Catching Up on MediaPolicy – St.Onge’s CBC review – Liberal poll on news journalism revealed – what an Online Safety bill might achieve

January 7, 2024

Just before the new year, Canadian Press interviewed Heritage Minister Pascale St.-Onge about the federal Liberals’ new commitment to re-think the CBC, to “define what the CBC should look like over the next year and decade.”

The outstanding question mark about the results of a CBC review, taking either the short or long path to government action, is whether there is anywhere near enough time left in the government’s mandate before an election intervenes.

“And I really want to achieve that before the next election, to make sure that our public broadcaster is (as) well-positioned as possible for the future,” St.-Onge told CP’s Mickey Djuric. 

As for what is to be done at the CBC —to reiterate Djuric’s report verbatim— when it comes to journalism, St.-Onge said she would like the public broadcaster’s new mandate to fill information gaps in local regions, include a strong online presence, invest in international reporting and ensure minority-language communities are supported. As for the cultural sector, she said she would also like to see the public broadcaster continuing to showcase local talent and finance shows “that would not see the daylight if it was just for the private sector.”

Now you can parse that statement without arriving at any conclusion of what that would change about the current CBC programming other than getting rid of its US programming, but some things that are clearly missing are the role of television advertising on one hand, and institutional governance and financial independence from Parliament on the other.

The Globe’s Konrad Yakabuski wrote a column suggesting the looming prospect of a Poilievre government is the CBC’s Waterloo. If I can paraphrase his point of view, shared by many, it’s the rhetorical question “why can’t the CBC be more like PBS?” 

Reached for comment by CP, Conservative Heritage critic Rachael Thomas obliged with “Canadians need an independent and free media, not a biased broadcaster that receives a billion taxpayer dollars every year to act as mouthpiece for the Liberal government.”

Chances are, she won’t be repeating that in French.

***

Global’s David Akin’s freedom of information request turned up an undisclosed opinion poll from last summer, commissioned by the Privy Council Office, that corroborates what other pollsters were finding at the time: the Google and Meta news throttles soured the previous public support for the recently enacted Online News Act, Bill C-18.

There were other findings too. The first of Heritage’s poll question was whether respondents trusted news organizations to “make decisions in the interests of the public.” That’s an odd phrasing that is popular among pollsters. But the discouraging results mark a continuity with previous polls in Canada and many other countries:

The results of the next question remind us that a majority of Canadians say they are alienated not only from news organizations but pretty much every powerful institution, and often they are equally alienated (except for a collective clear-eyed view of Social Media):

But it’s the counterfactual results of the third question that elicit groans —and are consistent with previous polls too:

***  

If the Liberals follow through on their promise to introduce Online Safety legislation in the upcoming session of Parliament, MediaPolicy will have plenty of posts following the debate. 

There is a good piece in Chatelaine from Supriya Dwivedi of McGill University’s Centre for Media, Technology & Democracy. She interviews several female Members of Parliament about the misogyny and racism they endure; a reality check for those of us not female or racialized. By the end of the article, she is recommending what the Liberals’ bill should or might look like:

As the federal government moves forward with regulating online harms, it should look to peer jurisdictions such as the U.K. and the E.U. Both have developed an approach to online harms that requires much more transparency from Big Tech in terms of how their algorithms work, as well as tackling the underlying incentives that lead to the amplification of harmful content. This includes mandated transparency reports and risk assessments, as well as algorithmic auditing powers by the regulator in both jurisdictions. Any online harms framework should also aim to bring Canada in line with the rest of the G7 and introduce intermediary liability, clarifying when platforms are liable for harms arising from content posted on their platforms by users.

***

Another reminder: the annual Digital Media at the Crossroads conference takes place January 19-20 in Toronto. A policy nerd’s delight. Here’s where to register.

***

If you would like regular notifications of future posts from MediaPolicy.ca you can follow this site by signing up under the Follow button in the bottom right corner of the home page; 

or e-mail howard.law@bell.net to be added to the weekly update; 

or follow @howardalaw on Twitter.