Canadian Media Reports Ignore Community Voices
Ottawa and Gatineau, March 13, 2017–'Information is as vital to democracy as pure air, safe roads, good schools and public health' says The Shattered Mirror, one of two recently published reports in part or wholly commissioned by Heritage Canada. The other is Canadian Content in the Digital World by Ipsos Reid. It is surprising and disappointing to find but a passing mention in both of community media and their long-understood contribution to democratic expression and civic journalism.
The Shattered Mirror states that civic journalism is 'marching rapidly to the precipice' yet the alternative offered by our members goes unmentioned. For 50 years, community media have ensured a participative and democratic media landscape, and local information that has all but disappeared from the big media groups. Community media are the 'farm teams' that drive our creative industries, and guarantee a platform for the voices of thousands of ordinary Canadians.
The members of the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) and the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec (la Fédération), along with the National Community Radio Association, the Association des radios communautaires du Québec and the Association des radios communautaires du Canada include almost 200 CRTC-licensed entities, in addition to 50 incorporated but unlicensed production groups that contribute what little civic journalism remains on cable community stations (such as Rogers TV, Shaw TV, and TVCogeco).
Community media, as stated in the Broadcasting Act, constitute one of three pillars of our system. Canada is widely credited with having invented the institution. As a nation, we figured out 50 years ago that our geography is too vast and our population too dispersed to serve everyone with public and private news bureaux. There are community TV stations in Valemount, British Columbia (population 1400) and in Wikwemikong First Nation in Ontario, and a newly launched community radio station in Baie Verte, Newfoundland. It's a lesson we seem to have forgotten. Canada has always had a small and fragile media economy. Community media continue to be our secret weapon.
Unlike online-only platforms that are the subject of 'fake news' concerns captured in the two reports, community broadcasters are licensed, and directed by trained journalists who catalyze, guide and curate content in communities that would otherwise have no voice. And we do this for 1/10th the cost of the public and private sectors, while fulfilling civic engagement and creative incubation roles for our media industries to boot. CACTUS' Executive Director Catherine Edwards summarized, "Community media are efficient, credible, and sustainable. Bandaids to prop up legacy models (like the CRTC's decision last summer to redirect most of our national budget for community media to private news) are counter-productive... The CRTC tried to prop up one sector by undermining another that was much more efficient." Fédération Directrice Amélie Hinse concurred, "Reinforcing community media—rather than destroying them — would fulfill several of the objectives identified in these reports."