How should Canada spend its media funding?

[Machjo]

I actually question whether the government should be funding the media at all. But I'll play the devil's advocate here and presume a priori that the government does need to fund media.

Based on that, how do we ensure the independence of the media? My personal solution might be for the government to hand out an electronic media-voucher to each resident of Canada over the age of fifteen for himself and for any dependent under the age of fifteen, that he could use to subscribe to participating media of his choice with participating media being bound by reasonable censorship such as censoring the promotion of addictive products and services ranging from alcohol to tobacco to porn to gambling, etc.

If the government must fund media, how would you propose that the government fund it?

Edited November 24, 2018 by Machjo

[Army Guy]

How about a good old fashion documentary , on the Canadian Beaver, or something like that. what a waste.....Of all the things we could have spent money on the liberals chose the media... 

[cannuck]

I think the money should be used in an orderly windup of the Communist Broadcasting Corporation.

[turningrite]

2 hours ago, Machjo said:

If the government must fund media, how would you propose that the government fund it?

If the government does ending up funding journalism in this country, please don't let it decide who'll get the cash. A "free" press must not end up being a propaganda machine for any sitting government.

Edited November 24, 2018 by turningrite

[Machjo]

3 hours ago, turningrite said:

If the government does ending up funding journalism in this country, please don't let it decide who'll get the cash. A "free" press must not end up being a propaganda machine for any sitting government.

As I said in the OP: I'm not saying that I favour state funding of the press, I'm just exploring how the state should fund it if it does decide to fund it. As far as I can tell, if the state must fund it, it would be best to make it consumer-driven, and I think a media-voucher program would be the best model for that.

[eyeball]

14 hours ago, Machjo said:

If the government must fund media, how would you propose that the government fund it?

What they fund is more important than how.  The money should be spent on installing cameras and microphones throughout the halls of power, especially the PMO, and hard-wire everything to the Internet.

Funding should be set aside for human observers in the event of politicians that seek to side step their souveillance. 

Edited November 24, 2018 by eyeball

[ironstone]

I think this funding of the media is a monumentally bad idea and surely part of the intent is to overwhelm any conservative media outlets.

I can't answer your question as to how to best dole out the money either,there simply isn't a fair way in my opinion. It's already a sure thing that all of the money will be given to Liberal-friendly,left leaning media sources.Those who decide where the money goes will themselves be chosen by the Liberals.

This is what my MP said is his reply to my comment about this foolish initiative:

 

Thank you for writing to me about Canada’s media reality. Ensuring a healthy media industry is ensuring a healthy democracy.

 

"I support CBC because for some communities, it’s the only source of information available in rural Canada. Local journalism is vital to our democracy. Journalists play a fundamental role in holding governments which include municipal, provincial and federal jurisdiction. The $600 million tax credit will be used for labour costs, content creation and everything will be independent from political interference. Many businesses get access to various tax credits. Getting access to a tax credit doesn’t translate into automatic support for governments.
 

In the last decade more than 16,000 Canadian journalists have lost their jobs, and twenty-seven daily newspapers and 222 weekly have either closed or merged operations. $50 million dollars will be spent on local journalism over the next five years. This will help to finance reporters on the ground and will enable donation and subscriber-based projects."

I used to read both the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun daily but I haven't bothered for a while now because it's more convenient to get my news from other sources and frankly,both papers are overpriced.Use the money to retrain these so called journalists just like the auto workers.