Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Transport and Communications
Issue 15 - Evidence - Morning meeting
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, Tuesday April 19, 2005
The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications met this day at 9:05 a.m. to examine the current state of Canadian media industries; emerging trends and developments in these industries; the media's role, rights, and responsibilities in Canadian society; and current and appropriate future policies relating thereto.
Senator Joan Fraser (Chairman) presiding.
[Translation]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, welcome to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It is a great pleasure indeed to be here in my native province to continue our examination of media industries and the State's role in helping these industries remain strong, independent and diversified in light of the upheavals within the industry in recent years. These include globalization, technological changes, convergence and ownership concentration.
[English]
This morning, we are very pleased to welcome Paul Schneidereit, National President of the Canadian Association of Journalists, and Mr. Murray Brewster, who is the Nova Scotia Chapter Representative on the CAJ's National Board of Directors. I should probably specify that the CAJ is not a union; it is an association of journalists about journalism. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. We are very glad to have you. I think you understand our basic pattern. We ask you to give a presentation of 10 minutes or so and then we ask you questions. Which of you will begin? Mr. Schneidereit, the floor is yours, sir.
Mr. Paul Schneidereit, National President, Canadian Association of Journalists: Good morning, senators, and welcome to Halifax. My name is Paul Schneidereit. I am an editorial writer and columnist at The Chronicle-Herald. I am appearing here this morning in my role as the current national president of the Canadian Association of Journalists. I would like to give you a national overview on the CAJ's position on some of the issues this committee is studying. My colleague, Murray Brewster, is representing the CAJ's Nova Scotia chapter. I thank you for the opportunity to appear. I intend to keep my remarks short to allow more time for discussion, if desired.
The CAJ, now in its twenty-seventh year, is a non-profit organization that exists to provide a national voice to Canadian journalists. The organization was founded in 1978 to encourage and support investigative journalism. Today, that remains one of our most important goals, but over the years, our primary mandate had expanded into two main roles: one, to provide professional development for more than 1,400 members nationwide, mainly through the workshops and panels at our annual conference each spring and National Writers' Symposium each fall as well as by way of the many local events put on by our chapters across the country; and two, to be an outspoken advocate for journalists and the public's right to know. The issues affecting our members and, we believe, the public, include police interference, such as impersonating journalists, seizing notes and tapes and even arresting journalists for simply doing our job, the lack of ``whistleblower'' legislation to protect those who speak out about wrongdoing, better protection for journalists who need to keep their sources confidential, attempts by some publishers to strip freelancers of all rights, and even the slippage in the vital separation between advertising and news.
The CAJ is almost completely run by volunteers. Our sole employee is John Dickins, our hard-working executive director, who maintains an office in Ottawa. Our board of directors is made up of working journalists from across Canada, representing print and broadcast outlets, as well as several freelancers.
When speaking about issues of media concentration, the CAJ's focus must be on journalism. Freedom of the press, which is enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is fundamental to our democracy. That means that a healthy, functioning democracy must have a healthy, functioning media, which keeps the public informed with not only basic information on topics and events, but also a diversity of viewpoints and interpretations of the world around them.
Journalists give voice to concerns of the public. We seek to publicize issues because the public has a fundamental right to know. That mission, and I use the word ``mission'' deliberately, makes many journalists fiercely independent. Journalists will sometimes believe in their stories when their colleagues, their editors and even their employers do not. As a former assignment editor, I can say with some authority that running a newsroom is sometimes like trying to herd a bunch of cats. However, that independent spirit combined with perseverance and a relentless questioning mind has led to countless stories of undeniable importance being uncovered, stories which otherwise would have remained untold.
Every newsroom contains these conflicts. Sometimes reporters win their arguments and sometime they do not. That is why diversity of voices is so important. What one newsroom does not see as a story for whatever reason, another might. What the daily paper does not report, the television news might, or the radio, or the community weekly, unless, perhaps, all these potential sources of news are not independent of each other.
The CAJ is absolutely against government interference or regulation of the editorial content of the media save for existing laws for things like libel. We do not have an opinion on what would be best in terms of horizontal concentration of media ownership other than the obvious, that one company owning every newspaper in Canada, for example, would not be in the public's interest. Our focus is on the importance of investigative journalism and the public's right to know, but when we see actions that we believe hurt that cause, we speak out, and we urge others to debate these questions as well.
Because journalists are so often independent in their thinking, which is a good thing, this can sometimes bring them into conflict with their employers. That is reality, and another reason why encouraging a diversity of voices is so important.
We feel, by definition, that cross-media ownership in the same market can have a negative impact on that important diversity of voices. Others have noted, and I concur, that if the United States, that bastion of free enterprise to the south, can pass laws to block media cross-ownership within one market to protect the diversity of voices, then we in Canada must ask ourselves why we do not seem to attach the same importance to that important principle.
In previous testimony, others have also proposed that the government should support a more media-literate public through increased support for education. The CAJ concurs with those recommendations.
In conclusion, I want to reiterate that the CAJ is against any governmental interference in running the nation's newsrooms. We do believe, however, that cross-media ownership rules similar to those existing in other countries should be studied for the lessons they offer Canada. Public access to a diversity of voices is essential to a healthy, functioning democracy.
Mr. Murray Brewster, Nova Scotia Chapter Representative, National Board of Directors, Canadian Association of Journalists: Good morning, senators, and welcome to Halifax. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for coming here and for hearing our presentation. I am a journalist with the Canadian Press and Broadcast News. The comments I make here are on behalf of the CAJ executive and not on behalf of my employer.
Now, with that caveat out of the way, I just wanted to let you know that in this province, CAJ represents up to 100 journalists who work in a variety of media and for a variety of different employers. We have radio, print, television, and new media journalists in our stable and all of them bring a variety of experiences and concerns to the table. Our members hail from both public and private broadcasters, and independent daily newspapers as well as small-town and weekly publications.
Now, on balance, when we talk about the print media, concentration in this province is not as big an issue here as it is elsewhere in the country. The province's largest daily newspaper is The Chronicle-Herald, which is independently owned, and it is the only single publication which reaches the entire province. The major source of competition is the Transcontinental Group, which owns The Halifax Daily News, the Truro Daily News, the Cape Breton Post, The New Glasgow Evening News and the Amherst Daily News as well a number of weekly papers, such as, The Yarmouth Vanguard. Now, pretty much without exception, there is a healthy rivalry between The Chronicle-Herald and the local newspapers in each of the communities throughout Nova Scotia. The CAJ believes that competition is good, not only because it leads to more jobs in journalism, but because it is essential for democracy, as Mr. Schneidereit has said.
You will find that Nova Scotia is one of the more politically active provinces in Canada, having elected two minority governments in the last seven years. Our organization believes that is partly due to the vigorous and sometimes searing public debates we have about issues and concerns. The province is also well served by the CBC, both radio and television. There is healthy competition between CBC television and the Atlantic Television System, ATV, a Bell Globemedia Company, and CanWest's Global TV here in Halifax.
Now, the CAJ's primary concern with media concentration in this province rests with private radio, which is often the source of news and information in communities throughout the province, including Halifax and Sydney. Ownership among the province's approximately 20 commercial radio stations is unequally divided among four major chains: Maritime Broadcasting, NewCap Broadcasting, Astral Media and CHUM. The Irving Group is also present; however, they have only one station along the province's South Shore. There are still some independent, locally owned radio stations, most notably, CJLS in Yarmouth, CKEC in New Glasgow, CJFX in Antigonish and CIGO in Port Hawkesbury.
Fifteen years ago, the state of private radio in this country was in shambles. In the 1980s, the Mulroney government allowed the issuing of a virtual bonanza of radio licences and by the recession of the 1990s, there were so many radio stations chasing so few advertising dollars that the industry was losing millions of dollars a year. The first solution became the loosening of spoken word content in foreground programming on FM radio stations, which led to the scaling back of information programming. Newscasts were shortened and journalists were let go, but that was just the beginning. The second part of the solution was media concentration. Throughout the country, the CRTC allowed the concentration of private radio to take place in two ways. One was the granting of so-called local management agreements, LMAs, where one or more competing radio stations move in together and share resources. Also during that time, the commission allowed a large number of smaller, independent radio stations to be swallowed up by some of the larger chains.
To give you an idea of the scale of the sacking of private radio newsrooms, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Halifax radio station CJCH and its competition, CHNS, had approximately 11 to 15 staff each, with newscasts from 6 a.m. until well into the evening and on the weekends. Today, both newsrooms boast between three and four people and those staffers cover newscasts on two and sometimes three different private radio stations.
The Chairman: That is three to four each or three to four in total?
Mr. Brewster: Three to four each.
The Chairman: Each, thank you.
Mr. Brewster: Yes, three to four at each radio station. There are some small-town newspapers, I know, in the province and the region that get by with just one journalist, a morning news reader. What has suffered the most through the corporate downsizing and the concentration is a newsroom's ability to field reporters to cover local events. In Halifax, private radio does not have the resources to cover something as basic as city council and courts. They rely on copy from local newspapers. In the rural parts of the province, in small communities, it is only marginally better where the reporter is often the morning or afternoon news reader, who can duck in and out of meetings in between newscasts. Some newsrooms do not have enough staff to cover weekends. That has become an issue here, especially lately with Hurricane Juan. In the post-disaster report that Environment Canada compiled, it expressed frustration about being able to get warnings out because a number of private radio newsrooms were not staffed. I can provide a copy of the report to the committee if you are interested in reading their post-disaster analysis.
The Chairman: Yes, please, if you would forward that to us.
Mr. Brewster: There were similar complaints in New Brunswick following the 1998 ice storm. To make up for the gap in reporting, private radio stations have come to rely heavily on the news wire service, Broadcast News. Given that they are my employer, you might think that I consider reliance on them to be a good thing: not necessarily. One of the most important pillars of the wire service is member or station contributions. BN and CP correspondents obviously cannot be everywhere in every community when news breaks out. Over the years, we have relied on tips and contributions from local radio stations in order to make up the national news reports. Those contributions have been falling off at an alarming rate in this region over the last five years because, in many cases, there is nobody left in the newsrooms to file.
I am not going to single out any specific chain or corporate entity. What I have described to you here is the overall state of private radio news. Some would argue, what is the big deal? Private radio does music and when you want news, you can turn to the CBC. Indeed, I have had former colleagues and radio program directors whom I have worked with tell me that. What is wrong with this is what we are here to discuss today. Media concentration means, in essence, an absence of voices and differing points of view. By slashing staff, cutting newscast time, not covering weekends and almost abandoning local news coverage, a number of private broadcasters have contributed to media concentration, but that concentration has been driven towards one source, which is the CBC.
In fairness, the situation in Halifax may be about to change with the introduction of an all-news-and-talk radio station operated by Rogers. That competition will be welcomed here.
I realize that the Canadian Association of Broadcasters has testified before you and has given this committee a barrage of statistics showing an increase in the number of stations across the country, and demonstrating in corporate terms that there is less concentration than there was in the 1970s and 1980s. All of that is true. There are more stations out there and more players in the industry but I would encourage this committee to look at media concentration in more than just ownership terms. Regardless of the fact that there are more stations out there, Canadians are receiving their information from a smaller pool of journalists. Statistics will tell you that more people get their news from television than from radio. In fact, I have heard some say that radio is a sunset industry, given the Internet. Well, I do not believe that because, as we all know, when most people get up in the morning, they turn on the coffee and the next thing they do is turn on the radio to hear what the weather is going to be like and what is happening in their local community. That is especially true in rural parts of Nova Scotia.
The CAJ firmly believes that private radio has an important role to fill, especially in smaller centres throughout this province and we sincerely hope that this committee will recognize that and support recommendations that will restore that ability.
Senator Tkachuk: Mr. Brewster, when you talked about the concentration of radio stations and perhaps the diminishing of radio news, but at the same time talked about the increased number of radio stations, what would be the solution; having fewer radio stations, having more radio stations, or having more competition? You cannot mandate people or pass laws, or maybe you can, but I do not believe in that, saying that, ``You have to carry news,'' so what kind of public policy could be initiated to solve the problem?
Mr. Brewster: First of all, senator, that is for greater minds than mine to comprehend, but I guess the only thing I could possibly say is that radio stations were regulated to a certain degree to carry a certain amount of information programming prior to the 1990s. That was abandoned for somewhat good reasons because the industry was in such dire straits, but as far as the CAJ is concerned, there is a public duty on all broadcasters, be they private or be they public like the CBC, to provide information to their communities. As to a specific legislative fix, I do not have a firm idea in mind. I would like to see what more comes out of these deliberations here.
Senator Tkachuk: Should it be easier to get a licence to broadcast, or more difficult?
Mr. Brewster: I think it is reasonably difficult now to get a licence to broadcast.
Senator Tkachuk: I know it is, but should it be easier?
Mr. Brewster: Should it be easier?
Senator Tkachuk: Should it be easier to get into the marketplace? Right now, it is quite difficult, but should it be easier to get into the marketplace, to have more radio stations?
Mr. Brewster: Should there be more radio stations?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Mr. Brewster: I am not an expert in the rest of the country, but I believe that the market usually dictates how many radio stations you can possibly have in it. There are only so many advertising dollars out there and in terms of regulatory barriers, I think that from out point of view right now, it is pretty much all right.
Senator Tkachuk: When you talked about cross-ownership, Mr. Schneidereit, you mentioned U.S. public policy on cross-ownership. Should this policy be national or local; in other words, should there be a prevention of cross- ownership in the city of Halifax, for example, or the province of Nova Scotia rather than on a national scale, which would say, ``Oh, maybe Global cannot own Mclean's,'' which would be a news magazine? What did you have in mind?
Mr. Schneidereit: When I said that, I was definitely thinking of the local markets. You know the old saying that all news is local that people care about.
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Mr. Schneidereit: In Halifax, we are in a fortunate situation because we have competing ownership with different voices, so I was thinking more of single markets where, if you are a consumer of news, your choices are limited because all the voices are controlled by one owner, theoretically speaking.
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, so if Global wanted to buy you, that should be a problem?
Mr. Schneidereit: I cannot speak for The Chronicle-Herald at all or what they may or may not like.
Senator Tkachuk: Pretend you own it. Would you see that as a problem?
Mr. Schneidereit: If they were not already in this market? They are in this market.
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes, that potentially would be a problem. I do not have a precise understanding of every other country's rule when it comes to cross-ownership.
Senator Tkachuk: Right.
Mr. Schneidereit: I know that they exist in a number of other countries, so I guess what I am suggesting is, obviously, those rules are there for a reason. It was a question of public policy that was felt to be important enough to have them there, so it is something we should look at.
Senator Tkachuk: You are really one newspaper away from having the whole province owned by one person, sort of like, ``Welcome to Saskatchewan.'' If your paper was sold to the other chain, that would be it. One company would own basically all the dailies because they seem to own all the dailies except yours, right?
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes, I think so.
Senator Tkachuk: That would obviously be a monopoly in the province. It would be an issue for the Competition Bureau, I would think. I do not know for sure. This does exist in other provinces, like mine, where we basically have the Leader-Post, The Star Phoenix, and a number of other dailies all owned by one person.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes, as I was suggesting earlier, when you get into a horizontal ownership of a number of newspapers, we do not want to really draw the line at how many is too many because we do not see that as our role. My focus on major cross-ownership was, if you turn on the radio or turn on the TV or open a daily newspaper and they all come from the same source. We see that as a problem in terms of diversity.
Senator Munson: I cannot believe that 40 years has gone by for me. You mentioned CJLS and that is where I started in 1965, $32 a week, and since you are not here from The Chronicle-Herald, but you are at The Chronicle-Herald, I had to read the news out of The Chronicle-Herald. Everybody would go home at lunchtime to see how many mistakes I would make. I remember saying a very big word at that time, that, ``Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson said that if Canadians do not tighten their belts, we are all going to suffer from serious infalation (sic),'' because I had never seen the word before. We never had a wire service, but that was a different ownership, a different time and certainly a wonderful time, 40 years ago.
All of this is to say that I love private radio. I love the CBC and I like private radio and I started in private radio. I am wondering, Mr. Brewster, are you suggesting that the CRTC should bring back those regulations that private radio stations should be mandated to carry at least a certain amount of news or to have, depending on the size of the market, a reporter that actually covers a town hall meeting. I have a lot of empathy for your argument because we have seen it. We have had the Canadian Association of Broadcasters before us and we were thrown a whack of statistics of what is going on. They talked about how everything has changed now because it has gone from AM to FM, so there is a talk format and, therefore, it is a different focus on news coverage. It is one thing to listen to people's beefs through talk radio and it is another thing to cover the news and serve your citizens. Are you suggesting that perhaps there should be regulations brought back to make sure that, as you say, voices of democracy are heard in our communities?
Mr. Brewster: As I had said earlier, I do not want to get pegged to a specific solution because the industry does have its challenges. However, I do believe that it is something that the CRTC should look at, be aware of and give some consideration to. I am not suggesting that they go out and bring back some of the regulations that were in place in the 1980s because, frankly, some of them were absolutely bone-headed. However, I really do think that the industry should work with the CRTC and the CRTC should work with the industry and recognize that there is a level of community commitment that has to take place. That is about as specific as I can be.
Senator Munson: In Atlantic Canada, could you walk me through who owns what again? I was marking it down and I guess I have Maritime and then Astral and so on.
Mr. Brewster: I can take you through Nova Scotia specifically, yes.
Senator Munson: Nova Scotia, I mean, yes.
Mr. Brewster: In Halifax, we have radio stations CJCH and C100 owned by the CHUM group. They are in a local management agreement presently with NewCap Broadcasting, which owns CFDR and Q104, and they are also part owners in COOL FM. They have changed their call letters recently, but they used to be Sun FM here in Halifax. Those five radio stations are part of a local management agreement. The major competition is radio stations CHNS and Country 101, which are owned by the Maritime Broadcasting chain. The Maritime Broadcasting chain owns CKDH in Amherst, Nova Scotia and CKEN in the Annapolis Valley. They also own CJCB and the country FM station, and I am struggling for the call letters. In Sydney, they are also, I believe, co-owners in CHER in Sydney. Those three radio stations that I just mentioned in Sydney are all part of a local management agreement as well. Then we have the Irving radio station, CKBW, along the South Shore in Bridgewater. We have CJLS, independently owned, in Yarmouth. We have CKEC, independently owned, in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. We have CIGO and its FM affiliate in Port Hawkesbury, which are cooperatively owned, I believe. In Truro, we have FM combo radio owned by the Astral radio group.
Senator Munson: Are you saying the majority of them do not have a newsperson covering local issues?
Mr. Brewster: No, no, it depends upon the radio station and the commitment, but in most cases, most of the rural newsrooms have anywhere between one and three people. There are three people, a lot of times, if it is an FM radio station, if there is an AM/FM combo. It is just that newsrooms are very, very small throughout the province.
Senator Munson: I am curious about the issue you talked about that some stations did not have the capacity to report warnings on weekends, that they did not have people there as well. Are public radio, PR, stations or owners trying to save money? Are they trying to keep their costs down and say news does not happen on the weekends? I preface that with, for example, Global Television was very proud last year or whatever to say, ``We now have a weekend newscast.'' I thought news was seven days a week, 24 hours a day. I mean, where is the pride? You should just do it.
Mr. Brewster: A number of radio stations, and it would depend upon the individual station, have no weekend newscasts. Some of them rely on the Broadcast News National Report, BNR, which is shown every hour and is fed by satellite. But the specific instance where Hurricane Juan was concerned, it came out of a debrief that Environment Canada did. I did a story on it last year and the specifics were that Environment Canada was trying to get weather warnings out. They would be issuing the warnings on the wire. I do not know how familiar you senators are with the operations of newsrooms, especially radio newsrooms, but, of course, the wire would produce the local bulletins and if there is a weather bulletin, it pops up on the computers in most newsrooms, but there has to be somebody there to read it. Environment Canada was calling around to some of the local newsrooms and got answering machines because there was no one available. They expressed a great deal of frustration and, actually, they ended up calling our newsroom and saying, ``Look, we want to get people aware that this storm is coming,'' et cetera. Of course, the wire did a story and then, as they said, there was a pick-up after that. A similar concern was expressed following the ice storm in 1998 in New Brunswick.
Senator Munson: How important is a national news wire to small-town radio and small-town newspapers and television?
Mr. Brewster: Absolutely indispensable right now.
Senator Eyton: We have had meetings across Canada, speaking to all sorts of Canadians from all different backgrounds on the subject of the committee, and I would say frequently we hear that there is a lack of diversity. I am a news junkie. I read as much as I can, I listen to as much as I can and, occasionally, I even think about it. I have more than I can handle. I like to think back to a time when there were one, two or perhaps three television stations and a couple of newspapers and a few privately held radio stations. The diversity today, not just in those sectors, but in terms of other sources, the Internet and satellite broadcasting and things of that sort, gives me a menu of news and information that I cannot handle. There is just not enough time to handle it. You have not commented at all on new technologies and new sources of news and information. I would be interested in hearing your comment on that. I address it to both of you, I think.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes, there is no question that with the Internet, satellite and things like that, there are all kinds of choices for people who are wired and plugged in. I am also a news junkie and I am on the Internet every morning and every evening. I can get news whenever I want it, but not everyone is a news junkie. There are people who live very busy lives and perhaps their sole source of news is what they hear on the radio on the way to work and a quick look at the paper at the office or whatever. There are different people in different circumstances. My feeling is that without picking out, again, any criticism of a certain level of horizontal concentration, my worry would be that in single markets, there may be situations where people who do not have access to the Internet for whatever reason, time constraints, et cetera, do not have that diversity.
Senator Eyton: Mr. Brewster?
Mr. Brewster: Senator, I will not quite challenge your notion. There are a number of different outlets that you have now for news. The pipeline branches out in ways that it never did before but let me ask you a question: Is some of that content that you are getting just a repeat or a regurgitation of the same story?
Senator Eyton: Of course, yes.
Mr. Brewster: In many cases, the pipeline for news and information has many prongs at the end, but there is only one or two major pipelines feeding those outlets and that is our concern. Let me give you an example, coming back to the private radio concerns that I raised. I cover the Nova Scotia legislature for BN and CP and even as late as 10 years ago, there would have been at least two private radio representatives there and they would have their particular take on a story. Now, it is just my voice that is being carried, my particular take on a story, and that particular take is being broadcast throughout the province. There are so many different vehicles, and I believe our folks in Toronto call them ``platforms'' now, for the delivery of news. It can be either on the cell phone or it can be on these little ticker tape things that are in elevators in Toronto now. It can be through a radio headset or Walkman. It can be on your Blackberry. However, I ask you to look at the source of that information and whether or not the sources are diversified.
Mr. Schneidereit: Your coverage of the submarine in Scotland.
Mr. Brewster: Now, that is another example. I was sent to Scotland to cover the submarine tragedy and I was providing both radio and print copy, but there were very few Canadian media outlets there in comparison to past years. The CBC came in for a day or so. CBC Radio could not get a national correspondent there. They managed only to get a stringer in there for a couple of days. The point of the matter is, you have to look at the fact that the pipeline at the feeding end is somewhat constricted.
Senator Eyton: You may have a certain point on certain subjects. My own sense is that on the larger questions, bigger than regional, such as, right now, the Gomery inquiry, there are lots of voices, lots of opinions and lots of diversity, but there may be a failing across Canada with respect to local news and local coverage. We have heard that as a message fairly repeatedly across the country. One of the prospective solutions for that is community broadcasting, low-power radio stations, smaller — almost neighbourhood — newspapers and things of that sort. Can you comment on that as a possible response to the dearth of local news and local coverage that Canadians seem to want?
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes. I think that is evident. I think you are seeing issues that people want to speak about and they find ways to speak about them; not in every community, but it is happening a lot. In Halifax, there is a weekly that came out, The Coast. They just celebrated their five-hundredth edition. It provides an alternative for people. We do see that definitely on the Internet, the rise of the so-called web logs, the ``blogs,'' where people are talking about what is going on in their local community. I think people want to get the news out. I am not sure that we should rely on blogs and alternatives though in every community for people to get their local news.
Senator Eyton: One of the constraints that you mentioned earlier was lack of advertisers and advertising dollars. Can you suggest any other source of revenue that may support a broader base for journalists in reporting the news and information?
Mr. Brewster: My only comment to that would be that we have a publicly funded broadcaster, which does a very good job, and we have the private industry, which should rely strictly upon its advertising revenues and advertising dollars. I cannot see any other market-driven way to remedy the situation.
Senator Eyton: The possibility, for example, of subscribers at whatever level, or what about, for example, the PBS approach in the U.S. where, in fact, there are supporters that will support various media? Is that something we could apply here in Canada?
Mr. Brewster: Canada is not big enough to support a PBS-style organization.
Senator Eyton: What about a local newspaper, or a low-power radio station? Is that possible?
Mr. Schneidereit: I think that already happens to some degree. In the Eastern Shore here in Nova Scotia, there is a small radio station that started not too long ago and they rely on supporters in the community who like what they are hearing to send donations. I would not discount it as a possibility, but I think it is up to the ingenuity of the voices that want to be heard to find the funding that way.
Senator Eyton: To make it work, yes.
Who does it right? From my years in business, the thing that we always watched most closely were the other guys to see what they were doing, how they were doing it, and if they were doing it better, to try to emulate them and try to stay ahead that way. Is there a place or was there a time where we did better? In effect, what should we be doing now? In doing that, it seems to me you need standards or stalking-horses that will allow you to measure your own performance against that stalking-horse or standard. Who do you think has it right?
Mr. Schneidereit: I think there are definitely markets in Canada that are working very well and others where there is a challenge to find that diversity. I am not going to pick out any single place other than an obvious place like Toronto, which has a lot of choices, but it has a big market. I think we do pretty well here in Halifax. We are lucky enough to have an independent newspaper and there is healthy competition. CAJ is not a union and we do not take positions in labour-management situations. We try to talk about the journalism and so we speak out when we are concerned about places and situations where we think that diversity is not as healthy as it should be.
Senator Eyton: You talked about your role in promoting journalism, or good journalists, somewhere in your remarks. Could you elaborate a little on those efforts? I would like to put it into the context that years ago, I was one of a group of people that, I think with Eric Jackman's money, founded something called the Canadian Journalism Foundation. It started off as kind of a top-down exercise and, in my estimation, it failed completely. Then someone got wise and said, ``Rather than the top-down guys, who had very little idea of how to do it, why not start with the working journalists? Have them develop programs and speak to each other and then provide them with seminars and gatherings where they could, in fact, learn from experts in various fields.'' That has worked well. First, I assume you are familiar with the work of the Canadian Journalism Foundation?
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes.
Senator Eyton: Is that the sort of thing you would do in your association of journalists?
Mr. Schneidereit: Some quick history: When the CAJ was formed as the Centre for Investigative Journalism, CIJ, the membership, I believe, was 400 or 500, maybe 600 at best. Then it changed its name, I think, in the early 1990s, to become the Canadian Association of Journalists to broaden out to embrace all journalists, whether they are investigative or not. Membership currently is about 1,400 or better. What we do really is very locally driven. Our national conference, which happens every spring, takes place in different cities around the country. This year, it is in Winnipeg. In Winnipeg, we have a local committee that has been working on this for a year. The committee has put together discussion panels and workshops on skills, and has contacted and are going to bring in some high-profile speakers to speak about the issues of the day. However, it is very much locally driven as to what that group of people would like to see happen. We expect 300-plus journalists to be in Winnipeg next month and it is a three-day event, so there is going to be a lot of professional development going on there. Every fall, we have what we call the National Writers' Symposium, which is a day and a half, stripped down, focused on skills that we have been doing now since 1998. Last fall, we were in Charlottetown, which is a fairly small market, but we got 75 journalists out for a day and a half, again doing workshops on interviewing, editing, writing, broadcast skills, and all that sort of thing. Then, the chapters themselves across Canada will put on events both for discussion purposes and workshops and skills. That is one of our two main aims. We try to drive that.
Senator Eyton: Yes.
Mr. Schneidereit: We think by the numbers of people who come out in the communities, not only from the local area, but for a national conference, flying in from all over the place, that this is what our membership wants. We would like to do more, but because we are non-profit and volunteer-driven, we can do only as much as the funds we have available from our membership permits. Membership comprises the largest percentage of our funds, by far.
Senator Eyton: That is very impressive. Is there anything this committee might do to help in the process that you just described?
Mr. Schneidereit: I think moral encouragement would be fine. We are independent and we are doing what we can.
Senator Eyton: That is another way of saying it, yes.
The Chairman: I do not know whether this is really necessary, but I always try to be as transparent as possible. I should say that I worked for many years with two of your founding fathers, Don McGillivray and Henry Aubin, on different papers, but for many years with each of them. I had and have a high regard for them both. Mr. Brewster, you said that Rogers Communications is coming into Halifax with an all-news station. Do you know whether its plans or conditions of licence include local content in an all-news program?
Mr. Brewster: Yes, it does. The application that was on the website that was approved by the CRTC actually envisions a small regional network of radio stations — one in Halifax, one in Moncton and one in Saint John — with news staff in each location. Again, I do not know if this is exactly what they intend to do when they hit the air and they are expected to hit the air some time later this year, but the ``Hour Wheel,'' as it is called, envisioned that the morning show would come out of Halifax with local drop-ins for the stations in Moncton and Saint John. The midday program would come out of Moncton, New Brunswick, again with local drop-ins for local news from Halifax and Saint John. The afternoon drive radio would come out of Saint John, New Brunswick, but with local drop-ins from Halifax and from Moncton. In Halifax, there was a plan to hire 38 staff total. That is according to the CRTC website.
The Chairman: That would include ad sales people, technicians, and everybody?
Mr. Webster: That would be the whole gamut, yes. That would run the gamut of folks.
The Chairman: Still, that would include a reasonable number of journalists, one would assume?
Mr. Webster: One would hope, yes.
The Chairman: The pattern you describe of diminution of larger radio newsrooms is not necessarily unique to this city, and I would like you to describe for our benefit a little more how these things work. For example, in Montreal, there has been a big public controversy over the fact that the new owners of Radio Station CKAC are planning to close down its 17-journalist newsroom, and the quid pro quo that they offered the CRTC was that in a number of regions, where there are also fine stations, they would install, in places where there had not been any reporters, one or maybe one and a half reporters. My colleagues from Quebec tell me that the regions are quite pleased with this. In Montreal, there is a great hue and cry. Can you please explain the difference in terms of work, output, capacity and possibilities between a central newsroom of 17 people that does not have representation out in the regions and a network of solo, but well-placed, probably, regional people? What is the difference?
Mr. Brewster: Specific to the situation in Montreal, I am familiar with it only to a certain degree, so I do not want to comment directly on that.
The Chairman: No, I am asking you in general. I am just citing this as an example to suggest that Halifax is not the only place that has been grappling with this issue.
Mr. Brewster: No, no, and I agree with you, but in my personal opinion, having been a news director, if it makes sense coverage-wise, to disperse your staff, then, yes, it should be done from a coverage point of view. However, is it being done for a coverage point of view or is it being done from a business point of view as a way to disguise cuts? I say this theoretically. I am not trying to suggest that this is what is happening in Montreal. That is one of the questions that has to be asked whenever a reorganization like that takes place. The other thing is that if a radio station is promising to have ``X'' number of staff, a lot of times, they may not have that many staff. Again, this is only anecdotal, but there are a number of radio stations that I have heard of that promised the commission they would hire ``X'' number of journalists and they have fallen short of it. Again, this is only anecdotal. I do not have that particular information here in front of me, so that is another question that would have to be asked. To address what you have asked me, if it makes sense from a coverage point of view, based upon your geography, based upon where the news happens, then, of course, you should be dispersing your staff, and not have them all in one central location. The issue here is that even in the central location, do you have enough staff to cover even the essentials or the basics? From a newsperson's or a journalist's point of view, to me, if you are going to cover a community, the essentials and the basics are city council, definitely, and courts, and if you have enough staff, school boards and the different hospital boards, et cetera. To me, this is the issue that the private radio industry is grappling with right now, and that is just having enough staff to cover even the basics.
The Chairman: If you are the one reporter in Pictou, Granby or wherever, what can you do? You get up in the morning and you have presumably an eight-hour work day, which may stretch to 10, but probably not too much longer than that if you have a spouse and children. What do you do with that time?
Mr. Brewster: If you were the lone reporter in a radio station, and again it would depend specifically upon the radio station and the circumstance, then your day may include reading some newscasts in the morning. For instance, I know of people who will get up and read the morning newscasts on their local radio stations. The first newscast airs at 6 a.m., which means they should be in the door, reasonably so, by 4:30 a.m. so they are prepared, and they will read newscasts until 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. Then, they grab a tape recorder, grab a microphone, go out, and if there is a scheduled news conference, cover that scheduled news conference, or if there is something in court, cover the court, and then come back and read the noon newscast. It is not unheard of to see some of these people working well into the afternoon, covering events, even reading the afternoon drive newscasts, until 6 p.m. at night.
The Chairman: Are they writing those newscasts themselves?
Mr. Brewster: Yes.
The Chairman: On what basis, Canadian Press and Broadcast News?
Mr. Brewster: On CP, police checks.
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Brewster: The other thing too that I can say with a reasonable degree of authority is that those folks that are left in the private radio newsrooms now, because there are so few bodies, rely more upon the handouts, press releases and material that is handed out to them, and cop checks. I do not want to say that there are any inaccuracies, but it affects critical thinking and the ability to question some of what is being handed to them, some of what is being told to them.
Let me give you an example of a particular challenge that is faced by private radio newsrooms at this point, and it is faced by all media, I would say. In reporting crime and police incidents, the trend over the last five years has been for authorities, and I am using that word generically, to clam up. You have to really, really wrestle to get even some of the most basic information out of authorities in a run-of-the-mill fatal or an incident that is going on. Let me give you an example. There was an incident at Renous Penitentiary in New Brunswick a few years ago. The only information that Corrections Canada handed out was that a prisoner had been taken to hospital with stab wounds. That was it. The story was filed to us in Halifax on the Halifax desk. Was this a riot? What happened here?
The Chairman: Was a guard taken hostage?
Mr. Brewster: Yes, was a guard taken hostage, et cetera? However, that is all the authorities would release. That is all they would give us and that is all I had time for at the radio station because I had a newscast coming up, et cetera. This state of affairs has diminished the ability to even verify, dig for or challenge the information that is being given right now.
Senator Tkachuk: We have more radio stations in Saskatoon today than we used to have. Not so long ago there were only three or four. In the City of Saskatoon, there were CFQC AM and CKOM. The country station was in Rosetown, for God's sake, and CBC. That was it. Now, there are tonnes of them. Was there ever a time when radio news was really significant, because I do not remember it as compared to today? I do not think it is any worse. I do not know if it is any better with the multiplicity of stations. You seem to say that there is a problem, but the evidence for that would have to be much fewer journalists and less diversity of opinion and news when you take into context everything that has happened since; that is, a new network in television, the Internet and all those things. Go ahead, please.
Mr. Brewster: Was there ever a time when there was a golden age of radio, sir?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, of radio news.
Mr. Brewster: I have been in radio news for 21 years and I can tell you that during my time there, there has been an erosion in the ability of radio to deliver news on a private basis. I think if you ask just about anyone who works in this industry at this time and has been around for a certain amount of time, they would agree.
Your second question was, does it really matter?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, if you are getting it from somewhere else.
Mr. Brewster: Well, this is just my opinion, sir.
Senator Tkachuk: That is what we want.
Mr. Brewster: Yes. For many people, radio is still a significant source of news. It is never, in my opinion, top of mind, but, as I said in my presentation, when people get up in the morning, the first thing they do usually after making a cup of coffee is to turn on the radio and to find out what is happening in their community. I think it is a very conscious thing. Because television is so visually overpowering, people will automatically suggest to you that they get most of their information from television. Being a consumer of news, I would challenge that notion because a lot of times when you hear about things for the first time, for people who are at work, for people who are at home, for people who are driving their vehicles, it is on the radio.
Mr. Schneidereit: Do you mind if I answer?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes?
Mr. Schneidereit: My career has been totally in print, so I can speak just as a consumer. I have been in Halifax for over 20 years now. I remember when I first came, you could turn on the radio and there were teams of reporters, the local news and opinion pieces. I have noticed, without keeping fastidious notes over the years, that it has slowly disappeared in a lot of cases. It has changed here.
Senator Tkachuk: We were in St. John's yesterday and we had a presentation from NTV, I think they are called. They were talking about television and how they have become number one in news. When they figured out that news is what connects them to the community, they took action to make their station number one and made CBC a distant, distant number two, where not that many years ago, according to them, CBC was number one. They used news to do it. It seems to me if news was important on radio, or sold on radio, radio would do this because there is not a businessman I know that does not want to make money. If people would listen to radio news, they would be broadcasting news so they could sell more advertising and make more money. Why would they lose money?
Mr. Brewster: I will answer this by saying that some of the biggest money-making radio stations in the country are in Vancouver, CKNW, in Toronto, CFRB, and Montreal, CJAD. They are all news and talk. They have a larger market to draw from, but news is an expense and some radio groups have found that it is easier perhaps to make money by just playing records. Again, every corporation and every business has to make its own decision. However, having been a radio news director and having seen how the industry works in terms of focus groups, and in terms of how the questions are asked in focus groups, I would suggest to you that there is still a market for private radio and for radio news. It is just that sometimes when you ask the focus group questions as you are preparing your business plan, you do not ask the right questions. I believe that if you talk to people on the street, a lot of times people will tell you that they want to hear what is going on in the morning, and they want to know what is happening in their community. To find out what is happening, the quickest and usually the easiest way is to turn on the radio.
Senator Tkachuk: You mentioned the changes that CRTC made in the mid-eighties in response to the problems that radio was having, AM radio specifically. There were a number of changes made to try and rectify the problem and make radio healthy again. What were the good changes they made and what were the dumb ones, as you talked about earlier.
Senator Munson: In the old days, you had to play Canadian content music and play the Laurie Bower Singers over and over again. That was part of it.
Senator Tkachuk: Also, they mandated news. You had to have so much news, and they did counts and all that stuff. They got rid of some of those regulations. What were some of the good things they did, which helped the expansion of FM radio in this country? What were some of the dumb ones, from your perspective, so we do not recommend dumb things again?
Mr. Brewster: I can limit my comments to only what was happening with radio news because CanCon is something that is completely outside my domain and I would not really want to comment on that. I will state quite clearly that at the time that the CRTC made the changes, they were necessary because the industry was in crisis. There was just no two ways about it. They came up with, as far as I was concerned, the best solution at the time, which was to remove some of the spoken-word content requirements and foreground-programming requirements. In some cases, these requirements were incredibly expensive, especially where some foreground programming was concerned, such as local requirements for magazine shows. A lot of times, stations even with full staff were scrambling to fulfill these unrealistic commitments that stations would sometimes put on themselves to get licences, so the removal of some of those restrictions is not necessarily a bad thing. What I am suggesting, though, is that the industry and the CRTC revisit and refocus what it means to have a community commitment. It is a somewhat convoluted answer, senator, but that is basically what I would recommend, because the changes that were done at the time were necessary. They had to be made. Should we go back and look at how much news is on the air right now in communities? Yes. Should that be mandated and carved in regulations in stone? I am not so sure that I am entirely in favour of that but I think we have to raise the consciousness and awareness of people, because, again, I come back to rural Nova Scotia. There, private radio news and local radio news is sometimes the life blood of a community.
Senator Tkachuk: We have had testimony about this before. Business people go and get a licence, whether it is for television or radio, and they say they are going to do all these things. They know, because of the inconsistency of the CRTC, that they can come back a year later and say, ``Oh, woe is me. I cannot do that.''
Mr. Brewster: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: They do that in television and they do that in radio. After a while, what happens is, because people know that they will not get punished, they go in there, saying whatever they have to say to get the licence because they know a year down the road, they can say, ``Oh, I cannot do that.'' If it is granting a licence, the state can actually, through the CRTC, mandate certain things; in other words, remove your licence. I have never heard of anybody having their licence removed for any reason whatsoever.
The Chairman: Just one in Quebec City.
Mr. Brewster: That is under appeal, is it not?
The Chairman: That is the only one that comes to mind.
Mr. Brewster: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: What is the point of it all? If the state says that the airwaves belong to the public, then my view is either you open them up and you let anybody who wants a radio station have one; just auction off the airwaves so that at least the public will make some money. The alternative is to say, ``This is what is required. If you want to have this licence, this is what you have to do and if you do not do it, the licence will removed.''
Is there room for public policy like that? I am not sure if it would solve any problems. I am just trying to get a discussion going.
Mr. Brewster: No, and I realize that, senator. I would not want to get into suggesting specific remedies because each circumstance and each business case is different. However, my opinion is if you make a promise to the CRTC or you make a promise to the commission, it should be kept. There should be remedies to make sure that promises are kept. What those remedies are, I have no idea. That should be up to the commission and the industry to work out, but if you make a promise to the CRTC, then you should do your best to keep it. That is all there is to it.
Senator Munson: Mr. Brewster has not asked me to say this at all, but you were answering your own question a minute ago. This multitasking is a wonderful thing and it is great to be able to read, write and do all those things, but, for example, when you were covering the submarine business in Scotland, I find Canadians are getting neither a diverse voice nor even a reasonable voice if you are not able to investigate fully what you were covering. I know that at CP you have to write, then you have to do your radio business, then you probably have to do some stuff for the Internet and maybe some blogging and some other new media. I do not think it serves the readership or the listenership well, specifically in a tragedy of that proportion, that you cannot do your job the way you would want to do it, or any other reporter across the country wants to do his or her job on these kind of major events. All you are doing is writing a headline and you are not able to ask that question, as you talked about, on the Renous business. I just wanted to have that on the public record as a former journalist.
Mr. Brewster: Is that a question, senator?
Senator Munson: It is an observation, but if you want to address it, that is fine.
The Chairman: Do you want to put a question mark at the end of it?
Senator Munson: I am getting to understand why preambles now in the Senate are getting longer and longer.
Mr. Brewster: What you are talking about, senator, is something that the business has termed ``convergence.'' It is happening with CP, it is happening with the CBC. My opinion, being one of the converged reporters at BN and CP, is that convergence works and works well under some circumstances. Your reference point was the submarine. To be perfectly honest, I thought I did quite well on that —
Senator Munson: Oh, yes. No, you did well. I am just saying that —
Mr. Brewster: — in being able to dig material. Are there times when convergence becomes overwhelming and multitasking becomes overwhelming? Certainly, it does, but the trick for convergence, which is something that is not going to go away, is that newsroom managers have to figure out when it is appropriate and when it is not appropriate.
Senator Munson: Yes.
Mr. Brewster: Anyway, that is my observation. I do not entirely disagree with you, but I would say that the trick with convergence is figuring out when it is appropriate and when to throw more staff at something.
Senator Munson: When I was in media and convergence first began, I was six feet, two. It took about three years to cut you down to size in terms of trying to cover things. That is my little joke this morning. I am curious on the ``whistle- blower'' legislation. Could you be a bit more specific for us so that we could have some idea of what we might recommend on ``whistle-blower'' legislation?
Mr. Schneidereit: Sure. We are looking at legislation that would protect public servants, employees in a major corporation or anybody, people who come forward to speak out about wrongdoing who are now afraid to do so because of the repercussions in terms of their livelihoods and even their future job prospects. Looking at the U.S., I know there is federal legislation and there is also legislation at the state level, giving that kind of protection to people. Last year in Canada, there was legislation that died before the election. We did not feel that legislation went far enough in terms of protecting people. I do not have all the details in front of me, but from my recollection, it seemed to set out a pretty onerous chain of who you had to go to to get clearance right up to basically asking your boss whether you could say something bad about the company. We had problems with that. We would like to see something stronger. We think that, for one thing, the whole question of confidential sources comes into this because people have no other way to get the stories out sometimes but to talk to journalists completely on the understanding that their names will not be used.
Senator Munson: I have two other questions just to get it on the public records. Does the CAJ have a view on existing foreign-ownership rules and restrictions? Should they be changed?
Mr. Schneidereit: No, the CAJ does not a formal view.
Senator Munson: No?
Mr. Schneidereit: No.
Senator Munson: We mentioned briefly as well, horizontal ownership, and I do not think we got into a detailed discussion about cross-media ownership. Should we as a committee do something about cross-media ownership?
Mr. Schneidereit: That is one thing we are suggesting. Ideally, because of the fact that other countries have cross- media ownership rules, we believe there is a good reason for that, that it would be a very healthy exercise to study what is being done, why it is being done, how effective it is, and to look at what application it might have in Canada. In terms of the journalism, our concern is that, speaking in the hypothetical, if you had a market in which, vertically, every voice was owned by the same person or group, that would obviously have a stifling effect on at least the source of the information. It may be conscious and it may not be, but in the world of convergence, if you have one reporter who is going to file for every outlet, what if that person missed something or did not ask the right questions because he or she did not have time? That is why you need the diversity of voices. It is just healthier when you have more people on whom to rely.
The Chairman: I just have a couple of questions and an observation. I, too, have learned since I came to the senate how to do preambles. I used to specialize in tight questions and the temptation is just enormous to spread it out. My observation is on the submarine story. I think it is true. What I saw of your work was really good and there is a tremendous exhilaration to being the person telling the world about a story. On the other hand, I would take issue with the implication from something Senator Eyton said that this was a regional story. That submarine story became quite quickly, as we saw again last night on the news, a national story and, indeed, with international ramifications because of the connections with Westminster. Exhilaration aside, it would seem to me that it is a little unnerving not to have more sources. However brilliant your work, you are still a human being.
Mr. Brewster: Yes.
The Chairman: You can make mistakes, you can get things wrong, and you can miss stuff. It is an almost perfect example of a story where even though that might not have been obvious at the outset, it became apparent quite quickly that the country needed as many voices as possible to cover it. That was an observation, but would you care to comment?
Mr. Brewster: In the form of a question, the way I would answer that is, do I wish there were other media outlets chasing the submarine story as hard as I was? Yes.
The Chairman: Okay.
Mr. Brewster: Yes I do, because not only is competition healthy, I believe in that particular instance, it was important to shed as much light on what happened as possible.
The Chairman: And why.
Mr. Brewster: Yes.
The Chairman: Mr. Schneidereit, you have been getting off lightly here. You said your whole career has been in print. Has your whole career been at The Chronicle-Herald?
Mr. Schneidereit: The vast bulk of it has been.
I went to Carleton Univertsity and my first job was actually at CJOH TV. Then I came to Nova Scotia, worked for a weekly for probably nine months or so, and then joined The Chronicle-Herald. I did a little freelancing at the same time before joining The Chronicle-Herald.
The Chairman: Basically, the bulk of your career has been at one of the very few independently owned newspapers in Canada.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes.
The Chairman: I was hoping you could say, ``No, I spent 20 years working for one of the chains,'' so that you could give me a contrast. However, based on what you learned from your colleagues in the CAJ and elsewhere, what is the difference between working for an independently owned paper and working for a group-owned paper? I am not asking you necessarily to say one is good and one is bad, but there must be differences. What would they be?
Mr. Schneidereit: One of the big differences, obviously, is that you cannot be transferred, outside of the province anyway. We still have a bureau system at The Chronicle-Herald. We have, I think , seven bureaus, including one in Ottawa, but the rest of them are around the province. My career at The Chronicle-Herald started at the Bridgewater bureau. I spent a year and a half there on the South Shore, then came to Halifax. Other than the movement at times between the bureaus and the central office, you are working for The Chronicle-Herald, and there is no chance that tomorrow you may be in Calgary, so that is a big difference.
I would say that we have our own history at The Chronicle-Herald. I will not get into the details, but it has been interesting to listen to my colleagues talk about some of the challenges when newspapers are sold or ownership is transferred, and the shakeouts that happen. I feel fortunate to have been working for an independent that is family- owned and very stable. It has been in the family for generations and has an extremely strong dedication to serving Nova Scotians. I think I have been fortunate to be in that situation.
Just last year, The Chronicle-Herald started using new presses. Is that a copy there? This was a multimillion-dollar investment.
The Chairman: It certainly looks a lot better than it used to.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes, and someone from The Chronicle-Herald is going to be here later, so I am not going to steal all of his or her thunder, but the staff of the newspaper was just thrilled because, for years, we had mushy colour and running ink. We have had a great response from readers. It has been a good experience.
The Chairman: You are an editorial writer?
Mr. Schneidereit: I am now, yes.
The Chairman: One of the world's great jobs.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes, I love it.
Senator Munson: You sign your name.
The Chairman: No. It is a different dynamic. The Chronicle-Herald does not sign its editorials, does it?
Mr. Schneidereit: No.
The Chairman: No. That is a whole separate discussion. Do you feel in your job that there are areas where you cannot go because the community pressure will be too great if you do: advertiser pressure, social pressure, lost subscriptions or whatever?
Mr. Schneidereit: No, I cannot say that I do. I think you have to be cognizant of your community, and you do not want to get into something that you think is inappropriate.
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Schneidereit: Definitely, I have never felt pressure. We get this question a lot, being an independent newspaper that is family-owned, and I personally have never felt pressure to alter a story or to take a certain line or anything like that. Advertising, there is a pretty solid wall, as there should be. The CAJ feels that is a problem is some places across this country, but it has not been a problem in my experience.
The Chairman: My last question follows on some of the stuff that Senator Tkachuk was pursuing. It has to do with the CRTC and the way it goes about things, so this is a question for you, Mr. Brewster, but if you have thoughts on this, too, Mr. Schneidereit, please feel free to add them. There is a dilemma here. One does not want some agency in Ottawa meddling in newsroom operation. It would be not only impractical, but morally wrong. On the other hand, Ottawa makes decisions that have profound impact upon news operations. I know you said you do not want to get into specifics, but do you believe that in making its decisions, the CRTC gives enough weight and has enough understanding of news, or do the priorities and skill sets within the CRTC need adjustment?
Mr. Schneidereit: Our view is clearly that there should be no government regulation of what goes on in the newsrooms. Speaking as the national president, we have not sat down at the board level and discussed the details of whether we think certain regulations would be beneficial or not in terms of a universal look at how licences should be applied. I can only say that we would want to see what was proposed — I guess would be the fairest way to say it — but absolutely staying away from anything that impinges on the news.
The Chairman: Oh, sure.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes.
The Chairman: For sure.
Mr. Brewster: No, I do not think we would be in favour at all of government regulation of what goes on in the newsroom, but as you pointed out, senator, the decisions that are made by the CRTC have profound impact on how broadcast outlets are structured, and not necessarily what they put on the air, but how they put it on the air. I cannot speak to whether or not the CRTC has an understanding of news and whether they have the capacity. Do they give it enough weight? In my opinion, when it comes to private radio, and having been in this business for 20 years, I personally do not feel that they give it enough weight, but I am sure that there are others who would disagree with me.
The Chairman: Sure, but I asked for your opinion.
Mr. Brewster: Yes.
The Chairman: You made it plain that you were not speaking for your employers and that the CAJ does not have a position.
Mr. Brewster: Yes.
The Chairman: The last question will be from Senator Trenholm Counsell.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: My preamble is very brief. I do not know, because I came late, whether you discussed the situation with regard to interesting young people in reading newspaper; whether this is something that as an association, you have talks about or you have had conferences about. Has that been discussed this morning?
The Chairman: No, it has not.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I am always asking this because I have, in the last few years of my life, taken a great interest in young people and their education. What you offer is very important, in my mind, and I think we would all agree, to their education. As an association, how have you addressed that? I am talking now about high school, late teens, twenties and thirties.
Mr. Schneidereit: Sure. When we have our conferences in different parts of the country or when we have our National Writers' Symposium, which we have every fall, these are professional development opportunities. One of the things that our local organizing committees do is contact the local journalism schools to make sure they are well aware of what we are providing. On an ongoing basis, when our chapters have events, we try to liaise with the local journalism schools. Every chapter across the country has a spot for a student representative to be on the local executive. I know there have been attempts in the past to forge links with Canadian University Press, which has proven difficult because there is a very rapid turnover at the job. Sometimes we will make a link with one person and the next year, they are gone and you are dealing with new people, but we do make attempts. We also have gone in various places to journalism schools, and even high schools, and talked to students about what we do, so we do make attempts. Given the fact that we are a volunteer organization, we are all working journalists and all have only so much time, but we do try.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: If I might just follow up on that: Of course, when you go to the journalism schools, you are speaking to the converted.
Mr. Schneidereit: Not always.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: All of us do a lot of preaching to the converted, but I am talking more about social responsibility, maybe in other levels, other groups of people, particularly high schools, of course.
Mr. Schneidereit: Yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Do you consider it part of your social responsibility as an association to excite, enlighten and do your part in making our youth interested in the media.
Mr. Schneidereit: I think we all, as journalists, feel that way. In the association, resources and time are a problem, so we cannot do as much as we would like to do. In my presentation, I noted that, in reviewing some of the transcripts from other hearings, there was a discussion of more public literacy, media literacy and education. That is something we would definitely support.
Mr. Brewster: If I could jump in for a second, senator, and say that, in terms of presentations and trying to get young people involved in journalism, the CAJ in Nova Scotia has not targeted high school students as an organization, specifically. However, I do know of at least three or perhaps four of our members who take in high school students and mentor them. There is a particularly vibrant co-op program operated out of St. Patrick's High School here in Halifax, and I have had the privilege of being able to shepherd two young people towards a career in journalism. It is done more on an individual basis than on an organizational basis, for the reasons that Mr. Schneidereit outlined. A lot of times, we have to speak to the choir and get them organized at the journalism school, but it is done more on an individual basis.
Mr. Schneidereit: I want to add one thing. Senator Eyton had asked earlier about what support could be given to the association. I know that my executive director would be somewhat miffed with me if I did not mention that at our conferences, we have a program that accepts advertising dollars.
The Chairman: What are your annual dues for the CAJ?
Mr. Schneidereit: They vary depending on your income level and whether you are a student.
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Schneidereit: I believe it is now $75 a year. It is actually quite low when you think of it.
The Chairman: Yes, but it has to be affordable if you want to pull in juniors.
Mr. Schneidereit: That is right.
The Chairman: This has been a most interesting discussion. We have kept you longer than we told you we would, but that is because we were interested in what you had to say. We thank you very much indeed for being with us and for giving us so much to think about.
Senators, we had expected to hear from the Atlantic Community Newspaper Association at this point in the hearings. The association had confirmed that it would be with us, but late last week, they had to withdraw because they had scheduling complications.
Honourable senators, we are joined now by representatives of The Chronicle-Herald, which is one of the country's few independent newspapers. We have with us Ms. Sarah Dennis, who is Vice-President of Brand and Content. Mr. Bob Howse is the Editor-in-Chief, and Mr. Terry O'Neil is the Managing Editor.
Ms. Sarah Dennis, Vice-President, Brand and Content, The Chronicle-Herald: Honourable senators, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. I am very pleased to be representing my colleagues at The Chronicle-Herald and Sunday Herald, the largest independent, family-owned newspapers in Canada. I am the fourth generation of my family to be involved with the paper. That started with my great-great-uncle, Senator William Dennis, followed by my grandfather, Senator William Dennis, and now my father, Graham Dennis, and I are at the paper. We are a privately held and independent company, as I have said, and very proud of that fact, and we are determined to remain so well into the future.
In an effort to remain independent, we have invested heavily in our newspaper in many areas. Over the past several years, we have built a new state-of-the-art production facility with a printing press we are very proud of. We are currently installing a new automated mailing room and a front-end system in our newsroom. As well, we have increased the page content in our paper, and are constantly innovating and trying new ways to make our papers better for our readers.
The marketplace, it would be very safe to say, and more directly, our readers, keep us on our toes and expect, or rather, demand that we respond to their expectations. I do not think that the expectations of consumers have ever been higher than they are today. They have more choices as to where they can access their information than ever before. There is a lot of competition out there for people's time and money. Geography is no longer an issue either. I can receive the BBC on my TV and read the South China Morning Post on the Internet without even leaving my house in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Constantly adapting and evaluating our coverage and services is mandatory. The only thing constant today, I believe, is change. Technology is an increasingly important factor in the newspaper business. I think you will see newspaper companies continue to straddle the two worlds of traditional paper and the electronic version, and continue to invest in that new technology. However, whatever medium we might be working in, our job remains the same; providing readers with balanced, fair information. As the medium of production evolves, we must keep pace in order to remain relevant to our consumers and also to remain in business. I think you will see newspapers, as I said, continue to make further investments in the electronic media, especially as it becomes more relevant to our advertisers.
On the matter of federal regulation, we say quite simply, backed by over a hundred years of business experience, that we believe the Government of Canada should not go any further into what goes on in newsrooms. Newspapers are a public trust and in order to keep that trust, we must remain free and independent from the influence of government in any way. On matters of quality, relevance, lack of bias and inclusiveness, the individual determines these, and they speak very loudly to us with their loyalty and purchasing power. We are aware of our readers' power and their time constraints. It is a daily balancing act when you publish a paper to make sure you are providing all your readers, urban and rural, young and old, with something that will interest them and keep them reading your paper.
The Chronicle-Herald, we are proud to say, is the only home-delivered paper serving the whole of Nova Scotia. Our paper is delivered down remote roads and to doors in this province that Canada Post does not go to any more. We have made a commitment as the provincial paper to serve the whole province at the sacrifice of profitability. This commitment will continue to become a greater economic challenge as the populations continue to decline in many rural areas.
We also serve our readers by covering news from the whole province and beyond. We have bureaus in Sydney, Yarmouth, Bridgewater, Truro, Amherst, Kentville and Ottawa, Ontario. As well, we have stringers in Chester, Antigonish, New Glasgow, Port Hawkesbury, Baddeck, Fredericton, New Brunswick, St. John's, Newfoundland and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. Our reporters cover various beats, including agriculture, transportation, ports, energy, education, consumer affairs, health, science, armed forces, police, provincial legislature, Halifax City Hall, provincial courts, Supreme Court, entertainment, labour, business development, security, telecommunications, and sports. Various columnists represent an array of opinions and ethnic groups. The breadth of this coverage, written with Nova Scotians in mind, allows us to provide a unique and independent voice for Nova Scotians. No one else in this province has the news-gathering team that we do. We are the paper of record for Nova Scotia and we are very proud of that fact.
Other ways we serve our readers through the province is by being very accessible to them. They can and do contact us about service issues, story ideas, complaints and compliments. We have a ``Letters to the Editor'' page that in 2004 received over 10,000 letters. We publish daily the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of our management team, and I can personally attest that they are very well used. We have, over the years, belonged to the Atlantic Press Council and had our own ombudsman. Even when our ombudsman was on the job, we reviewed every complaint received by him and most were resolved to all parties' satisfaction in our editorial department. We currently have an ethics policy in place for our reporters, which I would be happy to provide to you, and our processes and environment, I would say, are very open and accessible to the public. We have learned from our past complaints and have become a more skilled and objective newspaper, I believe, from those experiences.
Ultimately, though, the customer has the final say on our business. If they do not like how or what we write, they can cancel their subscription or their advertising with us, and that is a very powerful tool. That is, ultimately, regulation. A recent example that I could think of was after the tsunami in Asia, our Sunday paper put a very powerful photo on the front page. It was a very close-up photo of the hand of a victim of the tsunami with a wedding band amongst the debris. We had many complaints, some cancellations, and I think we responded appropriately. The Sunday editor phoned the cancelled subscribers to speak to them himself. We wrote a reply on the front page the following Sunday to explain the reason the photo was placed on the front of the paper. It was picked up by other news media in the province, and generated a lot of debate internally as well as externally. I think we learned through the interaction with our customers, and will continue to do so. As a newspaper, we have a duty to be responsive and willing to hear our customers out and react to those needs and desires.
There is no doubt, I would say, that as far as technology is concerned, there is a divide now in the generations. We see younger Canadians gravitating towards electronic sources for their entertainment and news while older generations seem to be more comfortable with the traditional media for news and information, although increasingly, they are using the Internet. This trend has made newspapers straddle the two production worlds; the traditional paper and the electronic version. It is stretching our resources and fragmenting the marketplace. However, whatever medium it might be, as I said before, our job remains the same: providing our readers with fair and balanced information that they find useful in their daily lives. Innovations such as Blackberries, Internet blogs and chat rooms are all examples of how technology has improved the diversity of the news media in Canada and the world. It has changed how people get their news. It has also allowed more voices and opinions to be heard. It has increased the level of competition and fragmented the marketplace. I think you will see newspapers, and us as well, continue to make further investments in the electronic media.
Finally, this committee is considering the relationship between ownership concentration and diversity of media coverage. These are very important questions. We have been fortunate through the years to be able to make all our decisions in this province. We are proud to be locally owned, locally operated and independent. We have never received a cent of government money for our paper. This fact is core to our independence. We live here. We know the issues. We are committed to this province, its prosperity and its people. Halifax, I would say, is the envy of some because it is a two-daily-newspaper town. Competition between papers makes for better news. There is a hunger and desire to get the stories ahead of the competition and to do a better job, and I think there is also a little ego at stake as well. Thus, I think the real winners are the readers.
The Government of Canada, I would say with all due respect, should not interfere any further with the press, the dialogue, the free flow of ideas and the debate it provides. These are vital elements to a free and democratic society. I personally have doubts the public would believe or trust the coverage of any paper that was regulated by the government. Any policy or regulatory framework that would be set up to enforce or encourage diversity of news and views, I think, would do more harm than good. If anything, such a framework would damage most heavily the very papers that provide the diversity of opinion in this country, the small and independent papers. Such a regulatory enviroment would be a burden on these papers, squandering the already scarce resources needed to straddle the paper and electronic versions on following regulations, and not the news that we should be looking after.
The independence of the media, the free flow of ideas and debate, and freedom of the press are key to a democratic society. Any pressures or rewards that might impinge on this independence, however well meaning, would be, in my estimation, a mistake. The Competition Bureau should stay out of the editorial issues and focus on competition and economic matters. ``Freedom of the press'' says it all. There are lessons to be learned from other countries about media regulation and I think I could sum it up by saying not to do it. I believe democratic society and media regulation do not go together.
Thank you very much for this opportunity to present to the committee.
Senator Tkachuk: Welcome and thank you for that.
As far as freedom of the press goes, you are the ideal. You are independent, you are not part of a large chain, you receive no government money and you are tied to the community. We, in our study, are looking at the issues of ownership and I am going to make a small statement before I get to the actual question, because it may be that I want you to comment on the issue that we grapple with here. Almost every newspaper that has come before us has said the very same thing that you have: ``Do not get into the newsrooms.'' I do not think there is anybody here who wants to. However, the broadcast industry and, of course, the Crown, CBC, are used to governments with their hands on industry. Their finger are all over it, right? Television and radio are used to dealing this way, with government, policy, bureaucrats and all that stuff. When they buy a newspaper, the fundamental principle of, ``Get out of the newsroom,'' has never really applied to them. All of a sudden, we have a strange situation. We have a newspaper that is owned by a network, which is dependent on licences from the government. Do you think this is healthy?
Ms. Dennis: It is hard for me to comment on this as we are just a newspaper, so it is just our own experiences that will frame our answers. As a newspaper only, we are involving private assets. I see the television and radio arms are involving public assets of some description, and the airwaves, through regulation and licensing. I think my issue comes down to the concentration of that ownership and the diversity of opinion that you have talked about, and whether there is the ability for other voices to be heard within the community. If there is a diversity of that opinion that is lost because of that cross-ownership, then I think that is a loss for all Canadians. Now, the papers are run without impingement from the CRTC or any of the other bureaus and I would say, in our experience anyway, should continue to be so. I do not know if Mr. Howse has any thoughts.
Mr. Bob Howse, Editor-in-Chief, The Chronicle-Herald: It is an interesting issue in that there then becomes a mix of public and private assets that you are talking about. It might be that you need means to ensure that the newspapers are run independently from the broadcast side and that there is not a cross-subsidy through the use of public assets. As Ms. Dennis had argued, when you are a stand-alone, independent newspaper like us, we are not using public assets, we are not, as it were, a partner with the taxpayers in using bandwidth or something like that. However, I would say as long as the newspaper is owned in a multimedia company where it is independently run, that might not be a problem, but it is something the CRTC might want to look at, whether there is a wall between them financially.
Senator Tkachuk: When the editor of the National Post, for example, which is owned by CanWest, comes before us and says, ``Do not get into the newsroom,'' well, their owner is into the newsroom. The government is into the owners in some way because the government licences almost everything that they do. They have to appear every so often and say, ``Please, please do not take my licence away,'' and have people writing around, lobbying for them and all the rest of this stuff. To me, it does not seem as important coming from them. I am not sure we should be in any newsroom, or government should be anywhere in broadcast period, if there was a way to do it but this is a problem that we have.
Mr. Howse: Right.
Senator Tkachuk: This, as a public policy issue, is something we are grappling with. As we discussed earlier with one of the previous witnesses who also works at your newspaper, you are one newspaper away from being a monopoly in the sense that you are independent and then the other people own everything else. Should the government interfere, or should the Competition Bureau be concerned, about an issue where perhaps, maybe not today, but we never know what tomorrow will bring, they may seek to buy your newspaper and, therefore, there would only be one owner in the province of all the papers? Should there be government intervention here to prevent a monopoly situation from taking place?
Ms. Dennis: First off, I do not think you could ever say that we would have a monopoly because I think what we provide is information and there are so many providers now for people to get information. I think we are not just competing against the other daily newspaper. We are competing against the free weeklies, the television stations, the radio stations, and all the Internet opportunities. We are competing for people's time and interest in reading the information that we provide. We are an information provider and so many others are as well, so I do not classify us as ``just a newspaper.'' I think our competitors are many out there.
I think the ultimate test of who is going to survive and who is going to remain should be left up to consumers. They are the ultimate judges of what they want to purchase and where they want to spend their time and money, and the market will determine who should remain and who should not. I do not think there would be a monopoly because I think there are so many ways that people can get their information today. I do not know if you have anything to add.
Mr. Howse: No.
Senator Tkachuk: With that in mind, then, should government funds be used to fund the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which provides a major source of news for radio and TV to the country? The government is all over that. I am not sure how much it interferes, but nonetheless, it is all over it.
Mr. Terry O'Neil, Managing Editor, The Chronicle-Herald: The CBC is free. If you have a television, that is all you need. You can get CBC at any time. If you want to read our newspaper, you have to purchase it, as you do with all other newspapers, and sometimes on the web and if you went to specialty channels.
Senator Tkachuk: That is right.
Mr. O'Neil: It is a bit of a different case with the CBC because it is free everywhere.
Senator Munson: I have so many questions. Do you want to be a senator?
Ms. Dennis: No, thank you.
Senator Munson: There is a long line. No?
Ms. Dennis: No, not right now.
Senator Munson: No, not right now?
Question number two: Were they Conservative senators or were they Liberal senators —
Ms. Dennis: I am not sure.
Senator Munson: — or independent senators?
Ms. Dennis: Independent.
Senator Munson: You mentioned you may be tempted to buy into the electronic media. Are there any thoughts of expanding along that line? That follows on the senator's question dealing with, how would you handle that sort of thing in terms of cross-media ownership yourself?
Ms. Dennis: I think we are involved with the electronic version of our paper, the electronic conveyance of the information that we provide, and we will have to be more involved with that if we hope to survive. As demographics move along, I think there is going to be a greater preference for getting your information, whether it is on your cell phone, Palm or Blackberry, and we have to be able to provide our information in that way. I do not see anything in our future that says we are going to be involved with television, but I do not want to preclude that.
Senator Munson: Yes.
Ms. Dennis: We are actively involved with the electronic version of our paper and will continue to be so into the future because I think our customers are demanding that.
Mr. O'Neil: We are looking, not to dominate TV, radio or the Internet, but to use those media as a way to deliver our main product and to get people interested; keep them up to date on it so that they will come back to that.
Senator Munson: Have people tried to buy you out in terms of big companies from Toronto?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Munson: Would you care to share that?
Ms. Dennis: Care to share what?
Senator Munson: Share the information of who was trying to end the reign of a family newspaper.
Ms. Dennis: It is safe to say that there have been many. They have never come personally to me, more to my father, but it is safe to say that all offers are politely declined.
Senator Munson: Right. We were told about the investment this morning by another witness in the newspaper. In my limited knowledge of The Chronicle-Herald, there had been a time, though, when times were pretty rough, lean and mean, and it was not the paper of record, as you describe it now, of the province of Nova Scotia.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Munson: Could you talk to me specifically about what you had to do, not necessarily to regain trust, but to rebuild your reputation, I guess, in the last 5 or 10 years?
Ms. Dennis: I think I can safely talk about the last five, and these gentlemen have been there a few more years than I have, so they could say a bit more about that. I think competition has made us better, has made us hungrier, and we understood because of the competition; you would see people leaving you for other purveyors of information. Competition was a healthy thing because it made you work harder, it made you better, and it made you more responsive. You understood that your advertisers required full colour, they wanted better reproduction, and your customers wanted less rub-off on their paper. These were all things that we took into consideration in investing heavily in not only our production capabilities, but also the content of our paper. We knew that to survive as an independent, we had to make these changes to give their customers what they required in order for them to keep purchasing our products.
Senator Munson: This would have been very expensive.
Ms. Dennis: Yes, especially for an independent business.
Senator Munson: Yes.
Mr. O'Neil: Newspapers are in a unique situation. If we have the story first and put it in our paper this morning and radio and TV play it all day, no one thinks that we had it first. If it happens during the day and we put it in the next day's paper and they saw it on the news the night before, they think we are following the story, we are a day behind, when actually that is our next deadline. We have worked very hard over the last number of years, and it is more than five years that we have been revamping things, consolidating and making sure that we are as good as anybody else. Journalists take it very seriously. We monitor the electronic news every day and if there are stories that we do not have, we are upset, and we make sure that we correct that the next time. You are always trying to compete and keep ahead of the other media.
Senator Munson: You mentioned the ombudsman, which I think is a very good thing, yet a lot of newspapers are not doing that these days. How can you afford to have an ombudsman?
Ms. Dennis: I would clarify that we do not have an ombudsman at this time.
Senator Munson: Oh.
Ms. Dennis: He retired.
Senator Munson: Oh, I see.
Ms. Dennis: Bob, you could speak to that. You have been involved with the press council.
Mr. Howse: Yes. Probably over the last 15 years, we have dealt with the complaints issue or the customer service issue in that respect, in different ways. We were in the press council for a time, for about 10 years and then we had an ombudsman to replace that. We found that, initially, the press council was of some use, but after a number of years, it was really quite inactive and we were solving most of the issues ourselves internally, with management dealing with people who had complaints to make or concerns. We let our membership lapse in the Atlantice Press Council and we had an ombudsman for a time.
Senator Munson: Yes.
Mr. Howse: At other times, we would have a designated person that was not involved, a senior manager, to look into an issue, to investigate it and handle it that way. Now we are using that system again, really, with individual managers dealing with the public. That seemed to be the way the public liked best to deal with us; more directly, and get the manager concerned. He or she would deal with the issue. So, we have not really had any —
Senator Munson: I am interested in the issue on the tsunami because, having been a foreign correspondent for a little bit of time, I know there is a reality out there that you have to show, and then the reality of taste or whatever.
Mr. Howse: Yes.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Munson: Was it a big push-back from people who actually saw that particular picture because that picture was reality?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Mr. Howse: That is right, and that is a common sort of complaint. You may see it with accidents or family tragedy.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Mr. Howse: We field consumer complaints about that quite often and, usually, they are resolved. People write letters and they discuss it with us. Sometimes the manager will write a piece. He did in that case.
Mr. O'Neil: If you put it on the front page in the morning when people are eating their corn flakes, it has a different impact than if it is on the back of the inside section and not in colour. However, it was such a powerful story and it gripped the world so much that we thought it was relevant at the time. That was the decision that was made. We give the editors the power to make the decisions, but they have to understand that they make those decisions and they have to have a good basis for it. They know that and so the Sunday editor defended that quite well.
Ms. Dennis: I think the editor would say that he learned some things from his interaction with the subscribers, and understood how it affected them, but I do not think he would change what he did.
Mr. O'Neil: No.
Senator Munson: Speaking of change, you said the only thing constant is change, but every time I come back home to Atlantic Canada, the only thing constant is that people do not like change. There is always, ``We are not going to change.'' Is that a fight that you have to deal with all the time? For example, Sunday shopping was one of the biggest debates, beyond any debate on capital punishment, it seems to me, from what I have been reading in your newspaper? How, as a paper, do you come down, I suppose, in balance, in dealing with that kind of story with people who say, ``Dammit, no. No shopping on Sunday in this province;'' yet, you have probably the other half of the population saying, ``Yes, let us get with the reality of the time we live in''?
Mr. Howse: Yes, it was a very vigorous debate that surprised many people, and the way the referendum did play out.
Senator Munson: There was no sense of separation or anything, talking about referendum?
Mr. Howse: No.
Senator Munson: As a paper, it must be a difficult role for you. Editorially, you would have to pronounce upon this?
Mr. Howse: Yes, and we were a little careful, too, because as an advertising medium, Sunday shopping would be good for us as an advertising vehicle. We wanted to take an independent route from that and look at people who had real concerns in their own lives, as workers or as people with religious concerns, whether those things were reasonably met by the government. Interestingly, I think, in Nova Scotia, probably the determining factor in that issue is our demographics. We are more distributed as a population, and there were a lot of fairly large-sized towns outside of Halifax that were concerned about losing their old main-street shopping base to Halifax. I think that was the determining factor, along with people who favoured it not going out to vote at all.
Ms. Dennis: I think that was an essential role for our paper to play, to allow that free debate to occur within our pages. The ability to cover the whole province of Nova Scotia provided both the rural and urban residents an opportunity to express their opinions, and others to learn from their opinions and to express them in a forum that allowed for a common understanding. Maybe some people still did not agree with one another, but that was our role and we were glad to be able to provide that vehicle.
Senator Munson: Do you think, as a family newspaper, that you were more intimate with understanding the issue in Nova Scotia than a big news media conglomerate might be, buying up a bunch of newspapers and being in many, many markets?
Ms. Dennis: I would go so far as to say I think that we know Nova Scotia very well. We have been here for a very long time and we try to keep our ear to the ground and respond to what Nova Scotians want. Our proximity to the people that we serve is an advantage for us.
Senator Munson: Here is an unfair question: Why are there not more family newspapers? It is like the family farm out in Saskatchewan. They are disappearing and family newspapers are disappearing, yet you talk about vibrancy, you talk about making money, and you talk about covering your province. You are very positive about the future and you have invested in the future, and yet we see BCE Bell Globemedia and the CanWest people scurrying across the country, buying up as much as they can.
Ms. Dennis: I would attribute it to my father and his steadfast dedication to Nova Scotia and the people of Nova Scotia. That has been his purpose. Not to say that the others were not, but I would say our secret has been in my father's determination to remain independent and he goes to great lengths to maintain the paper.
Senator Munson: Just for the record, then, this country needs more of that. Thank you.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: This is very interesting. It is a unique experience in terms of our hearings to speak to someone as independent as you are and covering the whole province. I was not sure, and I was trying to listen carefully, whether you own any weeklies.
Ms. Dennis: No.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I do not know whether you care to answer or not, but I am just wondering if the temptation has been there, as it has in some other provinces, to acquire weeklies or whether you feel this is your mandate and you are going to do it well?
Ms. Dennis: I think it would be safe to say the latter, that this is our mandate and we are concentrating on our daily paper.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: You have never had weeklies?
Ms. Dennis: No.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: You have these two papers, but one mandate in your experience?
Ms. Dennis: Yes, that would be safe to say.
Mr. O'Neil: We have never had weeklies in the sense that they were published in those towns, but we had weekly tabloids that were specifically zoned for different areas.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Was it a part of your paper?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Mr. O'Neil: But it was part of our paper.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: As an insert?
Mr. O'Neil: Yes.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Many papers do that, although I do not know in the big cities.
Mr. O'Neil: Sure.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: You have never gotten into the weekly market as such?
Mr. O'Neil: No.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: You did say that you were competing against free weeklies. That is a form of competition, of course. In terms of your readership, can you tell us anything about the trends? Population, I guess, is growing slightly in Nova Scotia, and I do not want numbers, of course, but I just wondered, what is the trend in terms of the readership in Halifax and then province-wide? I am sure you have figures on that.
Ms. Dennis: Given the demographics of the province, we see an urbanization of the province to some extent, declining populations in the rural areas, so we still have strong circulation in the province, but the area where we see a fair amount of growth is the metro area, and the demographics of our readership is higher on the older demographics. However, as I have read in the testimony of many other newspapers, we are always trying to find new ways to attract younger readers, to keep them part of the daily reading habit. Also, I think that is part of the mandate with our electronic version, which is hoping to get people into the habit of trusting, reading and relying on The Chronicle- Herald, whether it be in the electronic form or paper form, for their news.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Since this paper is very much a home-grown institution, a Halifax, Nova Scotia institution, with, of course, a very large vested interest in the continuation of your success story, are you working at all with the high schools to interest the young people in the printed media or, of course, electronic media?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: It seems to me when we ask this question of most groups, it is not nearly as easy for them to answer it because they cover such a wide area, but you have this focus.
Ms. Dennis: We are involved in newspapers in education. I think last year, in 2004, we distributed over 200,000 papers across the province —
Senator Trenholme Counsell: To schools?
Ms. Dennis: To schools.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: High schools?
Ms. Dennis: High schools and elementary schools for use within their classrooms. As well, we try to provide them with something interesting in the paper that they will read. What is the youth page?
Mr. O'Neil: It's called the ``What's Up?'' page.
Ms. Dennis: The ``What's Up?'' page.
Mr. O'Neil: There is a Youth Generations Press.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Mr. O'Neil: And through our regular coverage, through sports and entertainment and news: You go into any rural school in Nova Scotia and those clippings are plastered all over the bulletin boards. We have a real connection there.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Are you sending the newspapers to all high schools or is it if they ask you for it?
Ms. Dennis: If the teachers are interested in using that as part of their curriculum, we have —
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Do they get them free?
Ms. Dennis: Well, not totally free: We do have sponsors that help, the paper companies. Bowater, Stora and EnCana have been very good supporters, so the papers are discounted or helped out by the sponsorship money to lessen the cost.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: When you said not entirely free, then not free? Even in the Halifax area, you do not give your newspapers to the high schools?
Ms. Dennis: No.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: It is less costly than the average citizen buying them?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I wanted to ask one more brief question about investigative journalism. I am not from this province and I have heard recently, as we always do from people from away, about two things that I am concerned about. I wonder whether you are investigating this and how much play it has had in your newspapers. One is the street gangs. That story has been on the Atlantic news, radio at least, that there has been some swarming — I have heard the word ``swarming'' — right in the downtown streets here in Halifax. The other more painful subject is that I was in a discussion with some educators recently and they said that there remains quite a sad problem with regard to the black population. I do not necessarily want you to give me specific examples, but do you consider either one of those as mandates that you are working on?
Mr. O'Neil: We just started a two-person investigative team that is solely in charge of that and they are —-
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Which one?
Mr. O'Neil: Pardon me?
Senator Trenholme Counsell: I brought up two. I am not linking the issues necessarily.
Mr. O'Neil: No, I am saying we have set aside two people to do just investigative work.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Oh, okay.
Mr. O'Neil: Those two are not on the radar right now, but we have had a number of stories about some of the gangs and swarmings that are being down through the police beat. We are asking questions and trying to delve into that. We do that as part of our regular coverage. There has been a youth gang, G-Lock or something like that, which the police are working very hard to break up. This has really developed over the last five or six months, so we are working on things to break some stories on that for sure.
Ms. Dennis: As well, we recently conducted some research with a company here in Halifax, Corporate Research Associates, on youth crime. We did a full-week series involving a variety of stories from different angles based on the research and also happenings in the news; investigating youth crime in Nova Scotia. We have been talking to some of the offenders that are in the correctional facilities, the police, and victims of crime — covering the whole area. Again, I think that is our role, to promote the debate. That in itself, bringing these stories and the results of this research to the public's eye, continues the debate and brings it forward. Those are important issues, I think, and a role that we provided with this youth crime series and will continue to provide. We did one, similarly, on immigration to Nova Scotia and right now, we are conducting one on education.
Senator Trenholme Counsell: Were you surprised that I brought up the issue of colour? Is it something that has played in the newspapers recently or has it not?
Mr. O'Neil: It is an ongoing issue and an ongoing struggle for people to figure out the best way to get the best education for everybody, but there is not one specific issue that is on the table right now. A couple of months ago, black educators were pushing for certain recommendations that were made to be carried out by the provincial government, so there are ongoing stories involving their struggle.
The Chairman: What is your circulation?
Ms. Dennis: Around 110,000.
The Chairman: Do you publish seven days?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: You do?
Ms. Dennis: Sunday, it is about, I would say, in the high —
Mr. O'Neil: Seventy-six.
Ms. Dennis: 76,000.
The Chairman: Yes, and Saturday is the highest and Sunday is the lowest.
Ms. Dennis: Yes, and today is the sixth anniversary of our Sunday product.
The Chairman: Oh, splendid.
Ms. Dennis: It was launched six years ago today.
The Chairman: Congratulations. The newspaper and education copies are sold because they can count as paid circulation if you charge something for them?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: How many journalists do you have?
Mr. O'Neil: The complement in the newsroom is 114. That is counting the bureau chiefs, though, of the different bureaus that Ms. Dennis talked about before.
The Chairman: Editors?
Mr. O'Neil: It is a mixture of reporters, editors and the like, and support staff. That is the total complement of the newsroom.
The Chairman: How would that compare with the number you had, say, five years ago?
Mr. O'Neil: It would be comparable to what we had five years ago, yes.
The Chairman: Not noticeably higher or lower?
Mr. O'Neil: Maybe by two one way or the other.
The Chairman: It is a huge challenge to maintain your position. Your presses must have cost what, $50 million to $60 million anyway?
Ms. Dennis: No —
The Chairman: No?
Ms. Dennis: — but a lot.
The Chairman: A lot? Yes?
Ms. Dennis: The investment was over $26 million with the production facility and now there has been a further investment of multiple millions again with the mailing room and the front-end system for the newsrooms, plus the paper that we have added to the pages.
The Chairman: You have expanded your news hole?
Mr. O'Neil: Oh, for sure.
Ms. Dennis: With the read line, yes.
The Chairman: Yes?
Mr. O'Neil: Yes. The most expensive part of the business is paper and people.
The Chairman: Right. Oh, no kidding.
Mr. O'Neil: We took what was a three- or four-section newspaper and made it five or six, and specialized each section, with sports a separate section and entertainment a separate section. This is a very large move forward for us, but it has been accepted.
Ms. Dennis: Embraced.
Mr. O'Neil: Embraced.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: With readers, clearly, the more the merrier. That was, I assume, why you did it, to hold circulation?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: How many pages would you run, roughly, on average?
Ms. Dennis: Saturday is a big day.
Mr. O'Neil: Well, Saturday could be in excess of a hundred.
Ms. Dennis: A hundred.
Mr. O'Neil: Weekdays, in the 50 to 60 range.
Ms. Dennis: And Sunday, close to 48 to 50.
Mr. O'Neil: Fifty-two, actually, yes.
Ms. Dennis: Fifty-two.
The Chairman: In opening up the news hole, did you maintain the previous news hole to add ratio or did you just say, ``We are going to give them more news no matter what?''
Ms. Dennis: It has been a nice growth of both, I think, as well, because the advertisers have appreciated the production capabilities of our paper as well with the colour, placement and reproduction, but the two go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other. The advertising is what pays the bills and it allows us to do what we do, to serve the whole province, to employ people and to continue to invest in our product.
The Chairman: In serving the whole province, you suggested that it would become a greater economic challenge to go on delivering to literally every house where somebody wants to subscribe to The Chronicle-Herald.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: I know a lot of papers have been cutting back on their more remote circulation simply because of costs. Are you going to have to start doing that?
Ms. Dennis: Not in the foreseeable future, and I think we have made a commitment to provide the paper to Nova Scotians. I do not have a crystal ball, but at this time, we are going to continue to have door-to-door delivery.
The Chairman: That is basically your franchise, is it not?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: It is the promise on which you hang your hat.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: You also seem to suggest that after 130 years, you were thinking of branching into other media, not just the Internet now, but television. Did I pick up that implication?
Ms. Dennis: No, I do not think so.
The Chairman: You said you were not going to close the door to it.
Ms. Dennis: Well, I would never say no.
The Chairman: Yes.
Ms. Dennis: Leave all my options open.
Mr. O'Neil: We are using it now mainly to promote the main product, which is the newspaper.
The Chairman: Through advertising?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Mr. O'Neil: We do a little bit of radio to tease with stories that we have, and we use the web to try and put out as much as we can to make it more accessible to people, especially to those who cannot get it delivered. We have people going on the Internet from Australia, Europe and all over the world, former Nova Scotians who want to keep that link to home. That is a very important thing for us to do.
The Chairman: Do you charge for your Internet version?
Ms. Dennis: For Internet subscriptions, yes, and they can receive only part of the coverage on the Internet. You have to be a subscriber to enable —
The Chairman: If you are a subscriber to the print version, you can get the whole thing.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: If you do not subscribe to the print version, you can subscribe to a reduced version electronically.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: How much is that subscription?
Ms. Dennis: It is a reduced from the actual subscription cost. I am not sure exactly. I could find that information.
The Chairman: Maybe you could let us know.
Ms. Dennis: Sure.
The Chairman: As well, could you please forward the policy statement, the documents that you mentioned earlier.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you have the numbers of how many people subscribe through the Internet?
Ms. Dennis: Sure, I can provide those.
Senator Tkachuk: I am sure they are public anyway.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: Do those count for Audit Bureau of Circulations, ABC, subscriptions?
Ms. Dennis: I am not sure if they do. I do not think so.
Mr. O'Neil: No.
The Chairman: I thought they had just changed their policies recently.
Ms. Dennis: They might be just and I think they are standardizing them.
The Chairman: Yes.
Ms. Dennis: Yes, I think I can look into that.
The Chairman: That would also be very helpful. Looking not that far down the road, what is the economic model for the Internet?
Mr. O'Neil: There are advertising agencies who now know that the market in the eyes of people has diversified and gone to the Internet, so they are taking their budgets and they are taking a piece and saying, ``This is what we are going to use to advertise on the Internet to reach these people.'' There are beginning to be viable options for newspapers to make an investment in the web in order to use that to get the advertising dollars.
The Chairman: Has there been any work done to ascertain the efficacy of advertising on the Internet? I am the kind of person who screens out ads all the time anyway, like many people.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: Newspaper ads can catch the eye and pull in a reader if they are well done.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: Television ads are hard to avoid. Internet ads, it seems to me, are very easy. You just keep hitting that delete button and screen them all out.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: I do not know how effective Internet advertising is. Have there been any studies done on this?
Ms. Dennis: I am not sure of any studies, but I do know that there is software that helps you track who —
The Chairman: Buy cookies and all that.
Ms. Dennis: By having people register on your site, you have that information about them. You are able to track what advertisements they go on to, what section in the newspaper they go to, and how much time they spend there. People can use contests within ads: You could have a chance to win a dinner, and people enter that. Thus, the advertiser has an understanding of who is coming to visit their ads.
The Chairman: Right.
Ms. Dennis: Then they have that information about that customer and they can target, whether it be the coverage or their ads, going to that customer through the information that they have obtained through their registration and areas of interest.
The Chairman: Longer haul, you think there is room for what is essentially a print medium; differently delivered, but still words?
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: You are reading on the Internet.
Ms. Dennis: The Internet version for us has value because it has our content.
The Chairman: Yes.
Ms. Dennis: No matter if it is on the paper or electronic, it has value because we have had reporters that have gone out and worked hard to get the stories. No matter where it is, it has value and I think we should be paid for it.
The Chairman: I have a whole other area I wanted to explore, but that will be on a second round. We are going to you on your second round, Senator Tkachuk.
Senator Tkachuk: I wanted to ask a supplementary question. We know the Internet has value because people such as Google make a lot of money on it, basically by selling advertising in the billions of dollars.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: They are monstrous companies. I have noticed on, say, the Google search engine, that you can go onto international news and now they have an interesting version called, ``Local News,'' where you can actually hit, ``Halifax,'' and get local news.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: How do they get that news? Do they come and see you and pay for it, do they steal it or how does it go? I would say we used to steal the channels from the States. How do they get that news?
Mr. O'Neil: They may subscribe to Broadcast News or some service like that. They can hit from across the country and then you tag it with the place name.
Senator Tkachuk: Right, because you say, ``Halifax,'' and then go to Halifax and it will tell you about what is going on in Halifax, for God's sake.
Mr. O'Neil: Yes. Broadcast News is an arm of Canadian Press, which has offices all across the country.
Senator Tkachuk: Oh.
The Chairman: We just heard from one of them.
Senator Tkachuk: It may be a business opportunity for them because they have been complaining a lot.
Mr. O'Neil: It may be. That is supposition on my part.
Senator Tkachuk: Yes.
Mr. O'Neil: I do not know how they are really doing it.
Ms. Dennis: That is where we will be able to continue, hopefully, to provide Nova Scotians with their news, by providing that local content on the electronic version.
Senator Tkachuk: Right.
Ms. Dennis: There is so much news out there on the Internet, I think it is mind-boggling. It is almost suffocating how much news there is. If Nova Scotians allow us to continue to provide them with their news about Nova Scotia, at least the local content, we will be happy to do so, whether electronically or on paper.
Senator Tkachuk: I am lazy about the news. I like someone to organize it for me, which is why I watch TV and read the papers rather than go to the Internet because you do not know what you are reading, whether it is an honest source or a dishonest source, right?
Ms. Dennis: The trust is important, yes.
Senator Tkachuk: There is a lot of that and I do not think they have figured out how to do that yet.
Mr. Howse: It is not a real substitute for having a strong local news team that is going to gather stuff that no one else is really going to do.
Senator Tkachuk: Absolutely, yes.
The Chairman: That really is the key, is it not?
Mr. Howse: It is the journalists.
Ms. Dennis: Yes.
The Chairman: It is the people who have the experience, the craft and the ethics.
Mr. O'Neil: You have to offer something unique. If every radio station, TV station and newspaper were printing the same thing, you would just exercise your option, if you, as you say, are a lazy reader. You might watch TV or listen to the radio. However, everybody is striving to get that unique thing that they can offer that will attract the readers to keep coming back because they know they are going to get something they are not going to get anywhere else. That is what we strive to do every day.
Senator Tkachuk: I am going to sign off and I would just like to thank you because this was a really good session and it was good to hear from a strong, independent source. Last week, we had The Walrus, I think, which was a start- up, independent source, and the editor and publisher as well were very interesting and offered some unique insights. It was nice to come to Halifax and hear from you, so thank you.
Ms. Dennis: It is nice to be given the opportunity to speak.
The Chairman: We are not done yet.
Senator Tkachuk: I am done.
The Chairman: Senator Tkachuk is done, but Senator Munson and I still have questions.
Senator Tkachuk: I turn to her. All politicians should learn from what she says.
Senator Munson: Do you feel the CBC's advertising is unfair competition with you?
Ms. Dennis: Should a public broadcaster be competing for those dollars? I am not sure, but I know that they do get a piece of the advertising buy in Nova Scotia and so they do compete against us.
Senator Munson: With respect to copyright in contracts with freelancers, what are your regulations? They seem to vary across the country. I ask the question because a lot of freelancers feel that they are slowly falling into poverty because of some of the rules and regulations that are set up for freelancers.
Mr. O'Neil: It all depends on which newsroom you go into. There are a number of different journalistic unions that represent them across the country. If you looked at each contract, you would find that there is always something a little bit unique to that contract for that local. There are some instances where the number of freelancers is restricted by the contract that the union has with the company in that they cannot spend enough space on a certain number of freelancers. With us, we have contracts with freelancers and we pay them what we believe is a good wage.
Senator Munson: When can their article appear elsewhere after it has been in The Chronicle-Herald? Is there a time frame?
Mr. O'Neil: There is a limit of seven days, then we show it on our website for seven days and then it belongs to them.
Senator Munson: I think that is consistent.
Just to follow up on Senator Trenholme Counsell's question very briefly, there is a good journalism school in this city and there are other good journalism schools around. Do you have scholarship programs for these schools or anything like that in higher education?
Mr. O'Neil: We have an agreement for unpaid internships, when the students reach a certain part in their first or second term, usually the first term, that they come in and spend four to six weeks working in the newsroom, getting assignments and getting a real flavour for the real-life work assignments.
Senator Munson: This is good.
The Chairman: You abolished the post of ombudsman?
Ms. Dennis: No, he retired.
The Chairman: You did not replace him?
Ms. Dennis: No.
Mr. O'Neil: No.
The Chairman: You no longer belong to the Atlantic Press Council?
Ms. Dennis: I believe it is ...
The Chairman: Is it defunct? I think it still technically exists, but when you left —-
Mr. O'Neil: I am not sure. I looked for information on it and I have not heard anything of it in some time.
The Chairman: When you left, that must have been a mighty blow.
Mr. O'Neil: It did continue on for some time after that. There was a feeling, I think, amongst the media that when there was an Atlantic Press Council, there was more of a resistance on a lot of people's part, if they got a complaint, to say, ``Take it to the press council,'' and they could just shut it off. If the person wanted to go through that process of taking you to the Atlantic Press Council, it was quite laborious. Now, my phone rings, a direct line, and it comes to me. My name is in the paper every day and so is Ms. Dennis's and Mr. Howse's. We take those complaints directly and we deal with them right away. We deal with them seriously. There is no more shunting it off to a press council or whatever. I think it really works for us now.
Ms. Dennis: We are more responsive, aware and in touch with what is going on in our paper. I think people perceive that because the immediacy is there every day.
The Chairman: Transparency again: I actually abolished the post of ombudsman once. It is not a secret. It is one of the things I hated most to do.
Ms. Dennis: It is not now.
The Chairman: It never was a secret. It was one of the things I have regretted most. The choice was, do you lose another reporter or do you lose the ombudsman? That was purely the reason for it. That said, it seems to me that ombudsmen, as we see them come and go, by and large tend to deal with the kinds of complaints you are talking about, ``Why did you run that picture?'' ``Why is my letter not in the paper?'' ``Why did you spell my neighbour's name wrong?'' ``Why did you not cover the high school basketball championship.'' They deal with very specific, concrete things that matter. I am not disputing that everything like that matters. Then I look at the model of a public editor that The New York Times has recently been experimenting with. That is another order. He does not really deal with, ``Why did they spell my neighbour's name wrong?,'' or, ``my name wrong?'' He deals with much more substantive issues of the philosophy of the newspaper, on a deeper level: why it does certain things the way it does them. Do you see any value to that kind of institution? It is difficult to say, ``I am going to let somebody come in and use our own pages to analyse the way we do things.'' On the other hand, do you think it can build credibility?
Ms. Dennis: I can honestly say that, reading the testimony of the other individuals that have talked about some of these ideas, I was intrigued by some of them and some of them do pose some interesting possibilities. I do not think we should ever discount anything as being an opportunity. If there came a time where we felt people were not feeling that we were responsive or reflective enough of their views and giving them the opportunity to air their opinions, that would certainly be an area we could go to. As well, I would think that our opinion pages provide a lot of people from outside the community to provide their opinion on what we do and how we do it. My mother is a former paediatric nurse and the other day, before I got to work in the morning, I had a phone call from her on my cell phone saying, ``There is another picture of a skateboarder in the paper without a helmet on. Well, this is awful. We should be promoting safety.'' There was a letter to the editor from a woman from the brain surgery association this week, talking about how our responsibility was to provide examples of safe skateboarding and other activities to Nova Scotians. I think we have lots of public editors that are able to write into our paper on a daily basis and write their opinions for us through our opinion page. Bob, do you have anything to add?
Mr. Howse: There is another model from what you say, which is what we did when Paul O'Connell, the Sunday editor, wrote and explained why he used the picture. You can use the ombudsman model in which you say, ``We have someone who is independent over here who is going to answer complaints and explain the paper,'' or you can use the model that the persons who actually made a decision themselves explain it, and are exposed to the reaction from the public and have to deal with it. Maybe that is an equally credible model.
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Howse: If I have to explain myself that I made the decision, not hand it over to the ombudsman, that is also a credible way to deal with it.
The Chairman: It can be an extremely interesting model.
Mr. Howse: Yes.
The Chairman: Obviously, all models having flaws, the flaw in that one is that we always find it terribly difficult to say, ``I was dead wrong.''
Mr. Howse: Yes.
The Chairman: Nonetheless, that does not dispute the validity of what you say. You are very clear about not wanting the state interfering in the newsrooms of the nation and, as Senator Tkachuk said, nor do we. There is, however, a vast range of public policy that affects the press — forget broadcasting — but everything from the Income Tax Act to postal subsidies: you name it.
Ms. Dennis: You name it.
The Chairman: Is there any element of federal public policy that you would like to see changed or that you think is so important that it would be mortally dangerous to change or even just mildly dangerous to change?
Mr. O'Neil: I would like to put my kick in here for the Freedom of Information Act and accessibility. It has turned into such a bureaucracy now with FOI commissioners deciding what can come out and what cannot come out and the researchers involved, so the fees have gone up. Journalists who cannot afford the process are now going away and they are not —-
The Chairman: How much does it cost to get extracts?
Mr. O'Neil: I think it varies on how much information you are getting and how much time they assess it is going to take to get that information for you. There may be a standard fee for making an application, but then there is the amount of time that they have to spend doing that. It is beginning to appear to the public that it is a cover-up. If there is enough red tape going, then people will —
Senator Tkachuk: It is.
Mr. O'Neil: But it is more complicated than it was before and there have been a number of good stories that have come out of FOI requests, some in the news lately.
The Chairman: No kidding. What about shield laws?
Mr. O'Neil: I am not that familiar with the shield laws.
The Chairman: I mean the kind of law that would offer protection to a journalist who —
Ms. Dennis: Their sources.
The Chairman: — is being asked to reveal his or her sources.
Mr. O'Neil: I think that they should be kept in place. I think they are really important.
The Chairman: Senator Eyton did want to ask you questions. He was called away and he sends his regrets.
Before we all leave the table, I am going to ask us all to stay sitting and look fascinated because we have been offered a further photo op. Ms. Dennis, I will tell you a family story.
Senator Dennis, many years ago, used to send my grandmother roses once a year because she met him at a dinner party one night. This is the twenties, I think. She told him that she thought a certain prominent figure in town was a bit of a crook, and he said, ``Nonsense, pillar of the community.'' He turned out to be a crook, and absconded with a lot of money. The day after the story broke, Senator Dennis sent my grandmother roses and continued to do so for some years after on the anniversary of that day. She was so proud. She dined out on that story for years.
I think we are done. We thank you very much indeed. It has been a very interesting session. The Chronicle-Herald is an important paper, so it was important to us to hear from you.
Ms. Dennis: Thank you. It was my first appearance before a committee, so thank you.
The Chairman: Come back any time.
The committee adjourned.