A recently released UNESCO report confirms comprehensively what many of us have sensed: the rise of social media and digital communication platforms have created an existential challenge to independent media and journalism.
“Journalism is a public good: World trends in freedom of expression and media development: Global report 2021/2022” lays out the challenges to accessing information—reliable information.
The report finds that Google and Meta/Facebook now account for about half of all global digital advertising revenue, while global newspaper ad revenue has fallen by a similar amount over the last five years. This major loss of revenue has decimated many newsrooms, and led to the loss of editorial independence, in media agencies’ search for new financial support.
Like many, Canada’s news media continue to face an uncertain future. The industry has now reached the point of “market failure,” says News Media Canada in a report that also urged the federal government to “act and pass legislation” that would “level the playing field with digital giants.”
“In a democracy, nothing is more vital than a healthy, vibrant local news media. But the threats from Big Tech are increasing every day. The future of your local news is at stake,” said News Media Canada, the national association of the Canadian news media industry. Facebook and Google “are using their monopoly power to scoop up 80 per cent of online advertising revenues and to free ride on the news content produced by hardworking journalists and publishers across Canada,” it noted.
Already reeling from the impact of Big Tech’s dominance over online advertising revenue, the news media were among the hardest hit during the Covid-19 pandemic with the withdrawal of ads from industries who suffered economic losses. Just a year into the pandemic, 40 media outlets closed permanently,
France, Spain, the U.K., and Australia have already passed regulations to “level the playing
field, reduce the effects of platforms’ market power, and to restore balance and fairness in the markets for digital advertising and digital news distribution,” said News Media Canada. “Other countries, including the U.S., are analyzing the market dominance of digital platforms. They are developing regulatory reforms, legislation, or beginning antitrust proceedings to rectify platforms’ market dominance.”
Since 2013, Canada has lost 300 trusted news titles, said News Media Canada in its latest statement. “The time for Canadian parliamentarians to act is now. A made-in-Canada approach, along the broad strokes of what the Australians have done, is what we need. This is not a one-and-done silver bullet but receiving fair market value for content Canadian journalists produce is an important step to putting the news business on a more stable commercial footing.”
The UNESCO report also underscores the rise of a plethora of online self-proclaimed “news” outlets, algorithms that favour clickbait, and the ability to share and spread posts without assessing facts has led to a tsunami of inaccurate, unreliable and deliberately misleading information—as experienced most keenly during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as in national politics. Thus, public interest journalism faces even more challenges in countering disinformation while dealing with its own economic crisis.
It highlights the personal threats to journalists—from online abuse to physical violence and killings. “Over the past five years, approximately 85 percent of the world’s population experienced a decline in press freedom in their country,” said the report. Journalism has remained “a deadly profession—and in nine times out of ten, the murder of a journalist is unresolved,” it says. It notes continuing threats against journalists, online and off-line, including imprisonment and physical attacks.
“Even in countries with long traditions of safeguarding free and independent journalism, financial and technological transformations have forced news outlets, especially those serving local communities, to close,” says the report. It notes that the pandemic and its global economic impact has only exacerbated this trend, “now threatening to create an “extinction level” event for independent journalism outlets.”
With the data, UNESCO is urging governments to take policy actions in three key areas to protect independent media and journalists’ safety:
- Supporting the economic viability of independent news media while respecting the professional autonomy of journalists. Governments can, for example, offer tax benefits to independent news outlets, in a manner which is fair, transparent and does not compromise editorial independence.
- Developing media and information literacy, to teach all citizens the difference between reliable, verified information and unverified information, and encourage the public to obtain information from independent media.
- Enacting or reforming media law to support free and pluralistic news production, in line with international standards on Freedom of Expression, notably Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In her forward to the report, Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO, emphasized that “information is a global common good, indispensable to open dialogue within and between our societies.”
We need to redouble our efforts, individually and collectively, to counter the current trends, which affect all citizens’ ability to access and share reliable information to participate constructively in society.
Support rabble today!
We’re so glad you stopped by! Thanks for consuming rabble content this year.
rabble.ca is 100% reader and donor funded, so as an avid reader of our content, we hope you will consider gifting rabble with a donation during our summer fundraiser today.
Whether it be a one-time donation or a small monthly contribution, your support is critical to keep rabble writers producing the work you’ve come to rely on as a part of a healthy media diet.
Become a rabble rouser — donate to rabble.ca today.
Nick Seebruch, editor
