Press council warns BTLR of ‘gap’ in complaints process for broadcasters

The National NewsMedia Council wrote to the expert panel reviewing Canada’s broadcasting laws to express concern about a “gap in the current public complaints framework vis-à-vis traditional broadcasting news organizations” when it comes to complaints about online broadcast content. The council has been trying to court those broadcasters into becoming members of its organization. The press council writes it’s increasingly getting complaints from the public about news content published on websites of non-member broadcasters like CTV, Global, TVO and APTN, but it can’t do anything about them. The broadcast industry already has the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council (CBSC) to respond to public complaints about content aired on TV and radio, but it doesn’t deal with complaints related to news consumed online. “Given the speed at which broadcast news outlets continue to ‘pivot’ their business operations, the NNC expects the volume of these complaints to increase into the future,” the submission to the Broadcasting and Telecommunications Legislative Review said. “As Canada’s media landscape continues to mature, diversify, and move towards platform-agnosticism, broadcast news outlets are shifting their business model away from the traditional 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts and towards more on-demand video and digital journalism products that are easily viewed on smartphones.” The council said it tried to recruit BCE Inc.’s CTV and Corus Entertainment Inc.’s Global, which at first seemed interested, but the “reality of joining a second industry association (in addition to the mandated membership in the CBSC) devoted to standards presents a significant practical hurdle.” The submission doesn’t contain a specific recommendation to the government, but it’s looking for the panel to consider the issue and how it affects public trust in digital media, and possibly address it through some sort of encouragement to broadcasters to enter into a self-regulated complaints process for their online content. The council itself is a national self-regulatory organization for industry members that join voluntarily, and it’s not seeking regulations -- if anything, it’s worried about that. “With the uncertain political climate surrounding Canadian news media (whether in the form of regulating social platforms, the government supporting local news, or the updating of the Broadcast Act), it is important for member news organizations to provide a strong alternative to government regulation,” said a promotional document the press council sent to broadcast news organizations proposing membership terms.

Press council warns BTLR of ‘gap’ in complaints process for broadcasters

Brief | February 15, 2019

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Press council warns BTLR of ‘gap’ in complaints process for broadcasters

Brief | February 15, 2019

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