It'll Take More than a Village to Save Canadian Journalism
Some Thoughts on The Online News Act (Bill C-18)
Big changes are afoot in Canadian journalism.
As you’ve probably heard, Bill C-18 has caused an epic showdown between the federal government and big tech.
Meta now prevents the sharing of Canadian news content, which has no doubt frustrated you if you’re active on Facebook and/or Instagram.
Last week, Google came around and agreed to a deal that will keep its platform open to Canadian news content.
Like most things in life, the root of the problem is money.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons (Animated Heaven)
Until recently, advertising was a relatively stable source of revenue for journalism.
Digital platforms like Facebook, Google, Instagram, and Twitter (among others) changed all of that with a phenomenon called micro-targeting.
Because digital platforms take the information we provide them – from our personal data to our browsing history – and turn it into a highly profitable commodity, they’re able to expose us to advertisements that match our tastes and desires.
That’s why the advertisements you see online eerily mirror your own activities.
And if you’re an advertiser seeking the most efficient way to target potential consumers, why bother with print and broadcast when you can use data-driven digital?
The increased accuracy of micro-targeting has led to some major shifts in the advertising market.
Unsurprisingly, most advertising revenue in Canada now flows to digital platforms, including Facebook and Google.
More importantly, it doesn’t flow to struggling broadcasters, magazines, and newspapers, some of the outfits that keep us informed and make participation in a democracy possible. The lack of reliable revenue streams means that local news organizations are shuttering their doors at an alarming pace.
Bill C-18 has a solution for the unequal distribution of advertising revenue, one that’s based on a similar policy in Australia.
The bill places new obligations on big tech to compensate publishers for news content that drives traffic (and revenue). It means the federal government will form an intermediary role, collecting these new revenues from big tech for news content on their platforms and then distribute it to the publishers of news in Canada.
To generalize and simplify for a moment, the federal government and legacy media are proponents.
The government realizes that it needs to tame big tech somehow and that it’s barely catching up with our new informational environment. For their part, some legacy media are on life support and have already become accustomed to government bailouts with the help of professional lobbyists.
The official opposition and small-scale, independent publications are opponents. The latter worry that the new policy will disproportionately benefit legacy media outlets that are already highly concentrated in ownership and haven’t innovated enough to weather the digital transition.
Postmedia is a prime example of this, a news empire awash in debt and perpetually hollowing out its newsrooms. Nonetheless, it still manages to generously compensate its upper echelons while raking in public funds.
So, what’s to be done about all this?
There’s no doubt that Bill C-18 is a flawed piece of public policy.
The federal government was lobbied by legacy media to bail them out, something that’s already happened, and it didn’t exactly revive the industry.
And no matter how many assurances are made that government funding won’t corrupt the independence and integrity of Canadian journalism, this new funding model creates several more problems, including deciding who should get funding and how much.
In the big picture, the policy further embeds the concentrated legacy media we already have and poses new barriers to entering the market if you’re one of the little guys.
But because the average person keeps getting the news one way or another, they probably don’t realize just how existential the crisis of Canadian journalism is right now.
In this challenging media environment, Sault Ste. Marie is home to innovation.
One of the most prominent opponents of Bill C-18 is Jeff Elgie, the brainchild of Village Media (the parent company of SooToday) and pioneer of a purely digital and ‘hyper-local’ business model.
In an industry that’s fighting for survival, Village Media isn’t just surviving, but thriving.
Elgie estimates that Facebook and Google account for approximately 50% of all the online traffic flowing to its sites. Since its major stream of revenue is advertising, decreases in traffic could have a devastating effect on its business model.
If advertisers expect their messages will connect with a specific number of potential consumers and suddenly that number is reduced, that revenue stream could shrink.
Other digital news sites could experience a similar effect, many of whom rely upon the power of social media to spread their content and connect advertisers with consumers.
Elgie has also said that Village Media is “caught in the crossfire” between tech companies and the federal government.
I’m not sure that’s entirely the case, since Village Media (and another of Elgie’s creations, Digital Intelligence Group) maintains a close relationship with Google, and the successful expansion of the network has depended upon some of the same big tech data commercialization techniques.
Nonetheless, the principle behind Elgie’s opposition is sound.
Of course, big tech isn’t ‘stealing’ content when news outlets willingly use their platforms and users enthusiastically share the fruits of Canadian journalism.
Most online news outlets are probably quite happy to see their content spread virally if it in turn drives traffic to their own sites and pleases advertisers.
It’s also a great thing for democracy when people understand what’s happening in the world and want to talk about it, irrespective of how they gain that understanding.
But what the policy conversation hasn’t seriously grappled with yet is the giant elephant in the room: the degree to which big tech has amassed power without the accountability and transparency it owes the public.
The micro-targeting pioneered by big tech isn’t just some benign marketing tool.
Big tech is a global industry that’s had an enormous impact on society, and not always in a good way.
Violating our personal privacy, failing to curb violent extremism, and creating new tools for surveillance and repression are all part of its track record.
In general, the business model of big tech is to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, conducting large-scale social experiments with free and informed consent usually considered in hindsight.
This state of affairs is sad and ironic, because we once believed that new technology could liberate us from authoritarian tendencies and spread truth around the globe.
Instead, big tech rakes in massive profits while escaping some of the consumer protections and anti-trust regulations that are commonplace in other industries.
Further, when you consider just how important digital platforms have become for public discussion (and therefore democracy), it’s hard to see companies like Google and Meta in a positive light.
Image Credit: Carlos Diaz Ruiz (“Disinformation on digital media platforms”).
Every once in a while, a brave whistleblower will give us a peek behind the curtains to confirm our own suspicions.
Research is also confirming what’s been plain to see for a couple decades: digital platforms encourage some of our worst human tendencies.
Given the way that the conversation about social media has changed in the past few years, we might look at the advent of the industry in the same way we now look at alcohol, seatbelts, and tobacco.
We may even marvel at the fact that consumer protections took so long to enact, and that governments were so willfully negligent in recognizing the obvious harms.
Nonetheless, the little guys in the news industry don’t have the privilege of many options.
Social media meant that their news content could be direct to consumer without the hassle of complicated distribution networks (and the huge costs associated with such networks). Some news outlets subsequently built their business models on social media engagement, which is why Bill C-18 is such a gut punch for them.
But there’s a much deeper problem here.
If we’re trying to understand the deepest roots of the current policy impasse, I think it’s this: Canadian journalism is a public good but it’s dependent upon private interests for its long-term financial sustainability.
Advertising doesn’t pose challenges to journalism just because the former is required for the financial survival of the latter.
Advertising also challenges journalism because it’s antithetical to its core mission of informing citizens about public affairs.
When digital platforms play psychological games to increase audience engagement, they’re arguably not creating informed citizens.
Instead, they’re cultivating an audience of potential consumers, and closely monitoring their behaviour to eventually benefit the goals of advertisers.
In sum, if the successful alternative to a crumbling Canadian news industry is simply emulating the advertising strategies of big tech, I’m not entirely convinced that the Canadian public will be well served in the long-term.
Finding a sustainable business model is imperative, digital or not.
What’s not so obvious is another, equally important imperative: sustaining a public good that doesn’t merely serve as a vehicle for private interest.