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Local news in Canada is in dire straights. Consolidation has made it incredibly fragile or non existent in places, and the government's solution is to always tu
by beezlebroxxxxxx 2y ago
Local news in Canada is in dire straights. Consolidation has made it incredibly fragile or non existent in places, and the government's solution is to always turn on a faucet of $$$ to the entrenched media companies, only for them to back out or disappear after the money runs dry.
The "outcome" of the bill and the deal with Google was essentially a slush fund for entrenched media companies in Canada. Instead of fostering competition, the government just funnels more money into old guard monopolies, as is tradition in Canada where monopolistic behaviour usually gets explicit government endorsement.
Commentators and lawyers like Micheal Geist have argued for years at this point that the ban and deal are blatantly counterproductive to ensuring a functioning and competitive news and media ecosystem.
- vlovich123 2y agoI think it’s easy to assume that because “old guard” is an easy villain (not sure where monopolies comes from though - media remains more competitive than something like tech for example). Similarly easy to blame government intervention as a failure when the problem continues. But to play devil’s advocate. How do you know that without government intervention even the big players would have failed even worse and the smaller players died even more quickly? I respect Michael Geist and he’s more knowledgeable in this space than I am, so if this is his position I’m more likely to believe it, but it’s really hard to say anything so definitively without a control to evaluate against.