Part 1 – The Facts

The second speaker in the first morning session at Jumpstarting the Public Sphere: Information Policy for the 21st Century was York University’s, David Skinner. His talk, “Medi-Ated: What’s on the Menu for Canada’s Big Media”? addressed some of the major issues surrounding the concentration of media ownership in Canada. Dr. Skinner is on the steering committee of the Campaign for a Democratic Media.

He began by setting the context within which media concentration arose. Canada traditionally has had three distinct and recognizable media ownership models: Government, Community, and Private. According to Dr. Skinner the market driven neo-liberal economic model and the commoditization of information has in more resent years fostered an environment that allows corporations to gain control over vast sectors of the Canadian media market. The corporations have been able to make a case that the other two sectors of media engage in exclusionary practices that undermine free market competition. In this way private corporations have managed to squeeze into sectors of the news media that had previously been unavailable. Remaining regulations concerning media ownership have little impact upon the reality either. In Canada all news media is owned and controlled by only three corporations. The worst is BC where 100% of the media is controlled by one corporation, CanWest.
The tri-opoly of corporate media interests have essentially divided up the market amongst themselves through horizontal ownership, vertical integration and cross-ownership even though the CRTC has recently moved (yet again) to limit cross-ownership. In fact two, CTV-globemedia and CanWest of the “big three” media dynasties in Canada dominate the national media market. Dr. Skinner talked about how this concentration is limiting the perspective of the media and negatively impacting the diversity of voices and opinions being disseminated.

Limits to perspective come from editorial interference. Instances of editorial interference can limit opinion and fact alike. Many times editors are afraid, especially in profit driven corporate sectors of losing advertisement or sponsorship and therefore refuses to run a piece or requires that the journalist alter it. The trade-off (less accurate or honest reporting) is justified by the market (keep advertisement or sponsorship).
The corporate buy-up of media has also lessened the diversity and localness of information. As companies acquire each other, the number of employees and other staff are cut. This leads to the mass syndication of a few journalists and a vacuum in communities of local coverage.

As mentioned previously the CRTC’s regulatory control of media is weak and has little impact on the erosion of government and community media at the hands of the corporate free market. With this in mind Dr. Skinner finished his talk with ideas about what is and can be done in order to restore balance to the media diet in Canada. He focused on citizen participation as a remedy for the affliction of media concentration in Canada. His 5 prong approach is simple:

1) Let the CRTC know that the rules that are in place are inadequate

2) Lobby for Canadian ownership rules not to be changed

3) Demand public and community media be included on basic cable and by satellite providers

4) Promote independent and alternative media

5) Support public interest groups that focus on media reform – like The Campaign for a Democratic Media

Part 2 – A small observation and a question

Dr. Skinner mentioned that the internet as a tool could prove helpful in assisting to balance media in the face of the overwhelming concentration that is taking place in print and TV. He praises the power of the internet for distribution but is perhaps uncomfortable with the lack of production that takes place. Because of this he showed great reservations about the use of this medium by “citizen journalists” in an effort to democratize the media. His opinion was that citizen journalists merely fill a gap and “lack the time and skill to create comprehensive work.” Therefore, he concluded that the best actions to take are ones aimed at systems correction.

However, if a long range plan is adapted to insure citizen journalists have these “skills” and presumably the time to cover the news then wouldn’t this be a more truly democratic model of media? Should perhaps some of the focus be placed in those areas? What about things like pirate radio, zines, blogs, and other non-mainstream methods of disseminating information - which makes possible all other rights.