Thank you.
Let me pick up from where my colleague from the NDP was talking about the system in shock.
Failing John Oliver from HBO's Last Week Tonight appearing before this committee, I'll quote him on a superb piece that he did on the future of journalism, in which he said:
Now that level of confidence is almost tempting fate. He is like a citizen of Pompeii saying, “what I love about this city is how volcano proof it is.” Not a year goes by without our having to have our horrified reactions captured in ash forever.
He brings up a very good point about the importance of local news, which he describes as the media. He says:
It's pretty obvious without newspapers around to cite. TV news would just be Wolf Blitzer endlessly batting a ball of yarn around....The media is a food chain that would fall apart without local newspapers.
This is a good way to look at how often newspapers are cited and where stories begin.
What I found more chilling, and he cited this, was a similar hearing that is happening south of the border at Congress. David Simon appeared. He is the creator of the critically acclaimed show The Wire. He was a beat reporter at city hall in Baltimore before that. He never lost those lessons. His description is more chilling. He says:
The next 10 or 15 years in this country are going to be a halcyon era for state and local political corruption. It is going to be one of the great times to be a corrupt politician.
His argument is that unless you're at that level where property is zoned, where development is determined, then you're not going to figure out the rest of it. I know myself that I can't watch Spotlight. I haven't got through it. I find it too frustrating, because that in-depth investigative journalism that's incredibly important to a democracy doesn't exist anymore.
John Oliver said:
A big part of the blame for this industry’s decline is on us and our unwillingness to pay for the work journalists produce. We’ve just grown accustomed to getting our news for free...Sooner than later, we’re going to have pay for journalism, or we are all going to pay for it.
It does come back to a point that we spoke of earlier, and that's revenue. When we talk about copyright, and as my colleague was speaking of, an aggregation, I think any journalist wants his or her pieces to be read or to be seen or to be heard as much as possible. As you've said, that's not the issue; the issue is how you make a living from it. How do you pay for excellent journalism?
I congratulate you both on your presentations today. Yours have been some of the most substantive we've heard. The difficulty we're having is attempting to square that circle. It's a question of “show me the money”.
Do you have any further thoughts on revenue particularly?