Does Democracy Need a Healthy Traditional News Media?
I often hear people saying that a "healthy news media industry enhances democracy”. But is there any objective way to measure what "healthy" means, what "enhancing democracy" means, and whether the two are actually correlated?
For argument’s sake, I’ll define a “strong democracy” as a society where there’s genuine and open public dialog, where most people engage in civic life - especially by voting - and whose public institutions:
Act in good faith
Are not corrupt
Work to represent the will of the people
In my unscientific opinion, so long as unhappy Albertans are talking about a separation referendum and political activism rather than armed revolution, I’d say the citizens are still carrying their share of the load. Should the Front de libération du Red Deer blow up its first Canada Post mailbox, I’ll reconsider.
No journalist can be perfectly apolitical - they’re (arguably) human, after all - but they can certainly be objective and fair. And deciding which stories a media organization will suppress will have at least as much of an influence on media consumers as how the stories that do get through are reported. So I’ll suggest that the ideal of a “healthy news media” includes:
Respect for accuracy and transparency
Being upfront about ideological bias
Independence from external or internal censorship
A commitment to inform rather than persuade (besides stuff on the op-ed page)
To say that Canada's establishment print media market as a whole skews hard left (or hard right) is simply incorrect. There are multiple major newspapers unreservedly leaning toward both sides of the political spectrum. When it comes to broadcast media, I have to acknowledge my ignorance: I’ve never actually owned a TV and I haven't watched a TV news broadcast since peak Knowlton Nash. But I still stand by my analysis of CBC.ca “news” coverage from a year ago.
Nevertheless, it would be helpful if we could somehow measure the impact media actually has on civil society.
Or perhaps there’s no point. After all, if only a small and shrinking number of Canadians actually consume traditional news media, what kind of an impact could they have? By way of illustration, I’ve written about how CBC English language news has a share that’s around two percent of the television market (which probably translates to less than one percent of Canadians).
Public trust in traditional media is - to be gentle - limited. When asked in the Canadian Medical Association 2025 health and media annual tracking survey about how well they think news organizations in Canada are doing when it comes to presenting a “balanced view without biases”, only 38 percent of participants (from outside Quebec) responded with either "good" or "very good". And responding to a question about the main way they came across news in the past week, only 35 percent of all respondents answered "TV", and nine percent "directly on websites of apps of news organizations". Those aren’t encouraging numbers.
In an imaginary world where nearly everyone regularly and faithfully got their news from traditional sources, it would make sense to assess the impact they’re having on society as a whole. But we don’t live in that imaginary world.
Perhaps, before begging for billions of dollars in public support, traditional media organizations should first focus on rebuilding public trust…and their customer base.
Perhaps the news media should focus on reporting the news objectively which means leaving out the little biased snide remarks which inevitably appear in stories. Much of what passes for news reporting has the appearance of an opinion piece. Report the story and let the reader, based on an accurate unbiased piece, come to their own conclusions and form their own opinions.
As you note in your introductory sentence, we "' often hear people saying that a "healthy news media industry enhances democracy'."
That truism is so common but I have not previously seen anyone attempt to measure or test the accuracy of the statement so kudos to you. Whether you achieved your objective or whether finding sufficient "evidence" [the use of quotation marks is quite, quite deliberate simply because I am uncertain as to what would comprise actual evidence], I cannot say. But, as I say, kudos to you for trying. I can say that I found your attempt quite interesting.
The reader responses herein are interesting; there are many who are dismissive of the Ceeb and a few who are [in my view] disgruntled that you are not massively praising the Mother Corp. 'Twas ever thus when discussing public policy questions.
As I note above, I have not previously seen any attempt to measure the accuracy of the statement. It seems to me that if the Ceeb was actually doing it's job, it would make a valiant attempt - with much more resources than are available to you - to find a way to answer the question. It is, after all, in the Ceeb's own interest. Yes, many folks might be dismissive of results of such a project but if it is properly done and presented, it would be hard to ignore.
So, to put it another way, the Ceeb already has massive resources and is soon to receive much more from our new Prime Minister. I expect that the Ceeb could seek out some very highly qualified and impartial academic (or some such) and hire them to undertake a project such as yours but with much more resources (money of course, but also access to not only Ceeb but also other publicly available newsies) and with distinctly unique ways of measuring the civic health, etc.
Given your public eminence (much more than we your readers, you understand), you might make such a recommendation to the Ceeb itself, a Parliamentary committee (you DID get to testify, after all - eminence, etc.) or some such.