Chris Budgell: Newspapers want tax dollars but won’t cover important Canadian Judicial Council story.
Why won’t the establishment news media cover the important story that the Canadian Judicial Council is operating ultra vires to the Judges Act?
To: Bob Cox
Chair, News Media Canada
Publisher, Winnipeg Free Press
Dear Mr. Cox,
If there has ever been a time when society existed without facing serious challenges it isn’t now.
I sympathize with the position you are advancing in your National Post op-ed ‘It’s time to save news‘, but I’ve lived through enough major transitions to see the traditional media’s difficulties in context.
I don’t want to attempt a comprehensive answer or rebuttal to your arguments, but I must note that it seems to me that what you are proposing would simply tighten the bonds between some powerful entities that I think an informed public perceives as already not sufficiently independent from each other.
The Internet is forcing us to redefine many notions, many of them radically. I think the definition of “journalism” is one of them. Such processes are disruptive – to individual lives and institutions.
I’m in favour of finding ways to reduce the disruption to individual lives, but I’m not in favour of preserving institutions that may no longer be viable simply because of claims that they are “pillars of democracy”.
Most media, certainly most newspapers, are first and foremost for-profit business enterprises.
The Internet has facilitated a radical disruption of the economic model. I regret to say I can’t offer any suggestions for preserving that model or creating one that relies on increasing public subsidization. Read more