Categories: Coyne v. Wells

Coyne v. Wells on the sad state of the media business

Our weekly video podcast

by macleans.ca on Friday, February 27, 2009 3:35pm - 26 Comments

Tags: Andrew coyne, Canadian media, coynevwells09, Hard times, paul wells, Podcast, recession, Videos

Yves Dubeau

Personally my thought is on the quality of some print media. Over the years certain newspapers have dumbed down and ” Hollywoodized” the papers. All of this can be obtained at no charge on the Internet, why buy a subscription? Give us investigative journalism and keep Hollywood rumors to the weeklies.
http://www.maderblog.com David Mader

What about the Kindle as the sort of portable medium you’re talking about, Andrew? With the release of the 2.0, I noticed that Amazon actually ‘sells’ RSS subscriptions to blogs as well as newspapers – you can get the (real) Times for ten bucks (!) a month, and a blog like Instapundit for two. The Kindle is still too pricey (and I don’t know whether it’s available up North), but it sounds like the sort of thing you’re talking about, and it seems to me it might be (part of) the answer.
http://Macleans Justin W.

We are headed for tough economic times. I do not care about can west or any other media outlet, except for CBC. There are too many news broadcasting corporations on Television anyways.
bernie

I subscribe to the Toronto Star. I give it a “D”. but that’s superior to any other. I used to subscribe to Macleans but there were never more than 4 or 5 articles that I was interested in. So it wasn’t worth it.
I would like our government to put $2 or $3 billion ( of our taxes) into the CBC and I would like them to publish a weekly magazine of their best news stories and commentary.

If private media can’t compete, too bad. If they did a better job, I’d support them.

I agree with the post of MJH.

http://Macleans Justin W.

Out Government is going to have a hard time with financing news broadcasting corporations, especially giving 3 Billion to CBC. Don’t you know that the province of BC is going to be asking for financial assistance from the federal government? The reason why is because our economy is going to play out a dramatic effect on the financial stabilization of the winter 2010 Olympic games, which is a waste of tax payers money. I think it would be prudent for our government to be frugal with tax payers money.

I understand that it is essential for people of Canada to have a media outlet in which to go to for exceptional documented information on current & past events. However, giving the CBC broadcasting corporation 2-3 billion dollars is literally out of the question in a time like this. Other news corporations, as far as I am concerned, deserve to go bankrupt because the quality just is not there.

One could even go as far as to say that our government has helped out Air Canada too long. And I agree because it is vital for our government to focus on the essentials: CBC and Air Canada are obviously not one of them.
Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

I like the Economist as a news-weekly. Unfortunately, it’s better than Macleans. Macleans is good for Canadian coverage/analysis. The Economist never fails to find something to fascinate me and it doesn’t talk down to you.

Gary

Part of the problem is that a lot of the content of the media is not much different than bloggers – for e.g. try top watch Olberman on CNBC. The media needs to focus on what bloggers cannot offer – in-depth reporting, local news and leave the talking heads format to the blogosphere.
NottheGolfer

I am willing to pay for good content well presented. So, yes the CBC should get what it needs , to be the voice of Canada, advertising free on both radio and TV. However let the taxpayer be fully aware of what they pay for this service. There should be media license fee on our taxes (something like in UK). This money should be available to not just the CBC, but others who will commit to produce quality Canadian programing.

As for newspapers. I prefer paper to on line blogs; editorial free news reports (National Post?); and a wider variety of editorial opinion. It this requires tax concessions or even subsidies, then so be it. The media for better or worse is the conscious of the nation and we have to make sure it is healthy and available.

http://Macleans Justin W.

Mr. NottheGolfer,

Is the Government able to pay for such things?

After the 2010 Olympic games our federal government is going to have its hands full of other non essential financial matters.

We as Canadians need to wake up and start getting more educated and more aware of what we can do in order to make our country much more independent in terms of exporting goods to America. We rely too heavily on America because we send 45% of our exports to the good old USA: that number is too high!

Gary Findlay

Much of the major media is liberal biased and dominated by one or at best two publications in major areas. The CBC is a prime example of this and what makes it worse it is funded by taxes. There should be an expectation of unbiased reporting but just the opposite is true. This hiding behind protecting Canadian culture is a joke and people are not buying it as evidenced by their poor ratings other than some news programs and a few sports properties where their people cannot put a liberal spin on it. Their stance will eventually lead to their demise as it will other media properties as people see the bias and determine more and more that they do not need these so called experts to determine what position or viewpoint they should take. This combined with advertsers not using a mass market approach will ultimately give them what many so richly deserve.

wml

No offense, but I don’t really get what you are saying…I am not a Liberal, Conservative or anything for that matter, until election time. It is then that I decide whom best reflects my ideals and then vote accordingly. I listen to Politics on CBC and find Don Newman as straight a shooter as you can find. I listen to Peter Mansbridge news casts, one on one, other interviews and find him to be a courteous and unbiased journalist like no other. I listen to CBC news and find no liberal bias there….so what part of the CBC do you consider a Liberal bias? It can’t be Rex Murphy, he is anti everything. So I am confused about your comment??

bfairey

Don Newman a straight shooter??????????? every time he gets a panel together its 3 against one. Lib, NDP, and Newman against the PC member.

wml

Thanks for the comment….however, and mind you I am just trying to sort this out now, but to be objective, in my mind that analysis doesn’t make sense to me. It wouldn’t matter who would be in power you would have the same situation don’t you think? I mean the opposition are many and the government is one. That’s how it works.

But back to Newman……..I can’t find anyone that equals his knowledge of politics or anyone so adept at separating the bullshit from the facts, no matter who or what the political stripe. At least that’s how he comes across to me and many others.

Keith Ferlin

I agree with Andrew and Paul that it would be a sad day if the National Post closes. I don’t agree with a lot of their hacks (Corcorran, Desouza, Gunther) but thats whats essential in an open socirty and media, that all points of view have a voice. Hell, I even agree with the above mentioned hacks on certain issues. To get a more accurate take on current events, politics , you have to access a number of outlets (with varying idealogical bents). The killer media gruop would have all of those viewpoints in one place, accesible just about anywhere and reasonable in cost. Nobody would mind paying for that. I beleive that enough people would pay a price that would make it profitable, because of the value being delivered.
Keith Ferlin

Gary are you telling me that Globals reporting isn”t biased? The Global station I watch certainly is, or do want only the media that reflects your bias?

Johnny

You know what they say: bias is in the eye of the beholder.

David Cadogan

It is rather pointless to listen to editorial people, of which I was one, on the failure of the newspaper business. Newspaper publishers, of which I was also one, were the most deliberately stupid people in the business. Years ago, there was a beautiful aggregated classified advertising site designed built and running. The newspapers could have collectively put their classified ads there for all the world to see. It was far superior to any of the currently dominant sites. Only six publishers saw the value and signed up. All the others rejected it in either or both of two ways. Many said that they already had their classifieds on their own sites and were getting an extra few cents for them. They claimed there was no more potential for online classifieds. They all said they had their own IT departments and listened to them. IT people have no business or newspaper sense and almost alll are into empire building. They all told their bosses they could build the same thing for less. Now, each time a newspaper or group becomes insolvent, they blame the loss of classified advertising. The same willful blindness and greed led publishers to repackage and resell their content in different online publications. If they had reproduced their print versions on the web, as Maclean’s now does, they could have gradually transferred the value of their print ads over to the web. News content, analysis and opinion is mainly a victim of bad business management. Mind you, the news teams have not been at all good at taking advantage of the opportunity to solidify and expand their rapport with their audiences either.
Ted

You guys are only getting half of the music industry model. Yes, they switched to the pay per song model on a popular medium, but the untold story was the re organization of the role of the music industry companies.

Most artists no longer need the infrastructure surrounding that of a huge company like Sony. They can produce albums in smaller digital studios, promote their album on the internet and distribute it through MySpace and ITunes. This trend is accelerating, and while it is fantastic for the artists, companies like SONY BMG are having to rethink what role they play in the music delivery process. Their role is becoming more and more a leveraging of their other media assets to promote the artists they represent, or visa versa.

With print journalism, the need for a publication as an intermediary is diminishing. Journalists can go directly to the reader using a variety of frameworks, making the traditional magazine or newspaper an unneccesary entity in the process.

Perhaps day to day writing will just become a promotional mechanism for their publication of well researched, niche oriented books; just as Albums have become promotional mechanisms for Live Tours, which have become the cash cow for many major artists.
Gaunilon

In the information age, if anything important happens it spreads like wildfire from witnesses to the rest of the world via messaging, email, blogs, and finally news organizations. It used to be that an event was uncovered by newsmen since those involved had no public voice; these days the newsmen don’t uncover the news, they just filter it for importance and write it up the way they see it. And they don’t write it up particularly well, and their filters are deliberately skewed. For example, you will not see any major coverage of the largest Washington protest every year, the March for Life, because most journalists are pro-choice. The population as a whole, however, has very different priorities and can get news and photos from the event very easily from those on the ground.

So if we can get information through the electronic grapevine more quickly and with less filtering (and free!) why would we pay the news orgs to remake it in their image a few hours/days later?

That said, I would gladly pay a nickel/article at Macleans (at least for Coyne’s and Wells’s articles), not for the news, but for the thought. The future of the news media is thought and opinion, unless one organization decides to purvey unfiltered news based solely on the percentage of readers, rather than journalists, who would be interested.
Bert

No sunshine in the previous comments. Like its all doom and gloom? So back to hibernating untill I can see my shadow. Read the news in another 12 months. Lol
MJH

Part of the print media problem is the refusal of journalists to recognize the responsibility to be objective in researching and reporting. It is difficult to impossible to find a journalist who does not have a very predictable political or economic agenda. Whatever happened to objective journalism? Is it a pipe dream and gone forever?

Our papers are either left or right, or conservative or socialist. Can’t we get balance?
Kuri

Why not have papers identified with a political view, as long as there’s enough of them? It’s more or less that way in the UK, and their (broadsheet) papers are of high quality.
Jim Sprague

I think it’s impossible for anyone, no matter how well intentioned, to be completely objective and balanced. You will always be biased to some extent. What you say, what you don’t say, what you put in your article, what you leave out; it’s ridiculous to thank that any normal human being can be leave their biases out of their work. Anyone that thinks they’re completely objective and free of bias is either lying or stupid. Bill O’reilly’s show is a “no spin zone”? Yeah, right.

all we can hope for is that the media gives us a variety of voices and that theses voices are all clear in stating their biases. Unfortunately we seem to gravitate to the voices that say what we want to hear, but I don’t know what you do about that.
wml

Right on MJH…. Where has objective investigative reporting gone to? For instance, one can hardly find anything on the recent Information Commissioner Robert Marleau’s report.

Why was the scheduled press conference on this report usurped by the Government announcement on crime legislation? The recent comments that Peter Mckay made regarding the Russian bomber closing in on Canadian airspace and the dispatching of CF-18 to turn them away? It turns out that these incidents are routine, but he chose now to sensationalize that event. We want to know why? Were all of those things done to deflect the seething report on transparency and accountability? I don’t know, but I sure would like to find out. Where have all the journalists/reporters gone to?
bfairey

You are right on, we have to subscribe to the KW Record a Torstar publication and objective reporting they do not do. All left wing stuff from Stevens and Travers.
wml

Yeah…..I am replying to my own comment. Just want to let everyone know that I found my answers to the above questions. Both articles from the same columnist “G. Weston”
on Sun Media. Titled “Bears in the air” and “Muzzle masters”. Just want to point out that this journalist is one of the few that has the reader in mind when writing.

What a farce our Country is becoming!!!