Meta's ban on news in Canada is crushing independent media
Dear Reader,
We’re writing to you today because we want to highlight – while we still can – the impossible situation we find ourselves in as an independent Canadian media platform.
The truth, up-front and unvarnished, is that we don’t think we have much time left.
We’ve spent over a decade building NowMedia. We’ve invested an enormous amount of money and time into hiring one of the largest, most experienced and most diverse news teams in the Okanagan. We’ve sought to bring something different to the region: a modern, youthful, adventurous news site with an emphasis on the things we think really matter. Much of our focus has been on connecting with our readers through social media.
https://www.kamloops...edia/#fs_135459
Not all media companies are in quite the same predicament as NowMedia, however. That’s because many of our rivals and comrades in the news world are being subsidized by the federal government through, among other schemes, the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit. Outlets that qualify for the credit can claim as much as 35 per cent of their employees’ pay, up to a maximum salary of $85,000.
It’s been around for several years now, and if you’ve ever wondered why certain people often complain about “state-funded media,” the answer is they've likely been inspired by this tax credit.
NowMedia, though, has twice been rejected by the federal government when applying for this subsidy. In one review explaining our rejection, which was authored by an academic whose first language is not English and who lives thousands of kilometres away from our company, we were told that, based on an assessment of a small selection of our stories, we do not qualify as a producer of original news content. The primary evidence adduced to support this conclusion was that some of our stories were based on press releases from the RCMP and provincial government.
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But, given the above, why does Meta block NowMedia on Facebook and Instagram? If the federal government doesn’t consider us to be a news outlet, and Meta has chosen to block news on its platform, why are we, who are apparently not a party to their dispute, being caught in the middle of it all?
Edited by Victoria Watcher, 25 March 2024 - 03:44 AM.