In an International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) webinar this week, Unifor shed light on how United States President Donald Trump’s attacks on press freedom in the U.S. has ushered in a similar ripple effect in Canadian media.
 
The engaging discussion on March 4, moderated by Communications Workers of America’s Jon Schleuss, brought together Unifor Media Director Randy Kitt, IFJ general secretary Anthony Bellanger, Canadian Media Guild president Annick Forest and National Writers’ Union Arun Gupta to discuss the global repercussions of Trump’s actions on journalists and media workers.

“Trump has normalized this abusive and egregious behaviour and politicians in Canada, like [Conservative leader Pierre] Poilievre, they see these tactics and emulate them,” said Kitt. 

“Our journalists are being harassed. They’re being abused, bullied, belittled, assaulted. They’re being denied access to politicians, to institutions. In large part, it’s been a Conservative policy and tactic for many years to deny access, but it’s the brazenness is what’s new from Trump.”

From billionaire friends buying up news outlets, dictating political slant and removing coverage of the president’s opponents, to banning reputable news organizations from accessing White House scrums, Trump continues to wreak havoc on press freedom.

“The large tariffs that Trump has put on imports from Canada and Mexico…is going to impact local news,” said the CWA’s Schleuss. “Canada produces 80% of newsprint used by newspapers in the United States and newsprint is typically the second-largest expense after labour costs.”

Kitt said while there has some Liberal government support to save local news – particularly by way of the Online News Act and the Online Streaming Act – there is a risk of Poilievre getting elected and eliminating those supports.

In February, at a press conference in Toronto, Poilievre refused to take questions except from publications which had been pre-selected by his communications team, right out of the Trump playbook.

Last week, Conservative Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston created a policy to ban journalists from scrumming in the hallway after legislative assembly but rescinded the policy after pushback from the Canadian Association of Journalists.

Meanwhile, Conservative MP Chris Alexander accused highly respected Ottawa Citizen journalist David Pugliese of being a Russian agent with no proof whatsoever. Pugliese responded that, “These lies endanger press freedom in this country.”

Another alarming trend is local counsellors and mayors across the country in small communities where there might only be one journalist serving several communities, are bypassing journalists altogether to avoid negative coverage.

“If you’re looking for information, go to a trusted news source and be willing to pay for it, because this information is extremely hard to get now,” Kitt emphasized.

“Facts, content and objective reporting are commodities that are expensive. If you are getting it free on a website that is owned by someone who is sitting in the Oval Office right now, you may be being misinformed. Go to a trusted news source, pay for news, that’s my advice.”

Unifor represents more than 10,000 media workers, including journalists in the broadcast and print news industry.

 

• In the U.S., they have the U.S. press freedom tracker, and thanks to many supporters including Unifor, it’s now the fourth year of the Canadian Press Freedom project, documenting press freedom attacks.

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• While we need to address these attacks and work to prevent them, much of Unifor's work has been focused on how we support our journalists when they experience press freedom issues or are simply attacked or harassed. That is why we published Breaking the News: Media Workers Under Attack. 

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• Unifor created a website specifically designed to support all media workers called, Help is Here, a space for journalists and media workers to talk with each other and to support each other.

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• David Seglins and Matthew Pearson, fresh from producing the Taking Care report, about the trauma journalists and media workers face daily, have started the obvious extension to that project to create a country wide peer-to-peer support system for media workers. Unifor is proud to support this important project that will be launching this year in stages to ensure that journalists and media workers are supported, as they struggle through these unprecedent times.

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• Unifor also represents more than 1,000 freelancers in film and television production as well as freelance journalists in the union’s Canadian Freelance Union that aims to fill the gap for freelance journalists who are not or cannot legally join a traditional union.

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• Unifor is also working on a journalism campaign with similar messaging to our Journalism is campaign but updated to be more relevant to our ever-changing times.