January 5, 2024
For those of you who are returning from a proper holiday break and have not checked your MediaPolicy feed, the last two posts dove into a poll and report from The Dais on Canadians’ trust in news and also the current state of misinformation and online harms.
Since then, Reuters Institute at Oxford University dropped a related report with global results here.
The Dais’ Canadian report included poll results suggesting that right-wingers answering a panel of true/false questions were especially credulous of online misinformation whereas left-wingers were not. The test questions however seemed more likely to catch out misinformed (or defiant) right-wingers than progressives.
A friend of mine made the same observation, so over coffee he demonstrated his prowess with Chat GPT and conjured up an alternative set of true/false questions more likely to trip up left-wingers. The AI program said all of these statements are false. Enjoy:
1. “The world will be uninhabitable by 2030 due to climate change.”
2. “All genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are harmful and unnatural.”
3. “The majority of police officers are overtly racist.”
4. “All billionaires became wealthy through exploitation or illegal practices.”
5. “Big Pharma is suppressing natural cures for cancer to maintain profits.”
6. “Vaccines are completely risk-free.”
7. “All multinational corporations avoid taxes and exploit workers.”
8. “Facial recognition technology is being used primarily to surveil marginalized communities.”
9. “Elon Musk’s electric vehicles are just a greenwashing scam.”
10. “Every war the U.S. has been involved in was solely for corporate profit.”
11. “Countries with universal healthcare have no medical shortages or challenges.”
12. “Canceling offensive content will completely eliminate systemic inequality.”
13. “All nuclear energy is dangerous and unnecessary.”
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Almost every New Year’s prediction about video entertainment in 2025 painted a portrait of a cresting wave of YouTuber content, increasingly driven by AI tools, crashing down on the Hollywood streaming and TV industry and, in the long term, taking all of the growth.
The Globe and Mail’s TV critic wrote about this after an interview with Bell Media’s content VP Justin Stockman. One observation was that as a television and streaming company Bell is adapting to the success of YouTubers in the “creator economy” by seeking to draw on the Canadian corps of YouTubers as a farm system for emerging talent, especially in comedy.
For example, the CTV multi-season hit show Letterkenny began as YouTube videos before Bell Media signed the creator/actors. A more recent example is CTV’s Late Bloomer, starring Jus Reign.
I asked Digital First Canada’s Scott Benzie about this and he cautioned that YouTubers scouted by mainstream media can succeed there as talent, but rarely in the role of the YouTube show or character that got them noticed. As a rule, audience tastes and interests on YouTube are different from those on streaming and television platforms.
Also, says Benzie, YouTubers won’t keep the intellectual property in their talent once they pass through the gates of the broadcasting fortress. That’s why YouTubers continue to branch out into other monetization strategies including live performances, branding deals, and merchandise sales.
Benzie thinks the CBC is doing a good job of platforming creator content on its YouTube channel and, as a non-profit public broadcaster, conceding that the participating Canadian YouTubers continue to own their own shows.
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The simmering feud between Canada’s mainstream media and the Google-anointed Canadian Journalism Collective seems closer to blowing up.
If you recall, a term of Heritage Minister Pascale St.-Onge’s deal with Google for $100 million in annual news licensing payments was that Google got to choose which of the two coalition of news publishers would broker the distribution of the $100 million to eligible news outlets. Google chose the CJC, representing Canadian news outlets —-employing about one per cent of Canadian journalists—- that had by no coincidence linked arms with Google in opposing the Online News Act, Bill C-18.
The rest of the industry —-including the broadcaster and news media associations, as well as the CBC —- expressed skepticism that CJC would play the role of Google-money banker impartially.
The news is out now that CJC has approved an unexpectedly high number of “print” online publications applying for the $100M and, hence, the per journalist salary subsidy has been diluted to $13G per year down from a figure originally estimated by News Media Canada as $20G. Payouts for 2024 are on their way.
Taking a 35% haircut on Google licensing payments that are already far less than publishers thought they would get after the Australian experience is bound to rankle.
Whether such a big gap will be closed over the next few weeks is up for grabs. The CJC has already included about 400 more journalists than expected by including newsroom hires funded by the federal Local Journalism Initiative. [An earlier version of this article inaccurately identified the new hires as “interns” when they are in fact journalists hired on one year contracts.]
In addition, the CJC’s invitation to media organizations to stick their hands up for Google money is likely to have flooded the CJC with applications from media outlets that don’t do original news reporting of current affairs. Comments from Paul Deegan of News Media Canada suggest a concern that payments will flow to applicants that don’t meet the C-18 definition of publishing “news content of public interest that is primarily focused on matters of general interest and reports of current events.”
Lastly, the CJC invited news organizations to include freelancers in their newsroom headcounts. The CRTC subsequently ruled that federal regulations make it clear that only payroled employees are eligible. News Media Canada’s Deegan has also expressed a concern that the CJC may have accredited applications that include audience engagement employees who are similarly ineligible.
CJC interim board chair Erin Millar told MediaPolicy that “the CJC is in the process of verifying eligibility of all news businesses that applied for funding. We also have a process for auditing journalist hours.”
Millar added “we have a policy and procedure for distributing funds in a risk adjusted way that accounts for ineligible claims.”
Stay tuned on this one.
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From IMDB
The recommended read and video watch for this weekend is directed to the CRTC commissioners and staff who are plotting to remove regulatory spending minimums on Canadian TV drama on the grounds that the US streamers will fill the void.
A few weeks ago Amazon Prime released its comedy-drama series The Sticky, based ever so loosely on the memorable maple syrup heist in Québec in 2012. As MediaPolicy commented, the series was written by Americans. It’s funny. It’s entertaining. It’s got a hip soundtrack. And it’s painfully inauthentic CanCon.
Don’t take my word for it, read Globe TV critic Kelly Nestruck who has absolutely nailed it. And then watch the series.
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