Canadian Heritage Committee on Dec. 6th, 2016

[Linda Solomon Wood]

Yes, absolutely. Honestly, when we came out of the gate in our first year, we didn't know whether the National Observer could work. It could easily have failed, but it didn't. It has really been a test. Next year we could decide that we are going to start covering women's issues, or—

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Obviously you're not limited to pipeline issues.

[Linda Solomon Wood]

Right.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

You may have answered this, but maybe I'll ask you in simpler words. How are you doing in terms of your finances? Are you achieving your budget?

[Linda Solomon Wood]

It's been really hard; really hard. Last August we got to the point where I thought we were going to have to close. I had expected an investment that didn't come in, and I thought, okay, that's it. At that point, I got together with my advisory board, and they said, no, they did not want me to quit. They put in a little bit more money.

Mainly I turned at that point to writing a very heartfelt letter to our list of people. We have about 20,000 names on our list, and they came forward and began to subscribe. That provided us with the income we needed to get to where we are now, and we've had some more investment come in.

I have to say that in the years leading up to the U.S. election, I was always trying to explain to people why I thought journalism was so important. I don't have to explain that anymore. John Oliver explains it. Trevor Noah explains it. We see it. We all know it. So things have shifted a bit for us now.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Good. Thanks.

[Linda Solomon Wood]

Thank you.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

You mentioned that the quality of journalism is an important thing for society. Please tell me a little more about the Comet pizzeria thing in D.C. It is the case that misinformed people came with a machine gun into a pizzeria, thinking there was something going on in that restaurant. Am I right?

[Linda Solomon Wood]

You're right. I think you and I both can spin that out into other scenarios historically where propaganda has led to mass killing, whether it's in Rwanda or Cambodia. It's a historical truth, and it's very dangerous. It's very important that we try to have some agreed-upon idea, common ground for what we accept as a society as truth. I think we'd like to be part of holding the ground for that.

One of our recommendations in the submission is that the Government of Canada—and I know this is tricky—create an agreed-upon definition of “journalist”. France did it at the turn of the century. France is a real leader in terms of valuing journalism and creating a structure that supports it. I think 12% of the funding of the revenue that goes into their journalism companies in France comes from the government. It's based on the idea that they should support media companies across party lines in order to foster a pluralistic society.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Okay.

Can I have your impressions on the idea that CBC has submitted that they take away all advertising in exchange for $318 million per year? Would you rather have the money? Would you rather have a free market for you to advertise even more? Or—and I suggest this may be the case—for your audience, if you have advertising and CBC does not, it may make you look not as concentrated.

[Linda Solomon Wood]

That's an interesting question.

I would rather see us survive and thrive through subscriptions and not advertising, for sure. I would rather answer to the readers. I don't think you really do have to answer to advertisers, but still, the question of what should happen about advertising, and all the government's advertising dollars, I really think is an important one for the committee to grapple with, because yes, I'd much rather see it go to the CBC, or I'd much rather see....

I'm sorry, I'd have to think more about that question.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

It's another issue.

[Linda Solomon Wood]

Yes. Thank you.

[Pierre Nantel, NDP, Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

Thank you very much.

The floor is yours, Mr. Samson, for the Liberals.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you very much for your presentation. It's always interesting, as a committee, to receive all kinds of different ideas on what works, how it works, and why it works.

You've been in it for a year plus now. You've learned certain things that you were unsure of and certain challenges you weren't sure of. What's the future plan? If I were asking you about the next three years, what would you like to accomplish and what would you need to arrive there?

[Linda Solomon Wood]

I've been in it full time for ten years. I started the Vancouver Observer ten years ago. I'm very devoted to making this work and I don't plan on giving up.

Again, I see the future for us based on more of a relationship with the readers, and that depends on building our audience. That depends on doing really high-quality reporting that is compelling and that people judge to be work they can't get anywhere else. When we see big media cutting their newsrooms and cutting their investigative reporting teams, we know that's where we need to go. We build our investigative reporting team. I see more of that.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Thank you.

Let's talk about professional development in the schools of journalism. What can we do to improve that? It's becoming clearer, as we move forward, that this is a key cornerstone to the success of quality. What would be your advice to help in that area?

[Linda Solomon Wood]

To help in education?

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Yes.

[Linda Solomon Wood]

My advice would be to make sure that the journalism schools are teaching skills that are really relevant in today's journalism world. I believe at King's College they have an entrepreneurial journalism program. I think that's really important, because I think the journalists of the future have to be entrepreneurial. For us, we can't really hire people who aren't willing to also come in with the spirit of wanting to help build this company and not just be an old school reporter. That is really important.

Another skill, and I don't know how to teach it yet, is around teaching people how to be critical thinkers but also how to distinguish themselves from fake news. I was just reading an article in the The Guardian this morning that talked about how the Koch brothers in the U.S. paid massive amounts of money to various different websites to attack Elon Musk and to put out fake stories on Elon Musk. Now lots of people believe something about his rocket ship falling from the sky. Basically they're trying to attack the solar energy industry and discredit it and crush it.

As was brought up by another member of the committee, as journalists, how do we break out of the echo chamber, and how are we going to speak to people? I think some of the education—honestly, I've been thinking about this a lot—needs to happen in public schools. It's not as much about educating journalists as it is about educating kids, teaching them to smell a fake news story or to just think that they might be the victims of propaganda.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

I agree 100% with you. I'm a 30-year educator, and I find that area, and entrepreneurship as well, key elements to learning about society and how to contribute at a certain level that's fundamental.

What do we tell young people who are interested in journalism, based on what we're seeing today? There are not many opportunities, so how do we change that message? How do we make it work?

[Linda Solomon Wood]

Honestly, it breaks my heart sometimes when I see kids pouring into journalism schools. Most of these programs are really successfully telling kids that they may not have a job in journalism when they come out of school, but they will have a lot of really valuable skills. I think that is true. The skills you learn as a journalist are applicable in a lot of places, but I think we need to solve a lot of the problems going forward. We need to be innovative. If we innovate the industry again, I think people can come back. We have seven people on our team now and we'll be hiring more next year. That's just because we're dedicated to hanging in there and innovating.

[The Chair, Liberal, Hedy Fry]

You have one minute left.

[Darrell Samson, Liberal, Sackville—Preston—Chezzetcook, NS]

Okay.

This is a catch-22 for our committee. I mean, we want quality. We want Canadian content. We want local content. The readers are moving online. The investment, the advertising, is up in the air. You talked about incentives and tax deductions. What would be your top suggestion that we should focus on to try to ensure that we're hitting the target: local, quality, and good journalism?