|
Media
Ownership in Canada
“If you want to
determine editorial policy, start a newspaper.”
– National Post editorial, March 1,
19991
In Canada, nearly 88 per
cent of daily newspaper circulation is controlled by four
corporate groups. Through the Hollinger/Southam companies,
National Post owner Conrad Black is the biggest
publisher, commanding 44 per cent of the country’s
daily circulation.2
Flashback 30 years ago.
Twenty-three per cent of Canada’s daily circulation was
produced by independent newspapers.3
Today, independent media only account for 1.7 per cent of
all newspaper circulation.2
What does this mean for a
free press, or democracy’s oxygen as some people
describe the role of media in a just society?
It means we as Canadians
have to trust a very small group of men whose primary
concern is profits. Moreover, when these men aren’t
just using their media empires to generate bucks, they
affect the flow of ideas circulating in our society. Through
their actions – both direct and indirect – they
limit what is discussed on the pages of Canada’s daily
newspapers, restricting the public’s access to a wider
choice of opinions, analyses and facts.
All of the country’s
major publishers belong to the Canadian Daily Newspapers
Association (CDNA). According to the CDNA’s statement
of principles, the daily newspaper should “strive to
paint a representative picture of its diverse communities,
to encourage the expression of disparate views and to be
accessible and accountable to the readers it serves, whether
rich or poor, weak or powerful, minority or majority.”
2
Comforting words from a very
powerful special interest group. But do these principles
stand up to the test? What happens when the media ownership
rubber hits the editorial road? Here’s one
example:
Recently, the National
Post’s editors responded to a high-profile case
involving a B.C. publisher who was accused of censoring his
paper’s editors. The case in question involves a
publisher named David Black (no relation to Conrad Black)
who owns 60 weekly newspapers in B.C.
David Black doesn’t
like the newly signed Nisga’a native land claims treaty
that the B.C., federal and tribal governments spent 22 years
negotiating. As a result, last September Black banned all
editorials supporting the deal. In his words, “I have a
right to dictate the editorial stance.…The papers are
mine and I can do what I want with
them.”4
Rod Link, the
publisher-editor of The Terrace-Standard, the closest
Black paper to the actual native land claim, conceded that
his paper’s editorial stance — which had been
“cautiously in favour of land
claims”4
— did change to reflect Black’s opinion. “I
mean, it’s the owner’s newspaper, it’s not my
newspaper,”4
says Link.
When Black’s critics
took him to the B.C. Press Council (an industry-funded
regulatory agency), the council’s members ruled on
February 22 “that the ultimate obligation and right to
direct editorial policy rests with the
owner.”
In response to this ruling,
the March 1 National Post editorial chided David
Black’s critics and advised that “If you want to
determine editorial policy, start a
newspaper.”1
How much did it cost Conrad
Black to start up the National Post? According to
Black’s own figures, he will spend over $643 million in
the next seven years creating and sustaining his national
daily newspaper.5
When you strip away the
hollow principles of Canada’s media barons, what do you
expose? Money talks and the law of the free-market jungle is
supreme. What this means for our society is chilling. If the
media is democracy’s oxygen, corporations’ control
of the air supply may leave us all gasping for
freedom.
Top
of Page
Media
Ownership Charts
Newspaper
Ownership in Canada – 19693
Newspaper
Ownership in Canada – 19992
In 1969,
there were 116 newspapers in Canada and 39 were
independently owned.3
Today, Canada has only 106 daily newspapers and just six of
these are independent.2
Top
of Page
The
Effects:
The Daily News Ltd.
When a few people own nearly
all of the country’s daily papers, their actions are
felt throughout every newsroom. Like that mythic butterfly
flapping its wings in one part of the world causing a
hurricane in another, media owners only need to waggle their
fat little fingers to change the shape of the news we
read.
The Buck Stops
Here
The easiest way for a media
baron to set the editorial line of any newspaper is to
directly demand his views take priority. Though it’s an
overt form of control, owners will resort to this kind of
interference when they see fit.
Conrad Black employee and
Hollinger president David Radler put it bluntly in a 1992
Macleans interview: “I am ultimately the publisher of
all these papers, and if the editors disagree with us, they
should disagree with us when they’re no longer in our
employ. The buck stops with the ownership….I will
ultimately determine what the papers
say.”6
Most of the time, however,
control over editorial content isn’t so rigidly
enforced, and nor does it have to be. Policing an entire
media empire would be impossible for a small group of owners
and senior managers. Moreover, there is a far easier way to
ensure the political and social values reflected in the
pages of a newspaper mirror a media owner’s own
opinions. It all comes down to who you employ and who you
promote.
To achieve editorial
homogeneity, publishers hire like-minded people to work at
their papers. A publisher hires and promotes managers, who
in turn hire and promote editors and journalists. Conrad
Black told CBC’s Peter Gzowski in 1998 that he looks
for editors who are “reasonably compatible” with
his views.7
Windsor CBC producer and
former newspaper editor Sandra Precoup saw this kind of
hiring practice as a way to ensure group think. For Precoup,
“realistically, people tend to hire and promote people
who tend to remind them of themselves…publishers hire
editors who are like themselves. And editors hire lower
level editors who are like them, to some extent, and
it’s a nice middle class place….So you are going
to get middle class values.”8
Former Regina Leader-Post
reporter Bill Doskoch agrees with Precoup’s view.
“Management appoints people to certain jobs because
they have amply demonstrated they will behave in a way that
is consistent with management’s objectives,” said
Doskoch. “That isn’t necessarily bad. It depends
on the perspective being pushed by the
owner.”9
Ultimately, even those
journalists who may try to challenge this chain of command
must learn to engage in self-censorship. Knowing what will
and won’t get approved by an editor forces journalists
to filter out stories they think won’t get approval.
During her time at Southam’s Windsor Star, Precoup saw
this activity. “You get people within the newsroom
anticipating what they think somebody wants,” says
Precoup. “That’s a decision made in anticipation
that the person who made the decision is going to please
someone higher up.”10
Death By
A Thousand Cuts
In the past 20 years, most
Canadian newspapers have seen drastic staff cuts in the name
of profit-taking by Black and other media barons. From 1988
to 1994, Southam alone cut its workforce in half from 16,000
to 8,000 people.11
As a result of this staff shedding, there are fewer editors
and reporters producing the news.
The consequences of all this
downsizing is troubling. With fewer journalists, the quality
and quantity of newspaper content is often sacrificed. Local
“infotainment”, wire stories, and press release
rewriting replaces labour-intensive investigative writing
and beat reporting.
After Hollinger purchased
the Cambridge Reporter in 1995 from Thomson, 30 per cent of
the staff were cut. Reporters went from writing 40 stories a
month to 80 stories a month. According to a former Reporter
staffer, when it came to local news, “They have people
there who are doing nothing but rewriting press releases and
tossing these off as local news.”12
At the Windsor Star, 26 per
cent of editorial staff were cut by Southam in
1996.13
Windsor Star reporter Craig Pearson described the effects of
these cuts this way: “There’s not enough time
because there’s fewer employees and fewer reporters.
There’s not as much space because there is a higher
advertising rate and everything has been squeezed.... The
stories have to be shorter now and are less in-depth.
[Reporters] certainly don’t have time to
investigate a story.”14
When Hollinger purchased the
five daily Sifton-family papers in Saskatchewan in 1996, 25
per cent of the Regina Leader-Post editorial staff were
immediately laid-off.15
A study by University of Regina Journalism Professor Jim
McKenzie examined Hollinger’s Leader-Post for three
weeks in the fall of 1996 and compared these findings to a
corresponding period in 1995 when the paper was still owned
by the Sifton’s.
McKenzie concluded the
Leader-Post’s “local news had largely been
replaced with cheaper wire material…big chain ownership
has not improved the quality of journalism and the news
readers receive, but has in fact had the opposite
effect.” He also determined there was virtually no
investigative reporting, human-interest photos accounted for
25 per cent of news coverage, and weekend coverage came from
one freelancer.16
Former Leader-Post reporter
Bill Doskoch commented at the time that under Hollinger,
“There is no real time for any competent reporting any
more, because you are always in a hurry to fill the paper
the next day. [T]here are few in-depth stories
…more wire copy, less news relevant to Regina readers,
a reliance on AP and CP wire features…and fewer stories
about the community.”14
Top
of Page
The
Effects Example I:
Cambridge Reporter – Blood on the Newsroom
Floor
In 1996, the Campaign for
Press and Broadcast Freedom conducted a study to assess the
changes in quality and diversity of news coverage following
Hollinger’s recent takeover of Southam.
For the study, front pages
of six Southam papers were compared for corresponding
periods in 1991 and 1996. The researchers concluded smaller
or monopoly market papers (Windsor Star, Calgary
Herald and the Cambridge Reporter) had the
greatest decline in quality and diversity. Larger,
competitive market papers (Vancouver Sun, Ottawa
Citizen and Montreal Gazette) showed declines in
some aspects of coverage but improvements in other
areas.
The Reporter –
which lost 30 per cent of its editorial staff after
Hollinger took over – sustained some of the biggest
changes. Here’s a sample:17
The number of front-page articles fell by 46% from 1996
to 1991.
The number of topical news articles on the front page
fell by 72% from 1991 to 1996.
The most frequently covered topic on the
Reporter’s front page was lifestyles – a
category referring to articles about fashion, consumer
tips, home improvement, historical trivia, and
self-help.
Local staff-written copy for the Reporter’s
editorial pages fell from 22% of all items in 1991 to
just 5% in 1996.
Cartoons accounted for one out of every four items in the
1996 editorial pages.
Top
of Page
The
Effects Example II:
Words To Live By
A keyword search of more
than 175,000 articles from the 1998 editions of the largest
English-language newspapers owned by Torstar (Toronto Star),
Quebecor (Toronto Sun), Southam (Vancouver Sun) and
Hollinger (National Post) revealed how many times a word or
phrase appeared in the four newspapers. The results are
below:18
Social
priorities
|
5,302
|
taxes
|
|
1,152
|
tax
cuts
|
|
274
|
debt
reduction
|
|
212
|
social
housing
|
|
103
|
full
employment
|
|
49
|
welfare
rates
|
|
5
|
increase social
spending
|
|
1
|
universal
daycare
|
Philosophical
priorities
|
8,045
|
competition
|
|
939
|
cooperation
|
Political
priorities
|
348
|
united
alternative
|
|
260
|
unite the
right
|
|
4
|
unite the
left
|
|
3
|
workers of the
world unite
|
Think tanks
|
213
|
Fraser
Institute
|
|
171
|
Canadian
Taxpayers Association
|
|
42
|
Canadian Centre
for Policy Alternatives
|
Private versus
public
|
539
|
privatization
|
|
13
|
public
ownership
|
|
2,585
|
corporations
|
|
305
|
community
groups
|
Leading figures
|
3,591
|
Jean
Chretien
|
|
1,078
|
Preston
Manning
|
|
772
|
Joe
Clark
|
|
337
|
Alexa
McDonough
|
Top
of Page
The
Solutions:
Overthrow the Media Barons
“Freedom of the
press is not a property right of owners. It is a right of
the people. It is part of their right to free expression,
inseparable from their right to inform
themselves.”
- Kent Royal Commission on
Newspapers, 198119
Mechanisms exist in some
countries to restrict the level of media concentration.
Still other countries help foster the development of
independent news-papers and electronic media
outlets.
Sweden
The government provides two
key aids to ensure press ownership is not concentrated in
the hands of a few. It lowers the economic barriers for
under-resourced groups to launch newspapers by providing
cheap loans. Between 1976 and 1984, this loan policy helped
launch 17 new newspapers in Sweden.
Second, it helps level the
free-market playing field by providing selective aid to
lower circulation newspapers. A board with representation
from all political parties awards the subsidies, with
funding coming from a tax on media advertising.
Groups that have taken
advantage of this system range from the Marxist left to the
radical right. In fact, the paper that has routinely had the
largest subsidy is the conservative Svenska Dagbladet
which has been a consistent critic of successive social
democratic governments. As a result of this scheme, Sweden
has reversed the trend towards local press
monopoly.20
Italy
No one person or company may
own or control more than 20 per cent of all the
country’s media.21
Britain
The British Monopolies and
Mergers Commission must assess the impact on “the
accurate presentation of news and free expression of
opinion” when deciding whether or not to approve a
merger.22
Germany
Whenever a merger would give
one company control of a specific press market or strengthen
its already controlling position, the government must
intervene to prevent the merger.21
France
The government restricts any
group or individual from owning more than 30 per cent of the
daily newspapers. Moreover, if an individual or company has
substantial interests in the broadcast media, it may only
control up to 10 per cent of the daily
press.21
Top
of Page
Footnotes
and Sources
Footnotes
1
"Don't stop
the presses," National Post, March 1, 1999,
web
site.
2
Canadian Daily
Newspaper Association, web
site.
3
Report of the
Special Senate Committee on Mass Media, Mass Media Volume
1: The Uncertain Mirror (Ottawa: Queen's Printer for
Canada, 1970), p. 21.
4
John Ferry,
"Mine to do with as I please," National Post, March
7, 1999, web
site.
5
Conrad Black
built the National Post on the remains of the
Financial Post. To get control of the Financial
Post, Black paid $150 million and traded four papers to
Sun Media in the summer of 1998 for an 80 per cent stake in
what was Canada's only other daily newspaper at the time.
After Quebecor took over Sun Media, they in turn sold the
same four newspapers to Torstar for $350 million. The
remaining $143 million comes from Hollinger's own
estimations on the costs of establishing and maintaining the
National Post.
6
Peter C.
Newman, "The inexorable spread of the Black empire,"
Maclean's, February 3,
1992, p.
68.
7
Donald Gutstein
with Robert Hackett and Newswatch Canada, "Question the
Sun!," (Burnaby: Newswatch Canada, Simon Fraser
University, 1998), web
site.
8
James Winter,
Democracy's Oxygen (Montreal: Black Rose Books
Ltd., 1997), p. 86.
9
James Winter,
Democracy's Oxygen (Montreal: Black Rose Books
Ltd., 1997), p. 111.
10
James Winter,
Democracy's Oxygen (Montreal: Black Rose Books
Ltd., 1997), p. 85.
11
James Winter,
Democracy's Oxygen (Montreal: Black Rose Books
Ltd., 1997), p. 31.
12
James Winter,
Democracy's Oxygen (Montreal: Black Rose Books
Ltd., 1997), p. 26.
13
Maude Barlow
and James Winter, The Big Black Book (Toronto:
Stoddart Publishing Co., 1997), p. 23.
14
James Winter,
Democracy's Oxygen (Montreal: Black Rose Books
Ltd., 1997), p. 95.
15
James Winter,
Democracy's Oxygen (Montreal: Black Rose Books
Ltd., 1997), p. 32.
16
Jim McKenzie,
"Content Analysis of the Regina Leader-Post under
Hollinger Ownership," School of Journalism and
Communications, University of Regina, December 1996, p.
21.
17
Campaign for
Press and Broadcasting Freedom, Diversity and Quality in
the Monopoly Press: A Content Analysis of Hollinger
Newspapers (Ottawa: Campaign for Press and Broadcasting
Freedom, 1997)
18
Canadian
NewsDisk, Volumes I-III, 1998.
19
Tom
Kent, The Royal Commission on Newspapers (Hull:
Minister of Supplies and Services Canada,1981), p.
1.
20
James Curran,
"Rethinking the media as a public sphere," in Peter Dahlgren
and Colin Sparks, eds., Communication and
Citizenship: Journalism and the Public Sphere in the New
Media Age (London: Routledge, 1991), pp.
50-51.
21
Maude Barlow
and James Winter, The Big Black Book (Toronto:
Stoddart Publishing Co., 1997), p. 217.
22
Maude Barlow
and James Winter, The Big Black Book (Toronto:
Stoddart Publishing Co., 1997), p. 216.
|
