Three of four daily newspapers under one owner could hurt quality: former journalism prof
Posted October 6, 2014 11:53 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – If you pick up a daily newspaper in Vancouver, there’s a three in four chance it will soon fall under the same ownership group.
Of the four Vancouver dailies, only Metro News will have a different ownership group, with the Vancouver Sun, The Province and 24 Hours all soon to fall under the umbrella of PostMedia’s growing newspaper empire, following today’s announcement of a planned $316-million sale by Quebecor Media.
Former Langara journalism instructor Ross Howard has concerns about what that could mean.
“I don’t take a lot of joy out of it, in terms of being a media consumer,” he tells us.
“I think this is a further weakening of Canadian journalism… Mostly it worries me, because inevitably the companies are going to want to make as much money as possible — that’s their primary interest — but they’ll do it by cutting the quality of journalism.”
Howard says it’s ultimately about making sure there’s enough diversity of viewpoints represented in the media, and concentration of ownership only puts that at risk.
“You’ve got to worry when one owner controls or has the potential to control the news that goes into those three media,” he says. “If three out of the four major dailies or major sources in this town are all controlled by one company, you have to wonder if that’s good for diversity, if it’s good for a variety of opinions, if it’s good for a variety of reporters competing hard to chase the stories to give the fullest story possible to the public.”
The deal still needs the approval of the Competition Bureau, and that process will likely take several months.
