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Senator sees volatile times for news industry

The St. Albert Rotary Club had a distinguished guest speaker for their weekly breakfast and meeting on Friday, Jan. 27: Canadian Senator and long-time journalist Paula Simons.
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Senator Paula Simons spoke at the Jan. 27 Rotary Club breakfast to share her insight of the news industry. JACK FARRELL/St. Albert Gazette

A Canadian senator and longtime Edmonton journalist lamented the state of Alberta's journalism industry during a recent speech in St. Albert.

Sen. Paula Simons was the guest speaker for the St. Albert Rotary Club's weekly breakfast and meeting on Friday, Jan. 27. 

Simons was appointed to the Senate in 2018, after spending 23 years with the Edmonton Journal as a reporter and opinion columnist. She is the deputy chair of the standing Senate committee on agriculture and forestry and serves on the standing Senate committee on transportation and communications.

In her Rotary Club speech, Simons discussed company-wide cuts recently announced by Postmedia, as well as Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which is currently going through the Senate for approval. 

"This week was the feast of St. Francis de Sale, the patron saint of journalism," Simons began. "Journalists and writers should pray for deliverance, and boy, I think St. Francis was busy this week for journalism in Canada, and in Alberta in particular."

On Jan. 25, multiple news organizations reported Postmedia, which owns over 100 newspapers and media brands across Canada including the Edmonton Journal and Sun, is cutting 11 per cent of its roughly 650 editorial staff because of continued operating losses. 

A week before cuts were reported, Postmedia announced 12 of its weekly newspapers in Alberta would move to online-only publishing and no longer print physical papers, as of Feb. 27. The 12 papers include the Airdrie EchoCold Lake SunFort McMurray TodayWhitecourt StarDrayton Valley Western Review; and titles in smaller communities such as Hanna, Leduc County, Bow Valley, Vermillion, Cochrane, Pincher Creek, and Peace Country.  

Postmedia's cuts "sent shivers down a lot of spines," Simons told the Rotary Club. 

Bill C-18

Simons also spoke about recent developments and points of concern in the broader news industry, including the recent announcement by BuzzFeed it would start using artificial intelligence (AI) programs to produce online content, and how the company's stock value soared after the announcement; and Bill C-18, the Online News Act, which is going through the Canadian Senate for approval. 

The Online News Act, which was approved in the House of Commons on Dec. 14, looks to require social media and technology companies like Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) to enter into binding agreements to financially compensate Canadian news producers. 

The news companies argue that while their product routinely appears on these online platforms, the tech companies are the main beneficiary of online advertising revenue. 

"This enactment regulates digital news intermediaries to enhance fairness in the Canadian digital news marketplace and contribute to its sustainability," the draft bill reads. 

"It establishes a framework through which digital news intermediary operators and news businesses may enter into agreements respecting news content that is made available by digital news intermediaries."

Speaking to Rotary Club members, Simons said she understood the argument behind C-18, but doubts it will make much of a difference for Canadian news organizations. 

"The promise, which I think is a dubious one, is that Google and Facebook will be required to provide 20 to 30 per cent of the operating costs of Canada's newsrooms," Simons said. "If you're a failing newsroom, that sounds pretty good. Google and Facebook are big multinational behemoths that sucked up all our advertising revenue — 'make the rich pay.'"

"Here's my problem with that," she said. "News organizations gave their stuff away to Google and Facebook and it seems to me very disingenuous to claim now that they stole the copy. We, in fact, begged them to take and share because that's how we are getting readers and how we were selling ads. "

"I'm really worried that hitching our wagon to Google and Facebook is very short-sighted because to assume that they're golden geese who will go on laying golden eggs forever may be a bit naive."

Evan Jamison, vice-president of manufacturing for Great West Media, the company that holds a 50 per cent stake in The Gazette, and current president of the Alberta Weekly Newspapers Association, appeared in front of Simons' standing Senate committee on transportation and communications last October to speak about C-18. 

In an interview, Jamison said C-18 won't fix the news industry's advertising revenue issue, but it could help. 

"It's not a cure-all, it's not some silver bullet that's going to fix our problems, but it's an important piece," Jamison said. "At the end of the day, we're just trying to find a number of different funding models or funding sources for papers."

"These behemoths are difficult to deal with and there's a lot of conversation around C-18 — 'Is it fair, did they just build a better mousetrap and out-competed newspapers with a better platform?'" Jamison said. 

"But they don't make it easy. They make it very difficult to try to make money in the digital world because they own all the technology, they're capturing pretty much all the revenue."

In an interview after her speech, Simons told The Gazette she thinks C-18 is naive because of the evolving nature of power in the online space.

"I think we've seen over the last few months with Elon Musk's ownership of Twitter, and with Mark Zuckerberg seemingly fixated on the pivot to video and the future of Meta, that at least this era of social media is ending," Simons said. "I think this domination of the certain key platforms, and the concentration of power, is evolving."

"Nothing lasts forever."


Jack Farrell

About the Author: Jack Farrell

Jack Farrell joined the St. Albert Gazette in May, 2022.
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