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Community journalism a victim of misguided spat
e-KNOW Editorial
By Ian Cobb
The strangulation of journalism in Canada is hitting the last gasp before its death.
It began with the mass corporatization of media outlets in the 1990s and really blossomed with the arrival of the digital age. See also: Google and then Facebook etc.
The vast majority of advertising revenue, the lifeblood of all media outlets, has been neatly siphoned into the maws of Facebook and Google the past 20 plus years – with more businesses abandoning local media outlets in favour of Facebook’s intrusive and creepy algorithms and Google’s massive reach.
Hands up. How many of you readers have wondered why e-KNOW or other media outlets don’t cover certain stories or issues?
The quick answer is we’d love to cover them. We’d love to be able to hire journalists to cover important local news stories but the current trend does not remotely allow that to happen. Simply put, the old model of operating newspapers etc. has been obliterated by the massive loss of revenues thanks to tech giants.
According to News Media Canada, an association that represents more than 500 Canadian publishers, media revenues fell by more than $3 billion between 2011 and 2020. Countless media outlets have gone out of business and many, many more face terribly uncertain futures.
Coincidently, e-KNOW opened for business in July 2011.
The business plan we operated with was tossed into the trash two weeks into operation. I based things around old newspaper standards, believing X amount of revenue would begin to roll in around the end of year two.
The ambition of my original business plan was quite cute and admirable, in hindsight, but wildly wrong. I did not take into account the might of social media that we quickly utilized to spread the word about our new business.
Thanks especially to Facebook and less so to Instagram, Twitter and Linked-in, e-KNOW’s social media subscriber base ballooned nicely. It helped us generate the revenues we’ve compiled.
It was never a bother to me that Facebook or Google ‘used’ the material we produce. What did bug me was the extremely evident impact those companies had on us and other media outlets in terms of revenue depletion and, therefore, drops in quality and quantity of journalism.
The Canadian government recognized this and took steps it believed would help media regain revenues lost, enacting Bill C-18 (Online News Act), legislation compelling tech companies to sign deals with Canadian news organizations for content that is shared on their platforms.
Facebook and Google warned the government that if it enacted Bill C-18, there would be reprisals, as it did when Australia ponied up to be a global guinea pig in 2021, trying to take them on. Australia ended up stepping back, reassessing and then finding a way to work things out with Facebook and Google. More on that later.
Facebook warned Canada it would pull all news content to people accessing Facebook and Instagram in Canada. “People in Canada will no longer view or share news on Facebook and Instagram, including news content posted by news outlets. In addition, people in Canada will no longer see links or content from any news outlet pages or accounts,” Meta outlined July 18 when it warned again it would pull the pin on e-KNOW and all media outlets in Canada.
It waited almost a month on Canada stepping back and on August 14 our subscriber base went from 31,665 to 14,200 as our plump Facebook and Instagram pages went dark.
Thankfully, our tech guru informs us we’ve only lost about 17.5% of our readership. Despite our large Facebook presence, our posts don’t pull in as many readers as our website does (people who come straight to www.e-KNOW.ca as opposed to being lured by a Facebook post).
What really hurts is our inability now to give local non-profit organizations an immediate ‘e-KNOW bump’ on our Facebook page, promoting events, sudden notices and cancellations and it also eliminated our effectiveness at alerting the population of the East Kootenay to wildfire alerts, flooding etc.
I presume those days are done as the Trudeau government isn’t blinking. It is a foolish move.
What’s going to happen if this continues is, surprise, surprise, government bailouts to the very media corporations that began the slow decline of journalism in the country and little guys like yours truly and other rural media outlets everywhere will be tossed aside in the rush for taxpayer support from the trough mongrels.
In short, the last gasp is upon us. Corporate giants and a nitwit government, good intentions notwithstanding, are smothering the dissemination of free press.
When Facebook blocked news on its platforms across Australia in February 2021, a week later the Australian government backtracked with a tweak. Facebook and Google struck a deal with the Australian government and the restriction stopped.
Australia didn’t just give in, though. It modified the News Media Bargaining Code, which governs conduct between Australian news businesses and ‘designated’ digital platforms.
Now, Australia can designate and force digital platforms like Meta and Google to pay for news. But Meta and Google have yet to be ‘designated’ by the government. However, under the implied threat of being designated, Meta and Google made separate deals with a series of media companies in Australia. Those deals have reportedly resulted in more than 30 commercial agreements worth about $200 million to Aussie news companies.
In other words, stuff got worked out. Canada must work this out, too.
Because while Facebook’s petulant frenzy stings media in Canada, it isn’t that bad.
For you Facebook users who follow e-KNOW, you don’t NEED Facebook to visit our site. Bookmark us or simply remember to click into www.e-KNOW.ca whenever you want.
What really scares the living hell out of me as a business owner and a journalist is Google’s threat to do the same as Facebook.
If Google gongs us, we’re done for. Twelve years of 24/7/365 building our business will be obliterated. We agree media needs help but use a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
So dear Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, may I present you the Australian case, which you are certainly aware of, or I damned well hope you are. The Aussies created a blueprint of sorts for the approach to reining in tech giants, though it benefits big media more than small media with smoke and mirrors and hufflepuff (a common thing around Ottawa).
A staring contest between Canada and Facebook is not good for business for Canada. Facebook could care less. Canada is small potatoes to it. Facebook and Google are reportedly worth $2 trillian US!
A staring contest between Google and Canada will result in digital chaos and the final demise of community journalism in Canada.
What a mind-blowingly stupid thing to allow to happen.
– Ian Cobb is e-KNOW editor and owner
