predominant media players, especially daily newspapers, the sources which most strongly influence the common ground for local and national conversation. That is why in a 500-channel universe,
or in a five-billion-website world, it is as important (as
in a universe of more limited options) for diversity to be
audible in the most influential media voices. The situation is not desirable Some witnesses have told you that, if people didn’t like what they have been getting, they would as consumers punish the media outlets in the marketplace and the media would have to change. This logic is fatally flawed. Canadians are “news junkies” with 90 per cent either very or somewhat interested in following news.13 They are very interested in getting reliable, accurate news. The problem is that they have little choice. Given the importance of local daily newspapers, the lack of alternatives forces people to accept what is on offer. It’s the story of a classic monopoly, really: you want the service — news — and there is only one place to get it. Some counter this by noting that Canada has two national newspapers and the CBC. That’s true, but we cannot emphasize enough how crucial the local daily newspaper is to journalism and how the lack of diversity in that arena hampers diversity in all Canadian journalism. In 2004, the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is affiliated with Columbia University in New York, produced what will become an annual report on American journalism. Its survey reveals a sharp decline in public trust in the media over 20 years,14 in an environment of growing concentration like we’ve seen in Canada. Before considering the Canadian situation, consider this American data:
Americans believe the media less than they used to:
Canadians are somewhat less pessimistic.16 In the U.S., almost two-thirds of the population feels negatively about the media. Only about one-third feel positively. In Canada at present, the current situation is the opposite: two-thirds are positive and one-third negative. Specifically, in this country, 69 per cent of people believe the news media gets the facts straight. Of course, that still leaves 31 per cent who believe reports are often inaccurate. In addition, 59 per cent of Canadians think that maintaining fairness and balance in the media has become a bigger problem, with 54 per cent of Canadians believing that the news media tries to cover up its mistakes.17 One reason for Canadian optimism might be that only one of the Canadian media giants stands out for its ideological agenda, as opposed to the American situation where several broadcasters stridently fit that mould. Many Canadians have heard of Fox News. Fewer might have heard of Sinclair Broadcasting, owner of 62 American television stations, which fired its Washington Bureau chief in the middle of last year’s presidential election. After months of professional frustration, Joe Lieberman had gone public, allowing himself to be quoted in The Baltimore Sun saying that Sinclair executives were biased against John Kerry. Sinclair fired him that day.18 But there is no particular cause for optimism north of the Canada-U.S. border. In both countries, news is increasingly produced by companies
where journalism is only one activity, one “profit
centre” — and perhaps not as profitable as others.
Common to both countries, this consolidation is intertwined
with trends the public appears to dislike. Trends: superficial proliferation and consolidation One trend is a growing number of news outlets, with corporations competing for every “market niche.” This proliferation brings more diversity, as the media chains and their supporters are quick to trumpet. But it is an appearance of diversity and depends more on packaging than reality. Much of the material is simply “re-purposed” content. Any fresh material is also most often lighter fare—entertainment, lifestyle, consumer news — rather than original reporting on diverse communities or populations, or the type of in-depth analysis and investigation that gets under the skin of a story and so requires a substantial commitment of time and energy. Simultaneously, another trend is that a growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences, putting more pressure on revenues and profits. As a result, much of the new investment in journalism today is in disseminating the news and re-packaging it, not in gathering it. So, ironically, consolidation has led to the creation of
more media outlets, including new giveaway city dailies.
Audiences are more fragmented. The intense competition means
more news holes are filled with branding efforts, such as
cross-promotion elements and teasers. In addition, in broadcasting,
to vie for audiences, effort is devoted to getting the story
to air first, no matter how partial and jumbled. The focus
then remains on covering a few blockbuster stories ad
nauseam.
In this way, the raw elements of news increasingly become
the end product.19 At the same time, the number of reporters
researching and producing actual stories and analysis is
dropping.20 Tragically, resources devoted to investigative
reporting have become a shadow of what they were a decade
ago. The net result: 'Fact promiscuity, fact chaos' Tougher relations between the media and the public are echoed in a growing schism within media organizations themselves, according to authors Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel.21 Their comments are useful and echo the situation in Canada. On the business side of the media, there is increasing use of methods such as Management by Objective, which rewards senior editors and executives for reaching corporate financial and budgeting goals. On a strictly business basis, these measures may provide a coherent system for monitoring the work of executives. But they can also run directly counter to the interests of journalists and citizens. Kovach and Rosenstiel believe that these techniques turn allegiances and the focus at senior newsroom levels and above away from the interests of readers, viewers and listeners toward corporate shareholders. They lament that this trend has brought the culture of single-minded business accountability to newsrooms and the language and thought patterns of consumer marketing to news. Through this, citizens and readers are reduced to mere customers. Understanding them becomes marketing. Producing the news is reduced to an element of customer service. Despite the intense market competition, there’s another North American trend: traditional media sectors are, by and large, enormously profitable. In the U.S., margins on ad revenue of around 40 per cent are common for local television stations; margins of around 20 per cent are common for newspapers.22 If anything, CanWest is ahead of the curve: financial returns among the major CanWest metropolitan papers appear to have increased to at least 30 cents on each revenue dollar, considerably more than twice the levels of years past.23 The net result of all these trends is that information is in oversupply. But knowledge borne of believable reporting is in undersupply.24 There is, as author Michael Janeway puts it “fact promiscuity, fact chaos.”25 In this context, we raise again the matter of CP. The February 2005 survey of managing or wire editors of major daily newspapers and broadcasters26 found that 80 per cent of newspaper editors strongly agree that CP acts as an independent voice. Readers might not focus on CP material as distinct from other material in their newspapers. But editors do. And they evaluate CP as providing unbiased, fair and accurate coverage of even controversial or politically partisan issues. Yet in an era where the public finds precisely these qualities
are slipping, in an alarming way, CP faces its biggest crisis. The situation is not inevitable The situation we face today in Canada is not trivial. It is not desirable. Many agree but believe nevertheless that the situation is inevitable, a product of technology, globalization and corporate growth, beyond the control of the public, beyond the control of a small country like Canada, and beyond the purview of citizens through their legislators. We disagree. We take heart from the Project for Excellence in the United States, which is not only talking about decline in public trust in media, but trying to do something about it. Leading journalists working with the Project have put together a Citizen’s Bill of Rights to codify as much as possible what the public should expect of the press. Their Citizen’s Bill of Rights includes a right to truthfulness, that is, a right to clear and obvious evidence of the truthfulness of the reporting, where readers can judge the value and bias of the information for themselves. It also includes a right for citizens to see evidence that the press’s loyalty is to citizens and that it seeks to understand the whole community. Citizens, the authors state, should even expect that at times the news company will put its own interests at risk in order to bring important information to readers.27 Contrast this, for example, at CanWest with the instructions issued from the top on head-office expectations regarding reporting on the Middle East. And with CanWest’s cuts in staffing in its newsrooms across the nation, as well as in legislative reporting in Victoria and on Parliament Hill. And with the array of other measures detailed in YourMedia.ca. We note with some irony that Canada could have escaped the frenzy of concentration had the CRTC still been prohibited after 1985 from permitting cross-ownership between broadcast licensees and daily newspapers. We would not face the current situation. Nor would our media be less healthy.28 Based on the data provided by your Interim Report, the TNG plans to seek support at the coming Canadian Labour Congress convention for a resolution which urges a ban on cross-ownership between broadcasting outlets and newspapers. Our motion states, in part: “Actions of Canada's big media owners have endangered democratic and pluralistic values. Decisive legislative action is required immediately to foster diversity of voices and restore the rights of all citizens to full and accurate reporting of news within their community, country and world and to a comprehensive range of viewpoints that will stimulate rather than stifle healthy public debate, the cornerstone of democratic choice.” Holders of broadcast licences of course would have the right to decide which properties — the broadcast outlets or the newspapers — they would divest. A substantial degree of cross-ownership would remain in
place temporarily, allowing licences already granted the
time to run to their licence-period expiry date. During this
interim period, we seek to have the actions of such cross-owners
properly monitored, by a strengthened CRTC. 'Monitoring committees': mischievously named In the mergers involving TVA / Quebecor, CanWest / Southam and BCE / CTV, the CRTC instituted what it called “monitoring committees” to ensure the separation of news management between broadcast and print outlets. The committees were instructed to issue annual reports.29 As currently constituted, these self-regulating monitoring committees are window dressing. They may give a surface impression that CRTC is ensuring that media concentration and specifically cross-ownership are being properly monitored. Clearly this is not the case. They are ineffective. For example, our colleagues at the Fédération nationale des communications (FNC), who represent the journalists at Quebecor’s Journal de Montréal and other Quebecor papers, tell us that only one complaint has been filed with the much-touted self-regulating monitoring committee. The complaint related to the way Star Académie, Quebec’s version of the Canadian Idol television program, was cross-promoted in Quebecor’s television and print outlets, including, repeatedly as you have seen presented in evidence, on the front page of the nation’s largest French-language newspaper. The transgressions were, in the FNC’s view, flagrant. But although they appear to fall within the narrow purview of the committee, it has been ruled that they did not. So the process was aborted before it even began. The flaws with this system are fatal. The mischievously named “monitoring committees” in fact do no monitoring at all. The system remains complaint-driven and currently addresses only one narrow element of consolidation — whether news management of broadcasters and newspapers owned by the same corporation remain separate. The public can launch complaints if it knows about the committees. Clearly the public has been given no idea. In its entreaties to the CRTC to allow Bell to take over CTV, CTV committed to spending $1 million to publicize its monitoring committee.30 It hasn’t been used in any ad campaign that we’ve noticed! In fact, even when you go to CTV’s website and search the term “monitoring”, you don’t find information about the committee unless your search is focused on the corporate page of the website. So the public simply hasn’t been informed of this recourse — by media owners whose business interest is most efficiently served by continuing to keep the public in the dark. By way of illustration, it has no doubt been instructive to Senators to experience how little media coverage and analysis the issues being addressed by your Committee have actually received through the news operations of the nation’s large cross-media owners since your inquiry began almost two years ago. Meanwhile, both CTV and Global have offloaded administration of their “monitoring” committees to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.31 The CBSC is composed of private broadcasters. It oversees the private broadcasters’ self-regulating standards on sex-role portrayal and violence. According to the CBSC, no reports have been issued on news-management separation, because there have been no complaints.32 Under the existing framework, that leaves the other possible complainants: journalists. In other words, it is the employees who must do the complaining. Bear in mind the CanWest chill described earlier! This approach is akin to eliminating the auditor-general and her staff and choosing to now monitor government spending only through whistleblowers, while simultaneously threatening government whistleblowers with negative career consequences of the unwritten sort. Within the media industry, as in any enterprise, relying on only this sort of mechanism for preserving the public trust is a formula for disaster. Under the current media-monitoring system, the opening assumption is that all is well — unless there is proof to the contrary. Instead, the starting point should be the obvious one, that cross-ownership presents a challenge to a free and diverse press. Separation of news management decision-making is essential. Active, perceptive and independent oversight is also urgently required. These committees, under the aegis of the CRTC, should be actively inviting and indeed encouraging comments and dialogue as a way to remind the conglomerates that the public is watching, on quality and diversity issues, not just in a convergence context. We take for granted that the foreign-ownership rules will be maintained. In this regard, we note that CanWest has in the past wanted Canada to strike deals with other countries that would let the company buy up foreign properties and in exchange, grant Canadian media chains the option to sell ownership to non-Canadians. Perhaps CanWest decided this simply wasn’t in the cards. Reading closely the testimony before your Committee, April 13, 2005, p.11, it appears CanWest has had a change of heart and is prepared to accept that current foreign-ownership rules be maintained as long they continue to apply to potential rivals such as telecom and cable companies. With the implementation of the resurrected cross-ownership ban, this element is elegantly and effectively resolved. We are not for an instant suggesting that these more aggressive monitoring committees would address the entire issue. For that, we are relying on the public-policy measures capping ownership levels and outlawing cross-ownership. But as the transition is made in the next several years to the complete separation of broadcasting from newspaper operations, pending the licence-period expiry dates currently in effect, these measures provide an achievable, realistic transition approach which will ensure that the situation does not deteriorate. We urge this Committee to grasp that it is in a unique position
to speak for Canadians, to rebalance from the extreme and
unhealthy consolidation which has developed in recent years,
and to become a lightning rod for change. In the U.S., the public says Not So Fast! Many Canadians find it easy, in the age of George W. Bush, to lament American politics and view Americans as captives or contented fans of Big Media. The drift to bigger media in the U.S. is often invoked in Canada, part of the message that it’s an international trend, and therefore inevitable. So there is great and welcome irony in the grassroots challenge which has the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the American Congress balking over attempts to loosen rules which limited media consolidation. In June 2003, the FCC under Chairman Michael Powell moved aggressively to deregulate rules on media consolidation:33
But Michael Powell made a mistake. He ignored calls for public hearings before the changes. Perhaps he calculated that few Americans cared. And perhaps had he held the hearings, the whole matter would have passed under the radar, especially as the FCC changes received scant coverage in the media outlets which benefited from them.34 We’ll never know. Because when he dismissed calls for public hearings, Powell struck a very angry chord among grassroots activists concerned about the issue. Supported by organizations such as the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the international union with which TNG Canada is affiliated, the grassroots-organized public meetings started in Spring 2003 as the FCC prepared to vote and continued with greater urgency after the rules passed. The rules had passed the FCC 3-2. The two dissenting FCC commissioners, Jonathan Adelstein and Michael Copps, joined the opposition movement and crisscrossed the U.S. speaking to overflow audiences. More organizations soon joined in, raising the profile of the issue. The American Congress took notice. In July 2003, the House of Representatives voted 400-21 to reinstate the maximum 35-per-cent ownership rules for television. A group of Senators from both parties opposed to the loosened rules approved by the FCC signed a little-used “resolution of disapproval.” President Bush promptly announced he would veto any attempt to stall the loosened ownership rules. Then, in September 2003, a day before the new rules passed by the FCC the previous June were to take effect, opponents of the new rules got a big boost. A Court granted a temporary injunction against the rules. Few in the opposition movement to the rules had expected victory in court. But buoyed by that success, the movement against the changes intensified. And it turned out that people cared a great deal: The FCC and members of Congress received almost two million emails, letters and postcards, overwhelmingly against the changes. Trade unions, the National Organization of Women and others united with politically disparate groups such as the American Catholic bishops and the National Rifle Association. All were motivated by concern that the net effect of the rule changes would be to open the door for a single corporation to own most or all of a community’s newspapers, radio stations, newspapers and cable network. The FCC, so resistant to public hearings, was itself forced to schedule meetings for citizen input. The heated exchanges which resulted even attracted the attention of the media outlets owned by the biggest media companies, which until then had ignored the issue. In June 2004, in another victory, a court overturned all the rule changes from June 2003. In January 2005, the FCC and the American administration announced that it would not appeal that decision.35 The Bush Administration, under pressure, has reappointed one of the dissenting FCC Commissioners. It is true that the fight is not over. In overturning the deregulation package, the court ruled that the FCC had failed to use sufficient “reasoned analysis.” The court has sent the matter back to the FCC, which could tinker with its analysis and pass the rules all over again. However, the public is watching the FCC. Elected officials understand that voters, citizens all, do care. A grassroots movement holds regular conferences on the issue.36 There are lessons here for Canada. Ban cross-ownership; cap holdings at 30% We urge this Committee to recommend a legislated cap on media concentration in Canada: a limitation of 30 per cent of any individual form of media (broadcast or newspaper) owned by any particular corporate entity. This should be combined with an outright ban on media cross-ownership
via legislation or cabinet directive, implemented over the
next several years. In effect this ban would take hold as
current CRTC licences expire. As outlined above, during the
transition prior to the expiry of those existing broadcast
licences in a cross-ownership environment (Quebecor / TVA,
CanWest / Global and Bell / CTV), a toughened monitoring process
would be in place under CRTC supervision. It is certainly not too late History has taught that, when western Canadian publishers were faced with their crisis in 1907, these local entrepreneurs went up against a monopoly railway. The railway figured its market dominance would let it raise prices and cut Canadian content without hindrance or opposition. The railway didn’t get away with it either. The Western papers fought back. They created their own news service, laying the basis for The Canadian Press. Almost a century later, the same type of monopolization, this time within the media itself, could kill CP. As you have seen, it gravely threatens the public trust in many other ways as well. Like the local newspaper proprietors of the early 1900s, there are people today who know this matters — to you on the Senate Committee, to our union members and, above all, to the public, to citizens. Experience tells us it will be at least a decade or two before Canadian legislators revisit these issues. By then, it may be too late. The Davey Committee concluded in 1970 that: “This country should no longer tolerate a situation where the public interest, in so vital a field as information, is dependent on the greed or goodwill of an extremely privileged group of businessmen.” In 1981, Tom Kent echoed the warning: “Where we are is, in the Commission’s opinion, entirely unacceptable for a democratic society. Too much power is put in too few hands; and it is power without accountability.” In 2005, the concentration of media ownership has not diminished, nor has the danger it poses. Both have grown. We are the new generation that has undertaken to keep the press free and make it freer—for ourselves and for the generations to come. We have proposed the appropriate tools to do the job. We are counting on you to fulfil your proper role. Thank you.
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