Canadian Heritage committee  I think they are a useful way to go, and they make it possible to share more information and to share the infrastructure costs of operating along the way. That certainly is a useful way in some places where you have a tight community that will co-operate. One of the big problems in the news business has been that publishers in particular—and others—didn't like each other very well, for political reasons or other reasons, so they didn't want to co-operate.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think you need to do a number of things. I think one needs to help existing enterprises that are there, but not to the point that they make it difficult for new enterprises to appear. That's very often been the problem. If you just throw money at the existing ones, they use it to keep out the others.

Canadian Heritage committee  Any large firm that has an oligopoly or a monopoly is going to find that, and you certainly have it today, because for the gateways and the distribution platforms we now have, there are about three or four major players there and they set the terms for doing business with them. Efforts to start other kinds of gateways are under way, and we may see those change in the future, those strengths that are there.

Canadian Heritage committee  I'm certain they would. One of the central problems of news is that news has never been a commercially viable product. News has always been subsidized: by advertising, by political parties, or by community persons who, for some reason, want to have influence, either for social purposes or for political purposes.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's not necessarily interfering with it. In fact, it should be encouraged. There are many mechanisms to encourage those kinds of start-ups.

Canadian Heritage committee  In the print media today, local news in daily newspapers is still supported by advertising, and I don't disagree with that. The problem is that this only works effectively in under 100 Canadian cities. In other cities, they are just barely scraping along, trying to make it. Look at the 1,000 or so non-daily papers across Canada.

Canadian Heritage committee  I speak some, but very poorly. I apologize.

Canadian Heritage committee  It's fairly young. It has gone through about a year's worth of seed funding. It's hard to tell how effective it is. They are getting start-ups, but there are start-ups that are being funded by many other organizations and groups, and some of them seem to be playing an important role at the local level.

Canadian Heritage committee  Under the Canadian charities and tax laws, journalism is excluded from charitable purposes. I think the reason that occurred is that in the past it was seen primarily as a commercial activity. It is not specifically enumerated and therefore has not been approved as having a charitable or educational purpose that would come under the charities act and also under being able to receive gifts and tax about gifts.

Canadian Heritage committee  There are many operating under that. In the United States, many are operating under not-for-profit activities. In the United Kingdom, there are some operating under not-for-profit. Australia has been moving that way as well. In Australia, the most notable is The Conversation, which started there and is now also available now in the United Kingdom.

Canadian Heritage committee  Those that seem to be most effective are actually helping local news providers that are currently there to make the digital transformation and to understand how to do that and make that work. The second effort is to help support other start-ups in the community that will do that, particularly if there is not an effective local community news source in that community.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the time for dealing with breaking up the big corporation media is past. It should have stopped before it ever got to where it is today. Breaking them up today will not help local news very much, because what they are doing already is to combine their local news operations, move activities out of communities, and have very small local staffs.

Canadian Heritage committee  I think the best choice for increased competition is to look for alternative sources of local news and who can start them up. That means starting up digital enterprises that can operate very inexpensively and that can team with community organizations, with educational institutions and others, to create another local news source that becomes an alternative..

Canadian Heritage committee  Honourable Chairwoman and members of the committee, it's a pleasure to be able to assist you today with your inquiry on issues of local communities and the news that they need. I want to share some ideas gained from four decades of dealing with the issues of media economics, competition, pluralism, and the information needs of communities.