Patrick Watson in the Globe: Why We Need a Public Newspaper
The same concerns that prompted the Senate to launch a new inquiry into the Canadian media ï¿‘ a high degree of ownership concentration, and a tendency by some owners to impose their own views and values on content ï¿‘ also prompted me to go before the Senate last week, and to reiterate a proposal I first made three decades ago. I said it was time Canada had a national public newspaper. This newspaper would be a print equivalent of CBC News, beholden to no commercial interest ï¿‘ produced, driven and governed by journalists, not investors or advertisers.
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I published a public newspaper once. Well, "published" is going a bit far. In 1971, I delivered a cabinet document reporting my work with the Task Force on Citizen Participation in the Democratic Decision-Making Process. We accompanied our cabinet document with a huge paper envelope stamped with the flag, containing examples of our proposals. One was that national newspaper, Season 1, Number 1 — the one and only, which was assembled and edited by Peter Gzowski.
I've attached the article below, since the Globe's website sucks, and links break, sometimes immediately.
Why We Need a Public Newspaper
By PATRICK WATSON
From Monday's Globe and Mail
POSTED AT 2:34 AM EST Monday, May. 5, 2003
The same concerns that prompted the Senate to launch a new inquiry into the Canadian media — a high degree of ownership concentration, and a tendency by some owners to impose their own views and values on content — also prompted me to go before the Senate last week, and to reiterate a proposal I first made three decades ago. I said it was time Canada had a national public newspaper. This newspaper would be a print equivalent of CBC News, beholden to no commercial interest — produced, driven and governed by journalists, not investors or advertisers.
Last week, I told the Senate that opposition to the idea of a publicly funded, independent newspaper was primarily superstition. Such superstition was reflected in the Canadian Alliance critic's sneer about "government interference." Even The Globe and Mail's headline alleged "Watson makes call for state newspaper" (this, despite the fact that the article correctly quoted me as saying "a state newspaper is anathema to any serious journalist or any good democrat").
We fear the idea of a state-run paper because it brings to mind such horrors as Pravda, Izvestia and Der Sturmer. But, in Canada, such a state-run newspaper would just languish unread, adding to the already mountainous excess of paper that spews from the state's presses.
Canada, however, already has one publicly funded, arm's length, independent news service, the CBC, and it has an enviable record. Starved for funds, it is still turning out journalism that shames the major U.S. networks and cable news services. Gerald Caplan, appearing before the Senate committee shortly after I did, commented on the contrast represented by Fox News's subservience to the U.S. government's propaganda machine during the war with Iraq — while our publicly funded broadcaster earns kudos in the U.S. for its independent coverage.
Our public news media have their critics, of course. Quebec nationalists accuse Radio-Canada of being federalist, while federal governments of the day accuse it of being a haven for separatists. And both French and English TV have been accused of favouritism in election coverage. During my chairmanship of the CBC board of directors, the board (populated with politically appointed sinecurists) ordered a long and costly investigation into the coverage of one federal election. The news services came up smelling roses.
Admittedly, the CBC does exhibit a bias in favour of democracy, social justice and the public good. This is a bias shared by several of our major news services. Indeed, the Broadcasting Act requires the CBC to act in the public interest.
Our publicly funded broadcast news service makes so good an approach to independence from state control that federal government after federal govern-
I published a public newspaper once. Well, "published" is going a bit far. In 1971, I delivered a cabinet document reporting my work with the Task Force on Citizen Participation in the Democratic Decision-Making Process. We accompanied our cabinet document with a huge paper envelope stamped with the flag, containing examples of our proposals. One was that national newspaper, Season 1, Number 1 — the one and only, which was assembled and edited by Peter Gzowski.
I never got my copy back, but there must be one in the National Archives and it might repay a moment's scrutiny. It had no advertising. It was inspired by I. F. Stone's Weekly, but was bigger and more comprehensive.
Let me remind you about I. F. Stone's Weekly, a publication that demonstrated that a very substantial contribution to journalism can be made for a modest cost. Izzy Stone and his wife produced the Weekly in their basement for almost two decades, until 1971. It led the attack on McCarthyism, blew the cover off the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and was a must-read for serious journalists and commentators.
Like the Weekly, the public newspaper I propose would be journalism for capital-C Citizens, not for Consumers. It would canvas world sources for the international stories that don't find room on front pages now obsessed with celebrities and diet scares. It would try to fill the void in investigative journalism. More important, it would monitor the activities of the whole journalistic community — as if the Ryerson Review of Journalism were done daily by the best professional journalists in the country instead of twice a year by students.
Such an intervention could only raise standards across the board. The newspaper's independence could be assured by its being funded with an endowment, rather than an annual parliamentary allocation (an arrangement that arguably gives Parliament a measure of intimidation of the CBC.)
The Institute for Research on Public Policy ("the country's most influential think tank," says Maclean's magazine) was funded that way in the 1970s. The IRPP's independence is indisputable. Similarly, a public newspaper would have a board composed primarily of journalists and appointed only for ability and representational reasons (not for political expedience — the board would have to have a say in its own composition and renewal). This would ensure the public newspaper's independence and financial responsibility.
Senators, I can't think of a better project for your committee than to launch the feasibility study.
Patrick Watson is a former chairman of the CBC and creative director of Historica.