Dear Editor:
RE: Advertiser publisher elected chair of News Media Canada, July 20.
While it is nice to see a local publisher step onto the national stage, his goals for that stage are disturbing to say the least.
Congratulations to the Advertiser’s publisher, Dave Adsett, for being elected to the chair of News Media Canada. Hopefully he can do some good for the news industry.
It does not look good though as he is reported as saying he wants to improve the Canadian Journalism Labour Tax Credit. This tax credit gave $600 million taxpayer dollars over five years to the traditional media. It was a failure as the traditional media are failing fast financially. So how would Adsett improve a failure? With even more tax dollars no doubt.
The Local Journalism Initiative is a $50-million taxpayer fund paid out over five years to support local and community news. More tax dollars down the drain.
If the news industry cannot survive because Canadians are not reading and watching it and so advertisers are not placing their ads there doesn’t mean the taxpayers should be forced to support them. There are independent Canadian news sources that are succeeding and do not take a single tax dollar. That is the model that must be followed; sink or swim, just like any other industry.
When the media accepts tax dollars their views become biased toward the reigning Liberal Party who gave them the money. That makes all those who took the money suspicious in the eyes of the readers and even more people will ditch their news product.
Mr. Adsett, please explain your goals to your readers. Hopefully you are not just another toady or even worse, becoming a pig at the trough.
Jane Vandervliet,
Erin