{"id":4592,"date":"2023-04-05T17:39:37","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T17:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vpms1.humber.smartmanagedservers.com\/convergencemag\/?p=4592"},"modified":"2023-04-05T17:39:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-05T17:39:37","slug":"corporate-money-devours-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/corporate-money-devours-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Money Devours Media"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s a silent war over the mind of the masses.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Nathan Abraha <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve meddled with primal forces Mr.Beale.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Was the chilling warning Ned Beatty\u2019s corporatist business mogul Arthur Jenson from the 1976 film Network darted towards news anchor Howard Beale, who much like Icarus flew too close to the sun when he began partaking in a taboo \u2014 telling the truth \u2014 free from massaging and reshaping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On opposite sides of the sand lie journalistic integrity and the question of simply keeping the lights on. There\u2019s a fundamental contradiction in the media\u2019s policy of truth-telling and corporate interest according to Luke Savage,author and staff writer at Jacobin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it comes to corporate funding or ownership of media, this is one of the biggest contradictions of media today,\u201dSavage says. \u201cIt\u2019s at once a democratic enterprise and on the other hand we\u2019re talking about profit-making ventures.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Savage, as a working journalist himself, sees there has been a change taking place within the industry \u2014 both the opportunities available to young journalists at traditional media outlets and the momentum of alternative media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is a very difficult industry. It\u2019s much more difficult to work in [and] find stable employment than it used to be,\u201d Savage says. \u201cBut there are a lot of jobs in new places that didn\u2019t exist before. There are a lot of alternative media projects that have huge audiences, the landscape is just very different.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Independent news sites like The Maple and specifically Canadaland, which also doubles as a podcast network, with their mere existence are completely reshaping the industry while being funded by its audience. Canadaland receives over 100,000 downloads a week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, according to a study into Canadian media ownership by Harvard, as of 2022 Postmedia Network owns over 120 brands including The National Post,The Financial Post, and The Montreal Gazette. Postmedia Network is itself owned by Chatham Asset Management \u2014 an American hedge fund \u2014 Rogers Media owns CityTV and several other local news channels while Bell Media owns CTV and 35 local television stations led by CTV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou see greater and greater concentration of ownership of publications. More and more places cutting back, layoffs \u2014 like the example of the Huffington Post Canada in the last two years,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Savage is referencing the sudden closing of Huffington Post Canada in 2021 when it was purchased by Buzzfeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd then at the other end, there\u2019s kind of the more you know the independent sphere with less corporate ownership and things like that. But you see a trend towards just deeper, more extensive fragmentation, where you have communities that kind of fragmented into micro communities which then have their own sub micro communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Savage points towards is one of the fears within alternative independent media and that\u2019s the danger of an \u2018echo-chamber\u2019 audience being cultivated, unable to reach the average person and forever reinforcing into smaller and smaller communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although he warns this doesn\u2019t mean sacrificing goals or principles in the pursuit of a larger mainstream brand of journalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving your own voice is not incompatible with having ambition and wanting to be successful, but you should certainly not be bending your whole approach and outlook around some imagined future prospect,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When it comes to corporate interest the blame shouldn\u2019t be on the individual journalist according to Justin Podur, associate professor of environmental and urban change at York University and host of the podcast Anti-Empire Project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you take a corporate journalist at say CTV or CBC, I\u2019m sure a lot of your colleagues will go into these companies when they\u2019re done with their degrees \u2014 they are good, decent people that are trying to do good. Because of the constraints they are usually under, the alternative isn\u2019t to do better on the job, it\u2019s not to have that job,\u201d Podur says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Podur brings up a real concern for countless journalists, a fear of an unspoken silent suppression of press freedom that can result in de-platforming or blacklisting or worse if their reporting skirts certain interests or narratives that often find their way plastered into corporate media headlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examples such as Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, currently facing 150 years in prison for exposing classified documents exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq among many others \u2014 serves as the steep example of the price that can be paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much is made of Rupert Murdoch\u2019s monopoly on U.K. news or Jeff Bezos purchasing The Washington Post but Canada has its own issues with corporate ownership of media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Podur sympathizes and points out the difficulty of the position journalists face between corporate and independent as not necessarily \u2018good and evil\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNone of us are in any different situations. There are always professional constraints but especially on people whose jobs are to research and say things,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Podur, a teenager in the early \u201890s, journalism first came in the form of his father\u2019s Globe and Mail copies \u2014 even then, he didn\u2019t quite buy everything he read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was around 13 years old when the U.S. first bombed Iraq around 1990 and the way the media were portraying the situation \u2014 the need for the bomb, the innocence of the U.S., and the guilt of Iraq. I was very skeptical of all that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Podur sees imperialism as the venomous sidekick directly linked to the question of corporate interest in journalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have to understand the power of co-optation. We did a series recently on the scramble for Africa and looking at some of the journalists working at the time, they were imperialists \u2013 they were working for the interests of imperial powers at the time the British empire,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s a tendency to look at the abolitionist journalists from the 1840s or muckrakers exposing corporate power in the 1920s as the standard but there\u2019s never been a time [when] most journalism wasn\u2019t imperialist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Influence is something Podur says alternative media isn\u2019t immune to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have alternative media but if they have some sort of reach you have attempts to take it offline, purchase it, infiltrate, or \u2014 destroy it which is what happened to WikiLeaks for example whose founder is in jail now facing a lifetime in jail for doing journalism,\u201d Podur says. \u201cThere\u2019s also ideological splits that happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dreaded suit that every grassroots journalism organization bemoans suddenly starts showing up to business meetings harping about how the content doesn\u2019t appeal to investors, the importance of maximizing profit and how the message needs to be digestible to the donors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vice magazine was originally a Montreal-based controversial edgy magazine, born as the brainchild of Suroosh Alvi, Gavin McInnes and Shane Smith \u2014 Vice both shocked and excited a generation of counter-culture enthusiasts with its anti-establishment gonzo journalism in the early 2000s. Since expanding its venture closer to the realm of traditional network news with Vice Media, Vice has struggled to keep their previous large audience and reputation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In late 2018, Vice spoke out saying their ties with Saudi Arabia were under review in the wake of the global scandal that erupted following the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, yet in April 2021, Vice not only opened an office in Riyadh, but have also received direct funding by Saudi state-affiliated Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe relationship between alternative and mainstream media has become muddied,\u201d Podur says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another force of control that passes as \u2018fair\u2019 in journalism is the often centrist stance a lot of journalism organizations take to be another key aid to corporate feasting upon the industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Podur says the solution is government-funded state media, but how do you keep from becoming a mouthpiece of a political agenda?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSchool vouchers in the U.S., instead of funding private schools, give parents vouchers that they can direct toward public schools. That leads to horrific results for education in my opinion, but for the media that wouldn\u2019t be a bad system,\u201d Podur says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea is the public would use their individual vouchers to fund the media outlets they want. Getting user-directed media that are actually publicly funded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe Emersberger makes his living as an engineer, yet the author at FAIR.org and CounterPunch still finds the time to partake in journalism, his financial dependence on engineering rather than reporting is something he says has freed him of the constraints that face everyday journalists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot having to rely on a media job or an academia job is important, being unionized \u2014 it\u2019s important. All those factors can give you some more independence,\u201d Emersberger says. \u201cAlso if you\u2019re not a huge player you can get away with some more things because you\u2019re flying under the radar but ultimately, if you start reaching a big enough audience, you\u2019re gonna pay the price,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although being an outsider to media doesn\u2019t necessarily keep you clear of consequences or danger as Emersebrger points out. The case of environmental lawyer Steve Donzinger, whose protection of 30,000 Indigenous Amazoians, in a lawsuit against Chevron\u2019s activities of oil dumping in the Ecuadorian Amazon, resulted in his house arrest for over two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Traditional state media could carry an important societal function and solution according to Emersberger, but the question of influence would still be tricky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTraditional state media can actually serve an extremely important function. For example, if you consider left wing governments like Venezuela, you have the private sector elites backed by a superpower who are incredibly hostile to the government. So the governments\u2019 either going to capitulate, or it\u2019s going to fight back,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, when the government directly owns the media obviously this poses questions such as, how do we know these outlets can tell the truth about the government if they\u2019re directly owned and accountable to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the private media, the question is the same: How can it be independent while directly owned and accountable to ultimately corporate owners and advertisers \u2014 rich people basically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that\u2019s when the theory of vouchers rears its head again. Something Emersberger sees as a positive leap to unhook the media from the fangs of influence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo the theory is that we would have a publicly funded system, but instead of the government taking direct ownership of media outlets in the traditional state approach, they instead give every voter a bit of money that they\u2019re free to donate to what could be any media, artistic enterprise or individuals who produce art or journalism and giving them funds directly,\u201d Emersberger says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat way, it has more of an arm\u2019s length from the government, but at the same time, you give people money to fund whoever they want to provide this work. Even if these outlets didn\u2019t become as big as let\u2019s say, typical corporate media, they would exist, they would be secure. And you know, they could provide an extremely important service,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dean Baker, an American macroeconomist at a Federal Communications Commission\u2019s Future of Media Workshop goes further into the concept of voucher based media. Baker argues the basic idea for the voucher is to give each taxpayer a fixed amount (e.g. $100 a year) that can be used to support the media venture or individual of the person\u2019s choice. This is, in effect, a refundable tax credit. The mechanism can be designed as a payment from the government by designating a code for a registered recipient on a tax return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYeah, sure it can be picked apart and undermined but the same applies to public education or health,\u201d Emersberger says.\u201cAs we\u2019re seeing right now in Ontario, anything can be undermined in different ways. But it\u2019s still important to win that basic victory, get that idea out there that there\u2019s alternatives to the typical corporate media that\u2019s dependent on rich backers or the traditional state media which also has a downside.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to a study into Canadian media ownership as of 2022 Postmedia Network owns over 120 brands including The National Post,The Financial Post, and The Montreal Gazette. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4595,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[353,1],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619.jpg",1080,607,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-170x120.jpg",160,113,true],"medium":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-768x432.jpg",696,392,true],"large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-1024x576.jpg",696,392,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619.jpg",1080,607,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619.jpg",1080,607,false],"td_150x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-150x84.jpg",150,84,true],"td_218x150":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-218x150.jpg",218,150,true],"td_300x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"td_324x400":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-324x400.jpg",324,400,true],"td_485x360":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-485x360.jpg",485,360,true],"td_696x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-696x391.jpg",696,391,true],"td_1068x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619-1068x600.jpg",1068,600,true],"td_1920x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2022\/12\/image_6483441-e1680716040619.jpg",1080,607,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"convergencemag","author_link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/author\/convergencemag\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"According to a study into Canadian media ownership as of 2022 Postmedia Network owns over 120 brands including The National Post,The Financial Post, and The Montreal Gazette.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4592"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4631,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4592\/revisions\/4631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}