It goes without saying that the climate and media crises have occupied me for a very long time. On the latter, the text “It’s (a little) the fault of the media” by Stéphane Baillargeon in the edition of Duty of December 27 made me react a lot. Indeed, like the “that’s it” which invades even the most rigorous airwaves, I have the impression that intellectual relaxation is more and more permitted, or at least unpunished.
Yes, there is the Quebec Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe who, in the name of a form of centrist “temperism”, dares to evoke the responsibility of the media, but there is also a more widespread form of apathy. , even affecting people like Paul Wells who, during a panel at the T.J.had to be corrected by Céline Galipeau while he shamelessly buried the cause of journalism in the name of the victory of the Web over the old model… And Mme Galipeau was forced to say: “It’s democracy, Paul! It is important… “
I myself must say that I see more and more a lack of severity and I want to say radicality! I am thinking, among others, of an experienced journalist whom I esteem greatly, who recently chose not to specify that Stéphane Cardin — the Netflix representative at the hearings of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on Bill C11 amending the Protection Act broadcasting and who affirmed on behalf of his employer that he saw no advantage in subscribing to audiovisual production funds — was the former number 2 of the Canada Media Fund!
We must be able to name bad faith when it unfolds like this without complexes, right? Reporting journalism? Whistleblower? Repairer? Perhaps the accusatory-justiciar aspect of Quebecor provokes an elegant restraint in others?
Talking about the reality of the information disaster requires a form of positioning that goes beyond the duty of objectivity so dear to the profession. We cannot accept the unacceptable which leads for example to Pierre-Yves McSween, who, on Patrick Lagacé’s radio show, does not hesitate to question the healthy use of the 100 million dollars in aid obtained from Google by the media which provide both journalism and opinion… Fortunately, Lagacé took offense!
As Brian Myles mentioned in his editorial of the same day, very few were worried about the media in 2013. Indeed, I was rather alone in Ottawa in seeing the crisis in the making for culture and information, a crisis that I had known in the recording industry when the majors of music took off their pants themselves in the face of the Internet, which allowed the exchange of files and private copying. Some scholars then evoked an interesting parallel: recorded music would imitate the world of books, with its thousands of essays and a few bestsellers…
Between 2011 and 2019, I repeatedly spoke to the Heritage Committee in Ottawa about the parallel between the Internet and radio waves. Yes people sometimes go online to learn about African violets, or to shop online, but the bulk of bandwidth is mostly used for copyrighted materials, articles, music, television, cinema and, as the radio station did for music rights, the station’s subscription to the NTR news feed or their own production, advertising revenues should be reshared to compensate, at their fair value, this professional content.
Contrary to their inertia in the face of Ottawa’s recent initiatives, let us hope that the G20 countries will eventually stand up to demand their dues regarding their Internet users “harnessed” by GAFAM.