After the release of the Public Policy Forum’s Shattered Media report this past winter comes the latest beg for cash to prop up the newspaper industry. This one comes in the form of a request for a subsidy totaling hundred of millions of dollars per year from News Media Canada, the umbrella advocacy organization for Canadian newspapers.
While it claims to advocate for the maintenance of local journalism, the organization shies away from supporting small, digital startups, which are often the strongest source of civic journalism in many Canadian communities.
The Trudeau government swiftly knocked down the idea of taxing Netflix and other digital endeavours to fund this bailout, though it sounds like they’re ultimately in favour of finding that funding.
Bob Cox, Chair of the Board of News Media Canada as well as the publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press joins us.
(Producers’ note: owing to a technical glitch with our telephone recording process, this interview is an amalgam of two separate interviews conducted with Bob Cox on one day.)
