Canadian production needs access to ‘creative risk capital,’ Newman says

OTTAWA—A man of 50, Kevin Newman has ideas of a 20-something. In two weeks Newman is stepping down as anchor and executive editor of Global National, Global Television’s flagship national newscast. Newman, who has about 30 years in the broadcast news business, says he wants to take some time off for “creative renewal.” He talks regularly about how the Internet is changing media, about the need for creativity and taking risks. In an interview with The Wire Report at a café in downtown Ottawa, Newman said that, if he was running a group of small, over-the-air channels, he’d encourage the hiring of younger managers. He’d take a chance on a 28-year-old to lead a newsroom. “Put them in charge of a local newsroom and see what they do,” he said. “The digital divide means that people 40 and older don’t really get it. They speak digital with an accent.” The government, he added, needs to create more public funding for “creative risk capital.” Newman, who began his journalism career at Global covering local news in Toronto, has since worked as a broadcast journalist for CBC, CTV, and ABC. In a column in May for OpenFile.ca—a local citizen media project in Toronto led by his friend and fellow journalist Wilf Dinnick—Newman wrote that, since he discovered the Internet in the early 1990s at age 33, it has felt like a “beast that’s been chasing me for almost 20 years.” He said he faced a choice of either spending the next decade behind a desk or jumping out from behind it to understand and possibly be part of new media projects. “I don’t like running,” he wrote. “It’s time I confronted it full on.” Newman said he doesn’t yet know what is in store next, except that he intends to take about three months off, reflect on what he would like to do, and hand over Global National to a new anchor—Dawna Friesen—while the show is at a position of strength. He said he wants a change, a break, and a chance to look around at new journalism opportunities. “I am taking a chunk of time to figure out whether I am simply tired or sick and tired. I don't know my own head right now,” he told The Hill Times in June. “The industry that I'm in is in such great flux and transition that I need some time to get my head out of the rabbit hole and take a look around because journalism is changing.” His final Global National broadcast is on Aug. 20. The following interview has been edited for length and style. You have almost 30 years experience in broadcast news, working for Global, CTV, CBC, and ABC. How have you seen the broadcasting industry change during this time? It’s gotten a lot smaller, especially in the last year and a half. I’ve seen more shrinkage in the last year and a half in the mainstream media than I have in the previous 30. Some of that had to do with the financial difficulties Canwest has been through. But overall, I think North America shed almost 6,000 jobs last year in journalism, and the Pew Center reported that 95 per cent of those people weren’t able to find work afterwards. They just left the profession, and I think that’s pretty unprecedented for any industry in transition. In a column on OpenFile in May you called the Internet a beast “that’s been chasing me for almost 20 years,” adding that it “is closing in.” What did you mean by that? It’s like being in a coal-fired steam train, and seeing the diesel train coming at you. You know it’s going to pass you. You know it has superior technology, you know it’s going to change everything, but it’s taking a while to get there. I’ve realized over the last little while that we’re two engines passing in the night. With the change in mainstream media and the explosion of online media, the lines have crossed. I’ve been trying to get my own company to engage that audience in information. To be honest, I think it’s mostly been about recalibrating the content that they create for television for a different platform. I’m not sure that anybody in the mainstream media has figured out the model for news consumption. To me, the question is whether the mainstream media can revolutionize its approach quickly enough—or whether tomorrow’s media will come from a source that we’re not aware of yet. After Aug. 20 are you going to be involved in OpenFile? No. It’s a buddy of mine who started it up. Wilf Dinnick is experimenting with it. He’s on the side of, ‘Let’s try to migrate the ethics of old school media to new media.’ It’s an interesting concept. I know it’s been successful in Minneapolis and other cities, and I think he’s got the mission right. We’re still in an era of chaos and revolution, where everything is shiny and new and interesting. But we have to figure out content you can trust online, content that is the premium model people will pay for. Wilf is trying one model. There are many others. I’m watching it really closely and I’m one of their advisers, so I’m not involved in a profound way. But I really hope it succeeds because it promises to be something that might be the bridging model that everyone’s looking for. One of the questions that’s emerged in the age of the Internet, and the shift from a push to a pull universe, is how to regulate Canadian content. What’s your view on how or whether we should change our approach to Canadian content regulations? My personal belief is that we need to create in Canada the kind of risk capital that we’ve created for companies to build devices and technology. We haven’t created a fund for people to draw on for creative risk capital. The demands for an instant return on investment are a barrier to competing with the world. Ultimately, there are no barriers to what’s about to happen. We can pretend there are, but as long as someone has a choice on their cellphone to download something from China, India, the United States or Great Britain, the Canadian content rules are irrelevant. What matters, in my view, is that we use taxpayers’ money to create content that’s compelling and that can compete with that content. Right now, access to that kind of creative risk capital is non-existent in the country. We’ve done a great job of fostering technological and scientific innovation, but we’ve not done a good job at fostering creative innovation. It’s not that we’re not spending enough money. We spend millions per year on the creative industries, but they’re funneled through television network broadcasters, the Canada Council, and additional forms of funding. In my view, a complete rethink is required of the funding model for the millions of taxpayer dollars we spend now. As we move toward an on-demand, TV-everywhere model, do you think there will always be demand for an evening newscast? Or will that have to change too? I don’t think the newscast has to change all that much. I think there’s still an aggregator role that has to be played. You take some very experienced editorial minds, and you put together a synthesis. Whether that’s available in the evening or all the time, I think there’s a place for that. Will it have the place of prominence that it’s had in the last 50 years? Probably not. But it’s not going to vanish. Do you watch a lot of TV? No, I don’t, and it’s been my bread and butter for 30 years. I watch less and less television. I watch news, current affairs, and documentaries, but what’s offered on free TV is not very challenging. What’s offered on more of the cable stations is far more interesting. If you were running the local, over-the-air channels for Global, CBC or CTV, what would you do to try to turn them around? Well, they’re not having as hard a time as some people think. They’re still generating significant revenues and millions of viewers. Global National had one million viewers. There’s not a newspaper in Canada that can match that. The death of old media may have been slightly exaggerated. It’s changing and morphing, but it’s not dead yet. If you provide compelling content, and you do it with heart, and you make it thoughtful, they’ll come to you. I’ll sound like an elitist here, but I would not underestimate the audience as much as I think it may be underestimated now. I would try to restore some sense of risk and experimentation that sometimes gets lots in the drive to hit ratings points and quarterly results targets. I also think there needs to be a generational change in the leadership of our local newsrooms. The digital divide means that people 40 and older don’t really get it. They speak digital with an accent. They’re not natives. It would be really good if somebody would—as they have in the United States—take a flier on a 28-year-old. Put them in charge of a local newsroom and see what they do. Another part of the problem is that audience measurement is skewed because they measure people who have landlines, but most people under the age of 35 don’t have landlines. Their patterns of consumption of media aren’t really being recorded, and that’s probably distorting what advertisers are being told about who the audience is. They’re being told it’s older, 55-plus. Maybe it’s because people 55 and older still have landlines. Shaw Communications Inc. is purchasing the Global Television network. What do you hope to see Shaw do with it? Shaw has proven itself to be good a television operator, and I hope they see Global News as the centre of a multimedia content play. In my view it’s in their best interest because it’s the only content that they own 100 per cent. They share rights to all their entertainment programming, but news and current affairs they own outright and can make the most money from. Dawna Friesen is replacing you as the first female national news anchor in Canada and next year Lisa LaFlamme is replacing Lloyd Robertson as anchor of CTV National News. What does it mean to now have women anchoring two of our leading national newscasts? I hope it means it’s never an issue again. It’s like having an African-American as president. As soon as it happens everyone goes, “Ok, no big deal.” I’m sure that’s going to happen as soon as Dawna and Lisa take over the chairs. What else is next for you? Do you want to do more big-picture work, such as more documentaries like your recent productions No Country for Animals or Missing the Target? Or write a book? I’m afraid to write a book because I think it would consume me. The last thing my wife needs is me locked in a room and not spending time with her. Would I like to do more documentaries? I sure would, but they’re really tough to get financed in Canada. I know a lot of significant players in the field who are having difficulty. If we could shake some of that risk capital out of the trees there could be so much more experimentation and production going on in the country. But because almost all government-funded video at this point must be aired by a network broadcaster, there’s very little chance that someone can start up something for the web and have the financial footing to withstand not making money for a long time. I’ve really liked doing the documentaries because you get to watch a story unveil itself over months instead of hours. It’s very rewarding work, but it’s tough to get. One of the things I’ve decided is that I’m going to try to force myself to relax for three months and think about things but not make any decisions. I may discover after three months that I miss the daily adrenalin rush and that I want to jump back in. I may discover that I don’t miss it at all. sdoyle@thewirereport.ca

Canadian production needs access to ‘creative risk capital,’ Newman says

Broadcast | August 6, 2010

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