I just want to add that we often call this the post-truth era, and this is of great concern to Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. We have to be able to trust the facts, and we have to agree on what the facts are. If we don't agree on what the facts are, we can't agree on what is true. If we can't agree on what is true, then we are in a serious state as a civil society.
The political philosopher Hannah Arendt said something really important in one of her last interviews:
The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for [that to happen is if you] are not informed.... If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.... And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind.... And with such a people you can then do what you please.
Our emphasis here today at CJFE is to tell you about one narrow aspect of journalism, and that's news gathering as distinct from opinions or commentary. It's a very costly element of journalism. We have news deserts across Canada, people no longer getting access to basic news about their communities. It costs money to send reporters to city hall, to press conferences, to the sites of accidents or crimes. The fact gathering has to be tested with other information, and we need to find reliable witnesses. People need to be able to get this news, and they need to be able to trust it.
The breakdown in trust and in the reliance on reported facts makes it difficult or even impossible to confront crises such as climate change or pandemics, to provide desperately needed information during natural disasters, forest fires, floods and hurricanes, and to report on elections, government hearings like this one and day-to-day events. This cannot be done with media turned over to market forces. Silicon Valley does not care about the city council meeting in Kelowna or the road closures in Huntsville this weekend. That's the job of reporters.
That's the part of journalism we want to draw your attention to here today, because Canadian news gathering is an endangered species.