Panel set to discuss Canadian news media’s seeming descent into hell

There will be lots to discuss about Canada's news media when a panel of long-time media analysts convenes at 7 p.m. on Thursday in Room 1400 of SFU's Harbour Centre campus in downtown Vancouver. Joining Marc Edge, author of the timely new book The Postmedia Effect, will be Bob Hackett, SFU Professor Emeritus of Communication, and Charlie Smith, former long-time editor of the Georgia Straight. Those unable to attend in person may watch on Zoom and should register at this link. 

Edge is the author of seven books, most of which have been for New Star Books on the news media in Canada. His 2022 book for academic publisher Routledge, however, Re-examining the UK Newspaper Industry, looked at a market similar to Canada's which has been transitioning successfully to hybrid print/digital publication despite, or perhaps because of, not receiving an industry bailout. The Postmedia Effect is the third in a trilogy which began in 2001 with Pacific Press, which told the story of the 1957 partnership between the Vancouver Sun and the Daily Province. Edge wrote the sequel Asper Nation in 2007, which chronicled the takeover of the former Southam newspaper chain, to which the Sun and Province belonged, by Canwest Global Communications. Marc has taught at universities in five countries and recently retired to Vancouver Island.

In his almost four decades of teaching at SFU, Hackett established himself as one of Canada's foremost critical scholars of Communication and developed a ground-breaking course in media democratization. He is the co-author of such books as The Missing News (2000), Remaking Media (2006), Expanding Peace Journalism (2011), and Journalism and Climate Crisis (2017). Not content to simply theorize, Bob also co-founded several community media education initiatives, including NewsWatch Canada, OpenMedia.ca, and the long-running Media Democracy Days. Bob writes regularly for rabble.ca about his latest passion, the climate change crisis. He received the Warren Gill Award for Community Impact in 2018. Bob recently retired to the Sunshine Coast and will thus be appearing via Zoom now be appearing in person.

Smith went from reporting the news for 28 years as News Editor and then Editor-in-Chief of the Georgia Straight to making the news last fall when he and several other long-time employees of the iconic Vancouver alt-weekly were unceremoniously dumped by the paper's new owners, who acquired it out of bankruptcy. Charlie, as usual, took the high road, thanking everyone in sight on his Substack blog. He also quickly co-founded joined the news website Pancouver, which "aims to build a more equal and empathetic society by advancing appreciation of visual and performing arts—and cultural communities—through education." Charlie should enjoy The Postmedia Effect very much, judging from his review of Edge's last book.

There will be no shortage of topics for the trio to discuss, as it seems like our news media have been falling apart in the three months since The Postmedia Effect was published. Bill C-18 was passed in Parliament last month, making Google and Facebook liable to pay media outlets hundreds of millions of dollars a year for linking to news stories they thus supposedly "steal." That didn't sit  well with the tech giants, with Facebook announcing that it would stop carrying links to Canadian news in order to avoid having to pay. Google says it is considering doing the same. That's bad news for online-only news outlets that depend on Google and Facebook to send readers to their websites. It's also bad news for newspapers, whose owners thought they could use Google and Facebook as a piggy bank and apparently couldn't foresee their scheme blowing up in their faces like this.

Bell Canada also dropped a bombshell last month when it pulled the plug on six of its radio stations to cut costs (including two in Vancouver), closed CTV’s bureaus in London and Los Angeles, and laid off 1,300 workers, or 6 percent of its media division. The company, which makes $10 billion in profit annually, then applied to be released from its obligation to provide local news as part of its television licences, and to cut its Canadian content by a third. But the news that had everybody talking came when Postmedia Network announced it was in merger talks with Torstar, Canada's second-largest newspaper chain and publisher of the Toronto Star. Negotiations mercifully broke off in short order.

So much media chaos in such a short period has made The Postmedia Effect timely indeed. Numerous media outlets have interviewed Edge, and several reviews of his book have already appeared. Some have been positive, while others . . . not so much. At least it has people talking, as the issues it explores are important ones. You can download Chapter 1 here, and it is also posted elsewhere on this blog, along with excerpts of several other chapters.