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A Toronto Star executive and former Liberal staffer Ryan Adam has called for permanent funding for the mainstream media from Big Tech companies lest so-called “pseudo-journalists” take over the profession.
During a panel discussion with the U.S. group Ethnic Media Services, Adam claimed that the government must force Big Tech companies to fund media outlets or independent media will dominate the industry.
“In the absence of real journalism, all we’re going to get moving forward is pseudo-journalists, online experts, and folks who don’t go through the rigorous fact-checking that we do in our newsrooms,” he said in footage obtained February 12 by independent media outlet True North.
The Toronto Star is panicking.
VP of Gov Relations Ryan Adam said that if the Liberals don’t “permanently” shakedown tech companies with Bill C-18, “pseudo-journalists” would prevail.
This is rich coming from an outlet writing a hit piece on @PierrePoilievre‘s $300 kiddie pool pic.twitter.com/ISAvlY4PUx
— Cosmin Dzsurdzsa 🇷🇴 (@cosminDZS) February 12, 2024
Adam, who worked for Justin Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office between 2017 and 2019, argued that Trudeau’s Online News Act should provide a permanent source of income for the media industry, calling on Google and Meta to recognize that “the content they’re sharing from news organizations has value.”
He claimed the government should be “compelling” such businesses “to compensate, permanently, those content creators with revenue generated from the advertising.”
“I strongly encourage the government to move forward and pursue the approach while the industry is on its knees, and then I strongly encourage tech leaders to really acknowledge the important role that real fact-based journalism has in a democracy,” he added, apparently still referring to mainstream media.
Canada’s Senate passed the Online News Act in June, and it quickly became law. The new law will force social media companies to pay Canadian legacy media for news content shared on their platforms.
In December, the Trudeau government announced a deal with Google to publish Canadian news under the recently passed Online News Act, formerly known as Bill C-18. Under the new agreement, Google will pay legacy media outlets $100 million to publish links to their content on both the Google search engine and YouTube.
However, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has refused to pay the fees outlined in the new law, instead blocking news content for Canadians on their platforms.
Adam’s warning of a “pseudo-journalist” takeover seems ironic after tech mogul and free speech advocate Elon Musk calling the Toronto Star as “Canada’s Pravda.”
Musk’s comment came after Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre revealed that the outlet was preparing a “hit piece” on him and his family for buying a $300 kiddie pool.
Indeed, Adam’s concerns for democracy seem unfounded since most Canadians appear to agree with Musk. Recent surveys find only one-third of Canadians consider mainstream media trustworthy and balanced despite, or perhaps because of, the ongoing government payouts to keep legacy media outlets afloat.
As LifeSiteNews reported in December, legacy media journalists are projected have roughly half of their salaries paid by the Liberal government following Google agreement and the subsidies outlined in the Fall Economic Statement.
Mainstream media in Canada was already receiving massive federal payouts, but these nearly doubled after Trudeau announced increased payouts for legacy media outlets ahead of the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.
Similarly, a recent study by Canada’s Public Health Agency revealed that less than a third of Canadians displayed “high trust” in the federal government, with “large media organizations” as well as celebrities getting even lower scores.
Large mainstream media outlets and “journalists” working for them scored a “high trust” rating of only 18 percent. This was followed by only 12 percent of people saying they trusted “ordinary people,” with celebrities receiving only an eight percent “trust” rating.
