Canada private media bailout is coming

The headline should read Industry Insider Seeks Payola from Government.

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According to PPF president Edward Greenspon, the move would free up $300-million to $400-million that could be “dedicated” to a new Journalism & Democracy Fund, which would be managed independently from the government. The fund would reinvest the money in “digital innovation” and seek to foster “civic-function journalism,” especially local news, investigative journalism and indigenous news operations, the report said.

Quote:

Edward Greenspon (born March 26, 1957) is a Canadian journalist who joined Bloomberg News in January 2014 as Editor-at-Large for Canada after four years as vice president of strategic investments for Star Media Group, a division of Torstar Corp. and publisher of the Toronto Star. Before that, he was the Editor-in-Chief of The Globe and Mail newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada for seven years. In 2002, he assumed the position at a turning point in the paper's history, and, during his tenure, he instituted several sectional revamps, launched new web sites and maintained circulation levels. On May 25, 2009, he was replaced by John Stackhouse.[1]

Greenspon is a former managing editor of the Globe's Report on Business Section and was the Globe's Ottawa bureau chief before becoming editor-in-chief. He was the founding editor of globeandmail.com. He is the father of three children: Bailey, Joshua and Jacob.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Greenspon

One thing left out of the radio coverage that I didn't see until I caught the CTV News tonight (something I don't ordinarily do)

Only 15 percent of online advertising goes to Canadian media. The other 85 percent goes to Facebook and Google, who don't get taxed on it.

If the money going back to Canadian media comes from there, I think it is fair, actually, so long as there is a guarantee it is going to wind up paying to hire journalists.

There is a new generation of internet spin wizards with a new level of deceit that puts the previous generation of corporatist media hacks to shame. Even the hacks of the previous era had a limit -- they woudl distort and select rather than fabricate out of nothing.

You will see people with a longing for the old liars the more they get aquainted with the new ones.

There was a certainly professionalism to the nastiness of the past. I don't think this is an improvement.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

I might like that idea if I get to chose the news media that gets the money. If it is going to the papers that Greenspon worked at I am not interested. 

Yup. I share that concern, especially since their strategy only made the problem worse. But even without their profit-grabbing there is a definite crisis.

For that matter, I wouldn't trust it if it was in the hands of government or some committee either. Nor do I trust the notion that CBC should become a news service so they have even less incentive to do their jobs.

But those advertising numbers don't lie. We are already being ripped off by even bigger corporate thieves.

Sure. Then tax them on it.

Yes, it is a problem.

But considering the bigger problem is that the only revenue left to media is being sucked up by foreign social media companies which are outside our jurisdiction, there has to be some sort of solution.

If only for the reason that that revenue isn't the only issue - on the problem or solution side - I realize that it isn't as simple as a formal transfer. After all, they also want more cbc funding to offset the m getting out of the ad market, and to become an open news service. Again, not a good idea because it will be less of a reason to have more journalists.

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Yup figuring out how to tax companies on the internet is really a global problem.

I assume that Facebook (just for example) pays taxes... in the jurisdiction in which its physically located.

But do you mean that they should pay taxes in any country that can access Facebook?  If so, why?  Someone in Australia might be able to access and use Facebook, but it's not as though Facebook is consuming any Australian resources that it needs to pay for.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

But do you mean that they should pay taxes in any country that can access Facebook?  If so, why?  Someone in Australia might be able to access and use Facebook, but it's not as though Facebook is consuming any Australian resources that it needs to pay for.

I think the issue is that Google and Facebook make their living off advertising, in one form or another. Thus, their product is consumer impressions, which they sell to advertisers. Without the users, they would have no revenue, with the users they make pots of money. If, say, 5% of FB's revenue comes from impressions by consumers in Australia, then it sounds quite reasonable to me that Australia might claim the right to tax that revenue.

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Thus, their product is consumer impressions, which they sell to advertisers. Without the users, they would have no revenue, with the users they make pots of money. If, say, 5% of FB's revenue comes from impressions by consumers in Australia, then it sounds quite reasonable to me that Australia might claim the right to tax that revenue.

That's just bizarre.

If I, a Canadian, watch a web video with an ad for some Bulgarian car dealership, YouTube (let's say) should have to pay Bulgaria some munnee because I watched their ad, and might go to Sofia to buy my next car?

Here's a thought:  what if any country that resents YT or FB or IG or whoever for offering "their" people advertisements just goes ahead and bans YT or FB or IG?

Also, last I heard, the taxes we pay support our schools, and our roads, and our fire departments and suchlike.  Are we going to provide schools and roads and fire services to internet companies in other countries?  Or else what are their taxes paying for, besides our desire for more tax revenues?

Also, you may have noticed that you do not see ads on internet sites for Bulgarian car dealerships, you see them for TD Canada Trust or Kellie Leitch. All the ads sold by these big internet companies are geographically targetted, not just by country, but also by much finer divisions.

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It seems perfectly reasonable to me

Can you tell us why a foreign country, whose website features adversisements, should pay taxes in Canada if Canadians look at that website?

Is it for fire services?  Health care?  Their Canadian pension?

What are they paying for, Michael?

Don't say "Canadian eyeballs" -- those are completely voluntary.  The internet is like the moon now -- we can all look at it.

@ Mr MacGoo

If the Bulgarian company is seen here with Bulgarian ads from Bulgarian companies that were destined for Bulgarian viewers then no tax. If they sell ads here for Canadians by Canadian companies competing with other Candian companies in this market, then they are a multinational with a precence here and can pay tax here. Michael is right -- your argument is bizarre.

Just the same as if the Bulgarians send a car to Canada -- even if they are overseas to build it they will pay tax on its sales here and will have a presence here to sell it. Advertising is a service. If sold in this country we have the right to tax it just the same as every other good or service sold here. When it is competing with Canadian businesses, getting money from Canadian business, using Canadian publicly and privately funded internet infrastructure, providing content to Canadian viewers it can be justifiably taxed.

Now we can tax the internet access or we can tax the sale of advertising for these products. We can set a tax at any rate we like -- by activity or type so long as it does not discriminate against individual companies. I think we can tax a share of the ad revenue without any problem at all in terms of moral authority.

6079_Smith_W wrote:

I just went on FB and the first ad is one for a car dealership in the city I happen to be visiting.

So no, it isn't "Bulgaria". And in many ways it is an offer as good if not better than what a lot of online Canadian media can offer.

And it isn't just advertising:

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2016/07/12/time-to-tax-and-re...

 

So I just read that article from California. I assume the star will now be paying California sales and income taxes?

The "bail out" has been in effect for decades.  The CBC, the corporate so-called public broadcaster adveristing and all, a hulking skeleton of what might have been investigative journalism in the distant past -- most of what I see on CBC news is "analysis" which are opinion pieces by right-leaning pro-busyness writers, or "news" copied from corporatist news sources (with no comments allowed.)  On the private-side is the buyout of practically all news sources to push out journalists and to put in place advertising in the form of so-called news to push the corporatist agenda -- propoganda, manufactured "news", and the dead corporatist mediascape.

The "bail out" is that the internet is run by a few large monoliths that are given everything on a silver platter.  We pay astronomically high prices for dog-slow parted out copper. Public internet infrastructure could be full fiber-speed internet without caps, without restrictions, without filters, without speed limits and it would cost very little to free for Canadian citizens.

Trudeau promised to defund the huge give away to the dying fossil fuel industry.  I don't see that promise happening anytime soon, he may have "mispoke" all of the promises he made to get the Liberals back in to power.  The sinking corporate-media-ships need to be dismantled.  I would like to see, at the very least, some funding for arts, culture, and investigative journalism going directly to arists and journalists.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

Mr. Magoo wrote:

But do you mean that they should pay taxes in any country that can access Facebook?  If so, why?  Someone in Australia might be able to access and use Facebook, but it's not as though Facebook is consuming any Australian resources that it needs to pay for.

I think the issue is that Google and Facebook make their living off advertising, in one form or another. Thus, their product is consumer impressions, which they sell to advertisers. Without the users, they would have no revenue, with the users they make pots of money. If, say, 5% of FB's revenue comes from impressions by consumers in Australia, then it sounds quite reasonable to me that Australia might claim the right to tax that revenue.

I think that is fine as long as everyone understands the tax consequences of considering earned income in the digital space to be defined based on the location of the user.  I don't pretend to, but I suspect it is neither that straightforward nor that easy.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

I don't pretend to, but I suspect it is neither that straightforward nor that easy.

At any rate, I would hope that rabble.ca has a slush fund somewhere for when Australia demands taxes in payment for any Australian eyes that may have read their pages, or glimpsed at their ads.

rabble.ca should be so lucky as to have ad revenue that anybody would bother chasing, let alone Australia.

It would be an issue if an Australian company decided to advertise to customers in Australia. And then only if that amount of advertising was significant enough for their government to bother with it.

If you are making money in a country for a service you provide in that country you should be taxed on it.