Blacklock's Reporter

Minister of Democratic Institutions Karina Gould yesterday said cabinet will spend $7 million to hire monitors to “critically assess online news reporting” in election-year coverage. Government-sponsored fact checkers were not publicly identified. One is a group led by a former Toronto Star executive.

“Ultimately it’s not our job to tell Canadians what is good or bad information, but to provide them the tools and the resources to, when something comes to them, to make a choice on their own and to say where this information is coming from, who is behind it, and what their objective is,” Gould told reporters.

Media monitoring would not apply to newspapers. Gould did not explain what criteria monitors would use to assess news stories. The Canada Elections Act section 91 already prohibits the publication of “false statements of fact” involving a candidate or political party.

The Act’s fake news ban has never been used though it’s been in force since 2001. Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault in testimony last November 7 in the Senate said his office already monitors Twitter, Facebook and other social media for falsehoods to “make sure electors have correct information”.

“When you open up a newspaper, you have a sense this is coming from a journalist who’s professional, who has done their research, who has worked at it, and whose information is coming from a reliable source,” said Gould. “Of course, depending on which newspaper that is, you have a sense of where that information is coming from. When you go onto a social media platform and you see a meme or you see a story, if it’s being shared by a friend or a cousin or someone trusted, you may implicitly share that information because it’s coming from a trusted source.”

“The objective is to have civil society organizations in Canada who can help provide some of the civic awareness and education to evaluate news, digital media, etcetera, the information coming to Canadians, so they can make their informed choice of how they ingest this information, and how they share it or not,” said Gould.

One monitor, the Public Policy Forum of Ottawa, last November 28 confirmed it applied for funding to act as federally-subsidized fact checker. The Forum’s CEO Edward Greenspon is a former vice-president of the Toronto Star.

A spokesperson said the Forum was not influenced by the Liberal Party. “The Public Policy Forum does not receive government funding,” communications director Carl Neustaedter earlier told Blacklock’s. “It is independent and non-partisan.”  Public accounts show the Forum received $593,000 in federal contracts and fees since 2015.

Government agencies to date including the Privy Council Office, Department of Justice and Department of Canadian Heritage have refused to disclose records on dealings with the Forum’s Digital Democracy Project to “expose” unreliable news stories.

By Staff

The Department of Industry in a secret Access To Information memo cautions against federal meddling in media under the guise of combating fake news. The 2018 memo predates a plan to have subsidized media monitors “expose” election-year coverage deemed unreliable.

“Reasons for government intervention, as well as whether there are appropriate tools to target issues, must be clear before actions are considered,” said the briefing note Advice To The Associate Deputy Minister. The censored three-page memo said Canadians should “continue to access the legal content of their choice with confidence”: “This is critical,” it said.

The memo said any federal action against fake news could have consequences for free speech, and that remedies were already found in the private sector. “It is important that we enable private sector leadership, innovation governance approaches and new business models to flourish,” wrote staff.

“Policies that constrain the flow of data, free speech, consumer choice or the rights of businesses to innovate online would impede economic potential,” said Advice. “In light of concerns with ‘fake news’, social media companies e.g. Twitter and Facebook are already developing and implementing solutions”; “It will be important to ensure there will be an appropriate consideration given to the private sector and economic impacts before determining a way forward,” the memo said.

The note is dated February 5, 2018. Six months later, the Department of Canadian Heritage began negotiations with an Ottawa-based group called Public Policy Forum to “monitor digital and social media in real time” for “disinformation in the lead-up to the October 2019 federal election.”

The Policy Forum in a statement last November 28 defended the monitoring scheme. “The country lacks adequate understanding of what’s being put through our media ecosystem,” wrote CEO Edward Greenspon, a former Toronto Star executive: “This project is designed to expose these attempts and determine how best to counter them.”

Neither the Forum nor the department would discuss the cost or rationale for the project. Elections Canada already monitors campaign disinformation under a provision of the Canada Elections Act that outlaws “false statements of fact” about any candidate or political party.

“Cynical”

Surveillance of digital media would coincide with cabinet’s promised $595 million bail-out fund for newspapers. Cabinet in its November 21 Fall Economic Statement proposed to award subsidies to publishers deemed reliable. No criteria have been disclosed to date.

Conservative MP Peter Kent (Thornhill, Ont.), a Canadian Broadcast Hall of Famer, yesterday in Commons debate described the bailout fund as “a cynical, election-year attempt to co-opt, to buy off, media owners and publishers.”

Kent called the offer of subsidies “an unacceptable intervention that will compromise independence” by having a government panel decide “which newsrooms are credible and worthy, and which newsrooms are not”. Kent is a former NBC foreign correspondent and chief anchor for CBC-TV’s flagship National newscast.

“News organization CEOs and publishers who draw multi-million dollar salaries and equally outsized bonuses as their newsrooms are depleted are delighted,” said Kent. “Then-Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey enthusiastically welcomed the finance minister’s Fall Economic Statement announcement. Mr. Godfrey recommended everyone in journalism should be ‘doing a victory lap’ around their building.”

Postmedia last year paid CEO Godfrey $5.04 million in salary and bonuses, according to a Management Circular obtained November 28 by the Halifax Examiner. Other executive pay included $2.2 million to Postmedia’s chief operation officer, and $1.2 million to its chief financial officer.

By Staff