Earlier this month the US State Division launched its annual report on Human Rights in over 190 international locations. As ordinary, there was a rustic report on Canada. What was much less ordinary was the report’s destructive focus criticizing the state of press freedoms in Canada. Plainly as press freedom has declined within the US below Trump 2.0, the MAGA interpretation of how different international locations ought to conduct themselves has ramped up. If there was ever a case of “the pot calling the kettle black”, that is it.
The US Authorities, by its numerous departments, points a variety of annual stories, most of them mandated by Congress. Lots of them, such because the Nationwide Commerce Estimates Report on Overseas Commerce Limitations or the Particular 301 Report on mental property (IP), each issued by the Workplace of the US Commerce Consultant, are commentaries on the practices of different international locations. Whereas these stories may be helpful in highlighting trade-distorting measures or areas of weak IP enforcement or laws, no-one may accuse the US Authorities of consistency between the practices it identifies and feedback on, and most of the practices that america itself follows. One good instance is within the space of copyright regulation, the place the annual Particular 301 Report takes numerous buying and selling companions of the US to job for quite a few transgressions and/or loopholes in copyright safety. However as I identified in a weblog final yr (The USTR “Watch Record” Designation You Will By no means See), the US hardly has clear palms in the case of some key copyright points, similar to an unwillingness or incapability to institute a site-blocking regime to struggle offshore streaming piracy, one thing that greater than 40 different international locations have managed to do, and the inadequacy of US regulation in defending efficiency rights of US and non-US artists for music performed on terrestrial radio stations, amongst different points. The truth that the US is the main supply of on-line piracy globally with 13.5 billion visits to piracy websites yearly doesn’t appear to be sufficient to get a US site-blocking regime over the aim line in Congress.
The identical is true in spades for the commerce sector with the appearance of the Trump Administration and its follow of unilaterally, arbitrarily and seemingly randomly setting import tariffs (Brazil 50%, Canada 35%, Mexico 30%, China 30%–for now, EU 15%, Japan 15%, Australia 10%, and so on,) in defiance of nearly each worldwide commerce settlement the US has ever signed.
The newest instance of this phenomenon of “say one factor however do one other” is the US State Division’s Report on Human Rights in Canada notably with respect to Part 2 and its hypocritical criticisms of Canada’s “Freedom of the Press”. A specific bugbear for the State Division is the On-line Information Act (ONA), laws that got here into power in 2023, based mostly on related laws in Australia. (Be aware that the State Division’s report on Australian human rights doesn’t even point out the same Australian laws as a difficulty).
The target of the ONA, to cite the Canada Gazette, is to hunt “to seize the most important and most distinguished digital platforms that function within the markets which have a strategic benefit over information companies” as a way to introduce “a brand new legislative and regulatory framework that ensures honest income sharing between digital platforms and information companies”. Sure market standards had been utilized to scope within the targetted platforms (annual international income exceeding $1 billion, should function a search engine or social media market, minimal 20 million common month-to-month distinctive guests in Canada). In consequence, solely two entities had been topic to the laws, Google and Meta (Fb, Instagram). As famous, the ONA mirrored related laws handed in Australia a few years earlier than. It was additionally similar to laws launched, however not handed, within the US Congress, (the Journalism Competitors and Preservation Act) and to laws enacted in California. Principally, it required the big digital platforms to pay for his or her use of stories content material, content material that the platforms used to draw viewers and thus promote adverts.
It will be honest to say that the outcomes of the ONA in Canada had been blended. After a lot uncertainty, threats and lobbying, Google carved out an exemption for itself by agreeing to contribute (CAD) $100 million yearly to a fund to help Canadian journalism (whereas eliminating contributions it was already making to some chosen journalistic enterprises). META took an alternate route by supposedly exempting itself from the attain of the laws by blocking all protection from Canadian information sources, claiming that it derived no industrial profit from having information protection on Fb or Instagram. This appears to replicate a worldwide resolution by the corporate to refuse to acknowledge any worth from–or willingness to pay for–information content material. META’s earlier offers in Australia are not being renewed. Australia is not amused and is contemplating numerous programs of motion.
The funding from Google was welcomed by Canadian media retailers, lots of them small. As within the US, most information media enterprises in Canada, whether or not print, digital or broadcast, are struggling as digital platforms have taken over the advert markets that beforehand supported information media and information journalism. Shoppers have gone on-line for information but are reluctant to pay for it. The Google funding, plus taxpayer-funded Native Journalism Initiative Funds and tax credit allotted to “Certified Canadian Journalism Organizations” (QCJO), have helped stop extra areas of the nation from turning into information deserts. In response to CBC, eligible media retailers using a professional journalist will obtain between roughly $14,000 and $17,000 yearly per journalist from the Google funding, with smaller and digital retailers being on the upper finish of the dimensions. You’d assume that these efforts to protect impartial journalism can be thought-about a very good factor and may even be applauded by the US State Division in its report on Canadian press freedoms. You’d be flawed.
The State Division’s most present (2024) criticism of Freedom of the Press in Canada accommodates 4 important factors;
The Authorities of Canada used a wide range of mechanisms to fund private and non-private sector media within the nation.
The On-line Information Act empowered the CRTC to set necessary pointers between digital platforms and information companies.
The Federal Court docket upheld the federal government’s resolution to disclaim tax credit to an “impartial information group” (Insurgent Information–not particularly named within the State Division report) as a result of it failed to fulfill this system’s standards as a professional journalism group.
The “Altering Narratives Fund” part of the Native Journalism Initiative, designed to help “various communities” (outlined as together with Indigenous, Black, racialized, ethno-religious minority, individuals with disabilities and 2SLGBTQI+ communities) discriminated towards journalists who fell exterior these “favored” classes.
Let’s take a look at these allegations in flip. The Authorities of Canada, as is the case with many governments together with, till not too long ago, the US Authorities (which absolutely or partially funded media organizations together with Nationwide Public Broadcasting, PBS, and Voice of America), supplies numerous help measures for Canadian media and publishing, such because the Canadian Periodical Fund, the Native Journalism Initiative (LJI) and the Journalism Tax Credit score. To make sure that solely bona fide organizations qualify for the tax credit score, there are clear standards to turn out to be a Certified Canadian Journalism Group (QCJO). An impartial advisory board composed of journalism consultants drawn from present and retired school members from post-secondary journalism colleges throughout Canada, in addition to some within the journalism trade, makes suggestions as to who qualifies . As for the LJI, it’s also adjudicated by an impartial panel of consultants.
With respect to authorities help packages, the State Division alleges that “Information organizations confronted direct and oblique strain to adapt their political speech as a way to acquire or preserve entry to those funds, resulting in self-censorship”. How did they attain that conclusion. Who is aware of? Not the slightest proof is put ahead to help this doubtful proposition.
As for the On-line Information Act, the report states that “The regulation empowered the Canadian Radio-Tv and Telecommunications Fee to set necessary bargaining pointers between platforms and information companies and to in any other case implement and set regulatory steering for the act, together with codes of conduct and eligibility of stories companies to take part, powers which may very well be used to discriminate towards political speech or disfavored impartial media retailers.” Huh? The one funding that emerged from the ONA was Google’s $100 million. The CRTC has no position in its distribution. It’s administered by a non-profit group, the Canadian Journalism Collective, established for this goal by a bunch of impartial publishers and broadcasters, and chosen by Google to handle distribution of the funds. As for META, which stonewalled the ONA course of and ultimately picked up its ball and went house, blocking distribution of Canadian information on its platforms to keep away from paying a nickel to help information gathering in Canada, the State Division manages guilty Canada for the ensuing information blackout, which it equates with “censorship”;
Slightly than take part in government-mandated bargaining, some American digital platforms introduced that they’d not make information content material out there to Canadian customers, resulting in substantial censorship of stories content material together with native information content material.
This can be a quibble, however censorship is outlined by the Oxford Dictionary as “suppression or prohibition of any components of books, movies, information and so on which are thought-about obscene, politically unacceptable or a risk to safety“. What META did by blocking all Canadian information was actually unacceptable but it surely undoubtedly wasn’t censorship.
As for the State Division championing Insurgent Information (an alt-right web site usually in comparison with Breitbart Information within the US) within the web site’s try to qualify for the journalism tax credit score, is the US State Division implying that the Canadian courtroom system doesn’t help freedom of the press? These are the info. Insurgent Information appealed the denial of QCJO standing to the Federal Court docket. It misplaced for good causes. The Federal Court docket upheld the choice of the Canada Income Company to disclaim the outlet’s software for QCJO tax credit as a result of it failed to fulfill the important thing standards of manufacturing authentic information content material. On a evaluate of 483 articles printed by Insurgent Information, lower than one % was deemed authentic, the remaining being both opinion or republished materials. (These are the exact same tax credit that earlier within the Report had been criticized for resulting in self censorship of stories organizations, so in keeping with the State Division, it’s dangerous when you take them and it’s dangerous when you can’t get them.).
As for the Altering Narratives Fund, it’s an further $10 million (i.e. new cash) in funding over 3 years offered to the Native Journalism Initiative. It’s laborious to know how that undermines press freedom in Canada.
Let’s take a look at the equal State Division Report on Canadian human rights in 2023, which had this to say about press freedoms;
“An impartial media, an efficient judiciary, and a functioning democratic political system mixed to advertise freedom of expression, together with for media members. Unbiased media had been lively and expressed all kinds of views with out restriction”.
Gee, how may all of it go so flawed in only a yr? The tax credit and native journalism funding have been round for fairly some time. The ONA introduced in round $100 million in new funding to journalism. There’s room for legitimate criticism of the position of the press and press freedoms in Canada (the RCMP have been fairly heavy-handed with journalists at protest websites for instance) however what actually modified was the arrival of the MAGA crowd in Washington.
But when the criticisms of Canada’s press freedoms reek of the Trump Administration’s home US agenda, it’s the hypocrisy of attacking the liberty of the press in Canada that actually sticks in my throat given the present declining state of press freedoms within the US. Other than the truth that– in keeping with the Reporters With out Borders’ Press Freedom Index— the US locations 57th out of 180 international locations (Canada ranks 21, UK 20, New Zealand 16, Australia 29), there may be loads of proof that press freedoms within the US are on a steep decline, regardless of the braveness of some US media retailers in combating again. I personally don’t give the Press Freedom Index that a lot credibility (it strains credulity to position the US beneath Panama, Moldova, North Macedonia and some others), however it’s tougher to dismiss the views of the New York-based Committee to Shield Journalists who report that 100 days into Donald Trump’s administration, press freedoms within the US are not “a given”. The Committee’s Particular Report, “Alarm bells: Trump’s first 100 days ramp up concern for the press, democracy”, states clearly that;
“The primary 100 days of the Trump administration have been marked by a flurry of govt actions which have created a chilling impact and have the potential to curtail media freedoms. These measures threaten the provision of impartial, fact-based information for huge swaths of America’s inhabitants.”
Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit towards CBS, cravenly settled by Paramount, is one distinguished instance. There are a lot of others. The White Home banned Related Press reporters from the press pool after the outlet refused to comply with an govt order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Wall Road Journal was banned from the press pool overlaying Trump’s latest journey to Scotland over its protection of the Jeffrey Epstein affair, which Trump didn’t like. As Donald Trump has weaponized the US authorities towards any components of the US media he doesn’t like, at any given second in time, the US fame because the “gold commonplace” for press freedom and investigative reporting is dropping like a stone. Now it seems that the US State Division has been enlisted to do the Administration’s soiled work, and to hawk its view of how the world ought to be run, by its Human Rights Report.
I don’t actually blame the authors of the report. In the event that they hadn’t already been fired for not being doctrinally right, they had been simply doing what they had been advised to do—push the Trump agenda by no matter means out there. In choosing on freedom of the press in Canada, they arrive throughout as notably hypocritical and biased, undermining no matter reputational influence the State Division’s Report on Human Rights used to have.
If this isn’t a case of the pot calling the kettle black, (with little or no substantiating proof to again up the accusation) then I don’t know what’s. Perhaps it’s simply numerous hypocritical sizzling air.
© Hugh Stephens, 2025. All Rights Reserved
This submit initially appeared on the Hugh Stephens Weblog and is reproduced with permission and thanks
