December 30, 2023

It’s the silly, pointless fibs that get you. Meta’s Canadian policy advocate, Rachel Curran, did just that before the House of Commons Ethics Committee of all places. This week, MediaPolicy posted on that.

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Last weekend MediaPolicy recounted the exchange between Québec Culture Minister Mathieu Lacombe and LaPresse Deputy Editor Francis Cardinal over the culpability of news journalism in its own misery. 

On Wednesday Brian Myles, publisher of Le Devoir added his comments. Pointing out that news journalism in Québec is even more heavily subsidized than English-Canadian print journalism —-because of provincial subsidies that stack on top of federal aid and mandatory Google licensing fees— the gist of his carefully written comments seems to be that news outlets don’t deserve the help if they aren’t innovating, by which he appears to mean editorial and reader strategies. 

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Scholarship is just journalism without deadlines. 

There is a typically good piece of writing from Sean Speer in The Hub ruminating about the politics of teaching and publishing Canadian stories in university history departments. As a history graduate myself (a long time ago), the issue is close to my heart.

Speer talks about the competing narrative missions of the old school of “national accomplishments” and what he less charitably describes as the “identitarian” school of the “one true faith.”

Without quibbling over labels, one must concede that Speer isn’t making this stuff up; that kind of dichotomy does exist for those who insist upon putting historical scholarship to political employment. But I suspect (or hope) it’s more the student body than the scholars themselves who are donning the school-of-thought lapel pins. History scholarship, like journalism, is the place for curiosity and investigation.

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Another story that MediaPolicy has been following lately is the shake-up among Hollywood’s video streaming giants. David Friend of Canadian Press published a good (and brief) overview of the mish-mash of price increases, licensing hoarding and purging, and advertising supported services that are proliferating.  

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I will read anything that Shannon Proudfoot writes because her prose sounds like a backwoods waterfall, but if she’s going to write about Winnipeg I want everyone else to read her as well.

This weekend’s recommended feature is “What everyone gets wrong about Winnipeg, except Winnipeggers.”

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