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MEDIA: Journalist association wants CRTC to help foster diversity in broadcasting

        (AlbertaIndex, September 27, Thursday) --- The CRTC has not done enough to protect the diversity of voices in Canadian media, the president of the Canadian Association of Journalists told the federal broadcast regulator last week.

        In the wake of major mergers in the broadcasting industry, Canadians are increasingly seeing local newscasts eliminated and are being forced to get information on important issues from a single source with a single perspective, CAJ President Mary Agnes Welch said at hearings in Gatineau, Quebec.

The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission hearings are examining the diversity of voices and a proposed journalistic independence code.

Welch explained that consolidation has created a culture that demands that journalists file the same story over the airwaves, on the Internet and in print, further diminishing the news and perspectives available to Canadians.

“Repurposing content doesn’t count as diversity,” she said. “It’s the same content regurgitated through the various platforms. It’s the same interviews and facts, the same reporter's interpretations.”

The CAJ believes that regulations need to be toughened so that when consolidation occurs, owners don't cut their newsrooms to the point of shrinking local content, Welch said.

The recent CTVGlobemedia and CHUM-TV deal has seen the elimination of a local newscast in some cities, she told the commissioners.

“The current regulatory framework has not gone far enough to foster journalism that serves the public interest or to protect the diversity of voices, especially in local markets,” Welch said.

In its written submission in July, the CAJ asked the CRTC to tighten rules for the separation of newsrooms owned by a company, and to place regulation of the journalistic independence code in public hands -- not the industry’s self-regulating body.

The Canadian Association of Journalists is a professional organization with some 1,500 members across Canada. The CAJ's primary role is to provide-public interest advocacy and high quality professional development for its members.

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