June 26, 2017
SHARE
CANADALAND
#189 The Great Newspaper Bailout
The newspaper industry is pleading for hundred of millions of dollars per year to help prop itself up.
Jesse Brown
Host & Publisher
Russell Gragg
Producer

After the release of the Public Policy Forum’s Shattered Media report this past winter comes the latest beg for cash to prop up the newspaper industry. This one comes in the form of a request for a subsidy totaling hundred of millions of dollars per year from News Media Canada, the umbrella advocacy organization for Canadian newspapers.

While it claims to advocate for the maintenance of local journalism, the organization shies away from supporting small, digital startups, which are often the strongest source of civic journalism in many Canadian communities.

The Trudeau government swiftly knocked down the idea of taxing Netflix and other digital endeavours to fund this bailout, though it sounds like they’re ultimately in favour of finding that funding.

Bob Cox, Chair of the Board of News Media Canada as well as the publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press joins us.

 

(Producers’ note: owing to a technical glitch with our telephone recording process, this interview is an amalgam of two separate interviews conducted with Bob Cox on one day.)

More from this series
“I'm just watching the great powers in between me and down there and over there and it's almost like a bad nightmare.” - Larry Audlaluk
April 21, 2025
“ Here is what I would've done if I was Mark Carney, right? Just let it be out there. If you really have nothing to hide, don't hide.” - Professor Partha Mohanram
April 14, 2025
“...the tentacles of party discipline and party control have completely grabbed a hold of everybody and they have a really hard time breaking free. We just no longer have politicians who can speak their minds, politicians who can stand up on behalf of their constituents.” -Alex Marland, author of Whipped: Party Discipline in Canada
April 7, 2025
“   …the City of Pickering has witnessed a growing infiltration of alt right individuals, ideologies, and influences that have created an atmosphere of uncertainty, fear, and intimidation over our Council, our staff, our residents, and indeed the broader community.” - Pickering Mayor Kevin Ashe
March 31, 2025
“ Look inside yourself, Rosemary. I mean, you start from a prior of conflict and Ill will.” - Prime Minister Mark Carney
March 24, 2025
“We cannot treat libraries as organs of propaganda, and whether it's for progressive values or for conservative values, we should not be treating libraries as simply the PR department for the kind of ideology that we believe in, and trying to ban everything else.” - Ira Wells, author of “On Book Banning”
March 17, 2025
We take a dumpster dive to look at all the legislation that got thrown out when Trudeau prorogued Parliament. Jesse tests the theory that one person’s trash is another’s treasure.
March 10, 2025
The CBC: Defund or UnF*ck? The choice is yours as we open up the phone lines to hear what you have to say about the possible futures of the CBC.
March 3, 2025
all podcasts arrow All Podcasts
CANADALAND