SLOBODIAN: There go the Trudeau Liberals again, with more money to keep reporters out of retail

The late, great Jack Tennant, former Calgary Sun Page 5 columnist and weekly newspaper owner, was a principled newsman to the core.He imparted tidbits of wisdom on reporters lucky to work for him such as Rule #2: “Never get in a pi**ing match with a skunk.” It’s a pearl worth sharing that kept many of us (I was a cub reporter for Tennant’s Airdrie Echo) out of pointless, time-wasting word scraps.Tennant also hammered Rule #1 into our heads: “If you start to take yourself too seriously, go sell shoes at Woodward’s.” Tennant knew agendas, inflated egos and ‘do you know who I think I am’ delusions got in the way of journalists doing their jobs — accurately reporting news.Tennant, whose Manitoba farm boy roots never left him, respected workers who worked 9-to-5 or sun-up to after sun-down jobs. Pompous journalists with superiority complexes, not so much. His advice to go sell shoes was a compliment to those who earned paycheques with honesty, sweat and integrity.Perhaps the president of the Canadian Association of Journalists didn’t mean to sound snobbish when he referenced working at Home Hardware. But he did. He pleaded to keep journalists on the taxpayer payroll with the renewal of the 100% government wage subsidy for employees in ‘select’ newsrooms..“What are they going to do?” asked Toronto freelancer Brent Jolly at a February 27 Commons Heritage Committee meeting, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.“Are they going to work at Home Hardware? I don’t think that is really benefitting of treating people with professionalism,” said Jolly.Eeew. Imagine these ‘magnificent’ minds — many who rewrite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s press releases with Pravda-like finesse to present as hard news — stocking shelves and working the cash register! Don’t you know who they think they are! In the absence of dwindling advertising revenue, they’re entitled to tax dollars from the very Canadians who stock shelves and operate cash registers, but don’t tune in to their news.Fed up with one-sided woke preaching, climate hysteria and Trudeau spin, perhaps?The 100% Local Journalism Initiative rebate program was set to expire March 31. On Friday cabinet extended it three years by $58.8 million. That’s in addition to $595 million in limited rebates introduced in 2019 and another $129 million in expanded rebates last November. Despite those millions, hundreds of journalists have been laid off.Jolly said it would be “cataclysmic” if the initiative that pays “hundreds of early career journalists” in Canada ended.“Rather than thinking about their next assignment their minds are on whether they will have jobs.”Would that differ from the “cataclysmic” times hard-working taxpayers face hanging on by their fingernails while they bail media out?Another Tennant tale comes to mind.As a new newspaper owner, times were lean. Payday was tomorrow. There wasn’t enough to cover salaries. Tennant cared about his staff. He fretted. Then halleluiah! the mail arrived with cheques for Echo ads.The days of media (excluding independents such as the Western Standard) not feeling entitled to demand bailouts instead of relying on revenue are gone.Jolly told the committee that journalists are in bad shape and must be bailed out. “We are hurting emotionally, oscillating between the challenges of navigating an increasingly hostile world while trying to ignore the deep feelings of anxiety,” he said.It's unclear what hostilities and anxiety he meant, but are journalists today in it to report news or nurse feelings and suck on soothers?Anxiety over losing jobs is understandable.Enter CBC CEO Catherine Tait, earning a $497,000 annual salary plus a 21% bonus, who fed anxiety moaning that “immense pressure” and “chronic underfunding” on finances would lead to 800 layoffs.How she must have worried about those poor employees while she ran up a $119,309 expense tab between November1, 2021 and November, 2023.While CBC employees faced the prospect of getting lunch out of a Home Hardware vending machine, Tait and friends dined on $118 King Salmon and $112 for a rabbit entrée at an Ottawa restaurant. That’s one example of tasty delights on the taxpayer dime we know about, thanks to Blacklock’s Reporter.‘Let them eat cake’ seems to be Tait’s Marie Antionette attitude while living the high life instead of trimming to keep CBC employees on the job.How times change. When Tennant said ‘let them eat cake’ he literally meant let them eat cake. We weren’t well paid. Rightly so. Small outfit, an inexperienced lot. He often showed his appreciation by taking us to lunch and insisting we order a huge slab of Black Forest cake for dessert.Of course, a CEO can’t function without an expense account. What did Tait accomplish on international junkets, however — Tokyo, a European tour, Switzerland and elsewhere — and mingling with Hollywood and film festival types, or on an executive retreat at a posh Gatineau spa? It didn’t help the bottom line. But Tait told the Heritage committee on January 30 that the CBC had to “stretch limited resources to meet our mandate.” She said the public network needed another $125 million to eke it out.Oh, you poor needy dears, said the Liberal government signing off on a $96.1 million funding increase last Thursday. Budget documents put forward by Cabinet called Main Estimates show the parliamentary grant will hike the CBC’s taxpayer grab this fiscal year from $1.287 billion to $1.383 billion.“We are upholding our support for the CBC. We have decided the CBC faces many problems in the communications sector,” said Treasury Board President Anita Anand.“We know it is difficult for them right now. CBC like all broadcasters is facing financial challenges primarily due to drops in advertising revenue.”Baffling how $16,052,148 CBC bonuses paid out last year, first-class junkets around the globe, or $112-a-plate bunny dinner didn’t increase advertising revenue or viewership.Baffling how being inundated with reports by Trudeau government-funded media shoving green propaganda, woke ideology, whites bad, Jews bad, Conservatives very bad, Canadians are hick haters, every kid is trans and so on, isn’t embraced by viewers.Blame it on “conspiracy theorists” Trudeau recently said on a leftie talk show.“There is out there a deliberate undermining of mainstream media,” said Trudeau. “There are the conspiracy theorists, there are the social media drivers who are trying to do everything they can to keep people in their little filter bubbles to keep people from actually agreeing on a common set of facts, the way CBC and CTV, when they were our only source of news, Global, they used to project across the country at least a common understanding of things.”Shame on dumb Canadians for refusing to allow mainstream media (Trudeau) to shape their views and agree on (Trudeau’s) common set of facts.Any conflict of interest in deciding what outlet gets subsidies paying a maximum $60,000 a year to cover a reporter’s salary? Uh-huh. The publisher of the National Observer, serving on the panel to dish out the cash received grants for two reporters. The publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press, also on the panel, received funding to hire reporters.What a cozy relationship the Trudeau gang and the special needs media gang established.Then along comes Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre vowing to defund the CBC and end the media bailout when he’s prime minister.“I don’t believe government should buy off the media or pay for favourable media coverage as Justin Trudeau brags about doing,” said Poilievre.“I believe media should win the support of viewers, readers and listeners in order to pay their bills rather than suck up to politicians.” There goes any remote shot he had at receiving fair, never mind favourable coverage from ‘unbiased’ media.That’s what happens when you break Tennant’s Rule #2 by taking on those who break Tennant’s Rule #1.

SLOBODIAN: There go the Trudeau Liberals again, with more money to keep reporters out of retail

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