Postmedia – Pleads for Government Assistance
The Globe
and Mail Report, CBC news and Financial Post all reported on May 12/13 2016,
that Paul Godfrey, head of Postmedia wants government assistance. He made his pitch at a parliamentary
committee meeting.
Basically,
he wants:
- More government advertising, especially directed towards his newspapers (and newspapers in general, I suppose).
- Tax breaks to persuade businesses to spend their advertising dollars locally (i.e. in his newspapers or websites), rather than with google and the like.
- Heritage Canada’s Aid to Publishers program to be extended to his newspapers (currently it supports magazines, primarily).
He warned that
without such moves, many local news outlets will be shuttered within the next
three years. From that, we can assume he
means that Postmedia needs government money fast, so that Goldentree and his
other debtors don’t pull the plug on them.
Goldentree must be putting on a lot of pressure, for Godfrey to go cap
in hand to the Liberal government. Three
years is probably a very optimistic time frame.
Various
members of Parliament noted that Postmedia has been quick to condemn government
spending, and especially subsidies to the media, in the past. Godfrey pointed out that what the newspaper
and its pundits say, and what the newspapers (and its pundits, via their
continued employment) do, are two different things.
Godfrey
noted that Postmedia is still “Canadian controlled”, even if U.S. based
Goldentree Asset Manager holds its very existence in its hands, via the huge
debt load that Postmedia has incurred over the past decade or so.
What can we
learn from this? Just the age old
lesson, that people’s philosophical distaste for bailouts vanishes, when it is
them that need the bailout. Which is
understandable, though the hypocrisy can be a bit tough to take. Perhaps, though, Godfrey might consider a personal
pay cut, to show his willingness to pitch in.
It’s a pity that nobody on the committee brought that possibility up.
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And here’s
XKCD, with a symbolically satisfying comic, related to the subject (think about
it).
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Speaking of bailouts, the Juan de
Fuca Marine Trail was constructed to save mariners from shipwrecks, which tend
to occur when bailouts don’t work. Mr.
Godfrey might want to think about the symbolism of that, while hiking the Juan
de Fuca Marine Trail. But, first he should study the trail with the help
of "A Walk on the Juan de Fuca Marine Trail", available on Amazon for
only 99 cents (there’s no government bailout for this bit of Canadian content,
so we have to charge real money).
Amazon Canada: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B013VKEXV2
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