AI image by Perplexity
January 19, 2026
You like to think you’ll never fall for a digital fishing scam. You like to think you’ll never fall for a deep fake news video.
Ahem, I fell for a deep fake news video.
YouTube, in its algorithmic omniscience, pushed to me as its top daily recommendation a video of the famous Washington Post political corro George Will. As the NeverTrump Reaganite we know him to be, Will delivered a withering critique of US tariffs by pointing to Toyota’s investment of $40 billion in Canada. Later, after I searched for a news announcement and found none, I wised up. (My friend in the auto industry kindly reminded me that $40 billion equals eight new car plants).
But for a good ten minutes, I was all in. The AI-video had George Will on the screen, live and in the flesh, saying exactly what George Will would say and how he would say it, but strangely looking twenty years younger than his 85 years. Then checking the meta-data, the video creators claimed to be a George Will fan site. I very much doubt they were licensed to impersonate George. A week later, YouTube had taken it down.
A few days later YouTube pushed me a similar fake, this time tech journalist Kara Swisher. Fool me once, etc.
Digital deception is now a daily event, according to a Canadian poll. Fifty-two per cent of us are “very concerned” about it; a full 88% are concerned.
Canadians generally want action against digital deception and hold a mix of views on who ought to do the acting:
Meanwhile, news publishers are soaking their heads in an icy bucket of water.
The Oxford Reuters Institute posted a new year’s survey of 280 CEOs, executives and editors in 51 countries expressing, guess what, their deepening pessimism about the future prospects for journalism.
The collective wisdom was that news journalism is getting squeezed for audience attention (and ultimately revenue) on either side by AI and social media influencers. Thanks to AI-generated videos and Chat summaries, the latter published with or without links to digital news sites, publishers are expecting referral traffic to keep declining and more or less crash and burn.
If there’s a silver lining, twenty per cent of publishers believe they will make deals for significant licensing revenues, another 49% see a minor stream of revenue, and another 20% expect none. The latter group are concentrated in local media, public broadcasting and smaller countries.
A cause for optimism is that a lot of publishers are innovating by hiring digital creators to work with their journalists to compete in the influencer /video/ social media world.
Watch that space: I am waiting for someone to come up with a licensed AI-generated celebrity journalist/influencer who gets content up on the ‘net tout de suite in the news cycle. Someone like George Will.
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As I’ve been griping about for some time now, the CBC has been slow out of the blocks to put its five year plan into action and earn that $150M raise in the Parliamentary grant.
We may be getting somewhere.
Editor in chief Brodie Fenlon just announced that CBC “will add 33 local journalists and create 11 new bureaus, increasing [our] Canadian footprint from 66 to 77 locations. This “boots-on-the-ground” investment is in addition to last year’s local service expansion of 30 journalists hired in 22 communities across Canada. Many of the new positions are based in Central and Western Canada.”
Now for context, CBC has about 3600 news journalists in television, radio and online. It’s long been underweighted in western Canada, likely because of where the television and radio stations were located decades ago when our demography was a lot more central Canadian. In British Columbia, for example, the private television broadcasters collectively outspend CBC television 7:1.
The CBC has also hired a new head of English language services to replace the retiring Barb Williams. The new EVP is Doug Smith. He’s arriving from Paramount Canada and his CV stretches back to ViacomCBS, Rogers, and Alliance Atlantis.
A streaming guy. Let’s give him a couple of years and see what he can conjure up at CBC Gem.
Maybe we’ll see a shift to buzzy blockbusters that emulate the recent success of Crave’s Heated Rivalry in Canada and abroad.
Making hit Canadiana television that is validated by successful export is not new: Canadian broadcasters have done it repeatedly with Transplant, Flashpoint, DaVinci’s Inquest, Degrassi, etc.
At home, Bell Media can take credit for a hitting streak of popular and authentic Canadian shows, smacking doubles like Shorsey, LetterKenny and Late Bloomer, and now Heated Rivalry, a centre-field blast worthy of Bo Bichette (sorry, too soon?).
There’s no reason CBC can’t do the same. It can and has (Sort Of was genius). But as a paid subscriber to Gem (how many of us is a secret), my personal request is to pour money into the functionality of the high friction, algorithmically anemic streaming site.
(Correction: An earlier version of this post identified the number of CBC newsroom employees at 3400.)
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This year’s annual coven of Media Policy conspirators is scheduled in Toronto in the first weekend of February.
Digital Media at the Crossroads will be held at the Faculty of Music building, University of Toronto, on Friday 6th- Saturday 7th. Here’s the program. See you there.
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This blog post is copyrighted by Howard Law, all rights reserved. 2026.
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