Post Tagged with: "media"

Stand Google News Initiative by Associação Brasileira de Jornalismo Investigativo https://flic.kr/p/KorcJ2 (CC BY 2.0)

Why “Taking On” Google and Facebook Isn’t the Cure for the Media Sector’s Ills

Canadian media organizations face difficult challenges in an age of virtually unlimited Internet competition, a dramatic shift toward digital advertising, and an unprecedented global economic and health crisis. That has led media groups to urge the federal government to “take on” Google and Facebook by requiring them to fund local media. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has thus far declined to do so. That may spark criticism in some quarters but claims that government-mandated payments from Internet companies will solve the sector’s ills are unconvincing.

My Financial Post op-ed notes that everyone agrees the media sector is more competitive than ever. News organizations such as the New York Times and Washington Post, digital media companies like The Athletic and The Logic, podcasters competing with mainstream media audio offerings and the CBC’s continued digital expansion all offer compelling and competitive news alternatives. This breadth of choice for Canadian news consumers isn’t the fault of Google or Facebook. It is a reflection of low barriers to market entry and a proliferation of services that often do a better job than many established media companies of serving specialized content.

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May 13, 2020 3 comments Columns
Newspapers by Sean Davis (CC BY-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/enSuZy

The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 31: Is Canadian Media in a Financial Crisis? – Marc Edge With a Different Take on What the Data Says

Is the Canadian media in a state of financial crisis? Stories on newspaper closures and journalist layoffs have become frustratingly commonplace in recent years, leading to increasingly vocal calls for policy reforms or public funding measures. But Marc Edge, a longtime journalist, editor, and professor at universities around the world, has studied the state of the industry for years and offers a different take. While he is quick to point out the crisis of journalism given cutbacks, he argues that a journalism crisis is not the same as a media crisis. He joins the podcast this week to discuss the historical development of the Canadian media and what the data tells us about the current situation in Canada.

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November 11, 2019 1 comment Podcasts
#closetlefty No.1, Nov 2, 2011: "Never Miss A Good Crisis" by Anna Lena Schiller (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/aBitkE

The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 26: There Is No Crisis – Dwayne Winseck on the State of Canadian Communications, Media and Cultural Policy

The future of Canadian communications law has emerged as political hot potato in recent weeks with political parties engaged in finger pointing over who is acting – or failing to act – on issues closely aligned to cultural policy. Just prior to the election call, Dwayne Winseck, a professor at Carleton who has been one of Canada’s most prominent experts on communications and cultural policy, joined the podcast to provide his take on the initial report from the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review Panel, the tech-lash against companies such as Google and Facebook, and what the numbers tell us about the state of media and advertising in Canada.

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October 7, 2019 1 comment Podcasts
1st EU-Eastern Partnership Forum by Marco Fieber (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/bFPz9X

The Best of a Bad Situation?: Why Tax Incentives Are Better Than Regulation and Cross-Subsidization to Support Canadian Journalism

The challenges faced by the Canadian media sector represent an incredibly challenging policy issue for the government. The struggles to adapt to heightened competition in the digital environment – the local paper now competes with a myriad of alternative choices – has led to layoffs, closures, and intense lobbying for a bailout. For the past few years, the government has largely resisted the lobbying efforts, recognizing the risks to the independence and trust in media that can come from government funding for the media itself. While concerns about government influence over the media and journalists are nothing new (I appeared before two Senate committees yesterday which both featured prominent former journalists), there is a difference between the prospect of future appointments and the perception of cash for favourable coverage.

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November 22, 2018 2 comments News
A stack of newspapers by Daniel R. Blume (CC BY-SA 2.0) https://flic.kr/p/48vQEC

The Shattered Mirror, Part Three: Why Income Tax Changes for Digital Advertising Won’t Save Local Media

The third part of my critique of The Shattered Mirror: News, Democracy and Trust in the Digital Age, the Public Policy Forum’s report on the future of media, has taken longer than anticipated. In the interim, there have been some excellent posts on the report, including those from Andrew Potter, Dwayne Winseck, and Marc Edge. The first two parts of my review focused on the copyright and CBC/open licensing recommendations. This post discusses the report’s most significant financial recommendation: reforms to the Income Tax Act that would be designed to increase or capture digital advertising costs with Google and Facebook accompanied by a scheme to create a fund to support Canadian media.  The recommendation is similar – though not identical – to one floated by communications law veterans Peter Miller and David Keeble in a report commissioned by the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (FCB).

At the heart of both reports is the recommendation that advertising purchased on foreign Internet-based media should not be tax deductible. The reports offer a tempting vision for those seeking a simple solution to the struggles of Canadian media organizations. Both posit that much of the problem lies largely with the dominance of Google and Facebook in the digital advertising market. According to the FCB report:

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February 17, 2017 6 comments News