Canada’s news is a mess. A self interested, divisive, and profit-fixated news business has bred a corrosive and deepening distrust not just of the media, but of our democratic institutions themselves. Many see this crisis of the fourth estate as an existential threat to a bedrock of democratic decision-making.
In Tomorrow’s News, Marc Edge lays out some of the new forms
of journalism that are emerging in the post-print, digital-first world. The bad
include “dark money” funded non-profits, such as the US news outlet Richmond
Standard, which have been rushing into the breech with “pink slime.” The good
include worker co-operatives, such as CHEK-TV in Victoria, B.C., the Prince
Albert Daily Herald, and CN2i in Quebec. Tomorrow’s News also explores the
potential of a voucher system as a financing mechanism for local news
organizations.
People will always be news hungry; journalism isn’t going
away, Edge argues. The news organizations that thrive in the post-print world
will be the ones that are able to shift their support base, and revenues, from
advertisers to readers.
