Image Credit: Mel Rothenburger

By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Here’s to journalists who bravely bear witness to mayhem

Jan 9, 2021 | 6:55 AM

THERE WAS A CERTAIN IRONY in finding a copy of The Epoch Times in my mailbox this week on the anniversary of the closing of The Kamloops Daily News.

The Epoch Times is a reminder that things aren’t like they used to be in the media world. This publication calls itself “objective and unbiased” but that’s like Fox News insisting it’s “Fair and Balanced.” (Fox quietly dropped that slogan a few years ago in favour of “Most Watched, Most Trusted.”) “We provide honest, fact-based journalism and insightful news analysis,” The Epoch Times boasts. But it focuses heavily on stories with an anti-China bent, not surprising since it’s associated with the anti-Communist Falun Gong (a spiritual group banned in China), though its exact ownership is fuzzy.

It has, apparently, become highly successful, sending out free copies to targeted neighbourhoods across the continent soliciting subscriptions. It reflects the current state of journalism in which opinion and bias prevail over objectivity.

While traditional media — in which opinion is clearly labeled to distinguish it from news reporting — teeter on extinction, heavily slanted talking-heads journalism thrives.

Consumers want “news” that conforms to their own biases, not that covers the spectrum. As it happens, The Epoch Times has been a major supporter of Donald Trump, which brings me to my next point.

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In times of crisis, nothing can beat unbiased traditional journalism. Reporters at the riot at the Capitol in Washington did heroic work, risking their lives to bear witness. Dozens were there to document the mayhem and found themselves targeted. One TV crew was attacked, their cameras trashed. On a door, words were scrawled, “MURDER THE MEDIA.”

Much closer to home, a photo journalist was punched at a pro-Trump rally in Vancouver this week. When things get dangerous, professional journalists run towards the action rather than away from it. They can’t help it; it’s in their blood. Without such reporting, we would have no way of knowing what happened beyond smartphone videos.

Sadly, professional journalism is more and more at risk of extinction; proper journalists are becoming more and more scarce.

I’ve never met Bruce Claggett, never heard of him until a few weeks ago. Claggett was the senior managing editor at the News 1130 radio station at the Coast.

“Tough day and yes I will miss the newsroom,” Claggett tweeted one day in November. “It’s been an amazing 17 years and thank you to my coworkers, colleagues, newsmakers and listeners. Be kind to each other.”

Seventeen years and suddenly out of a job and possibly out of a career, since media jobs aren’t easy to find these days. Claggett was part of cuts announced by Rogers Sports & Media that included several senior radio jobs and its Breakfast Television morning shows in Vancouver and Calgary.

Others who lost their jobs along with Claggett tweeted out similarly gracious messages.

“Feeling grateful today for the experience of a lifetime,” wrote weather guy Russ Lacate. “I love you guys and will really miss you. It was a good run.” He ended with a #noregrets hashtag.

Media people almost unfailingly take job loss with courage and grace. It’s as if they accept getting the axe as part of the deal. I’ll never forget one exceptionally black Friday when I had to call three members of The Kamloops Daily News newsroom into my office and tell them they no longer had jobs.

Several others in the building were given the same news — the company needed to downsize due to loss of revenues. Newspaper editors don’t make such decisions, accountants and CEOs do.

One of the three had been with us only a short time. I’d talked him into leaving another paper to come to work for us. Yet he, as did the other two, took the news with total class.

It was the same sort of character shown by every single member of the Daily News staff when the paper shut down a few years later. Though I had retired by then, I spent some time at the paper after the announcement, and was there for the final press run. At the end of that last shift, everybody went out for beers.

The heady days of double-digit profit margins and well-staffed newsrooms are over for mainstream media. A couple of days after the Rogers cuts, Postmedia let it be known it intended to reduce salary expenses another 15 per cent through layoffs and voluntary buyouts.

COVID-19 has been especially cruel to an industry that was already hurting. Advertisers have stopped buying advertising. Postmedia, which also owns other publications such as the National Post and Toronto Sun, lost $16.2 million in its last fiscal year.

In the last 12 years, 215 newspapers have closed in Canada.

Bell Media has laid off at least 380 people since August. The fact that hard times are moving into electronic media is disturbing. It’s widely acknowledged that the days of printed newspapers and magazines are numbered but radio and television have been, all things considered, holding their own.

Certainly, there have been cost-saving measures in newsrooms — several veteran radio reporters found themselves invited to retire early when NL Radio went through ownership changes.

The Canadian Association of Journalists recently partnered in a study of the state of the craft and found that at least 2,100 media employees had lost their jobs. Another study, this one by the Canadian Association of Broadcasters, described the situation as a “crisis.”

Small-town papers that still survive have found it necessary, in effect, to panhandle for change, begging readers to donate toward keeping them in business. It’s not a sustainable business model.

There are all kinds of reasons, in addition to COVID-19, put forward as explanations for the decline. One of the biggest is the influence of social media. Increasingly, readers are satisfied with getting their news for free and, as I pointed out above, getting only the news and opinion that fits with their own views.

New generations won’t even notice the effect of shrinking newsrooms and the shutdowns, because they won’t know what they missed. They may even buy into the fake news characterization of mainstream media.

They’ll be left with substitutes like The Epoch Times and other agenda-driven outlets. Sadly, there will be a lot more brave tweets from newly unemployed journalists, thanking those they worked with and promising to stay in touch.

And when bad things happen, such as the riot at the Capitol, we’ll be left at the mercy of media outlets that feed us what they think we want to hear, not what we need to know.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.