After Getting Called Out For Ridiculous Lies, Mainstream Media Member Attacks Bill C-18 Critics

A member of the mainstream media has accused those critical of Bill C-18 as being “shameful and corrosive to democracy”.

Yesterday, a member of the mainstream media published an “article” pushing many of the ridiculous and long debunked lies about Meta and Bill C-18. Like others, we were critical, though we took things a step further and published a full fact-check of the article.

In short, the “article” trots out the same talking points used to sell the disastrous Bill C-18. This includes Big Lie 1.0 (platforms “steal” articles from publishers and make millions off of it) and riffs of Big Lie 2.0 (Meta is somehow blocking Canadians from accessing the news on the entire internet). The same tired lies and strained talking points were being trotted out in response to Conservative leader, Pierre Poilievre talking about repealing the legislation (which would at least put Canadian media on track to the road to recovery).

Of course, it wasn’t just me that was calling out this ludicrously bad article. Others have attacked the piece for obvious bias. Sean Speer of the Hub attacked the piece with the following:

The news media tell us that the public subsidy regime won’t influence its journalism.

Yet here’s an entire editorial dedicated to calling Pierre Poilievre a liar because he disagrees that the government should directly and indirectly subsidize the newspaper.

The legacy media… https://t.co/gKwKl6VEBG

— Sean Speer (@Sean_Speer) August 15, 2024

The news media tell us that the public subsidy regime won’t influence its journalism.

Yet here’s an entire editorial dedicated to calling Pierre Poilievre a liar because he disagrees that the government should directly and indirectly subsidize the newspaper.

The legacy media is going to destroy its credibility in an effort to try to save itself. The next election is going to be a mess.

Well, it seems like the mainstream media REALLY doesn’t like being fact-checked. One of the members of the mainstream media doubled down on the conspiracy theories and lies by issuing a response by essentially saying that anyone critical of things like Bill C-18 is a threat to democracy. The comments come from Dougald Lamont who had a lot of rambling to get off his chest on this topic:

This is shameful and corrosive to democracy, accountability and a free press in Canada. @sean_speer, who runs @thehubcanada – which is funded by @Meta – attacks a journalist who points out some embarrassing but accurate facts about the Conservative leader.

The op-ed spells… https://t.co/FdbFpjcdIS

— Dougald Lamont (@DougaldLamont) August 17, 2024

He starts off the post with this:

This is shameful and corrosive to democracy, accountability and a free press in Canada.

@sean_speer, who runs @thehubcanada – which is funded by @Meta – attacks a journalist who points out some embarrassing but accurate facts about the Conservative leader.

So, he starts off by basically pushing the conspiracy theory that platforms are paying paid actors to attack Bill C-18 (now the Online News Act). Since facts are generally not on the side of supporters of the Online News Act, this has become something of a standard tactic be members of the mainstream media. Essentially, attack the character of the person without really challenging the facts of the matter. It’s unbecoming of someone who considers themselves a journalist, but that is what modern mainstream media journalists have stooped to these days. A sad state of affairs, but the reality these days. It has led many who are critical of the Online News Act to preface their comments by saying that they are not paid by Big Tech.

We’ve seen these efforts to launch personal attacks against those who would dare criticize the government. For instance, Lisa Hepfner, at one point, accused all online outlets of being “not news“. On the issue of Bill C-11 (the Online Streaming Act), Liberals have launched attacks against critics by accusing them of being part of a disinformation campaign. Additionally, notorious Liberal MP, Chris Bittle, called for “investigations” into anyone daring to criticize Bill C-11 at the time. The point is, personal attacks against those criticizing these laws have become increasingly common because supporters know that facts are decidedly not on their side.

The problem here is that the Online News Act is objectively a bad law. Link taxes flips copyright law on its head and demands payments for hosting news links to third parties. With Facebook dropping news links and the Canadian government folding to Google, the legislation, as originally thought of, has died, collapsing under its own weight of incompetence. It pushed the concept of a link tax and the link tax concept died. It has left the media sector, as a whole, much worse off as they depend more on government subsidies while losing traffic if those members aren’t already declaring bankruptcy or shutting down. I don’t know how much more of a comprehensive failure this could possibly be. Yet, somehow, members of the mainstream media, to this day, are STILL defending this failed law.

Moving on, Lamont then makes this comment:

The op-ed spells out in clear and factual terms, several specific examples where what Pierre Poilievre says does not match up with facts that everyone else can check and see are true.

I’m not going to rehash the whole article again, but the short of it is that I personally did check the facts and it turned out that the “article” in question was packed full of misinformation and disinformation. So, you can consider me that “anyone”.

From there, Lamont then issued the following comments:

Speer doesn’t rebut or challenge the evidence in the editorial. Instead, he wants to attack the credibility of paper and suggests it can’t be trusted because it receives public money, when his own media outlet is being funded by Meta, which is refusing to follow Canada’s law to require it to actually compensate media outlets for the use of their intellectual property.

This, of course, is false. Meta is, in fact, following the law. The law is clear. If Meta or Google hosts news links, then they must pay for the privilege of sending traffic to those publishers websites. If Meta chooses to simply no longer host news links, then they have signalled that they have “exited the marketplace”. In fact, Canadian senators have straight up asked officials from the department of Canadian heritage about this very issue. Thomas Owen Ripley responded to those comments with the following (summary of comments):

Senator Housakos went back to the $215 million number. What percentage of that number is coming from Google and Facebook and what happens if the opt out? Then what happens to that projected $215 million? Part of this bill, the intended objective is to disinformation. Can Ripley define how that would work?

Ripley responded that on the percentage of Google and Facebook, it’s based on the Australian model. They haven’t heard formal evidence, but what they heard informally is that approximately two thirds came from Google and a third from Facebook. That’s anecdotally what they heard. Take that as you will on the impact on the $215 million (basically all of it from the sounds of things). If one of those platforms were to exit the news marketplace, the value would decrease if the bill were to no longer apply to them because they are no longer in the business of making news available. Ripley asked what the last question was.

The bottom line is that Meta is in compliance with the law. They just chose an action Lamont happens to disagree with. To say that they have broken the law in this case is completely false.

Then there is this comment:

For Speer to make an accusation that getting public money is necessarily corrupting is just something he has assumed. There is no evidence to it.

This is, once again, false. There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that media outlets are influenced by those who fund them. One example was just from last month where Ontario premier, Doug Ford, promised to increase ad spending on news outlets – not because spending money on ads in the mainstream media is effective, but rather, to prop them up. In response to this, the mainstream media showered Ford with positive press coverage while even going so far as to attack Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, in the process to further please Ford. Ford used taxpayer money to get positive press coverage and Ford got it in spades. It proved in glorious fashion that mainstream media will sell out to the highest bidder at the drop of a hat.

This isn’t even getting into the repeated disinformation campaigns the media engaged in to push Bill C-11 and Bill C-18 which was an ongoing campaign for years.

The bottom line is that mainstream media has become easily corrupted by ad dollars. Their coverage has long been for sale to whoever can pay for it.

Lamont then said this:

It’s an absolutely baseless accusation. It’s part of a currently popular shameful political tactic, on the right in Canada, of dressing down journalists with false accusations of collusion.

It’s nasty but effective, because by turning the tables, everyone else is put on the defensive, the accusation becomes the story, and the original question never gets answered.

This, of course, is iMax level projection here because collusion has increasingly become common practice for the mainstream media. In fact, coordinated campaigns among newspapers have been well documented at least as far back as 2021 where newspapers transparently work together to launch attacks against critics of the Canadian governments approach.

In response to the collusion, the publication of false accusations and conspiracy theories, people who call themselves “journalists” get a dressing down for a damned good reason. They are publishing false and misleading information and when those journalists get corrected, those critics are greeted with efforts to silence them with intimidation tactics, going so far as to use the power of the government to achieve those goals. Every warning critics of the Online News Act expressed has come to fruition, yet they are subjected to abuse by supporters.

What’s more, critics like myself aren’t speaking out against these bills for the purpose of “turning the tables”, they are speaking out because of very legitimate concerns (many of which have come true). What’s more, the original question did get answered with the full blown collapse of the Online News Act and impending disaster of the Online Streaming Act set to take place after at least 2025 when the CRTC (might) conclude their consultations.

Lamont then lobbed this:

It’s not grounded in facts – it’s reinforcing a really toxic and false message that is corrosive to democracy and toxic to justice, because it aims to hide the truth by destroying people’s trust and people’s reputations.

It’s totally unethical at the individual level. It shouldn’t be acceptable. This is the sort of thing that in sports would get you a penalty, and in life it should be recognized as being out of bounds.

Online News Act critics have been grounded in fact even before Bill C-18 was tabled. It’s those supporting Bill C-18 that have never been grounded in facts. For instance, when Meta was still saying that they would drop news links, mainstream media journalists and the Canadian government responded by saying it was all just a big fancy “bluff”. When Meta carried through with their warnings, mainstream media journalists and the government spent much of their time proclaiming that such a block wouldn’t last a week. When the Canadian government folded to Google, mainstream media journalists spent much of their time arguing that Meta would be so overcome with jealousy with the deal, that they would come running back any day now. When that didn’t happen, one self-described “journalist” went so far as to argue that journalists never needed Meta in the first place, a position that aged like fine milk in the wake of all the bankruptcies, shut downs, and traffic getting absolutely gutted – something multiple studies have since shown. Oh yeah, Meta still hasn’t come back more than a year later.

If anything, it is those that supported the Online News Act that have destroyed their reputations, not some ragtag group of individuals launching personal insults at journalists. Those supporters spent years lying about the nature of the legislation, how the internet works, how social media works, and even how search engines work. Those lies have collapsed like a house of cards in the wake of the failure of the Online News Act. Honestly, those supporters didn’t need our help to watch their credibility go straight down the tubes, they did a heck of a great job on their own on that front.

Lamont then ironically said this:

Making shit up about people is a lousy way to act.

I agree, and Lamont can do himself a huge favour and stop engaging in this behaviour. I know he won’t, but the advice still stands.

From there, Lamont said this:

I also want to point out that Speer’s reaction to this editorial, which is pointed in a very calm and reasoned way, is exactly how whistleblowers are treated.

I’ve read this paragraph 5 of 6 times and I have no clue what the heck Lamont is even going on about here. I think he’s just throwing words at a wall at that point.

From there, Lamont tried to engage in a personal attack:

I will also say, that there is no question that The Hub publishes pieces that are riddled with errors, profoundly misleading and sometimes so one-sided that they can’t possibly be considered accurate.

That includes pieces by industry lobbyists and inaccurate propaganda from think tanks, like the Fraser Insititute’s bogus tax analysis. The Hub repeated the Fraser Institute’s tax claims verbatim, when the analysis they are based on makes outrageous and unrealistic assumptions and basic errors in logic.

This is everything wrong with the way people in politics in Canada think it is ok to act. It is ruining politics, it is ruining debate, it is ruining media, it undermining democracy.

While I’m aware of the shady as hell Fraser Institute, this is, yet again, more personal attacks on those critical of the governments position. Nowhere here does it address anything with Bill C-18. Instead, it’s a petty and childish attack against a critic – the same tactic Lamont was railing against just paragraphs earlier. Again, iMax level projection here. Maybe Lamont deserves a penalty for this?

After Lamont engages in raging righteous superiority, Lamont then accuses Speer of, well, raging righteous superiority:

Because aside from the false accusations, it’s also the raging righteous superiority. Why do they fly off the handle when people point out some perfectly obvious and publicly verifiable statements about the way the world actually works?

Are you really that surprised that someone is pointing out that you’re wrong?

Obviously, critics of the Online News Act have been pretty much right about everything while supporters have been wrong about pretty much everything while furiously trying to reinforce their reality bubble.

Lamont then makes the following claim:

Finally, a point about context and being aware of the possibility of bias. Media outlets who applied for and recieved assistance were required to declare it, including on the byline of the individual reporter. For readers who are concerned about bias, they can consider it right there. The funding source is transparent and openly declared.

Yeah, except for the fact that this isn’t what is happening. Let’s use some examples, shall we? For instance, let’s look at this article from the Toronto Star. Here’s a screenshot of it:

What do you see? The headline, the byline, an image, the authors names, and the beginning of the article. What don’t you see? Anything mentioning that this article was subsidized by the government.

OK, maybe it’s a one off, you might say. Let’s look at another source. Let’s look at CTV and randomly pick another article:

What do you see? A headline, a video, the authors, updated times, and the beginning of the article. What don’t you see? A message saying that this was paid for by subsidies from the Canadian government.

OK, maybe we just got unlucky here. Let’s try an article on Global News:

Let’s see. We have the journalist, a video, the headline, information about the article, and the start of the article itself. Nothing declaring that anything was subsidized by the government. Gee, I wonder how that could be!

OK, maybe I’m looking at too many broadcasters. Let’s try a newspapers website. Let’s try the Globe and Mail and pick a random article:

Let’s see, we have a picture, a headline, the authors, and the start of the article. Nothing about government subsidies there.

Gee, for something that is supposed to be common practice, it’s awfully hard to find examples of this happening. I mean, I’ve gone through 4 mainstream media outlets, picked a random article for each, and that transparency wasn’t to be found. It’s almost as if this was complete made up BS?

The real question here is, what does the law actually require? The only transparency that is involved is that information about who is receiving the funding be disclosed on the CRTC website. That’s it. That’s what the law requires. There is no requirement to post that up in the byline of an article. Journalists and outlets are, of course, certainly welcome to do so, but they are not required to do so. For some odd reason, they are choosing to not to do this – at least in the examples I was able to find.

Lamont then concludes with the following:

Sean Speer and Meta both have a lot more explaining to do.

This is the standard defamatory attacks that have become common for Bill C-18 supporters. The implication here is that Speer broke the law somehow. How did Speer break the law? Lamont doesn’t say, but he has no problem implying it, trying to subtly push the conspiracy theory that independent news organizations are paid actors to attack the Online News Act and paid for by Meta. Even worse, he also pushes the conspiracy theory that Meta is maliciously attacking Canada by supporting disinformation campaigns while offering no evidence of any of this.

Lamont’s facts optional rant perfectly encapsulates all the shamefulness mainstream media has become today. They push conspiracy theories, collude with others to attack critics, push disinformation campaigns, and then have the audacity to call themselves the credible sources while pointing the finger at others for fact checking them after. There is damned good reasons why trust in the media has fallen and this latest rant represents the perfect example of why. Basic journalistic integrity has been thrown in the trash in favour of clickbait and hit pieces against perceived political foes. Sometimes, as is the case here, outside of the publications themselves on top of it all. It’s infuriating to me to see how low mainstream media as sunk in this day and age, but that is the reality these days.

The only question I’m left asking is this: is there a bottom for mainstream media? Honestly, I can’t really say for sure at this point. All I can do as a real journalist is continue to set the record straight and provide you with accurate information. This while fact checking other sources.

Drew Wilson on Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook.