Join the Fight for Press Freedom!

by Chuck Black

Legacy media is being supported through the Federal government’s Department of Canadian Heritage and through tax breaks worth billions per year. New media outlets need to even the odds.

For an entire generation of Canadians, the future of media is already here. The content of old “legacy” media is dead or dying while the “new” media is thriving, even as the legacy attempts to muzzle and dismiss it.

Of course, the legacy has a bit of help to enable its continued existence.

The legacy is being supported through the Federal government’s Department of Canadian Heritage, a huge government bureaucracy officially tasked with initiatives that promote and support “Canadian identity and values, cultural development, and heritage,” but which also provides legacy media outlets with direct cash loans, grants and tax breaks worth billions of dollars annually.

But all this financial support limits the content the legacy media can provide. They need to retain the support of their major financier and are often encouraged to ignore all but officially sanctioned government talking points.

As noted in the November 30th, 2023 the Hub post, “Half of private Canadian journalism could now be government supported,” it’s estimated that roughly half the salary of a Canadian legacy media journalist earning $85,000 per year is now being defrayed by the federal government or through Google, which entered into an agreement with the Canadian government late last year to distribute Canadian legacy media content on its search engine.

That’s over $40,000 per year for each individual legacy media journalist. If anyone in the new media had access to that sort of money, they’d destroy most legacy outlets within the week.

Even the CBC.

But we don’t currently possess those resources and competing against legacy media without the supports provided by the Canadian government is challenging.

But it’s not impossible. Here’s a suggestion on how to proceed.

In exchange for your support, Freedom Forum’s paywalled offerings will focus on the “business” of the new media; how small, independent, cash strapped organizations can compete effectively against large, cash rich, but corrupt, bureaucratic and centrally controlled propaganda outlets.

We’ll focus on financing, distribution, social media and the legal issues faced by new media outlets. We’ll discuss stories and sources, plus compare techniques used by colleagues and competitors.

Sometimes we’ll discuss technology and how technology has always defined and influence information flow or compare the differences between journalism and advocacy.

Mostly, we’ll build community.

Lots of great independent journalists, some of which we profiled in our December 27th, 2023 Freedom Forum post, “The 2024 Freedom Forum Listing of Important and Influential Canadian “NEW” Media,” are bringing the media battle to the doors of the legacy.

Freedom Forum wants to support and highlight the best of these outlets, plus provide them with the weapons needed to effectively continue the fight.

Help build our future. Subscribe now to Freedom Forum News.