Earlier this month I was in Ottawa, moderating a panel and listening to the hopes and fears of some of Canada’s independent publishers.
Given that most legacy news operations appear to be in panicked decline and bereft of ideas beyond begging for government bailouts, it is from within this independent group that the news industry will regenerate itself.
Several have been on a positive track, delivering original news without fear or favour that is fair, accurate, and balanced. In other words, exactly what most people want from their news. However, for many of the most nascent in that category, that growth has stalled.
The fault for that lies entirely at the door of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. It was his government that created the debacle of the Online News Act, which, very predictably, resulted in Meta banning links to news pages—foreign or domestic—on Facebook and Instagram in Canada.
The gathering was held under Chatham House rules, so I can’t attribute a name to this anecdote, but as one representative noted, after that ban took place their company lost “45 percent of our audience overnight” and put all its expansion plans and hiring on hold.
This fiasco, Mr. Trudeau said, is “a test moment where countries are going to have to realize that either we stand up for journalism and the profession faced with internet giants that refuse to actually participate in it, or we bow down to them and allow them to make billions more dollars, while degrading the safety, well-being and communities that thrive in our democracy.”
This is almost exactly what he said nine months ago when he told a news conference in Prince Edward Island that Meta’s actions were “inconceivable” and that “Facebook is putting corporate profits ahead of people’s safety.”
Here’s the reality: Provided they have access to the internet, people can get all the urgent public safety information they need on Facebook. Every first responder, hospital, emergency service, and public safety agency is there. All most news media ever did (and still do over the air) in an emergency is relay information from the agencies involved to citizens. Would it be better if news links were available on Facebook? Probably, but when it comes to emergency services, they just aren’t necessary anymore.
And Meta hasn’t suffered at all. It reports that its Canadian usage is up, people fight and complain about each other less on their platforms, and globally its share price is up more than 50 percent since it signalled it wasn’t going to cooperate with Mr. Trudeau’s agenda and its global repercussions.
“Meta has agreed to establish a direct line of communication that will ensure response measures are closely coordinated as part of the government’s wildfire safety efforts, including the dissemination of reputable information available from official sources, such as government agencies and emergency services.”
At the end of the day, Mr. Trudeau’s Online News Act managed to barely avoid news being eliminated from Google’s search engine and the tech company promised to put $100 million into a fund over which news companies are currently arguing. That amount included what Google was already spending with news companies which is unknown but generally believed by experts to be between $30 million and $50 million. Meta’s break with news took away between $12 million and $18 million in direct spending and eliminated audience exposure it estimated was worth more than $200 million to news companies.
Do the math, and it’s little wonder people in the news business had to put their investment plans on hold.
Mr. Trudeau can improve the industry’s fortunes by amending—one tweak removing reference to “links” will do it—the Online News Act. All he has to do is put the interests of Canada’s news industry ahead of his own ambitions to “stand up” and stop worrying about “bowing down” to web giants.
All he has to do is recognize that he has lost and that others are bearing the burden of his defeat. All he has to do is stop fighting with everyone and show a little humility.
It’s what a good leader would do.
