This is super interesting. I find one thing very interesting, which is that, you know, perception is one thing, but reality.... It might not be reality. Part of the job of good journalism is to define the difference between perception and reality and to lean into the things that are real.
We've heard a lot of talk in this committee about giving weight to organizations that don't have very much journalistic integrity, that lean very much into pushing the perception of interference where there is no interference. There's also a responsibility from a journalistic perspective to make sure that there is a line between perception and reality. Ideally, good journalism leans into reality. I think that's what we're all talking about.
I also find it interesting, when we talk about the difference between 2016 and 2025, that it corresponds to a huge breadth of news organizations and fake news online. It happens to correspond to some of this subsidization. We've talked about the subsidization and why it's important. So many organizations come in every day. It's because the market is failing, and large companies are taking advantage of the content. I find it interesting that the idea.... There was also skepticism when large businesses were paying for advertising in newspapers. I was in university in the early 2000s, and there was a lot of skepticism around the corporate influence of large media organizations. Journalism is a practice.
It's interesting, because the corresponding distrust also comes with the growth of fake news online. Part of our job is to make sure that we are drawing a line between what is true and what is not true. The line has been vague at points in terms of what is considered real journalism.
I think we all agree that we want a strong ecosystem with multiple players, including innovative online companies as well. We want that, particularly if their interest is in having true journalism, being accountable to readers and having journalistic standards and practices. When we're talking about the public broadcaster, I'm curious to know.... When we're talking about rural areas and about building out a bigger ecosystem, one question that comes to mind for me—and, I think, for many people here—is advertising. When you're competing with private companies for advertising—I'm looking at other public broadcasters around the world, some of which rely on advertising and some of which don't—how does that play into, particularly, the relationship between private media and public media? How do you perceive this in the international context?