It's also important to remember that news gathering at the local level can often uncover stories that take on national significance, and I would say this happens frequently. In my own personal example, as a young reporter in Saskatchewan I was doing a story with young hemophiliacs and how difficult it was to deal with their condition. Throughout the course of the discussions, they revealed than many of them were HIV positive because of their frequent use of blood products. At the time that was shocking; we didn't know then how HIV was transmitted. But in any case, I like to think that the early attention, often discovered at the local level, could have significant impact on the lives of Canadians.
Here's another example many of you will probably be more aware of. When the Ocean Ranger, the largest floating oil rig in the world, sank in 1982 off the coast of Newfoundland, the impact on the local community was devastating. Fifty-six of the people who died were Newfoundlanders. But long after the national media left, the local newsroom assigned someone to cover the hearings permanently on an ongoing basis, and we think it's clear that the royal commission's 66 recommendations were implemented afterwards as a result of that continued coverage, again, by local media.
These are just some examples of how important it is for the media to have feet on the ground. Time and time again, intriguing stories are uncovered because people, as my colleagues have said, come to know and to trust local reporters.
The crisis is not only around decreased coverage, but also in the trends that undermine the quality of information. Industry research shows that in digital news coverage, the overlap between public relations and news is increasingly pronounced. For example, branded content or advertorials are increasingly common, and journalists are often required and pressured to present this content, which obviously makes advertisements look like news stories.
Because of the time I'm just going to skip quickly to some of the things that we think could help resolve some of these issues, one, predominantly, is the role of CBC/Radio-Canada.
It's a leader because it serves in 54 communities, in French, English, and aboriginal languages. It's the largest news organization in the country, and we know that it is popular and trusted by Canadians. Yet it's been crippled by devastating cuts impacting, obviously, local news, programming, and original Canadian production. There are 3,000 fewer workers at the CBC since 2006. You're seeing more repeats on television, less original news, less connection in the community. We would like to think that a solution could be following a recommendation of a 2008 heritage committee report—Ms. Fry, you'll be aware of that—recommending that CBC funding be increased to $40 per capita. We think the time has long come for that, and it would help go some ways towards alleviating the current local news media crisis.
Other public service media such as provincial broadcasters TVO and TFO in Ontario, Télé-Québec, and Knowledge Network in British Columbia also make a vital contribution to the media environment. Yet they too are drastically affected by funding cuts and need to be restored.
APTN, the only aboriginal network in North America, deserves special consideration for its unique role in the system. CMG supports the Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommendation that recognizes APTN as a leader in indigenous programming and its key role in education.
To support local news as well, we are urging the CRTC to establish a public service media fund that could be accessed by all local news services on any platform—provincial education broadcasters, APTN, private networks, the CBC, the public broadcaster—to do local news. That fund could come from a small per cent of the profits large cable and satellite companies make from the system. We, like many others, continue to recommend that the funds should also come from Internet service providers.