It was less than a year ago that Facebook pulled the plug on Canadian news.
You might recall, as at the time I offered a couple opinions on the whole thing.
The whole thing came about because the Government of Canada created the Online News Act, which asks big tech companies that appear to be making lots of money sharing online news, to return some of that money to Canadian Newspapers, who, outside of a handful of big publications and a couple more nimble, internet-first publications, appear to be making diddly squat.
Those companies were essentially Google and Facebook.
Facebook tried to become a news site a few year’s ago, but discovered that it didn’t really make them any money.
Google, on the other hand, has made a deal with the government to pay $100-million into a fund to help compensate news outlets. This money will be divided up between Canadian news outlets. I expect to be getting somewhere between five or ten dollars.
(Check that; I went and looked and somewhere between then and now, they’ve selected all the news sources that are going to be getting any money, and we’re not one of them. Awesome.)
But Facebook? Facebook decided to go the other way, and just ban news being shared in Canada.
So I was a bit shocked the other day when I came across a link to a Globe and Mail story on Facebook.
I was in the midst of doomscrolling, and I didn’t really recognize it for what it was for a few moments, so I had to scroll back, but there it was: a story about…well, that’s the issue now, innit? Because while there was a link, you have to be a Globe and Mail subscriber to read it. Just $1.99 per week for the first 52 weeks ($7.99 per week after).
But it was the Facebook link I was most interested in, because what I saw?
Was an ad.
The Globe and Mail was advertising it’s news stories on Facebook.
Are you seeing the irony here? The Government of Canada says “hey Facebook, you need to pay Canadian news sources.” Facebook says no, and now, Canadian news sources are paying Facebook.
This is exactly the opposite of what was supposed to happen. Instead of funneling cash away from social media giant Facebook and giving it to Canadian media outlets, Canadian media outlets are paying Facebook.
Sure, they’re trying to find more paying clients for their own newspapers, but that’s not the point. We live in Bizzaro-world, where everything is upsidedown. Bad is good, good is bad, and the Canadian newspapers are paying the International behemoth to advertise their wares in the face of the Canadian Government passing legislation saying exactly the opposite.
And us small community newspapers? We continue to scrape by. Or not. (We’ll see after this issue….) All I can do is cast myself on the good graces of the community: of the people who graciously donate to keep the paper going, of the advertisers who believe in us enough to take out advertisements.
Speaking of small community newspapers, I’d like to point out that this week sees the return of the Alaska Highway News. That’s not so small a newspaper, one with a stories history.
Todd Buck, a former reporter at the Alaska Highway News was not impressed when the paper shut down. He went and told the bigwigs at Glacier so, and managed to get them to sell him the rights to the newspaper name.
I bumped into Buck a few months ago when I was planning my own paper for Fort St. John. I was looking for someone like me, committed to the community they lived in and willing to put in sweat equity to make it work.
Buck was the perfect person for the job, except for one thing: he had already done the hard work to start a newspaper up in Fort St. John.
So over the last few months I’ve been helping him (a very little bit; he’s pretty well go everything covered), and mostly waiting for him to actually pull the trigger and publish his first issue. That happens June 6.
So now there’s the Tumbler RidgeLines and the Alaska Highway News. What about Dawson Creek? Well, there’s no newspaper, but former Mirror editor Rob Brown has a news…letter thing that he’s putting out on a weekly basis. So that’s the Peace covered.
Except for Chetwynd. I’m looking at you, Chetwynd. If only there was someone there who was passionate about the community and willing to write for a newspaper.
No, seriously, I’m looking. If anyone knows anyone, tell them to give me a call. Phone number is in the masthead, as is the email address.
Back to the AHN and This Week in Dawson Creek (apparently Rob’s not worried that Jason Calacanis, owner of the This Week In…brand of podcasting will come and sue him).
All three news outlets remain independent, but we’ve been talking about ways to work together. Maybe start sharing stories between papers. So, if you start seeing stories that are slightly more regional in nature with someone else’s byline on it, well, now you know.
Will the new newspaper in Fort St. John survive? Probably. Buck seems like a hardworking, passionate fellow.
He’s got his wife onside, helping with circulation and ad sales, and the kids will be helping stuff fliers.
And if the new eight page tabloid size AHN looks a little like the Tumbler RidgeLines? Well, I might have had some influence on that.
Yes, after a bit of a dry spell, it looks like things are looking up for media in the Peace.
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
