I am the first to criticize the media. Having been on both sides of the microphone, back and forth, I can map areas of excellence and mediocrity, point out exploits and shortcuts, identify wastelands, quicksand and, to change the metaphor, point out the warts, cellulite and Botox.
But it’s a bit like for Canadians. We criticize them all the time, but if they disappeared, we would feel strangely alone. Talk to the people of Quebec, whose mourning of the Nordiques is beginning its second quarter of a century.
Societies have been governed for a long time by combining bread and games. But democratic societies without media have not been tried, and for good reason. The first instinct of authoritarian figures is to put an end to press freedom, as Putin did, or to devalue journalists, as Trump did by declaring them “enemies of the people”.
The weakening of Western media which has lasted for twenty years now can only lead to a numbing of the democratic apparatus. The debate, criticism, proposal, and clash of ideas expressed through the media permeate the body politic on a daily basis. The best way to get rid of them is to take away their economic ability to survive. The transfer of 80% of advertising purchases from traditional media to digital platforms is not an authoritarian conspiracy. More prosaically, these new players offer advertisers a much better quality/price ratio in targeting customers than traditional media can do.
The scandal is due to the slowness with which our elected officials reacted to this financial strangulation of an essential pillar of democratic life. TVA’s announcement of the reduction of its staff assigned to regional information adds to a gradual and tragic desertification of access to local information throughout Quebec.
It was not until 2019 that Ottawa and Quebec offered a (refundable) tax credit to written media to support journalistic work (25% and 35% respectively). Ottawa improved its own this week. Which means that Quebec taxpayers now finance 70% of journalists’ salaries. It’s a lot. But for radio and TV journalists, the proportion of support is… zero. This is little. This inequity has lasted too long and must be redressed without delay.
Permanent funding of information by the State is not a lasting, or even prudent, solution. We are never completely independent of who signs the paycheck. We seem to be waiting in vain for the adoption of an international tax on GAFAM which should nevertheless be used for this financing. (The negotiation stalls, Washington refuses to sign, France goes it alone. In the absence of an agreement next year, Quebec should join an international coalition of countries which would impose a 3% tax at the same time , to make the imposition of punitive trade measures by the United States more difficult and more diffuse.)
The Quebec Minister of Culture, Mathieu Lacombe, declared before the congress of journalists that he was considering a “global solution”. We congratulate him. But we are asking to see, if possible in the next Quebec budget, in February or March, strong measures.
It could, for example, apply one of the proposals circulating to redirect to the media some of the advertising that has escaped them. It should be declared that advertising expenses made by companies on digital platforms are no longer tax deductible (therefore no longer considered an eligible cost), while advertising expenses in traditional media are 200% tax deductible. We would see the extent of the redeployment with use.
More proactive and with immediate effect would be to legislate to establish that, of each dollar of advertising aimed at Quebec consumers, half must be done in the media. There, the return of the jackpot would be very rapid and considerable. (The loud cries of businesses too!)
We pose here the hypothesis that the government of Quebec has a backbone, as Gérald Godin had by imposing on the majors Americans the simultaneous distribution in Quebec of the French and English versions of their films, Louise Beaudoin by imposing the same synchronicity on Microsoft and Apple for the French versions of their software, even Carlos Leitão by imposing, the first, the QST on Netflix and company.
Similar courage would lead Quebec to impose an obligation on platforms: they simply cannot be active on our territory if they block our information sites or if they grant them unfavorable treatment in their algorithms.
Before the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec (FPJQ), Minister Lacombe called on the media to offer compensation in exchange for support measures. Which ones? He didn’t specify it.
Here are some ideas. The application of the tax credit to the salaries of journalists on TV and radio should only be done in exchange for the re-establishment of a regional workforce floor. Quebec could decide to create information hubs in medium-sized cities, perhaps anchored in regional offices of Télé-Québec, to offer the infrastructure of studios and common news rooms to everyone at low cost. A fraction of the amount of the tax credit should be devoted to increased and sustainable financing of the Press Council. Above all: only media members of the Council should have access to it (yes, this would force the Quebecor empire to join it).
In old westerns, the cavalry always arrives too late. Only once the band of heroes has triumphed over a surplus enemy, but not without having lost several of its members in combat. Today, our own band of media heroes is in no way triumphant, and its losses are piling up inexorably on the battlefield. The arrival of the Quebec cavalry is therefore essential and urgent.
Jean-François Lisée led the PQ from 2016 to 2018. He has just published Through the mouth of my pencils published by Somme tout/Le Devoir. [email protected].