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Could I go to prison for writing this column? Under Bill C-63, I just might
I hate politicians who try to tell me what I can and cannot say. I hate governments that threaten to lock me up for something I haven’t even said yet but might just be thinking of saying. There, is that enough hate for you? Could it be enough to run me afoul of Ottawa’s latest scheme to regulate the Internet and get me arrested under Bill C-63, the Online Harms Act?
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Working with spies makes you a propagandist, not a journalist
While it’s strange that anyone claiming to be a journalist would boast about working with the intelligence agency of a foreign state, National Post columnist Adam Zivo is certainly not the first international correspondent to have flouted journalism ethics by directly engaging in counterintelligence operations while on the job.
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Conservatives find that proposing media reform is a dangerous minefield
Suffice it to say that the Liberals have thoroughly messed up Canada’s media, which leaves them wide open to attack by the Conservatives on this front. All the Opposition needs do to score some major gains is not screw up too badly. Unfortunately for them, argues CD media columnist Marc Edge, they seem to be botching the job already.
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Uproar over CBC bonuses ignores industry realities, international comparisons
Context is something journalists are supposed to provide in reporting on matters of national importance, but it has been sadly lacking so far in coverage of the bonuses paid to CBC employees. The $18.4 million in bonuses, which included an average of $73,000 paid to Mother Corp. executives last year, actually pales in comparison to the amounts paid to media executives in the private sector.
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What doesn’t qualify as journalism in Canada seems a bit arbitrary
Some media companies have been denied status by Ottawa as a so-called Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization, eligible to claim payroll tax credits from Ottawa’s $595 million news media bailout. They will also thus likely be unable to receive payments from Google’s promised $100 million annual contribution to Canadian media under the Online News Act.
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Saltwire takeover would give Postmedia a coast-to-coast monopoly
Here’s how bad things have gotten in Canada’s troubled newspaper industry: one bankrupt chain is now being taken over by a chain that is effectively bankrupt. Believe it or not, there is a high-finance method to this madness, but as CD media columnist Marc Edge explains, it takes a vulture capitalist mindset to wrap your brain around it.
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Old journalists need to get over their resistance to press subsidies
Old journalists need to get over their resistance to press subsidies, writes CD media columnist Marc Edge. The real threat to press freedom is not subsidies, but in how they are provided. Canada, and especially its most hide-bound old journalists, could learn a lot from other countries about how to foster a healthy news ecosystem through smart media subsidies.
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Canada runs on subsidies. Why shouldn’t news media get them?
Journalism purists argue that any government funding would taint news media, but the crisis has grown to such an extent that subsidies are now considered by most to be by far the lesser of two evils. Some countries have found ways of subsidizing news media that leave little question about their independence from government.
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You saved Julian Assange
The corporate state must be destroyed if we are to restore our open society and save our planet. Its security apparatus must be dismantled. The mandarins who manage corporate totalitarianism, including the leaders of the two major political parties, fatuous academics, pundits and a bankrupt media, must be driven from the temples of power.
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Independent media group chosen by Google to distribute news funding
With Google’s latest financial contribution, Canada’s emerging online news media have some hope for a change. As Marc Edge explains, with the money being doled out by the Canadian Journalism Collective instead of Big Media, there is a better chance for them to compete for it on a level playing field. The twist is just the latest in the long-running soap opera that has been the Online News Act