Guest post by Tim McMillan, of the SLAIS LIBR 561 Information Policy class.

I was fortunate to participate in the discussion of media concentration in Canada and North America at “Jumpstarting the Public Sphere.”  Our group was lead by Dr. David Skinner, a professor of communications studies at York University.  The other participants included students from the Langara College library program, a journalism student and community radio organizer from Simon Fraser University, a librarian from Vancouver Public Library (VPL) and yours truly: a graduate student studying library science at the University of British Columbia and a part-time reference librarian at VPL.  Sean Connon, the editor of the Vancouver street magazine Megaphone, moderated.

David began by noting the steep decline in Canadians’ belief in the credibility of traditional news media; only 1/3 believes it to be fair and balanced.  Instead, the prevailing opinion is that big news serves big business.  One of the participants noted that thirty years ago Vancouver sported three independent news dailies, whereas today the Vancouver Sun and the Province are controlled by the same corporation.

David traced the history of media concentration in Canada from the concern expressed in 1970’s Davey Report to the apathy of the mid 1990s when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) acquiesced to industry demands for cross media ownership.  With this latter decision, conglomerates could control media in a multitude of genres: television, radio, and newspapers.  This model made economic sense as resource pooling cut down on overhead and seemed to make Canadian media more competitive in a global market.  Of course the downside was the loss of a diversity of voices in Canada’s news media and a heavy blow to media democracy in the country.

While public advocacy groups and information policy watchdogs have pushed these negative aspects of media concentration to the CRTC and other policy-makers, the response has been that the commission is not in the business of putting businesses out of business.  As participants in our group noted, the government and its regulatory bodies shy away from restricting businesses’ rights to own private property and are all the more wary of interfering with opinion-makers for fear of creating a media backlash.

With this avenue for policy change seemingly blocked, our group looked at alternative methods for pressuring policy makers to step in and regulate the concentration of media.  It was suggested that the new media be utilized in order to draw attention to negative consequences of media concentration: the Micheal Geist Bill C-61 model.  This seemed a viable method, but complimentary action was needed as again and again the issue of financing cropped up.  In the USA, there are charitable foundations to be appealed to and media watchdogs are well represented in the public sphere on both the right and the left.  Here in Canada, there is less of a tradition for the former as the government has long taken the role of subsidizing Canadian media; media watchdogs are equally scarce.

One suggestion gained consensus as the most actionable: an online portal of alternative media outlets.  This would allow the multiplicity of independent voices to band together as a means of mutually increasing traffic to a variety of news sources.  Although this is a long way from counteracting the domination of a few media outlets, it represents a start in the right direction of encouraging media democracy.

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.

There’s a great article in the current issue of Bitch magazine. “Paper Cuts: Saying R.I.P. to some of the best D.I.Y.” (p. 52-55) looks a pile of independent magazines that have gone out of business in the last year or two including: Punk Planet, LIP: Informed Revolt, Stay Free!, No Compromise: The Militant, Direct Action Publication of Grassroots Animal Liberationists and Their Supporters, On Our Backs: Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian, Clamor, Kitchen Sink: For People Who Think Too Much, and Rockrgrl.

The authors Debbie Rasumussen (Bitch’s publisher) and Josh Hooten (editor of Herbivore magazine) identify “increasing media consolidation, bankruptcies of small distributors, independent  bookstore closings, and riding costs for paper, printing and postage” as well as “general lack of funding available for grassroots media and a larger cultural evolution toward digital media” as the factors for these magazines disappearing.

While many of these magazines are survived by interesting blogs, for me it’s not really the same thing as holding and reading (and passing along) a magazine.