Canada’s public broadcaster has an obligation to help news organizations gutted by shrinking advertising revenues and rounds of layoffs, the corporation’s president says.
The message from Catherine Tait comes as the CBC is accused of unfairly fighting for advertising dollars with news organizations that aren’t funded by the government to nearly the same degree.
“What we want to ensure is that CBC is not the only voice of news in any community in Canada,” Catherine Tait said in an interview Monday for CBC Manitoba’s Information Radio.
The broadcaster is considering “a meaningful way” to increase the volume of news coverage in a fragmented media environment, Tait said.
The CBC can collaborate with news organizations on investigative journalism and offer advertising support, Tait said. When asked for clarification about the advertising idea, CBC spokesperson Leon Mar said Tait was referring to public service-type announcements that would promote trusted news sources and encourage people to buy subscriptions.
The CBC wants to make sure people are “getting the maximum amount of news, but also to ensure that those news organizations that may be facing financial difficulties are supported also by the CBC/Radio-Canada,” Tait told Information Radio host Marcy Markusa.
Working with Winnipeg newspaper
Recently the CBC entered a news-sharing agreement with the Winnipeg Free Press that has the two media outlets linking to each other’s websites.
On weekends, each outlet’s website publishes a few paragraphs from a news story on the other’s website and then encourages readers to continue reading the story on the original publisher’s website.
The two-month pilot project began in December. The articles say the two news outlets “recognize each other as trusted news sources.”
Winnipeg Free Press publisher Bob Cox said he approached CBC Manitoba management about the idea last summer.
Catherine Tait says local news is the ‘beating heart’ of the public broadcaster. She made her first trip to Winnipeg as president of the CBC this week, stopping at the CBC Manitoba headquarters on Portage Avenue to discuss the public broadcaster’s future. (Ian Froese/CBC)
People are clicking through from the CBC website to finish reading the story on the Free Press website, he said.
“The intention is to improve access to local news and we all know that there’s fewer resources in newsrooms now,” Cox said in an interview, explaining the partnership does not extend to picking stories or assigning reporters.
“We know our overall goal is to serve the Winnipeg community with local news, so we share the same goal as the CBC.”
The federal government plans to push the CBC to collaborate. A recent mandate letter from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calls on Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to encourage more local news from the network and require CBC/Radio-Canada to “open up its digital platform.”
Cox, who is also the board chair of News Media Canada, which lobbies for newspapers, said the collapse of local news outlets increases the need for the CBC to team up with other news outlets to ensure the public can access truthful journalism. Traditional news advertising revenues have dropped drastically with the advent of the internet and its relatively inexpensive ads.
Tait visited CBC Manitoba this week for the first time since she was named the corporation’s president in April 2018.
She discussed the company’s new strategic plan, which includes prioritizing digital services, reaching youth audiences and sharing Canadian content with the world.
The CBC is working to customize its digital platforms, but it’s trying to make sure its audiences aren’t fed only content they’re predisposed to seeing, she said.
Discouraging an echo chamber
“We do not want to be guilty of creating filter bubbles,” she said.
Tait called local news the “beating heart” of the CBC and deflected claims the company has an unfair advantage over other media outlets with its significant tax funding of $1.1 billion a year. Other national broadcasters don’t have to serve all of Canada, Tait said, but the CBC is required under the Broadcasting Act to serve communities where it wouldn’t make financial sense for private companies to operate.
In 2019, the federal government pledged nearly $600 million over five years for tax credits and other incentives to prop up struggling news outlets.
The licence for CBC/Radio-Canada is currently under review by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.
Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, a lobby group that defends public funding of the CBC, is criticizing the CBC for asking to decrease the number of hours of local programming it puts on the airwaves.
The corporation is proposing that it increase its overall hours of mandated programming, but be allowed to broadcast less of that on television and more through digital devices such as CBC Gem. The network is currently obligated to air up to seven hours of local programming on television a week in Winnipeg, but 14 hours in bigger markets like Toronto.
The CBC says the CRTC, which only regulates television and radio, should be crediting the network for its investments online.
“We’re not saying abandon television, absolutely not,” Tait said.
“What we’re saying is we need to shift some of the credit that we get, as producers and commissioners of Canadian content, to acknowledge that we’re doing so on other platforms.”
Tait, asked about the one thing the CBC must change, said the broadcaster must better connect with youth audiences.
The CBC must foster a lifelong engagement, beginning with preschool shows, moving on to social media platforms like Snapchat and beyond.
The CBC loses youth when they tune in to big-budget American programs instead, Tait said.
“If we don’t work to engage with them all through their lives, when they become teenagers, they will abandon us.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
