Postmedia CEO warns MPs newspaper industry 'ugly and getting uglier'

spaminator

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Postmedia CEO warns MPs newspaper industry 'ugly and getting uglier'
By David Akin, Parliamentary Bureau Chief
First posted: Thursday, May 12, 2016 12:09 PM EDT | Updated: Thursday, May 12, 2016 12:20 PM EDT
OTTAWA - Postmedia Network CEO Paul Godfrey warned MPs Thursday that the newspaper industry in Canada is in peril and urgently needs some form of government help.
"In three years, there will be more (newspaper) closures, some in your communities," Godfrey told MPs on the House of Commons Heritage Committee.
That committee has been studying ways to protect local traditional media -- newspapers, TV and radio -- that generally depend on the sales of advertising revenue to pay their journalists and other employees.
"The erosion of print revenue has been dramatic," Godfrey said. "The picture is ugly and it will get uglier."
Earlier this year, Postmedia merged its newsrooms in cities where it owned both daily newspapers -- Ottawa, Calgary and Edmonton -- and laid off some journalists.
Torstar Corp., which is also cutting its workforce, ceased printing one of its big-city dailies earlier this year. The Mercury, which had been the daily newspaper in Guelph, Ont., since Confederation, was shuttered on the same day that Black Press shut down The Daily News, which had been publishing in Nanaimo, B.C., for 141 years.
"You're going to find there's going to be a lot more closings," Godfrey said.
Godfrey's testimony mirrored that given last week to the same MPs by Bell Media executives about their television and radio networks.
Just as Postmedia is the single largest and most-read publisher of newspapers in Canada, including Sun Media newspapers, Bell operates the most-watched private television network, CTV.
Godfrey, like those from Bell, warned of further consolidation.
"Without community newspapers covering hyper-local stories, they would simply go unexplored, unchallenged, unreported," Godfrey said.
"Even in a time when people everywhere have more access to news than ever and when anyone can take an active part in breaking the news around them through social media, it is still the role of professional journalists to delve deeper, to gain access and to ask questions -- on behalf of us all."
Liberal MP Adam Vaughan accused Godfrey of appearing before the committee to seek a "bailout" for Postmedia Network, which is dealing with a considerable debt problem.
Godfrey rejected the idea, telling the committee he was looking for the government to be an "ally" for the entire industry.
Three things the government could do right away, he said, would be to advertise more in Canadian newspapers, increase a tax credit for advertisers who buy ads in a Canadian newspaper, and improve an existing fund available to help periodical publishers.
The Heritage Committee is expected to make some recommendations to the government this fall.
Postmedia president and CEO Paul Godfrey, appears at commons heritage committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, May 12, 2016, to discuss the media and local communities. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Postmedia CEO warns MPs newspaper industry 'ugly and getting uglier' | Canada |
 

Jinentonix

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This would be a terrible thing, if journalists actually did their jobs. However, there are a lot of supposedly mainstream media outlets in Canada that would rather push narrative than deliver facts. At the small, local paper that brings you news from in and around the community level it's not so bad with the narrative, but when you get into the more widely circulated/watched news media, the narrative gets more pronounced, for the most part.
I also don't think the govt is all that interested in doing much about it either. Fewer news media sources means it's easier to control the message.
 

Danbones

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Sep 23, 2015
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damn buggy whips salesmen bitching again
the alternative news people seem to be doing ok
delivering news and selling ads
 

tay

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I must be still asleep and didn't read this correctly.


The media chain that championed the Kudetahaha against the NDP in Alberta, and has railed against everything not Conservative Federally, particularly anything that doesn't include austerity, wants the 'nice hair' guy to subsidise their American owned biz with wasted Canadian tax payers money.....?
 

Scooby

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News from corporate controlled sources is not considered trustworthy. There was a time when it was, but that's gone, and i don't believe it's ever coming back.
People would rather be entertained than informed.
There's your problem.
 

taxslave

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Nov 25, 2008
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News from corporate controlled sources is not considered trustworthy. There was a time when it was, but that's gone, and i don't believe it's ever coming back.
People would rather be entertained than informed.
There's your problem.

Well the lefty "news" sites like Tyee News,Huff post and the Guardian are entertaining , just not very factual.
 

Dixie Cup

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Sep 16, 2006
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This would be a terrible thing, if journalists actually did their jobs. However, there are a lot of supposedly mainstream media outlets in Canada that would rather push narrative than deliver facts. At the small, local paper that brings you news from in and around the community level it's not so bad with the narrative, but when you get into the more widely circulated/watched news media, the narrative gets more pronounced, for the most part.
I also don't think the govt is all that interested in doing much about it either. Fewer news media sources means it's easier to control the message.



I couldn't have put it better myself.