Media junkies: Senate hearings on the state of journalism

As of the end of December, the gay and lesbian press had given a wide berth to the Canadian Senate committee studying the state of the country's news media. The complete transcripts of testimony are available -- I've pulled some of the interesting (to me) talk presented to the senators during their 2004 hearings. Transcipts from 2005 have yet to be posted.

In November, the president of the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada testified that "the ethnic newspaper must... provide a service that is not expected of the mainstream language press." Thomas Saras continued: "To a degree, it becomes a social textbook for the reader. This work takes on special importance when we deal with immigration, pensions, welfare, housing, quarantine, income and minimum wages, where a more complicated explanation is necessary."

He said editors often even arrange for legal aid or help bring a problem to the attention of the proper authorities. Nonetheless, Saras said, the ethnic press's special roles are "often not appreciated by the political establishment of our great country."

The association's vice president, press, Mashadi Massood, testified that ethnic media receives a disproportionately small amount of the federal government's vast advertising dollars. "For this year [2004], there is a budget of CDN$67 million and my members and the industry did not receive more than $400,000... many publications went bankrupt."

There were also concerns about regulations governing publishing grants from the state, which are technically restricted to paid-circulation publications only (not mentioned to senators is that some gay publications did receive a reprieve on this new-ish rule, and did get grants last year).

And the group called on the federal government to consider how to help freelancers and even staffers in the poorly paid ethnic media market, who have few employment benefits and are unable to save money for retirement. A suggestion was made for the state to match personal contributions made to a retirement fund.

In a separate presentation, Ken Alexander, publisher of the general interest magazine The Walrus, reported that freelance writers make an average of CDN$11,000 a year.

A brief from the Canadian Federation of University Women called for the protection of the "intellectual property of journalists, photographers and artists," such as requiring media companies to pay separately for print content re-used in electronic form. The plea was echoed by representatives of the Association des journalistes independants du Quebec in a December presentation in Montreal (which I attended out of curiosity).

Walrus publisher Alexander also noted that tax rules prohibit charitable foundations from contributing much-needed start-up funds to publications. (I know that This Magazine is published by the registered charity the Red Maple Foundation; perhaps the rules have changed since Red Maple start up? I think This Mag was founded in the 1960s.)

The Standing Senate Committee on Transport and Communications's final state-of-the-media report is expected in June.