By Megan Devlin for J-Source, the Canadian Journalism Project.

Eric Plummer, editor of the Alberni Valley Times, remembers the day last September when two representatives from Black Press told him his paper was closing.   “They came in, I think it was like 4:00 or 4:30,” he said. “I don’t think that we’d even finished the paper yet, actually.”   The daily paper, which served the 25,000 people of Alberni Valley on Vancouver Island from 1967 to 2015, was one of 11 British Columbia community newspapers that Black Press bought from Glacier Media in 2014.   “I won’t contend that the paper wasn’t losing money,” Plummer said. “I think at that point I was just so hellbent on keeping the paper going that I refused to believe that we were going to be dying just yet.”   On Oct. 9, 2015, Plummer published the paper’s last edition.

Three months later, the Nanaimo Daily News — also part of Black Press’s package of papers bought from Glacier — was closed as well. 

The buying and subsequent closing of newspapers is a story that repeats over and over again in small B.C. communities.   Since 2010, Black Press has eliminated 10 papers and Glacier Media has shuttered seven. Several others have had their publication schedules reduced.   Buying and Closing the Competitor   Black Press said no more immediate closures are planned. But according to president and CEO Rick O’Connor, operating two papers in a small market is becoming increasingly unfeasible.   The 2014 purchase from Glacier meant Black Press owned both papers in three different towns. It also meant Black Press now owns all newspapers on Vancouver Island except for the Times Colonist in Victoria.   In Nanaimo and Port Alberni, Black Press shut down its new acquisitions and chose to focus on the papers it already operated — the Nanaimo News Bulletin and the Alberni Valley News.   “Collectively, [the two closed papers] lost $800,000 over the past 12 months and were not economically sustainable…. Unfortunately, this was the condition they were in when we purchased them from Glacier,” O’Connor said.   This year’s closures echoed the shuttering of the Nelson Daily News and Prince Rupert Daily News in 2010.   Black Press bought those two dailies as part of another 11-paper acquisition from Glacier and closed them in favour of operating its established weeklies in both communities.   “In the situation where you have two community newspapers…competing in a marketplace, typically, one paper or both end up losing money,” O’Connor said.   When Black Press acquired its most recent batch of 11 Glacier papers in 2014, O’Connor said only one — the Duncan Citizen — was making money.   He said the competition between Black Press and Glacier papers in their respective communities was driving down advertising rates to unsustainable levels.   “In many cases the rates were below cost…that’s how crazy it was,” he said, adding that his rates were 40 per cent lower than the average for the rest of Canada.   Buying the competing paper was a way of stopping the unsustainable advertising rate race to the bottom.   He also said Black Press and Glacier papers had massive duplication — covering the same stories and getting published on the same day.   “What we tried to do in all of the restructuring with Glacier was to eliminate that duplication,” he said. “At no point along the way did we ever reduce the editorial content of any of the projects.”   A Single Paper Remains   Since the restructuring with Glacier, O’Connor said his remaining papers are doing well — particularly in communities that went from two papers to one.   “Island markets like Campbell River and Duncan and Port Alberni and also Nanaimo…the existing papers are seeing revenue increases north of 25 per cent,” O’Connor said.

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  He noted that web traffic has also increased. But some journalists warn creating media monopolies can be dangerous. “It’s concentration of media,” said Don Genova, president of the Canadian Media Guild’s freelance branch.   “It leaves communities without that double voice. It means there’s less competition for stories. It means there’s actually less reporting.”   O’Connor argued that reporters were stretched already because competition for ad revenue made finances tight.   The Glacier papers he bought, he said, weren’t covering things like city council because they didn’t have the staff. He believes a single, better-financed paper in a community could do a better job.   Unions Too Expensive

Plummer thinks part of the reason Black Press couldn’t stomach his paper financially was because Alberni Valley Times workers were unionized. “Reporters were paid $25 an hour according to the union contract,” he said. “But it's actually become very, very unusual in journalism.”   Reporters went on strike in 2014 at the Cowichan News Leader over a proposed two-tier pay system to prevent new hires from reaching the same maximum pay.   “Eventually [older staff are] going to leave and that would leave the paper with a much cheaper operation,” Genova explained. In April 2015, while workers were still on strike, the paper closed.   “It seems to be all about the money and not about caring at all about their employees,” Genova said.   O’Connor said union contracts negotiated at a time when print was “the only game in town” don’t work in the current media landscape. “Nobody wants to lose benefits or take a pay cut or get laid off or lose another member of their editorial team,” he said. “   But they just don't understand that the impact of these two things — the recession and also products like Craigslist…[that] siphoned away the classified business — have been devastating toward the revenue stream of newspapers.”   Plummer said he’s too passionate about his craft to be happy with the way things ended at the Alberni Valley Times, but he acknowledges that getting money behind quality journalism is a conundrum the whole industry — not just community papers — is facing.   “I've found other work that uses some of my skills, but it's not journalism because it just doesn't pay right now.   I hope to god that, somehow, the industry will re-adjust so that a person can afford to have a family and be a journalist.” 

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Ezra Levant is at it again. Only this time we aren’t rolling our eyes and quickly closing the Internet browser. No, this time we actually agree with him. Hear us out.

Last week Levant’s right-wing online news and opinion outlet The Rebel complained to the Alberta premier’s office about three incidents where Rebel staff were allegedly barred from government events. In its response last Friday, the government defended its policy.

“Our client’s position remains that your client (The Rebel) and those who identify as being connected to (The Rebel) are not journalists and are not entitled to access media lock-ups or other such events,” read a response from an Alberta Ministry of Justice lawyer, posted by The Rebel.

After a few days of outrage, the Alberta government lifted its ban on reporters from The Rebel.

“We’ve heard a lot of feedback from Albertans and media over the course of the last two days and it’s clear we made a mistake,” the premier’s office said in a statement.

While his “reckless disregard for the truth” and bigotry don’t make Levant the best crusader for press freedom, he’s right to argue that the Alberta government should not be in the game of determining who is and who is not a journalist. That opens the door to the government or press gallery of the day to disallow journalists it disagrees with.

The whole affair strikes a chord with us because DeSmog Canada has been on the receiving end of the same kind of treatment here in B.C. — stuck in the middle of a shifting debate about what constitutes a “media outlet” or a “journalist.”

Who Has The Right to Access B.C. Press Gallery?

It first happened on Dec. 16, 2014, the day the B.C. government held a press briefing on its final investment decision on the Site C hydroelectric dam. DeSmog Canada had published dozens of articles on the proposed dam, including a 12-part investigative series.

We were unable to gain access to that press conference and were provided with the following explanation by Tom Fletcher, president of the legislative press gallery:  “It was not the press gallery executive’s decision to refuse you entry. Legislature security determined that your organization is not a media outlet for the purposes of issuing press credentials for restricted areas.”

I was surprised to hear that security guards are now responsible for determining which organizations qualify as media outlets — since this is a decision typically made by the press gallery itself.

I wrote back asking if the decision would be re-visited and told Fletcher:

“Myself (and DeSmog for that matter) has an exemplary track record. In 2011, Time Magazine named us one of the Top 25 blogs of the year and we were the first online media organization to be accredited by the United Nations to attend international climate negotiations. I have personally worked as a journalist at the Calgary Sun, Calgary Herald, Cambridge Evening News and BBC Essex. We may not be part of the traditional media, but we are most certainly part of the burgeoning new media world.”

No response.

Next, I followed up with security.

Randall Ennis, the deputy sergeant at arms, quickly replied, with this explanation: “We did attempt to contact the Legislative press gallery president (Tom Fletcher) on your behalf to ascertain if he recognized you as a journalist, however were unsuccessful in contacting Tom until after the event.”

Ennis provided the following advice:

“Emma, for the future on the occasions you’d like to attend the Legislature for press conferences, I suggest that you contact the press gallery president (Tom Fletcher) in advance and make him aware of your intentions and request Tom advise the Legislative Assembly Protective Service (LAPS). This procedure works well and is used by other visiting journalists.”

That sounded perfectly reasonable to me and I could see how, in the hustle-bustle of the day, a misunderstanding might have prevented me from gaining access to the press conference. Had I realized it would be an issue, I would have made arrangements in advance.

Fast forward to March 2015, when DeSmog Canada published an exclusive in-depth interview with Harry Swain, the man who chaired the joint federal-provincial panel tasked with reviewing the Site C dam. The comments he made to us were being debated during Question Period, so I contacted Fletcher about attending.

Fletcher’s response: “I’ll contact them and ask them to give you a guest media pass for today, although I am inclined to agree with their initial assessment that Desmog is an advocacy organization and not a media outlet.”

So, there it was again — who gets to decide who is and who is not a journalist? It’s long been thought that the people best positioned to make that decision were the journalists themselves. However, our situation raises questions about that procedure.

It should be noted that Fletcher frequently publishes columns that promote denial of climate change and his company Black Press is owned by the same David Black who is proposing to build an oil refinery in Kitimat. So it’s safe to say he’s not a huge fan of DeSmog’s work.

And therein lies the risk in allowing a press gallery president or the government to decide whose work qualifies as journalism. What is journalism to some is advocacy to others and vice versa.

Sean Holman, journalism professor at Mount Royal University and former member of the B.C. press gallery, says determining what constitutes a journalist nowadays is incredibly complex.

“I think it’s a difficult question to answer and it is becoming more and more difficult as we see the collapse of legacy media and the growth of activist media that is picking up the jobs that journalists are no longer able to do,” Holman said.

On my way out of the press gallery last March, I noted the press gallery photos hanging on the wall. They started in 1912, the groups expanding over years, until they started into a perilous decline, leading to today’s state of affairs where there are often only a handful of reporters at the legislature.

Given the dwindling numbers, you’d think new members would be welcomed so long as they conduct themselves professionally and in the public interest. Wouldn’t it be a pleasant problem if too many bloggers/journalists/whatevers were to show up to report on happenings at the B.C. legislature?

Holman argues that journalists enjoy the rights and privileges they do because they act as proxies for the public, asking questions of officials and keeping the public informed.

“In the absence of traditional newsrooms, we are going to need organizations and people who are willing to hold public institutions and officials to account in the public interest,” Holman said. “And so long as they are doing that function, why exactly should they enjoy rights and privileges that are any less than that of a journalist?”

In terms of who should make the call on whether someone is working in the “public interest,” there’s no perfect answer.

“The question is: who has the right to make that decision? Is it government? Is it journalists? It strikes me that there are problems with both parties making that determination,” Holman said.

And voila, this is where the democratizing force of social media comes into play. In the old world, the powers that be could sit pretty and make these determinations quietly in a musty room.

Now, however, no one owns the means of distribution. And a disgruntled party, like Levant, can take his case online, putting the power into the public’s hands — and we’ve all seen how that works out.

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