From northern New Brunswick to Jasper, Alberta, Canada’s public broadcaster is beefing up its local newsrooms.
What happened: With help from a $7 million cheque courtesy of Google (read: Online News Act), the CBC has committed to hiring 30 full-time journalists to expand local news coverage across 22 Canadian communities that are considered underserved by news.
Catch-up: Back in June, Google agreed to pay Canadian news outlets $100 million over the next five years to be exempted from the Online News Act, a federal law requiring tech giants to compensate publications for using their content. CBC is getting 7% of that new cash.
Why it matters: Pierre Poilievre has threatened to defund the CBC if elected this year, arguing that Canadians can access their news through other outlets. But, the CBC could prove its value by focusing on smaller markets that private outlets have largely abandoned.
- Trust in the CBC has been slipping for some time, but only 11% of Canadians say they’re actually in favour of defunding the public broadcaster.
Big picture: A recent House of Commons report found that in some parts of Canada, the CBC is often the only news outlet. Since 2008, over 500 local news outlets have been closed across 347 communities in Canada, leaving smaller towns without adequate coverage.—LA