The Last Front Page

VOL 11, ISSUE 1 Spring 2017 The Last Front Page The future of journalism and democracy in the post-print world The last front page 2C Journal is primarily growing impressively in recent years, and of money that pays for much of the Can online magazine, we were on track for another big increase investigative reporting we all rely on to although we always print in readers for 2016 – until we published know what’s going on. Populist politicians a few copies of each the 8,000-word transcript of Jason Tucker are adding insult to injury by making quarterly edition for and Jason Vandenbeukel’s interview with journalistic bias their whipping boy. Left marketing and archiving Jordan Peterson, the University of Toronto wing governments are marshalling for purposes. This has been our modus operandi psychology professor and a prominent intervention. The implications for civil ever since the magazine was founded in voice in the global pushback against the society, and democracy, are ominous and 2007. In 2015, after the Journal became part progressive extremists’ war on reason and uncertain. of the Manning Centre, we began printing freedom of expression. In spite of all this, the preponderance a thousand copies of the spring edition for In a single week, that feature alone of our stories are hopeful and optimistic distribution at the annual Manning Centre attracted almost as many page views as the that journalism will survive this wrenching Conference in Ottawa. rest of the year. It ignited reader interest transition, and based on our recent The Spring 2017 quarterly edition is like nothing we’ve ever published before, successes and the changes we’re making at titled The Last Front Page for two reasons. fueled by reposts and comments on social C2C Journal, there is every reason to believe First, it proclaims the main theme of the media, even attracting reprint requests that this publication, at least, will flourish. edition, which is about the social and from online journals in Holland and political impacts arising from the collapse Portugal. Vandenbeukel’s accompanying To ensure that will happen, two things of print journalism as audiences and story about Peterson also did very well, as need to happen. First, we need a steady advertisers flock to online news. Second, did Peter Shawn Taylor’s ground-breaking stream of lively, interesting, ground- it announces that this will be the last analysis of the regional cost of carbon breaking content from established and quarterly edition of C2C Journal. taxes in Canada (“The Coming National emerging writers across Canada. One silver Now, before our friends start mourning Carbon Tax Gap”), which we published in lining in the ruin of print journalism is and our critics start celebrating, let me November. Not only was it one of our best- that a wealth of talent is now out of work hasten to add that this does not mean the read pieces of the year, it also became part and available to publications like ours. We end of the Journal. On the contrary, it marks of the policy debate at the subsequent invite you to pitch us on anything, anytime, a new beginning, and part of our own First Ministers’ Climate Summit. by emailing [email protected]. response to the irreversible transition of The lesson we took from these Second, like everyone else in online journalism from print to digital. successes was that C2C Journal has a journalism, we’re trying to figure out a Henceforth, instead of the quarterly great future in online journalism if we sustainable business model, and in the themed editions, we will publish news are nimble enough to spot stories that mean time we need the voluntary financial stories, essays, commentaries, investigative excite reader interest, and provide them support of readers who enjoy and learn articles and reviews on a more regular basis, with fresh information and insight about from our work, and who understand how aiming for an overall increase in content, those stories. That means letting go of the important journalism is to the health of our diversity of topics and perspectives, and themed quarterly editions, and making our democracy. You can make a donation by timeliness. This is basically what we content as timely and topical as possible. visiting www.c2cjournal.ca/donate. currently do between quarterly editions, The stories in the Spring 2017 edition As Alexandra Pope concludes in her expanded to year round. As we transition certainly fit the bill. The carnage in print excellent essay about fake news in this to a more purely digital product, we plan to and the explosion of online journalism, edition of C2C: “You get what you pay for, as experiment with other mediums to explore disseminated through social media and the axiom goes, and if we keep expecting and express “Ideas That Lead”. accompanied by robot editors, fake news, journalists to produce good journalism on We’ve been considering this for over and mega-data harvesting, is having demand, for free, eventually all we will be a year, but the decision was clinched by profound cultural, political and economic left with is the spectre of our own worst the tremendous online response to our impacts. fears.” penultimate quarterly edition, the Winter Nowhere is the impact more painful, 2016 magazine titled The New Campus and distressing, than in journalism itself. Rebels. C2C’s online audience has been The death of print is draining the industry Paul Bunner is the editor of C2C Journal. C2C Journal’s editorial advisory board: Media Inquiries Ian Brodie, Peter McCaffrey, Andrea Mrozek and Kathleen Paul Bunner Email: [email protected] Welsch © Copyright 2017. Canadian Journal of Ideas Inc. All Rights Reserved. For permission to reproduce an article, please contact the editors. The views expressed in C2C C2C, the editors, or the advisory board members. Canadian Journal of Ideas Inc. do not necessarily reflect those of Website: www.c2cjournal.ca Editor: Paul Bunner Associate Editor: Kathleen Welsch Email: [email protected] Designer: Dean Smith 2 Volume 11, Issue 1 Contents _ Spring 2017 Yesterday’s news ................................. 4 them. It’s hammering national newspapers and broadcast networks too, but there is something more immediate by Paul Stanway and ominous about the eclipse of local news. Jeff Hodgson Paul Stanway’s long career in journalism wonders what happens to community without it, and looks for has been almost entirely in the newspaper ways to bring it back. business. He was there in 1980, when the first Trudeau government sought to rescue the industry from “concentration The real truth about fake news ..... 17 of ownership,” even though it was actually the start of a golden age of competition, innovation and money-making in by Alexandra Pope the print media. With newspapers now in irreversible decline This article does not contain the real due to the proliferation of online media, the second Trudeau story about what happened on 9/11 or government has launched a new rescue mission for Canadian Barack Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate or journalism. It will be no more successful than the first, Stanway writes, and journalism will survive the transition from paper to proof that the Democrats operated a child digital because of the innate human desire for knowledge and sex ring in a Washington pizza joint. Instead it is Alexandra understanding, not government intervention. Pope’s rueful exploration of the fake news phenomenon and its explosive growth on social media. There’s a lie and a sucker who believes it born every millisecond on the Internet, and it’s All the news that’s fit to post ............ 8 getting harder and harder to separate fact from fiction. But by John Robson Pope says there’s one sure way to get real news on the web – Even as the thud that announces the arrival pay for it. of the morning newspaper on his doorstep grows ever fainter, John Robson’s coffee cup is more than half full. Good riddance The revolution will be digitized ....21 to the boring liberal pablum that has dominated Canadian print by Ryan Rados media for over a century, he writes. The Internet, for all its faults, All the fearmongering in the mainstream heralds the imminent return of healthy journalistic anarchy, with salutary implications for democracy, as editorial creators and media about Brexit, Donald Trump, fake distributors re-learn that content is king and advertising is a news, Islamophobia, climate change, and secondary to commercial success. the imminent end of civilization isn’t really about any of those things. It’s actually the death rattle of the MSM. The digitization of the news media is breaking up the corporate The Canadian Internet News and ideological cartels that have dominated journalism for Corporation .......................................11 decades, writes Ryan Rados. They are about to be supplanted by by Dale Eisler hordes of citizen journalists who will diversify and democratize If you believe that democracy needs the news via the Internet. None of them will get rich but really, journalism like humans need oxygen, who should you trust to tell you the truth, a million-dollar-a-year then you should at least consider the network news anchor or a gumshoe reporter earning fractions of argument that Canada needs more CBC. Until the private sector a cent per click? figures out how to make news profitable again, writes Dale Eisler, Mothercorp is our best bet for ensuring that Canadian journalism survives the transition from print and cable to the Can democracy survive Twitter? ....25 internet. Already the country’s largest news-gathering operation, by Patrick Keeney it should quit sports and entertainment, go all news all the time, be resolutely fair and objective, and erect an impenetrable Patrick Keeney is as smartphone-enslaved firewall between itself and the State.

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