There’s more to news than profits

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 21/02/2024 (564 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

My first journalism instructor taught me that if I could string a good sentence together, I’d never be out of work. As an aspiring writer, I was emboldened by her words. Yet she was careful not to specify that this skill would necessarily translate into a career as a working journalist, because even in the late ‘90s, newsrooms were shrinking.

I considered myself lucky when I did land a job in a newsroom back then, and true to her words, my writing skills have never failed me since. Yet in many ways, I had a front row seat to the decline of reportage here in our province and across the country.

Cutbacks and consolidation have led to the elimination of so many daily and weekly newspapers, and local radio and television stations in smaller markets have all but disappeared.

And that was even before the recent announcement by BCE, the parent company of Bell Canada, that it was eliminating 4,800 jobs and shuttering multiple television newscast and radio stations across the country.

The Bell decision to wipe out much of its news market was called a “garbage decision” by the prime minister, who decried this massive reduction in local journalism, followed by criticism from the opposition that government legislation is responsible for weakening media markets with its Bill C-11’s requirements for Canadian content on all online streaming services.

There’s plenty of blame to go around, but ultimately, the buck stops with these big media conglomerates who’ve all but lost touch with the reasons they got into the news business in the first place.

Producing and reporting local news used to be seen by many of their founders as admirable and noble, often serving a higher purpose than simply turning a profit. Yet some say it’s a business, and business goes where it is wanted. Meaning a decline in viewership and readership is justification for axing a program or paper.

Sure, I get that. Profits are important. But so is the honest, unbiased reporting of news. Ever imagine what would happen if we lived in a world without it? Just look to the Manitoba legislature, for starters.

In the 20 years since I bustled onto the scene there as a news reporter, there has been a stiff decline in the presence of daily reporters and those with institutional knowledge of the Manitoba government. It has declined to such a state that rare is the day when there’s more than an odd reporter seated in the press gallery.

More recently, as a politician I witnessed a remarkable decline in in-depth reporting on issues where those of us in power were making decisions on behalf of Manitobans, spending their tax dollars, with little accountability.

Not always, but often enough I’d see important pieces of legislation introduced in the chamber that would get hardly a brief mention on the nightly newscast, or an investment in programming or a shift in government policy would go unreported.

This is unfortunate, because an unbiased press is the public’s only hope of actually knowing what’s going on in the halls of power.

Opposition is entrusted with holding a government to account, and while that work is extremely important, it’s often difficult for the public to find the kernel of truth in the midst of all its partisan rhetoric.

And now, with a greater concentration of power shifting away from the legislative chamber — where debates are supposed to be held for the goodness of transparency — and work is instead being done in the private chambers of the premier’s office or a select few cabinet minister’s offices, investigative reporting is essential.

We all know what happens when important decisions are made and only a select few know the real facts, and the rest have to fill in the blanks with misinformed, misguided or even malicious information.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of in-depth journalism, that void is readily filled by a steady flow of information from TikTok and YouTube channels.

Political parties are now spending outrageous sums on content production — there’s a reason Premier Wab Kinew pays a director of “digital engagement” a salary of $130,000 per year to make his TikTok videos. With his growing social media platforms, he can now change the dial on any paltry negative news coverage coming from traditional media with a glossy, sleek video.

Other politicians are doing it too, and while the accessibility of the platform may makes it seem as though we’re getting more accountability, we all know it’s not true.

I’d take a news brief in a paper over some filtered video message any day. I just hope there are more of those days left.

Rochelle Squires is a recovering politician after serving 7 1/2 years in the Manitoba legislature. She is a political and social commentator whose column appears Tuesdays.rochelle@rochellesquires.ca