Democracy, well informed public the biggest victims in decline of local media
IN A MOVE SYMPTOMATIC of both the state of the newspaper industry and the poor record of corporate ownership, Postmedia and Torstar this week announced the swap of 41 daily and weekly papers, 36 of which will be shut down.
The move paves the way for each to spread even thinner their remaining papers in the areas where titles are to vanish – each concentrating on territories where they’ve got some advantage.
Beyond the loss of some 300 jobs, the deal is yet another blow to the watchdog function of mainstream media, a role that online versions, particularly social media, have not stepped up to fill. In fact, you can attribute disinformation campaigns and increased partisan bickering, along with the worse elements of humanity, to what the internet has spawned.
If the lifeblood of democracy is an informed citizenry, democracy is doomed.
All too often, however, people seem quite content to be ignorant, or at least ignorant of facts that don’t jibe with their preferred version of reality. We’ve even got a label for that: fake news.
This week’s goings-on in the newspapers-as-widgets industry are part of a corporate trend that’s lost any shock value, but they aren’t without implications.
“The scale of it, I think, is stunning and will be stunning for people who live in these communities who are going to lose access to, really, their local news,” April Lindgren, an associate professor at the Ryerson School of Journalism, tells the Canadian Press.
She notes that more than 200 local news sources have closed for varying reasons in Canada since 2008.
“What they’re doing is shutting down newspapers in their immediate environs so the circulation can be taken over and the news coverage can be expanded by their existing papers in the area.”
Adds Mitch Diamantopoulos, an associate journalism professor in the University of Regina. “An attempt to cut costs by eliminating competition is bad news for Canadians.”
The loss of more real reporting will only lead to less information in an electronic media (including online sources) that has already descended into partisan bickering and screaming south of the border. Changes in this country, though less extreme, have not been for the better.
Ironically, even as we’re flooded with information – from online news sources to Facebook and Twitter and that ilk – there’s a greater need for a source to filter and interpret all of that raw data. That’s precisely what newspapers have been doing for centuries.
Besieged by new technologies, fragmentation in the market and what seems to be an increasingly detached citizenry, newspapers do have much to worry about. But the industry has been its own worst enemy in many cases, as concentration of ownership led to homogenization and a decline in quality, often fueled by new corporate masters more concerned with stock prices than with good journalism, the very thing needed to attract readers.
And while more people go online to get their news, few people are aware that most of the material provided by news aggregators such as Google or endlessly rehashed by bloggers comes from newspapers, the organizations with trained journalists on the ground, attending meetings and poring through documents.
It’s that heavy lifting that separates traditional media from new forms, and why most Canadians still consider mainstream media as the most trustworthy source.
“Canadians overall are rather critical of social media. While 51 percent consider that news media help them distinguish fact from fiction, a belief most strongly held by older respondents, only 24 percent think social media are useful for this purpose. This is consistent with the idea that social media are the online equivalent of the coffee shop or water cooler: they are good places to discuss current affairs, socialize and be entertained, but not necessarily serious information vehicles. It is also interesting to note that those who report low trust in traditional news media do not hold social media in high esteem either,” notes a Canadian Journalism Project study earlier this year, drawing on survey data from the 2017 Reuters Institute Digital News Report.
“When asked which online source is the best for providing accurate and reliable news, two-thirds (68 percent) of the respondents choose one that has its roots as a traditional media outlet. This figure is higher among those under 35 (71 percent).”
Not surprisingly, those in the industry see the changes as a threat not only to their future but to the democratic function of the media. As we’ve seen in an increasing number of cases – the Trump/Russia investigation among them – the internet leads to a proliferation of lies, disinformation, propaganda and what would actually qualify as fake news.
Equally unsurprising, the union representing newspaper workers is none too happy with the Postmedia/Torstar deal.
“Canadians cannot have a functioning democracy without information,” said Paul Morse, president of Unifor Local 87-M. “’Click bait’ Internet blogs will not fill that gap.”
Under the deal, Postmedia Network Canada acquires 22 of Torstar’s community newspaper properties and two free commuter daily newspapers. Torstar, in exchange, is getting 15 of Postmedia’s community newspaper properties and two free commuter daily newspapers. Thirty-six of the 41 papers will be closed.
“In a stroke of a pen, 36 publications have been put out of business, killing an important source of news and information in all of these communities,” says Morse.
“This is a dramatic illustration of what’s coming in terms of citizen access to information and the threat to our democracy. The federal government needs to act now to help newspapers survive the changes in information technology.”
The proliferation of information via technology is far more chaff than wheat, leading to information overload. Trouble is, most of it is useless, making for an ill-informed citizenry. Government solutions are optimistic, as politicians like nothing better than ignorance, the hallmark of a low-information voter.