Canada's newspapers are being plundered by monopoly capitalism
CBC
This opinion piece is by Patricia W. Elliott, a distinguished professor of investigative and community journalism at First Nations University of Canada.
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In the morning dark, before coffee is made and cats are stirring, you'll find me awkwardly leaning out my front door, one arm reaching for the mailbox and the comforting touch of newsprint.
In truth, I've already spent at least an hour awake in bed, phone-scrolling through a cacophony of news stories from around the globe, along with their trails of deranged comments. Algorithms have tagged a few of my interests, meaning I'll know what happened in Southeast Asia overnight along with a thin smattering of Ukraine news, but precious little about my hometown.
Those hometown stories are now spread out on my kitchen table: births, deaths, celebrations, laneway closures, tax arrears notices, city hall shenanigans, the latest provincial gossip, and the triumphs and tragedies of ordinary citizens, finished off with a brain-sharpening crossword.
Tweets and broadcast spot news are fleshed out in print with more voices, more history. A human editor has arranged stories front to back not in order of my personal tastes, but in order of public significance, arrived at through a combination of experience, reader feedback and heated newsroom discussions.
Sometimes I read the online edition or follow the paper on social media. The physical form matters not. What matters is its purpose — providing accurate information to help an informed citizenry make decisions, hold power to account, know each other and ensure the wellbeing of their city.
Frustratingly, this purpose is being steadily dismantled by the paper's own masters.
Last week's announcement of Postmedia staff cuts and property fire-sales is but the latest outrage in a scenario foretold by decades of federal commission testimonials: if you allow our newspapers to fall into the hands of a few debt-ridden would-be tycoons fronting for foreign hedge funds, the failures will be catastrophic.
Canada's Competition Bureau has miserably failed to avoid this path, greenlighting monopolistic newspaper purchases against all public interest and common sense. Meanwhile, federal officials tasked with guarding Canadian ownership stood by as the fate of more than 100 Canadian newsrooms was handed off to foreign shareholders.
The true owner of my local newspaper is Chatham Asset Management, a hedge fund in New Jersey.
The second-largest shareholder, Allianz Global Investment, has offices from Shanghai to Frankfurt. Its main U.S. fund was shut down over securities fraud and ordered to pay back billions to bilked investors.
The third-largest investor, Leon G. Cooperman, survived insider trading allegations by taking the Fifth Amendment in court and handing a $5-million settlement to the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission.
I wonder how much of my local paper's revenues helps pay for such peccadillos.
If Allan Speight wants to make a phone call, he has to drive about eight kilometres down the road to the Welsford Irving gas station.
Quebec’s third-largest city is switching from weekly garbage and recycling collection to every two weeks in a cost-saving move it says is better for the environment. But the plan is getting mixed reaction from residents and opposition councillors.
If you’re driving through rural Manitoba next summer, you might not see a big increase in the number of golden flowering fields adjacent to the highways, according to some provincial canola producers.
Saskatchewan RCMP say a drone was instrumental when two people needed rescue from a forested area on a dark night in frigid temperatures.
Lori Cheverie has received her fair share of teasing for always having her nose in a book — but for the next few months, that habit will serve a greater purpose, one that goes beyond the love of reading.
Hundreds of Kashechewan First Nation evacuees have arrived in Niagara Falls, one of the Ontario cities taking in people from the Cree community as it endures a weeks-long water crisis due to a damaged treatment plant.
Windsor-based Dainty Foods to separate Canadian, American production as it launches new product line
A Windsor-based company that’s known for its rice products has just launched a new line of pasta side dishes.
According to polling by the Environics Institute, 70 per cent of Canadians are either very or somewhat satisfied with "the way democracy works in Canada."
A plan to partially demolish a 139-year-old church has set off an uproar in a Cabbagetown neighbourhood.
A 33-year-old man has died after being shot by police in Brantford, Ont., Friday morning, the province's police watchdog says.
A Whitehorse resident says gaps in the hospital system are affecting continuity of care – and he has 2,000 pages of documentation to prove it.
A Newfoundland and Labrador judge postponed a decision Friday about whether a man charged with three attempted murders is fit to stand trial, in a case where the accused's family says the health-care system failed him and his alleged victims.
A doctor in Nova Scotia's Pictou County has been handed a professional reprimand for the way he treated a 30-year-old woman who died after being admitted to the Aberdeen Regional Hospital in New Glasgow, N.S., in August 2023.