(American Lessons for Canada)

In the midst of an all-out shitstorm like the Orange Idiot’s misadventure in Iran, it’s easy to miss a turd or two flying by. One that went by last week was the statement posted on X by by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. It said “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up. The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.” 

The Orange Idiot immediately jumped into the fray saying “I am so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), looking at the licenses of some of these Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic ‘News’ Organizations…. those Media Outlets that generated [fake stories] should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!”

Admittedly, those statements didn’t go totally unnoticed. To give the liberal world credit, there were a number of protests about the threat to press freedom and the potential violation of the First Amendment. But the uproar was brief. It made news on day one and was a dead story by the end of day two. I’ve decided that there’s still a lot of meat on the bones of that dead story, and I’m going to try to carve some of it off for you.

First off all, this was not just a couple of MAGA assholes randomly spouting off about a news story that bothered them. This was a continuation of a planned and deliberate attack on media that is laid out as a strategy in the Project 2025 document that has guided so much of the Trump 47 Administration’s actions. Project 2025 recommendations  are designed to weaken the mainstream media (“the centre of Leftist power”)  by reducing their access to information, defunding news outlets and increasing their legal vulnerability. Some specific recommendations and their current status are as follows:

• Use the powers of the FCC to dramatically weaken protections offered to websites that host user-generated content. Under Brendan Carr’s proposals, websites would be much more vulnerable to lawsuits for moderating content too much or, conversely, for failing to take down comment which generated a complaint that it was defamatory. If the Carr reforms are all implemented, social media platforms will need to ratchet up their content review and ensure it dances to Trump’s tune.
• Remove legal protection of journalists. At least 30 journalists were arrested in 2025 while covering protests or public meetings. In April 2025 Attorney General Pam Bondi officially rescinded Merrick Garland’s memo that allowed journalists to refuse to reveal their sources. The FBI recently executed a search warrant on the home of a Washington Post journalist.  pressfreedomtracker.us commented “When federal agents executed a search warrant at the home of Washington Post reporter Hannah Natanson on Jan. 14, they seized her phone, two laptops and a smartwatch as part of a leak investigation. Natanson was not charged with a crime. But the seizure immediately disrupted her reporting, sweeping up confidential news-gathering material along with whatever evidence investigators were seeking.”
• Defund (presumably liberal leaning) public broadcasting. This threat has been effectuated – $1B of funding has been removed from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting and the CPB has been formally dissolved. That means that Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) are now supported only by public subscription.  A New York Times analysis reports that 245 TV stations and 70 to 80 public radio stations are at risk of closing by the end of 2026. 
• Remove the  firewall protecting the editorial independence of the US Agency for Global Media. The USAGM was created to “promote “freedom and democracy” by providing news to countries with limited press freedom. Project 2025 wants the formerly non-partisan and independent USAGM and its principle outlet, the Voice of America (VOA) to reflect Trump’s foreign policy objectives. To that end, political appointees have been inserted into key editorial roles and the agency’s internal culture and output have been significantly reoriented toward administration priorities.
• Control media access to White House press handouts. The White House Correspondents Association used to manage rotating access to White House briefings. In February 2025 the White House Press Office seized control of those duties, and so the only reporters who get to hear what the Orange Idiot has to say are those who are approved by the lovely and talented Karoline Leavitt aka the White House Press Bimbo – oops, I mean Secretary. The Associated Press have been banned from White House briefings for the cardinal offence of refusing to re-name the  Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. Several other organizations, including Reuters, Blomberg News, The Huffington Post and a German outfit called Der Tagesspiegel have also suffered bans or severe access restrictions.

All of those operations were prescribed in Project 2025 and they are designed to ensure that the administration controls the message going to the public. If all of this has a familiar ring, I remind you that in February of 2025 I wrote “Democracy A L’Orange” in which I discussed how Viktor Orban had come to totally dominate the media in Hungary by revoking the broadcasting of “unfriendly” stations,  by giving preferential treatment to “friendly” outlets, by smear campaigns seeking to discredit journalists and experts, and by making widespread use of elaborate conspiracy theories.  I predicted then that we’d see Trump following Orban’s recipe. I’d say I was right.

Trump’s personal attacks on media include some 215 postings on Truth Social (now there’s an oxymoron for you) that range from merely insulting to threatening treason charges.  He has filed at least five lawsuits, including current defamation suits against The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Pulitzer Prize Board.

He has help, too. Brendan Carr (FCC) has initiated 8 formal probes into broadcasters (NPR, PBS, ABC, NBC, KCBS) in 14 months. Pete Hegseth has virtually eliminated press coverage of the Pentagon. Pam Bondi’s justice department has been taken to court by journalists at least 13 times for violating their First Amendment rights. Senior advisor Steven Miller has been credited with the detention and deportation of two foreign journalists who filed “unfavourable” stories. And the Department of Homeland Security under the leadership of (now departed) Kristi Noem has been implicated in 160 assaults on journalists.

The MAGA assault on press freedom continues with the concentration of media outlets in the hands of right wing billionaires. Paramount Skydance, led by billionaire David Ellison, installed Bari Weiss, a right wing political commentator as the editor-in-chief of CBS News. She very quickly initiated layoffs which are alleged to have targeted minorities, and drew criticism when she “spiked” a 60 Minutes story about conditions at the Salvadoran Terrorism Confinement Centre shortly before it was due to be broadcast.

The aforementioned billionaire David Ellison and his billionaire father Larry are seeking to further entrench themselves in American media circles. Recently the Ellisons out-bid Netflix for control of Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD) in a deal reported to be worth $111 B. That deal has resulted in legal filings that include the allegation, reported in multiple news sources (MSN, Yahoo, Variety and others) that Donald Trump told Larry Ellison “Larry, it looks like Netflix is gonna get Warner Bros., but if you really really want it, Larry, I’ll make sure you get it.”.

Larry Ellison is one of Trump’s biggest financial supporters, and a confidant of Benyamin Netanyahu. He has a strongly pro-Israel, anti-Iran, anti-Palestine stance. He has been quoted as supportive of the use of AI for surveillance of citizens. He and his anti-woke son are “committed to dismantling what they describe as the “Leftist capture” of legacy newsrooms”.  If the WBD comes to fruition, this is the duo will command controlling interests in CBS, CBS News, CNN, Warner Brothers, Discovery, HBO/Max, and Tik Tok. 

For Donald Trump, CNN is the prize in that package as the Ellisons are sure to silence his most vocal critics. I’m not a big fan of CNN. They are clearly opposed to Trump, and I’m OK with that. But their news coverage is strongly biased and shrill and I don’t trust them to give me a balanced view of the world. However, I do think that it would be a terrible thing to see them totally silenced or, worse maybe, turned into a Fox News look-alike.

Press freedom is under attack globally, not just in the United States of America. Reporters Without Borders, (RSF for Reporters Sans Frontieres) a highly respected journalism watchdog association, says “Journalism across the Americas faces persistent structural and economic challenges, including media concentration, weak public outlets and precarious labour conditions. The crisis has deepened in recent years with the collapse of the media’s traditional business models. As ad revenue shifts to giant tech platforms and news consumption habits change, newsrooms shrink and editorial independence disintegrates.”

Of the United States specifically, RSF says “Donald Trump’s second term as president has led to an alarming deterioration in press freedom, indicative of an authoritarian shift in government. His administration has weaponised institutions, cut support for independent media, and sidelined reporters. With trust in the media plummeting, reporters face increasing hostility.”

In the United States, the economic attack on the press is vicious. The Trump administration has cut  more than a billion dollars from public broadcasting.  On top of that, media companies are estimated to have spent $30 million defending themselves in court in 2025/2026. The cloud of possible court cost hangs over every editorial decision on what can or cannot be published. That defensiveness resulted in ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel (briefly) when his scathing monologue about Charlie Kirk raised fears of an FCC-led backlash from the Administration.

RSF places the US at 57th out of 179 countries that were graded, just a bit better than South Korea (61) and Hungary (68). That ranking places the US in their “Problematic” rating category. 

Canada, with a score of 78.74 is ranked “satisfactory” at 21st in the world. By far the weakest element of the Canadian journalism landscape is the economic conditions for media here.  Only 7 countries (Norway, Estonia, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Ireland) achieved “Good” ratings. 

There’s not a lot we can do about the US situation, nor is there much we can do about the economic, structural issues besetting journalism globally. It’s certainly a tough economic environment for media companies here in Canada. A November 2025 article from the Toronto Metropolitan University school of journalism says “The latest data highlighted that operating revenues for newspaper publishers fell to $1.6 billion in 2024, a 17.9 per cent drop from 2022. This decline continues a long-running contraction that has already forced the closure of hundreds of local news outlets over the past decade and a half….Between 2008 and October 1, 2025, 603 local news outlets in 388 communities across Canada closed. Of those, 440 closings or 73 per cent of the total were community newspapers….

So what can we do? Well the first thing is, we could spend some money. The article above concludes with this statement “If Canadians want to continue to enjoy access to fact-based, fact-checked news, they need to support it through advertising or subscriptions,” said Deegan. “It’s that simple.” 

The second thing, and I think it’s crucial, is that we need to continue to support the CBC. Pierre Poilievre is hostile to the CBC, arguing that it is a biased propaganda arm of the Liberal party. Conservative party policy is “to eliminate all federal funding for the CBC’s English-language television and digital services.” 

mediabiasfactcheck.com refutes Poilievre’s  contention. It rates the CBC as having a slight to moderate liberal bias with high factual content, stating “CBC’s straight news reporting is consistently low-biased, factual, and covers both sides of issues. Editorially, the opinion pages tend to be balanced with some stories leaning left”.  So the Conservative’s accusation is without solid basis. But do we really need the CBC? Is it overfunded?

The CBC suffered severe budget cuts under the Harper government. Support was improved under the Trudeau Liberals, but they failed to restore real funding to the levels enjoyed by the CBC in the 1990’s. CBC executives, in arguing their budget requests, tell us that “At $33 per Canadian — a dime a day — CBC/Radio-Canada is one of the worst-funded public broadcasters in the world, with four times less funding than the U.K. and France and eight times less than Germany”. 

I asked my AI search engine for a review of the countries that are better than Canada in the RSF world press freedom index. What it told me is “Every single country in the Top 10 of the RSF Press Freedom Index has a state-sponsored, editorially independent broadcaster. Experts argue these institutions act as a “quality floor” for fact-based journalism, forcing private competitors to maintain higher standards and providing a reliable news source in “market failure” areas like rural reporting.” 

I need you all to just read the tea leaves. With press freedom and democracy both under attack world wide, and with “social media” flooding us with disinformation and misinformation, is now the time to cut the CBC? Can we count on free market capitalism to provide us with news sources that have integrity? If we kill the CBC can we count on CTV to continue it’s excellent news coverage? CTV is very well rated right now, but what happens if Larry Ellison decides to go shopping in Canada? I would argue that the only way to ensure we get solid, unbiased, fact-based news coverage is to make it happen, and not leave it to chance. 

So buy a local paper. Or subscribe to a solid “mainstream” online Canadian news platform. And make it known with your voice and your vote that you value the CBC.