Should Media Take Government Money?

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]The eco-news site, the Vancouver climate news site, the National Observer, which of course is Max's employer. Max is the lead columnist there, is the nation's, quote, heaviest user of Department of Canadian Heritage grants, uh, the independent news site. They have that in quotes, received more than 1.3 million in taxpayers aid to cover the equivalent of 23 employees salaries while its CEO served on a volunteer board responsible for approving grants. They have your headshot right there in the graphic design. Uh, they might as well put a bullseye right in the middle of your forehead. It simplifies the conversation to a point of absurdity, this idea that if you get government funding, um, you are corrupted. I just want to add some context cuz I I I think it's missing in this conversation. Um, you know, the 1.3 million was over a decade. Um, we're thankful for the for the support. It helps us fund reporter jobs and and those are the jobs, um, that are really not economically viable anymore. Thank you, big tech companies. Um, so we're we're not shy about that. We put it on our website. Uh, you know, we we we have it right there uh, on our page saying where we get our funding from. But I I want to talk a little bit about, you know, the idea that we get the most. Uh, part of that is because um, you have to apply under your publication name. So, you know, National Observer is the National Observer. Postmedia has a bunch of different local papers. They all apply for these grants. They all get them. Uh, you know, there's a local journalism initiative reporter probably in Guelph and London, Ontario and probably at the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal. Um, but they all kind of fall under their own papers heading rather than Postmedia. So, that's why it looks that way. Um, it was interesting.

[00:01:43]I was looking at Postmedia's, uh, most recent quarterly results cuz they're publicly traded. Uh, they received 10.4 million dollars, uh, in federal, uh, support. Uh, you you revenues from the online news act, commonly knows it known as Bill C-18.

[00:01:59]10.4 million in one quarter. Uh, they subsequently received 5.2 million dollars uh, related to their fiscal 2026 online news act submissions. 15.6 million dollars in under a year for Postmedia.

[00:02:14]Um, I had no problem with that, by the way. Uh, I think that those reporter jobs are incredibly important. Uh, without them we are all uh, worse off.

[00:02:23]But this idea um, that you know, that we're you know, corrupted by the money we get but Postmedia isn't. Postmedia is constantly running columns from a certain food professor that just every time misrepresents how the industrial carbon price work. You know, he says that it applies to trucking, it applies to a bunch of sectors where it just clearly doesn't. He's been fact-checked on this and they keep running the column with that in it. Don't you think if the federal government actually exerted influence with this money that it's giving people that they'd be able to get a little fact-check done? I will note that uh, one of the eight one of the news outlets that was very proud about not getting government funding, The Hub, uh, recently sent a note out to its subscribers saying, "Yeah, we're actually going to take the funding now."

[00:03:05]Um, they got kind of sheepish about it and um, you know, there's another online publication uh, I'm not going to name it but >> Name it. Fine. Fine, it's The Line. It's Jen Gerson and Matt Gurney and God bless those two. I love them. I love the work they've been doing lately but they sent out this note about how basically how virtuous they are because they don't get government funding and I get it.

[00:03:26]They have to do that to raise money. You know, you raise money from conservatives largely who are who are angry at the government and this is a way to get them to loosen their wallets but if you're doing opinion journalism, you don't need funding. Opinion journalism still works, it still makes money, right? Uh, you have Substack, you have uh, all these platforms where you can make money. Uh, it it is the last thing that is sort of economically viable in our current media market, it deserves no subsidy. I deserve no subsidy, which is why I don't get any subsidies.

[00:03:58]Um, you know, so the that that is the part of the business that doesn't need help, and I'm not sure it's that virtuous to say that you're not taking it for columns and opinion.

[00:04:07]But for like reporting, for sending people into community meetings to cover town halls, all the stuff that just isn't uh sexy and doesn't doesn't sort of make money on its own, yeah, we need to support that. Uh especially in the face of of what's happening with the Trump administration and the disinformation they're sending across our borders, uh you know, here in Alberta, um the online disinformation that's coming out of Russia, my god, do we ever need reporters more than ever.

[00:04:32]Uh and I think it's just so foolish and so kind of myopic um to to criticize the government's attempt, however imperfect, however haphazard, um to support journalism uh in a time like this.