Part IV:Sustainable independent media needs a breakthrough

This is the fourth of a seven-part series that will address the need to develop independent media -- print, broadcast and Internet based -- in Canada.

Canadians might be surprised to discover the difference between the content of independent media and the news and opinion carried and broadcast by corporate-owned media. By "independent media" I mean any news media -- including newspapers, TV and radio news and Internet-based news -- that are independent of government, not heavily dependent on income from advertising and that do not have a corporate or right-wing bias.

Imagine Canada having national and city newspapers and TV news programs and news websites that report fairly on all groups in society, protect the rights of consumers, and cover business in a way that assesses the benefits for all people, not just business owners and investors. The result would be a journalism that contributes to the creation of a more equitable and just society.

"Considering the current crisis in big media, now is the time to take independent media to the next level," Marie Elliott, a communications student, and Steve Anderson of OpenMedia.ca wrote in an article for rabble.ca. "There is a window of opportunity right now, and that window can and will close if we don't take this challenge seriously."

Independent media outlets would most likely be set up as non-profit entities, with diverse sources of income (and without advertising playing a determining editorial role). In the case of a national media outlet, the enterprise would be controlled by a group of people from across the country. A local media project would be controlled by people living in that community, who would also determine editorial policy.

I want to suggest a few of the many ways in which independent media organizations would approach news differently compared to the coverage provided by corporate-owned media.

Value people over profits and corporations. The journalism practised would challenge a tax system that greatly favours the rich over the rest of society. It would oppose employment laws that allow businesses to avoid paying reasonable wages and benefits. It would promote improvements to the overall quality of life rather than simply emphasizing the creation of wealth.

Advertising

Report on the substance of politics. The writers would report on a wide range of political opinion, unlike corporate media, which all but shut out even the moderate left, much less truly radical ideas. Journalists would cover what politicians do, not what they say they will do. They would not assume, as do the for-profit media, that political parties are in power to benefit the public.

Carefully monitor Big Business. Given the domination of Big Business over just about every aspect of society, independent media would cover business and corporations in proportion to their huge influence over most governments and society in general. They would keep a regular watch on the activities of business lobby groups.

Effective reporting and investigative journalism could help protect the public from the exploitation carried out by powerful multinational industrial giants such as:

           - Big Oil (especially how it lobbies against climate change legislation).

           - the pharmaceuticals (involved in kickbacks, illegal pricing).

           - agribusiness (how it promotes GMO as a "tool of social control").

Break down the impact of advertising on the issue of climate change. The mainstream media are "disastrous" on climate change, largely because of their dependence on advertising for income. A minority scientific opinion -- the denial of the impact of global warming -- gets nearly as much regular coverage, especially in opinion pieces, as the majority opinion. The prominent denials are closely connected to the business as usual approach of the advertisers. Independent media could approach the vital issue of climate change very differently. With their diverse sources of income, they would be less subject to the pressures of advertisers.

With the need for profits overriding any thought of social responsibility, traditional media outlets run ads for non-essential, luxury items that fuel the out-of-control consumerism that is so seriously damaging the environment. This contradiction overrides concerns about climate change. The production of the unnecessary goods advertised not only depletes already scarce global resources but also produces billions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming. "We have fallen into the trap of believing that economic growth forever is possible and necessary," says David Suzuki. "This is not sustainable, it is suicidal. . . . We have created a system that is completely out of balance with the real world that keeps us alive . . . ."

Establish an openness to radicals and dissidents. Independent media would attempt to be open to all opinions and ideas that are not in violation of the law. The mainstream media claim to be open to all views but, in reality, carry only a token amount of barely left-wing or independent-thinking opinion articles or columnists. Many prominent, controversial people are only occasionally given the opportunity to express their views.

Take a different approach to international coverage. Independent media could strive to correct the distorted "good guys"/ "bad guys" picture of world politics and its leaders that we are fed by corporate media organizations working to protect the global interests of capitalism. They would report on alternative political systems based on how the systems meet the needs of those particular societies, not on whether the countries might be opposed to capitalism. Independent journalists also could focus more on positive developments in underdeveloped countries.

Independent journalists would need superior skills

Journalists working for independent media organizations would need to have superior skills. Journalists coming from the for-profit sector would have to be "deprogrammed" to free them from the programmed and censored thinking of traditional media newsrooms.

In addition, independent media journalists would need to abandon the totally impersonal corporate media "objective" style of journalism. They would instead report and write in a slightly opinionated, but still fair, way, based on a wide knowledge of the area they have been assigned to cover. Perhaps an ideal model to shoot for would be the style of reporting used at The Guardian newspaper and the BBC News in the United Kingdom.

Little independent news media in Canada at present

Unfortunately, Canada has very few independent media outlets. Some independent news and opinion websites are still developing on the Internet, but we have no independent, non-commercial newspapers.

Elsewhere, in the United Kingdom, a non-profit trust created several years ago publishes The Guardian, The Guardian Weekly and The Observer. Together these are among the English-language's most progressive, independent newspapers. The trust also operates the most popular news website in the English language. Editorial policies of the three papers are not tied to any corporate ideology. The trust owns a number of media properties that rely quite heavily on advertising and that funnel money to the trust, which allows the papers to maintain their fierce independence.

As far as I know, Western Europe has only corporate-owned newspapers. But many papers are not as heavily dependent on advertising, which makes up about 45 per cent of their income, compared to more than 70 per cent in Canada during good times. Many European papers have greater editorial integrity and have a strong following. The contrast can be seen in the sales figures. In Sweden, 75 per cent of adults read a newspaper every day. In Canada, a recent study shows that 77 per cent of adults in the six top Canadian markets read a paper one day a week.

A brighter picture on the Internet

The development of strong, independent news and opinion on the Internet in Canada is in its infancy. Hundreds of Canadian media advocates are operating small independent news and opinion websites or managing their own blogs. Unfortunately, few websites and bloggers are producing original research-based journalism. To supplement their original content, they link to opinion pieces and news from other sites, including for-profit sites.

To my knowledge, no Canadian independent website is paying its own way at the present time. Most sites are heavily dependent on low-paid staff and/or volunteers. Even so, people running their own sites see the tremendous advances being made on the Internet as the triumph of communications democracy over the restrictive, outdated ways of "old media."

Three Canadian websites have considerable potential

Of the many small news and opinion websites that have emerged in Canada over the past few years, three stand out for building a small but loyal following and for the potential they hold for further development.

• rabble.ca is a non-profit national site established in 2001 by a group of journalists, academics, and labour and social justice activists. It was founded by Judy Rebick, and open source technology innovators Mark and Tonya Surman. It has more than 140,000 unique visitors per month.

This site hosts columns, articles and blogs, as well as multi-media features that seen integral to the news function of the website: a discussion board, podcasts, video as well as a live online broadcast function.

rabble publishes both orginial and mainstream columns in addition, as well as first run articles and blogs. rabble.ca original columns come from Duncan Cameron, Murray Dobbin (shared with The Tyee), Wayne MacPhail, June Chua, Steve Anderson (also shared with the Tyee) and Am Johal. The pickups include Linda McQuaig, Rick Salutin, Naomi Klein and American Amy Goodman. They also publish blogs by figures including James Laxer and Judy Rebick.

• Straight Goods was set up by Ish Theilheimer as a for-profit online news site in 2000 when he became frustrated by the lack of quality journalism in the mainstream media. The site has more than 50,000 unique visitors per month.

The strongest features on this sites is also its columnists. Some of these are written as original pieces, and some are picked up from the mainstream media. Straight Goods writers include Geoff Stevens, John Baglow, Jamie Swift, Gillian Steward, Paul Weinberg, Mel Watkins and Charles Gordon.

• The Tyee, set up in 2003 by David Beers, a journalist with wide experience, focuses on British Columbia. The Tyee has published some of the best investigative journalism in B.C., and has won several awards. The Tyee has about 164,000 unique users per month.

The Tyee's excellent track record in providing mainstream journalism and investigative reporting shows promise for the continued development of the site. It is also the one Canadian site only slightly dependent on advertising that appears to be within reach of becoming self-sustainable.

Among The Tyee's top contributors are Kim Pollock, Rafe Mair, Bill Tieleman, Michael Geist, Andrew MacLeod, Monte Paulsen and Tom Sandborn.

Because The Tyee covers important stories and issues across British Columbia, it fills in some of the gaping holes left by the provinces' inadequate daily press. Unfortunately, so far no other Internet news site focuses on providing extensive coverage of any other province or city.Because The Tyee covers important stories and issues across British Columbia, it fills in some of the gaping holes left by the provinces' inadequate daily press. Unfortunately, so far no other Internet news site focuses on providing extensive coverage of any other province or city.

• The Dominion is a newer site that has promise. It is an Internet-based monthly newspaper published in Montreal by a network of independent journalists as a media cooperative since May 2003. It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage of important issues, domestic and international. Interestingly, The Dominion can be read online or delivered as a print subscription.

The Dominion publishes only monthly and, at the moment, neither rabble.ca nor Straight Goods are striving to become the type of broad-based general news service that could benefit Canadians across the country. Instead, they see themselves as being "alternative" sites. While the "alternative" label serves the important function of bringing together hundreds of like-minded people, it also probably prevents the site from attracting large numbers of apolitical users.

Interestingly, many of the original columns and articles that appear on rabble.ca and Straight Goods are not what you would call radical. Indeed, many of them are perfectly suitable for the mainstream media. However, now that traditional news organizations have reduced their even mild left-wing opinion content, most of these authors would not be welcome.

Corporate-owned media struggling to reach profitability

Corporate-owned news organizations are struggling to develop a business model that will allow them to survive and make healthy profits. Media corporations have lost billions of dollars in advertising to Internet-based companies, and the volume of advertising they have managed to hold onto has been reduced considerably by the unexpected severity of the recession.

Facing a bleak financial picture, for-profit media companies slashed their news budgets and have fired more than 2,000 Canadian journalists. So, for the past year or so, media consumers have not only been experiencing the age-old corporate manipulation of the news, but are now being subjected to a severe reduction in the quality of news and the areas and topics covered -- in all three major areas: newspapers, and TV and radio news.

If the yet-to-be created new traditional media business model is still funded largely by advertising, the same type of censored, pro-corporate media that we experience now will simply move onto the Internet. This shift, if it occurs, would be extremely unfortunate. The news distortion that occurs at every for-profit media company is destructive. It marginalizes many groups in society, providing an imbalanced flow of news and information that undermines the practice of democracy. In earlier articles I described some of the evils of corporate-owned journalism.

In an age considered to be modern and sophisticated, it is hard to believe that Canadians (like other people around the world) are dependent on news and information that have been systematically manipulated and censored. It is as though some elite force said to us, "Yes, you can have democracy, but you can have only 70 per cent of the world's information, and we've prepared it especially for you. We don't think you need to have the other 30 per cent."

The big hope for free access to news and information

One possible breakthrough would be hugely significant not only for Canada but also for media in many countries around the world: the creation of a sustainable business model that would allow news websites and other forms of news media to be funded largely by small amounts of advertising, user fees, subscriber fees and other non-restrictive sources of income. This funding would allow independent, non-profit news organizations to compete for audience with for-profit media organizations.

The next article will take us to a key point in this series. I will explain how various print and Internet-based news media models -- large and small -- could be established in Canada. If there are any community groups or individuals concerned about the poor quality of our media, they should start thinking about whether they are interested in becoming involved in a group to explore the viability of setting up independent media projects.

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Part V:Could a 'mini-paper' nip at the heels of mainstream press?

This is the fifth of a seven-part series that will address the need to develop independent media -- print, broadcast and Internet based -- in Canada.

While I have many criticisms of traditional, corporate-owned newspapers, I am still saddened to some extent by their decline. I'm one of those people who prefer to get my news the old-fashioned way -- sitting in my favourite chair early in the morning, a cup of tea close at hand, and being able to cuss The Globe and Mail's business section!

But the cost of producing a Globe and Mail or any other traditional paper is quite staggering. Media corporations and other businesses, mainly in the United States, are spending millions of dollars trying to come up with a new business model that will allow them to have both money-making newspapers and Internet-based news operation. For my part, for several weeks now I have been trying to come up with an idea that would make the cost of publishing some sort of newspaper more manageable.

Traditional daily newspapers are extremely expensive to operate. The technology is stuck in another era. Newsprint has become very expensive, and the companies need to be able not only to maintain a huge printing plant and staff, but also cover the cost of distributing tens of thousands of copies of a paper by trucks and delivery staff. They have to cover the high salaries paid to executives and sales staff. On top of all this, investors expect profits of 20 per cent-plus.

The idea I finally came up will not save The New York Times or the CanWest dailies, but it could nevertheless provide communities with a manageable, inexpensive small newspaper.

What I will call the "mini-paper" would have small pages -- 8 1/2 x 11 1/2 inches - just about the same size as a magazine such as Maclean's. After the content and news have been determined, it could be laid out using PageMaker or a similar layout program. These programs allow full-colour, quality production. Cost: about $600 for the program.

Advertising

A mini-paper would not be bound together like a magazine or folded like a newspaper. Instead, the individual pages would be brought together in a Word attachment and e-mailed to readers and subscribers. From there, it would be equally as simple. Subscribers would open the attachment and then print out their newspaper, affix a simple binding they would be provided with and read it at their convenience.

Does this sound rinky-dink? Perhaps. It is not modern and high-tech like an iPhone or Twitter, but it could perform the basic job of distributing much-needed news and information at a time when the traditional media are seriously failing us.

All of the articles and other information published in the mini-paper would be posted on a website. Unfortunately -- because the project needs to be paid for in part by subscriber fees -- this material could not be made available to the public for free, at least immediately.

The "mini-paper": inexpensive to publish

A mini-paper would be incredibly inexpensive to publish. There would be no requirement for newsprint, a huge printing plant or large delivery system.

The mini-paper is definitely not the right vehicle for publishing a daily newspaper. But I could see it being used to produce, say, a twice-weekly paper, consisting of perhaps 18 or 24 pages. Still, a single edition could include as many pages as the sponsoring organization wants to publish.

The keys to ensuring the success of a mini-paper would be defining a target geographic area, determining what kinds of important information are not being delivered by other media, and then focusing on publishing exclusive information to satisfy that need. I believe people would pay for such a service. (I will discuss how the mini-paper and other media projects could be funded later in this series.)

Given how cheaply the mini-paper could be produced, such a publication could break even financially and compete on some levels with a daily newspaper.

What are the disadvantages? Are readers willing to go to their computers and print out their copies every morning? Would the quality of reproduction from their printers be good enough? Would subscribers balk at the prospect of using their own paper? It would take time and a certain amount of investigation to come up with the right formula.

I welcome feedback on this idea. If anyone would like to seriously look into the possibility of establishing a community mini-paper, please get in touch with me.

Entertainment weeklies could add news supplements

Before moving on to discuss how people could set up a group to look into establishing an independent media project, I would like to offer one other newspaper idea.

Canada has at least 18 well-established weekly and bi-monthly entertainment newspapers in cities across the country. With daily newspapers performing so poorly, there could be an opening for some of these papers to develop larger news section or publish newsmagazine inserts.

Here's a list of the ones I know about:

• St. John's: The Scope
• Halifax: The Coast
• Montreal: Hour
• Montreal: Mirror (owned by media corporation Quebecor)
• Montreal: Voir Montreal (French language)
• Ottawa: (X)press
• Toronto: NOW
• Toronto: EYE WEEKLY (Owned by media corporation Torstar)
• Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph: Echo weekly
• London: SCENE
• Niagara region: PULSE NIAGARA
• Winnipeg: UPTOWN (owned by the same company that owns the Winnipeg Free Press.)
• Saskatoon: Planet S
• Edmonton: SEE magazine
• Edmonton: VUE weekly
• Calgary: fast forward weekly
• Vancouver: Georgia Straight
• Victoria: Monday magazine

This project might be accomplished in one of two ways. The newspaper owners could add special news sections on their own; or a number of people could come together as a group, develop a proposal for a news section, and negotiate a contract with the owners to have a supplement appear in the middle of a paper. A tabloid of, say, eight pages could carry a lot of news and information.

The good thing is that editorially these papers seem to be less susceptible to the corporate agenda followed by mainstream news media.

Research would have to be carried out to determine whether either of these ideas would be viable. But it seems to me that if a publisher increased the size of the paper's news section, even more people would now pick up the publication because of its double whammy -- news and entertainment.

Assuming that a community group is able to raise funds to back a semi-independent project, the community-owned supplement would probably be more financially viable than something added by the paper itself. The project would be operated on a non-profit basis, and organizers would be able to draw on a number of sources of income, such as memberships, subscription fees, donations from individuals, foundation grants and special fundraising events.

Carefully assess the need for a project

I have a number of ideas for anyone who would like to look into the possibility of setting up an independent media project. The first step would be to bring together 15 or 20 people who represent a cross-section of your community. At this meeting you could informally discuss whether there is a real need for a new media organization.

If a group decides to proceed, members could conduct a survey to determine, among other things, what people in the community feel they are not getting from the for-profit media, and what form of media -- print or Internet-based -- they would prefer. You also could try to find out to what extent they would be prepared to help support a new citizen-owned media outlet over a two-year, start-up period.

Any group -- left, right or politically centre -- could launch such a project. The enterprise could be owned or co-ordinated by a group of citizens, a university, a journalism school, an association of faith-based groups or any one of a number of independent community organizations.

A note of caution: once you do determine that there is a real need for a new media project, don't allow discussions and plans about editorial content to dominate the process. A lot of promising media projects have collapsed or failed to reach their potential because they were dominated by journalists who gave too much attention to content -- and not enough to business development.

The excitement of getting involved in a new media project

The corporate media have fired about 2,000 Canadian journalists over the past few months -- which means that a lot of highly skilled editors and reporters are out there looking for work. For some journalists there is nothing more exciting than getting involved in the launching of a new media project, particularly if it is a bit of an underdog. I speak from personal experience.

Over the years I have worked in every major area of media, but what I have enjoyed most, and found the most rewarding, was the opportunity to work my butt off for seven years, seven days a week most of the time, as publisher of a spunky weekly newspaper in Nova Scotia that regularly challenged the establishment.

Frankly, I think journalists who don't have a mortgage or a family to help support should consider kicking the "corporate media habit." Instead, they could get involved in creating journalism projects that can help improve people's lives and help change our communities. They would be much happier, and they would be making an important contribution to society.

The possibilities are endless -- and a group forming a new media project may not move ahead exactly as I am outlining here. But I will mention a few other necessary steps.

•  Early in the process, set up a non-profit corporation. This would mean that any surplus at the end of the year would go back into the project. Restricting the use of any surplus in this way also removes the temptation for group members to switch their priorities to focusing on making money.

•  The group should establish a structure best suited to its needs. I suggest a core development group of no more than 10 people, backed up by a larger group of general members who could be called on to perform various tasks, such as help conduct the survey. The core group should include, or have access to, people with a number of skills: project planning, research, financial management and budgeting, marketing and fundraising.

•  After a group has obtained funding (see next article in this series), you could consider hiring a person who could implement the decisions of the management team. You will want to avoid getting into a situation in which volunteers are unable to provide the time needed to keep a project moving.

The creation of even one new sustainable, independent newspaper project anywhere in the country would be a huge, unprecedented accomplishment. It could be the forerunner of other projects that would challenge the corporate media's control of our news and information.

The e-reader offers traditional media some hope

Companies in many parts of the world are spending millions of dollars perfecting the e-reader -- a device that allows people to download newspapers and books that can then be read on a portable tablet. Media corporations in the United States pray that the device will save their industry: a total of 142 daily and weekly U.S. newspapers closed during 2009 alone. More than 90,000 people in the print publishing industry in the United States lost their jobs.

When Amazon introduced its Kindle e-book reader last year, there wasn't much excitement in the newspaper industry because its screen was only the size of a mass-market paperback novel. But when Skiff unveiled its new e-reader earlier this month, there was tremendous reaction across the industry. Measured diagonally, the Skiff touch screen is a whopping 11.5 inches.

Skiff did not reveal its price for the e-reader, but it will probably cost several hundred dollars. Amazingly, 52 e-readers are coming on the market this year, and the products that survive will be affordable. The papers are so desperate that they may pay for the devices themselves. The New York Times said last year that it was losing so much money on subscriptions that it would be better off financially if it gave every customer a $252 Kindle to enable them to download the paper directly from the Internet.

The e-reader could bring significant changes to the newspaper business. Some U.S. papers are finding that readers are prepared to pay subscriber fees to get their newspaper via an e-reader instead of reading it online. If the e-reader becomes the next piece of technology that everyone must have, and if people are prepared to pay subscriber fees, this transformation could well be the final nail in the coffin of the old newspaper business model.

If the e-reader is successful in a big way, there will probably be much less free news and information from the traditional media on the Internet. If for-profit media end up operating to a much greater extent from the Internet in the future, the corporate media companies that continue to produce newspapers will become more reliant on subscriber fees and less reliant on advertising. This could mean that the news pages of traditional papers might become more balanced and not so corporate-dominated.

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Part VI:Independent media advocates must develop creative news sites

This is the sixth of a seven-part series that will address the need to develop independent media -- print, broadcast and Internet based -- in Canada.

Fully a dozen years after the Internet began growing and launching thousands of exciting projects around the globe, Canadians have managed to develop only one independent, high-quality regional news site, The Tyee, two long-established alternative political sites – rabble.ca, and Straight Goods – and the small participant-driven co-operative news site The Dominion, “news from the grassroots”. But surely we can do better.

Given that the quality, quantity, and originality of the news that we get from the traditional media is far below what it should be, and considering the mainstream media’s practice of filtering and censoring news – an infringement of our democratic freedoms – we surely do need to do better.

If we take a long, hard look at what now exists and do the necessary research, I believe we should be able to come up with two or three practical models that can be used to set up sustainable news and information production and delivery systems.

Big media companies and news on the Internet

Unfortunately, the same for-profit corporations that control the largest newspapers and television networks in Canada and the United States also dominate Internet news and information.

For instance, The Globe and Mail has one of the most-visited news sites in Canada, claiming it had 2.8-million unique visits in September, 2009.

A very rough average number of visitors for The Tyee (which is not a national site) and rabble.ca is about 150,000 unique visits per month, according to the two sites.

Clearly, the four or five independent and alternative sites are not reaching anywhere close to enough Canadians with the kinds of independent, non-corporate news that we need to get to be more broadly informed about important issues.

The current state of affairs

Certainly, David Beers (The Tyee), Judy Rebick (formerly with rabble.ca), and Ish Theilheimer (Straight Goods) have pumped a lot of time, money, and hard work into their news sites, and we are indebted to them for that. But why don’t more independent-minded Canadian journalists and media companies take up the challenge of setting up viable news sites?

Donna Logan, chair of the Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC) at the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism, agrees that Canada is “woefully behind” in the realm of innovative ideas for transforming the nature of our news media. In an e-mail Logan said that the CMRC’s research concerning various aspects of the media has shown that in Canada, although the situation may not be as dire as in the United States, “the same trends are in evidence – audiences and advertising shifting to the Internet, with the result that revenues to generate original news are drying up for traditional media. Instead of innovating, Canadian media companies are resorting to massive job cuts and out-sourcing.”

Instead of setting up traditional for-profit or non-profit sites, some Canadian journalists have taken up “citizen journalism,” which has grown like wildfire in recent years. Sites such as Orato Digital Journal have followings larger than any Canadian independent sites. But these upstart sites lack credibility because much of the reporting is carried out by “ordinary citizens,” not trained journalists.

Last weekend I looked at the website of NowPublic, “Crowd Powered Media,” www.nowpublic.com, which is apparently Canada’s most prominent citizen journalism site. The Jan. 23 opening-page headline screamed: “Girl, 12, killed after rape; bereaved family threatened.”

Under a photo of a little girl’s body lying face up on a couch, the lead paragraph read: “It is a harrowing tale of rape and murder of a minor girl just because of her religion. The victim was a Christian. The minority Christians face such cruelties as a matter of routine in the world’s second largest Muslim country, Pakistan.” The story was credited to the Pakistan Christian Post.

Trustworthy journalism? Not exactly. Nevertheless, a few months ago a huge, new U.S. citizen’s journalism network, Examiner.com, purchased NowPublic for a reported $25 million. In addition to owning NowPublic in Vancouver, Examiner.com has added local sites in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Calgary.

The conditions are right

Public interest groups, journalists, and Internet advocates should be encouraged by current conditions on the Canadian scene. For example:

• The public has clearly expressed dissatisfaction with the decline in the quality of the traditional media in the country, with a rising resentment of the increased news filtering and censorship of recent years.
•  More than 2,000 Canadian journalists, many of them highly skilled, have lost their jobs during the past two years; it stands to reason that at least some of these professionals should be interested in getting involved in a new, creative project.
• The country has hundreds of highly skilled Internet website developers who would relish the chance to launch a news site.
• A cohesive, well-targeted project could be funded from a variety of sources. (I will address this crucial issue next week, in the final article of the series.) The Tyee, which pays its staff, is close to being financially sustainable in British Columbia, and at least ten high-quality, non-profit news sites with fully paid staff are now operating in the United States.

News and Credibility

Anyone who establishes a new project will first have to determine the kinds of information that people want – and make sure they are supplying content that is not readily available elsewhere.

Open-mindedness is a key in this endeavour. New technologies with amazing capacities are being developed all the time. What works for one community might be different from what works in another.

New sites will need to deal with two issues that have damaged the credibility of some Internet news sites. First, some sites are criticized for not enforcing the same editorial standards that have been practised by mainstream media for decades. Once some viewers have seen two or three standards violations, they won’t return to a site again.

If Internet news sites are to provide a unique service for the public, they need to find ways of paying skilled, experienced journalists. One of the problems with Internet-based media is that they typically fail to produce original news. A research study carried out in the Baltimore area in July 2009 (and released last week) traced the origins of six major story lines in the city. The study found: “Of the stories that did contain new information, nearly all, 95 percent, came from old media – most of them newspapers.”

The study concluded that most of what digital news outlets offered was repetition and commentary, not new information. While the percentage of stories in Canada coming from old media might not be as high as 95 per cent, the same trend is apparent here.

Still, Canada does have at least two creative – and self-sustaining – sites that meet high editorial standards and that produce original journalism: The Tyee and AllNovaScotia.com.

The Tyee – by far Canada’s most successful and professional independent Internet news operation – has built a strong, loyal audience across much of British Columbia. According to Tyee publisher David Beers, the business model was “evolved on our own, taking cues but not exactly simulating other models, including AlterNet.org, Salon.com, and lessons learned when I worked as an editor at Mother Jones magazine.“

The Tyee, which has a budget much larger then any of the other independent sites, receives financial support from a wide range of sources, and has base funding guaranteed for the next several years. “I am proud that we make a priority of journalistic excellence with impact,” Beers told me in an e-mail. “Our readers have recognized that and rewarded us with their growing traffic and about $85,000 in contributions.”

AllNovaScotia.com is a for-profit, mainly business news service launched in Halifax by David Bentley, whose newspaper became the now-defunct Halifax Daily News, and who started the first Frank Magazine, a cutting satirical magazine.

Kelly Toughill, a professor of journalism at the University of King’s College, believes that AllNovaScotia.com may be unique in North America. “It is the only local news site that was launched behind a paywall [access is only available through a subscription] and has remained entirely behind a paywall,” she writes in an e-mail. “It is also unique because it has been profitable since its very first year.”

Toughill points out a couple of other unique facets of the AllNovaScotia.com business model. “You can’t copy and paste because it is produced in Flash, so not a word of it has ever been given away for free. Secondly, it is online, but is not multimedia. It is a text service. All resources are put into reporting talent, not production.”

“The business model of AllNovaScotia.com “flies in the face of everything we have been told about the future of news,” Toughill says. “Its comparative advantage is its ability to create unique content valued by a very well defined group of readers: business people, politicians, lawyers and the local power elite. (It only recently started accepting advertising.) People pay because they get valuable information that is not available elsewhere. They also operate in a weak media scene with little local competition.”

AllNovaScotia.com has about 4,000 paid subscribers. With a monthly fee of $30, the site is generating in the area of $1,440,000 a year.

Time for a merger?

Because Canada’s progressive community is largely denied access to mainstream media, it is unable to reach millions of people with information and opinion that would allow the public to better understand alternative policies and ideas. As a result, I feel that it is extremely important that the progressive/left community has access to at least one strong, credible, well-funded Internet news websites that would be capable of reaching hundreds of thousands of Canadians.

To better meet the left’s needs, I believe that Canada’s two alternative sites – rabble.ca and StraightGoods – should come together to form one strong alternative Internet website. But, before I explain my reasoning, I want to disclose that, more than a year ago, I had separate discussions with both rabble.ca and StraightGoods concerning the possibility of volunteering with either of them. In the end, I instead decided in favour of continuing with other activities. During discussions with both rabble.ca and StraightGoods, I learned much about their operations. Because of this, both organizations felt that the information and opinions expressed in this article are based on what I had learned from them. They refused to publish anything I wrote for this piece concerning their organizations. While it is difficult for me to separate what I learned from them and what I learned from talking to other people and from my own observations, I do not believe I have used any information that I gained in confidence.

I have long been of the opinion that, while rabble.ca and StraightGoods are important sites run by highly-dedicated people, neither one is coming close to providing the dynamic, wide-reaching site the progressive community needs. The facts cry out for a melding of the two sites in some form or other: Both sites are similar in a number of ways: They have the same goals and objectives; they focus on the same political and social issues; have the same kinds of columnists; and appeal to roughly the same audience.

But the two also have similar problems: Neither of them reaches a large audience, and both lack the resources to pay contributors adequately. Both of them are lacking in promotional resources. Both have small staffs that are overworked and underpaid, and the enterprises often seem to be struggling financially.

On the other hand each organization has unique strengths that would be highly valuable in some sort of a cooperative venture: Rabble.ca has a more professional, attractive site, highly-skilled technical people, a particularly active discussion section, and other features. StraightGoods has highly capable editors, several unique contributors, and good connections within the traditional labour movement.

I think it is time for the two sites to hold discussions and, hopefully, come together and form one, much stronger site. A combined site would be able to reach many more people and have a much greater impact in promoting progressive change. Most importantly, they could have a united fundraising campaign, which could result in a fairly large increase in income. No doubt pride and site loyalties are important to both rabble.ca and StraightGoods, but any issues of this nature should be overcome so that the public can have access to one stronger, better funded site that will have increased resources to put forward the views of Canada’s politically progressive community. In my opinion, the needs of the progressive community outweigh other interests. Both sites have been in operation for close to a decade, and it is should be obvious by now that there is not enough support to maintain two healthy sites.

I would like to ask rabble.ca and StraightGoods to please recognize that what I have written is not intended to harm them but, instead, to illustrate how we could have one much more powerful site. It would be an important and quite remarkable achievement if the staff and supporters of both organizations could work together to form some sort of a co-operative venture or a new, combined site.

New U.S. news websites

Canadians interested in studying Internet news site business models could learn a lot from what is happening in the United States. With the collapse of mainstream media across the United States, many liberal-minded donors have leapt into the void and donated millions of dollars toward the creation of at least a dozen major Internet news and information sites.

The most successful non-profit venture, the Center for Independent Media in Washington, D.C., is headed by David Bennahum, a former Wired Magazine writer, who has raised more than U.S.$11 million for public interest Internet media projects since 2006. The Center has established independent, non-profit Internet news sites on a state-by-state basis in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Mexico, as well as in Washington, D.C. More sites are in the works. Other groups have launched similar projects in other parts of the country.

“These ventures are a new feature of American journalism worth watching,” says the 2009 “State of the News Media Report” from the Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism. “For now, our sense is that they represent something complementary to the traditional news media, much in the way that an alternative weekly and city magazine complement, enrich and broaden the journalism in a given city. Yet something new is going on here that could grow beyond that.”

How about a news and information digest?

Meanwhile, an Internet neophyte such as myself can find interesting or pertinent items on a huge number of small or relatively obscure websites, blogs, and elsewhere. But I find it next to impossible to cope with this massive volume of information, even when I feel such a great need for it. I am sure that there are thousands of other people who feel like I do in this regard. Moreover, we would rather not have to surf through site after site to find all of the information we need.

True, search engines, such as Google, retrieve specific kinds of information for people who request it, but what I would most like to see is a news and information website that displays primarily original news, along with some opinion pieces, from the lesser known websites and blogs. The information would be served up on one site, as a kind of online digest – the Internet equivalent of what the printed Utne Reader does for magazines. This kind of site could attract a fairly good audience.

Where can we go from here?

Readers may be interested to hear of two conferences that are taking shape for this spring – meetings that could advance the development of independent media in Canada.

UBC’s Canadian Media Research Consortium (CMRC) is planning to hold a conference in Central Canada in late spring. During the meetings it will release the findings of research being undertaken by the Consortium. Panel discussions will focus on new Internet media models emerging in Canada, the United States, and Europe. As part of this effort, the CMRC is undertaking a survey on Internet use in Canada and looking at public attitudes toward various new models of operation, including micro-payments, government support, and grassroots journalism, among others.

A second conference, “Making Media Public,” will be jointly sponsored by the journalism and communications programs at York and Ryerson Universities, on May 6 - 8 in Toronto. More than a hundred media advocates from across the country will discuss ways of reorganizing media production. As the conference literature puts it, “In this volatile [media] climate, the need to develop new media models and policies is urgent.”

I would hope that the two organizing groups for these separate conferences will co-ordinate their efforts not just to avoid duplication of effort but also to forge a clear way forward toward the setting up of additional independent sites and creative media projects in the country. * * *

Unless readers raise new issues that I might want to discuss, next week will mark the final and seventh part of this series. This final article will explore possible ways of funding new media projects.

Quick note: I am having ongoing discussions with two groups concerning their interest in setting up a “mini-paper,” the newspaper concept discussed in part five of the series.

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Part VII:Funding for Non-profit Media or Public Interest Activities

This is the last in a seven-part series that will address the need to develop independent media -- print, broadcast and Internet based -- in Canada.

Today – with the mainstream media failing to adequately serve the public in many parts of the country, and with multitudes of people fed up with how corporate media manipulate the news – is an opportune time for independent media projects to be established or refocused. The question is, as always: how to get financial backing for the work?

During the dozen years that I was deeply involved in fundraising, I found that money could be raised for most projects as long as they provided a unique service and met an important public need. The most successful project I have been closely associated with is the International Freedom of Expression eXchange (IFEX) (www.ifex.org), a worldwide network of free expression groups. A group of us from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) launched IFEX in 1992, and it is still going strong.

IFEX appeals to major donors from Western countries for a couple of reasons. It is the only network helping to co-ordinate efforts to protect the rights of journalists, and it is able to demonstrate that its activities bring results. Its staff members, recognizing that they had a valuable project, were able to approach donors confidently.

A group that launches, or even refocuses, an independent news media project – or raises money for just about any public-interest activity – will probably have success in fundraising if it does the proper research and targets a unique audience. It will need to demonstrate that it offers an important public service, such as providing in-depth coverage of local political, economic, and social issues not covered adequately by other media.

If a new group, or a media organization redeveloping an already existing service, follows those two guidelines, and if it is well connected to a reasonably prosperous community, it should be able to make a strong appeal to a wide range of funding sources.

Proper planning vital to success

Most necessarily, before launching a media project a group has to prepare a well-thought-out development plan. All too frequently a potentially worthwhile media project is launched by a small group of enthusiastic journalists who know lots about journalism, but not nearly enough about management and budgets.

A group would to be wise to not launch a project until the members are reasonably sure that they know where all of their funding will come from for the first two years of operation. With this funding base firmly established – and publicized in the community – others interested people will have confidence in the project and be inclined to make a donation or take out a subscription or agree to pay a user fee.

My advice is that independent media projects should be set up as non-profit corporations, and that they should generally follow the patterns and culture of running a non-governmental organization.

The kinds of projects that I discussed in Part 5 of this series all require different levels of funding. To ensure that the website or newspaper has as much editorial independence as possible, I would strongly urge that advertising revenue be kept to a limit of about 35 per cent of the overall project budget. Then, given this limited ad revenue, the group has to let the community know that it needs to gather other revenues from a wide variety of sources.

I’ll outline a few of these varied funding possibilities.

Support from “Guardian Angels”

A group would be wise to secure substantial start-up funding from one or more public-minded individuals. Perhaps people who have made a lot of money in Internet technology or entertainment would be interested in supporting a new media venture. It is unlikely that the federal government will grant charitable tax status to a website or newspaper that carries political or opinionated articles, but the feds might allow the project to receive funds by having the Guardian Angels’ donations pass through a group that does have charitable status, provided the funds are used for educational purposes that promote the public good.

Founding or sustaining memberships

Supporters of the project could pay annual membership fees. For instance, at a fee of $75, a total of 1,000 members would bring in $75,000 a year. The media group could sell memberships by introducing a number of incentives, such as listing the names of founding members on the website or in the paper, or making supporters eligible for a number of benefits, such as discounts at a bookstore.

Subscriber fees

If the project is a small newspaper, non-members could pay subscriber fees that would be less than membership fees. Very few Internet news sites are able to charge subscriber or user fees because information on most competing sites is free. Nevertheless, groups should explore different ways of possibly establishing a user-fee system, even if it is voluntary.

Advertising sales

Even if, as I’ve suggested, the group limits advertising to 35 per cent of the total revenue as a means of ensuring editorial independence, advertising will still be an important source of revenue. For a web-based news project, it would be wise to do some research early on as to how much advertising might be attracted; and keep in mind that you might decide that you do not want to carry certain kinds of advertising.

Foundation grants

Few Canadian foundations tend to provide support for media projects, but the establishment of an independent media outlet that serves the public good might strike a chord with a few of them. Grants also might come from U.S. foundations, which have a strong tradition of supporting media and could support projects in Canada.

Borrow a charitable tax number

Although a media outlet that comments on political issues will most likely not be able to obtain a charitable tax number, if the project publishes articles that are deemed to be of educational value it might be able to borrow the tax number of another organization and use that means to give donors tax receipts.

Internet fundraising

For an organization that learns how to utilize it effectively, the Internet has a huge potential for fundraising. The simplest method of using the Internet for fundraising involves sending email appeals to potential supporters. Another way is to occasionally display the progress of a fundraising campaign on your home page, a practice followed by Idealist, a U.S.-based interactive site where people and organizations can exchange resources and ideas to help promote their groups.

But there are several other much more sophisticated fundraising techniques that can be made to suit the need of the particular media organization. Artez Interactive is one of a number of companies that works with non-profit groups to design and help carry out online fundraising programs. Anyone registering on their site can see the video “An Executive’s Guide to Online Fundraising.”

Enterprise journalism fund

A special fund that pays for investigative and analytical journalism can be appealing to donors. Sources of funding might include foundations, church organizations, service clubs, unions, and individuals. It would be best to have donations put into a general fund so that donors do not end up having a conflict of interest, such as a labour organization paying for an investigation of labour laws.

Community events fundraising

Volunteers could carry out a number of activities to raise modest amounts of money. They might, to give a few examples, organize evening panel discussions on vital local issues, sponsor breakfasts with guest authors as speakers, hold fundraising dinners that honour local citizens who have made important contributions to their communities, and hold silent auctions or benefit concerts featuring popular musicians.

Labour venture funds

Another way to go would involve tapping into a Labour-Sponsored Venture Capital Fund (LSVC), which provides capital to small and medium-sized businesses while providing generous tax breaks to their investors. As international broker Morningstar says on its website: “In addition to providing financing, venture-capital firms often try to improve the chances of survival of the businesses they are investing in by helping the management. They may team up with the entrepreneurs to provide support and guidance in strategy, planning and day-to-day management issues. This is a crucial element in the process of transforming a more speculative idea or early-stage business into a profitable venture.”

Independent media deserves public support

I have explained in this series why I strongly object to giant corporations controlling nearly every aspect of the media in Canada. They filter and censor the news so that it reflects the interests and views of the corporate community. CBC news, which is funded in part by advertising, nevertheless reports the news in much the same way as does the corporate media.

All countries, and not just Canada, need to reduce the corporate community’s control over media by establishing public support programs that are available to both independent and corporate media. Programs could be established at all three government levels – federal, provincial and municipal.

Some people will balk at the idea of providing government funds to pay for part of the cost of operating media organizations. But the fear that government money is somehow corrupting the recipients or will cause them to roll over and play dead for government is corporate-induced fear-mongering. This critical tendency is much stronger in Canada and the United States than it is in many European countries, where there are many programs of support for the media. For me, if clear rules are established, if grants are open to all comers, and if a media organization receives a maximum of perhaps 20 per cent of its funding from various government programs, that form of funding is much less threatening to society than having news media controlled by giant corporations.

In Sweden, media subsidies are among the most liberal and the most effective in Europe. Karl Erik Gustafsson, a professor of media economics in Sweden, told the Columbia Journalism Review: “The subsidies are distributed by The Press Subsidies Council, an administrative governmental body, and are based on circulation and revenue data. The rules are automatic. They are in no way subjective. It’s an open system and every newspaper knows exactly what the subsidy will be this year and the coming year.” Since these subsidies have been in place, there has been a substantial reduction in newspaper closures, and Sweden has avoided the inevitable effect of the free market on the daily press: the one-newspaper town. 

Here are some of the ways in which governments could support the improvement of media in Canada.

Charitable donations from individuals

Updating the federal charitable tax laws to meet the real needs of the twenty-first century could be a first very helpful step to help improve journalism in Canada. When the forebears of our current charitable laws were created more than 300 years ago in England, churches were given special tax privileges – a status that still exists in Canada and one that many people would probably question. While a number of periodicals have a charitable tax status that allows them to provide cultural information, they are not permitted to take positions on politics – an outdated concept for sure. The rules need to be updated so that independent media organizations can cover politics – a fundamental discussion in any democratic society – and give contributors a tax receipt.

Various forms of support through the tax system

A number of European governments provide substantial funding and tax breaks to a wide variety of media organizations. The result is that, compared to Canada or the United States, the corporate media are healthier across the Continent. In Scandinavia and a few Central European countries, according to the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR), some newspapers receive lump sums from the government. Other press subsidies in Europe include corporate tax exemptions, grants for start-up ventures or technological innovations, state loans, grants for journalism research and training, and regulations requiring that government advertising appear in multiple publications. (In France, individual journalists enjoy a substantial income-tax deduction.)

Tax on advertising

Several European countries also raise funds to provide media subsidies by placing a tax on advertising. The same kind of tax could be introduced in Canada. Most people are unaware that the billions of dollars in advertising from which both the media and the advertising companies benefit are tax-deductible for advertisers as a business expense. Statistics Canada’s latest figures for newspaper revenues show that in 2005 the total newspaper advertising revenues in the country came to $3.5 billion. See  This means that Canadian taxpayers indirectly help finance the mass media and its corporate agenda. If the federal government levied a 1 per cent tax on advertising, it would raise perhaps $2 million that could be distributed to both independent and corporate media.

Special program in France for teens Canada could establish a youth media program like the one operating in France. The French government puts tens of millions of dollars into media support every year, but it has the same problem that Canada has with young people not reading newspapers. Nevertheless it has taken action to try to lessen the problem: it gives every 18-year-old a one-year subscription to a newspaper of his or her choice.

Expand the CRTC’s small market fund

The federal government, through the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), has set up a fund to support the production of local TV local programming in small markets hit hard by the recession. The fund, which initially will be supported with a 1.5 per cent levy on the revenues of cable and satellite companies, is available to all TV broadcasters in markets with a population of less than one million.

This fund could be expanded to include larger centres and pay for some of the cost of producing better quality local programming, including news and current affairs programming.

U.S. media critics advocate government support for independent media

For-profit media in the United States is in poor shape, especially given the closure of more than a dozen major newspapers. Two leading media critics, John Nichols and Bob McChesney, see this as a wonderful opportunity for government funds to be used to develop independent media outlets around the country. For more on this, see their February 2010 panel discussion provided by The Nation magazine.

The Canadian mass media have lost only one newspaper and two TV stations, but their ability to produce quality news has been seriously damaged. However, I can find no evidence that Canadian media critics are speaking out in favour of government funding for the media. Certainly the Canadian media establishment, which already benefits from Canada’s corporate-friendly tax system, has made it clear that it does not want government funding for editorial-related activities.

For its part, the Conservative government did initiate the program that assists small-city television stations that face financial problems. But it is unlikely that the Harper government would support the development of independent, non-corporate media. After all, Harper has a quite cozy relationship with most of the corporate media companies, and he realizes all too well that independent media would not be as kind to his administration’s proclivities as are the corporate media.

Even though politicians know that our news media are in a terrible mess and are not providing the information we need to move the country forward, government funding for media is not on the agenda of any of the federal parties at present. Groups and individuals need to provide all of the federal parties with ideas on how the news media could be improved through various funding programs – and then lobby the parties individually to have them put media on their agenda. If Canadians want their governments to support media ventures they will surely have to work long and hard to reach that important goal.

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This is the last in my series of seven articles. I appreciate all of the many (almost all positive) emails I have received from readers. I am particularly pleased that many people have told me that the series gave them new insight into the operation of corporate media. I will continue to write on media issues and other topics, so you will be hearing from me in the future.

I would like to express my thanks to series editor Robert Clarke for his excellent work, patience and kind support.

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