Die Media Die

I have stated in this space before that I believe it is time to rethink the idea of freedom of the press and it looks like they are in the process of eliminating themselves from the national landscape. The latest example is the layoffs reported by the National Post a couple of weeks ago. For a news organization that was bare bones before the layoffs we can now say they are cutting the bone now. They are not alone. Everywhere we look the media in this country is showing signs of distress and the only thing that is keeping them afloat is support from the government, the same government they have been assiduously trying to overthrow for almost a decade.

Of course the reason for their distress is simple. I have stated before that the media in this country cannot turn their backs on around 70% of their audience and readers and expect to be successful. But then again that is to be expected when you consider that all of our news media, with the exception of the CBC, is owned in part or in whole by American business interests. These business interests are pursuing the same business strategy as they are pursuing in the US, namely appealing to conservatives and nut jobs where it works somewhat because there are sufficient numbers of them to make such a strategy viable. These companies are trying to pursue the same strategy in Canada even though our political culture will not sustain such a strategy. They are doing this for ideological reasons instead of business reasons, hoping to make Canada more "conservative" but they are not succeeding and they are running their companies into the ground in the process. 

The Liberal government could accelerate this process by stopping all support to these companies. If faced with tons of red ink in their ledgers these American businesses will abandon the Canadian market pretty quick. Sure they may hate Liberals but they hate losing money even more.

Some would argue that such action would leave Canada without a news media. No, it would leave us with a changed news media. There is always demand for news. We need to be informed. If the current group of media organizations cannot make a go of it something will rise up to take their place. In fact, the competition for the Canadian media space would be so fierce that the replacement media companies would have to be innovative and develop business models that are completely different from the current legacy media, which still has not really adjusted to the current news environment, trying to maintain a centuries old model instead of really embracing the opportunities presented by the internet.

So, I wish the legacy media would just hurry up and die already and/or the government should facilitate that by eliminating support and subsidies for them. The sooner that happens the better off all of us will be.