{"id":5133,"date":"2026-02-19T14:01:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T14:01:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/?p=5133"},"modified":"2026-02-24T14:54:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T14:54:08","slug":"the-death-of-local-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/the-death-of-local-news\/","title":{"rendered":"The Death of Local News"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By: Reet Arora<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Open three Canadian news sites on any&nbsp;weekday morning and something feels off: the same headline, the same photo, the same story- mirrored&nbsp;across the country with uncanny precision.&nbsp;You will&nbsp;read about&nbsp;issues happening in major cities, places you know,&nbsp;problems that you are already aware of.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think of smaller towns&nbsp;like Orangeville&nbsp;or Elmira, when was the last time that name appeared on the television, unless it was a breaking news.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;It\u2019s&nbsp;the quiet imprint of media consolidation, where a handful of companies now shape&nbsp;most of the country\u2019s news. What used to be competing voices has slowly narrowed into a single, repeating echo.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re&nbsp;just having&nbsp;a huge loss&nbsp;in terms of&nbsp;the&nbsp;number of media operations that exist in&nbsp;Canada whether&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;newspapers, television, radio, or any online formats.&nbsp;So,&nbsp;to me,&nbsp;that\u2019s&nbsp;a bigger problem,\u201d&nbsp;Canadian&nbsp;Senator&nbsp;for Ontario,&nbsp;Andrew Cardozo says.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cardozo raised an inquiry to the senate inviting&nbsp;them&nbsp;for&nbsp;a&nbsp;discussion on the future of Canadian news media.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The inquiry is to look for options for&nbsp;a&nbsp;long-term financial model for news media, discuss whether independent media should have access to public funding, the current state and future potential of the emerging online-only news media ecosystems and the effect on democracy of the reducing presence and standards of news media.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe issue of concentration is yesterday\u2019s story. We are concentrated. We&nbsp;didn\u2019t&nbsp;do enough about it and here we are,\u201d he&nbsp;says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cardozo&nbsp;shares how there is an increasing number of small-town councils&nbsp;and&nbsp;city councils,&nbsp;but no media coverage for issues they are discussing. There might be a few reporters but not enough to report on every issue.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says even when a certain reporter does try to cover multiple issues during one council meeting,&nbsp;they\u2019re&nbsp;not so much in depth.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cardozo says it becomes a real problem for democracy when there is no coverage for smaller areas.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He believes there is&nbsp;very little&nbsp;left to&nbsp;consolidate&nbsp;in the broadcast&nbsp;world,&nbsp;but radio might be where more consolidation can still take place, considering small radio startups with a great audience that get bought off when no one wishes to continue it.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cI was a commissioner back by 20 years&nbsp;and&nbsp;during the period I was there,&nbsp;(CRTC\u2019s rules)&nbsp;became very lax&nbsp;and&nbsp;the radio companies kept coming to the CRTC, saying back then 20, 25, 30 years ago, we\u2019re saying it\u2019s very hard to make a living. We need to have more radio stations, independent stations&nbsp;can\u2019t&nbsp;work,\u201d <br>&#8211; andrew Cardozo <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>He explains how commercial stations&nbsp;do very little media&nbsp;but are still part of the news media ecosystem and that does not help.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cardozo discusses the issue with the funding model for CBC, he says&nbsp;he&nbsp;doesn\u2019t disagree&nbsp;with the fact that it should get more funding but in the current climate of austerity he&nbsp;doesn\u2019t&nbsp;see governments being able to provide more to CBC.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think CBC&nbsp;has got&nbsp;to do a deep dive and really search for other kinds of approaches, in terms of how they run their budget. $1.4 billion is a fair amount&nbsp;and&nbsp;I think they can do a better job,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says&nbsp;they should focus on more local&nbsp;programming,&nbsp;so local issues get national&nbsp;awareness. Cardozo says the six federal programs that provide support to media need to get&nbsp;consolidated&nbsp;to some extent but need to be moved into an agency at arm\u2019s length from the government.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He believes it must be the government to set up a&nbsp;criterion&nbsp;through the Parliament and then further send it over to an agency to administer it.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cardozo says&nbsp;the decline in local journalism is resulting in less scrutiny of democracy. The other part is&nbsp;just simple&nbsp;debate without getting to the issues of oversight and scrutiny and holding people accountable.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn the U.S., even in Canada, where there are election debates. They just get a lot of&nbsp;criticism&nbsp;and&nbsp;I think that&nbsp;they\u2019re&nbsp;so important,\u201d he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cardozo&nbsp;calls out&nbsp;CBC&nbsp;for having an anti-conservative bias. He says he&nbsp;doesn\u2019t&nbsp;think it is a widespread issue, but it is&nbsp;there&nbsp;and he believes and it is more so the reporters that have a bit of a pro government bias than the corporation.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says the public broadcaster&nbsp;must&nbsp;make sure that they have a healthy debate on their channels which they can achieve by having more programs where there are people from very differing viewpoints.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Unifor\u2019s Media Director, Randy Kitt&nbsp;shares&nbsp;how&nbsp;speciality television was booming back in 1995 when he used to work for TSN and Discovery Channel.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kitt says there started to be a trend to&nbsp;convergence&nbsp;to vertically&nbsp;integrate.&nbsp;There&nbsp;were&nbsp;prospective&nbsp;buyers,&nbsp;and&nbsp;the&nbsp;CanWest was one of them which did not go through. TSN and Discovery\u2019s parent company&nbsp;NetStar&nbsp;Communications&nbsp;was&nbsp;later&nbsp;acquired&nbsp;by CTV&nbsp;in the year 2000.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He believes that workers do not&nbsp;have control over&nbsp;shaping policies on these types of mergers and acquisitions&nbsp;and it is&nbsp;generally not&nbsp;usually in their benefit.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kitt argues the&nbsp;Competition laws in Canada are not very robust. He says&nbsp;the workers&nbsp;have better protections in the anti-trusts in the U.S., even though they are not&nbsp;very good&nbsp;for them.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cFacebook, Google&nbsp;(and)&nbsp;Amazon&nbsp;pretty much own&nbsp;the world. So even where there are more robust competition laws&nbsp;than Canada,&nbsp;these huge companies are allowed to buy up&nbsp;and to create monopolies. And workers are often left behind,\u201d <br>&#8211; Randy KItt<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>He says&nbsp;current&nbsp;workers are not consider&nbsp;when trying to fill a&nbsp;new&nbsp;position&nbsp;when merging takes place.&nbsp;Redundancies, inefficiencies and wanting to increase productivity,&nbsp;which&nbsp;essentially means&nbsp;letting two people handle the workload of five for the same amount of pay.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kitt says&nbsp;maybe it\u2019s&nbsp;understandable if&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;payroll,&nbsp;but this is&nbsp;way harder&nbsp;to justify when&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;journalism.&nbsp;If only the major cities are the ones providing news coverage, local&nbsp;voices are lost.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cSo,&nbsp;we would lose the diversity of voices across this country because of consolidation. All in the name of redundancies, efficiencies and obviously&nbsp;that\u2019s&nbsp;detrimental to workers&nbsp;and to democracy and as local news as the fundamental&nbsp;component&nbsp;of a healthy democracy,\u201d&nbsp;he says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kitt&nbsp;thinks a system where workers had a voice, a voice that was taken under consideration&nbsp;that would be&nbsp;appropriate.&nbsp;He&nbsp;shares how&nbsp;Unifor has&nbsp;participated&nbsp;in CRTC hearings&nbsp;and CRTC approves mergers and consolidations for broadcasters.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He gives an example of Shaw Rogers submission. CTV created Sportsnet&nbsp;and OCTV Sportsnet and they&nbsp;acquired&nbsp;TSN. To this, CRTC says&nbsp;that CTV&nbsp;can\u2019t&nbsp;own two sports networks which is why they sold&nbsp;CTV Sportsnet to Rogers and kept TSN.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kitt argues that this shows CRTC does have&nbsp;jurisdiction&nbsp;in television to manage convergence and vertical integration&nbsp;but there is certain criterion&nbsp;to&nbsp;when they decide on these things.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He shares a&nbsp;letter filed to CRTC&nbsp;following the proposal for Rogers-Shaw consolidation where Unifor&nbsp;argues that&nbsp;this scope can create inequities&nbsp;in employment markets and in this case local programming and local news coverage.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;The letter&nbsp;cautioned the commission on these issues and tried to ensure that should the commission&nbsp;approve this transaction, it will consider the impact&nbsp;on unemployment as well as local programming, specifically local news, that needs to receive sustaining support&nbsp;in&nbsp;an&nbsp;equitable&nbsp;manner.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Kitt says Unifor did not exactly oppose the matter, because&nbsp;to some extent they&nbsp;knew it was going to happen&nbsp;regardless,&nbsp;but they wanted to warn the commission beforehand.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He&nbsp;says the advent of internet changed the media landscape&nbsp;and&nbsp;decimated the advertising market on the print first&nbsp;and then broadcasting.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI think the Liberal government has seen light on that issue\u00a0which is why we have C-10 and C-11 and C-18 specifically. C-11 is the online streaming act\u00a0and\u00a0that\u2019s the act to bring Netflix, Amazon,\u00a0Apple\u00a0TV\u00a0streaming and the other foreign broadcasters into the Canadian regulatory system, so that they can contribute to the Canadian system [&#8230;] profiting and not contributing,\u201d Kitt says.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says&nbsp;it is hard to pinpoint and say who is to blame when it is&nbsp;such a structural&nbsp;problem&nbsp;because broadcasters would not be&nbsp;consolidating&nbsp;as much if they were not under such financial pressures.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhat about the Google money?&nbsp;Well, the Google money\u2019s only five years&nbsp;and&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;temporary&nbsp;and&nbsp;right now&nbsp;it\u2019s&nbsp;really like a patchwork of support. What we need is to think of it as a puzzle&nbsp;and&nbsp;we need all the&nbsp;puzzle pieces to come together. We need the LJI, the Local Journalism Initiative. We need the journalism tax credits,\u201d Kitt says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He believes&nbsp;we need to improve journalism tax credits and expand&nbsp;them,&nbsp;so they apply to broadcasters and not just print journalism.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Marc Edge, associate professor&nbsp;of Communications&nbsp;at University Canada West&nbsp;and author of&nbsp;eight books&nbsp;says concentration&nbsp;became a phenomenon in the 1960s&nbsp;when chains like Southam and&nbsp;Thomspon&nbsp;began buying up independent&nbsp;family-owned&nbsp;newspapers.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edge says it had grown so much that by the end of the 1960s the Senator Keith&nbsp;Davey called the Special Subcommittee of Mass&nbsp;Media hearings&nbsp;to investigate&nbsp;it&nbsp;and&nbsp;they published their report in three&nbsp;volumes&nbsp;and&nbsp;they recommended measures to slow the pace of concentration.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says the&nbsp;committee suggested a&nbsp;press ownership review board whose guided principle would be that&nbsp;any transaction,&nbsp;merger&nbsp;or&nbsp;takeover&nbsp;that&nbsp;increased concentration would be considered&nbsp;a bad thing&nbsp;unless&nbsp;proved otherwise, however, this recommendation was never enacted.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edge seems to believe that if this had been enacted it would have prevented the&nbsp;events of Aug. 27,&nbsp;1980,&nbsp;when&nbsp;we saw the simultaneous closure of the Winnipeg Tribune by Southam and&nbsp;the Ottawa Journal by Thomson.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says this outraged the&nbsp;then Prime Minister Pierre Elliot&nbsp;Trudeau to such an extent that he almost&nbsp;immediately&nbsp;called a royal commission on newspapers. Within&nbsp;a week,&nbsp;they recommended a Canada Newspaper Act that Edge believes would have broken&nbsp;up&nbsp;the chains.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cAt least&nbsp;Thomson would have been forced to decide between its Globe and Mail and its other newspapers. This was never enacted in the&nbsp;dying years of the Trudeau administration because he was more concerned with&nbsp;the repatriated&nbsp;the&nbsp;Constitution from the Statute of Westminster&nbsp;and enacting the Charter of Rights and Freedom,\u201d Edge says.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says the press was violently opposed to the Canada Newspaper Act&nbsp;and&nbsp;any limits on the press&nbsp;and Trudeau needed support for enacting the Charter of Rights and Freedom.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edge says this kind of opened the way for Conrad Black&nbsp;in the 1990 to expand his Hollinger chain. He already owned the Sterling chain but then he bought up shares in&nbsp;Southam sufficient to take over it over.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He says Black also bought the Armadale chain&nbsp;in Saskatchewan but then turned it all to Izzy Asper&nbsp;and CanWest Global Communication&nbsp;in the year 2000.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Edge says&nbsp;convergence began in the 1960s because newspapers were so profitable. Newspaper owners realized&nbsp;this and&nbsp;wanted to buy&nbsp;more&nbsp;and&nbsp;this was known as horizontal integration, buying up more of the same type of outlet.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Reet Arora Open three Canadian news sites on any&nbsp;weekday morning and something feels off: the same headline, the same photo, the same story- mirrored&nbsp;across the country with uncanny precision.&nbsp;You will&nbsp;read about&nbsp;issues happening in major cities, places you know,&nbsp;problems that you are already aware of.&nbsp;&nbsp; Think of smaller towns&nbsp;like Orangeville&nbsp;or Elmira, when was the last [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[353,1,359],"tags":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-scaled.jpg",2560,1764,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-160x160.jpg",160,160,true],"medium":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-640x441.jpg",640,441,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-768x529.jpg",696,479,true],"large":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-1280x882.jpg",696,480,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-1536x1058.jpg",1536,1058,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-2048x1411.jpg",2048,1411,true],"td_150x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-150x103.jpg",150,103,true],"td_218x150":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-218x150.jpg",218,150,true],"td_300x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-300x207.jpg",300,207,true],"td_324x400":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-324x400.jpg",324,400,true],"td_485x360":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-485x360.jpg",485,360,true],"td_696x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-696x480.jpg",696,480,true],"td_1068x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-1068x736.jpg",1068,736,true],"td_1920x0":["https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/02\/reet_collage-1-1920x1323.jpg",1920,1323,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"convergencemag","author_link":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/author\/convergencemag\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By: Reet Arora Open three Canadian news sites on any&nbsp;weekday morning and something feels off: the same headline, the same photo, the same story- mirrored&nbsp;across the country with uncanny precision.&nbsp;You will&nbsp;read about&nbsp;issues happening in major cities, places you know,&nbsp;problems that you are already aware of.&nbsp;&nbsp; Think of smaller towns&nbsp;like Orangeville&nbsp;or Elmira, when was the last&hellip;","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133"}],"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=5133"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5314,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5133\/revisions\/5314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humberjournalism.com\/convergencemag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}