Quebecor stops paying rent at legislature, says 100K fee a threat to democracy – Montreal | 24CA News
A serious Quebec media firm is prone to turning into a squatter within the province’s legislature district.
Montreal-based media and telecom conglomerate Quebecor has introduced it is going to cease paying hire for the workplace its political journalists use in one in every of Quebec’s legislature buildings, within the provincial capital. The firm, which owns tv station TVA and newspapers Journal de Montreal and Journal de Quebec, says its hire quantities to $8,448 monthly — greater than $100,000 per 12 months earlier than tax.
In a letter to the legislature, Quebecor vice-president Jad Barsoum mentioned the corporate’s hire “goes against the principles of access and is detrimental to democratic life.”
Quebec’s legislature, referred to as the National Assembly, costs media retailers at an annual charge of $269.86 per sq. metre of workplace area they occupy — a “prohibitive” sum, in line with Canadian Association of Journalists president Brent Jolly.
“I think it’s an incentive for people to move out,” he mentioned in a latest interview. “It seems like quite an exorbitant cost, particularly for news organizations.”
“I find that pretty, pretty alarming that they would charge that kind of money just for an office.”
Barsoum’s letter cites a “serious crisis” within the media sphere amid declining promoting income due partly to competitors from platforms like Facebook and Google. That disaster, he mentioned, has led to job cuts at Quebecor and undermines “citizens’ access to information and, more globally, the health of our democracy.”
Facebook proprietor Meta’s latest determination to dam entry to news content material on its platforms in Canada has additional strained media corporations.
In response to the struggles of news corporations, Quebecor is asking on the National Assembly to assist native media by offering free workplace area for journalists protecting politics.
Quebecor’s calls for aren’t outlandish, not less than in contrast with the scenario in different provinces, a lot of which supply free — albeit a lot smaller and sometimes shared — workspaces to reporters.
In Halifax, the Nova Scotia House of Assembly has put aside three, single-person workplaces within the basement of Province House for members of the press gallery — the frequent time period for political journalists who cowl legislatures. Reporters even have entry to a small frequent room upstairs.
Political reporters in New Brunswick’s capital don’t have devoted workplaces within the Legislative Assembly constructing, however the press gallery, whose members pay a $100 annual price, has an area with desks in a neighbouring constructing.
The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia has workplaces for print, radio and tv media for press gallery members who pay the $150 yearly price. Reporters who aren’t full-time members can use a standard space at no cost.
And on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, there’s a free-to-use, devoted room with 25 desks for journalists.
Jolly says he agrees that legislative press workplaces must be extra reasonably priced for media given the general public profit journalists present with their political news protection.
But University of British Columbia faculty of journalism professor Alfred Hermida mentioned Quebecor’s claims of a media disaster are deceptive given its beneficial properties in its different business traces.
On Thursday, the corporate posted a income enhance of $283.3 million, or 25.4 per cent, within the second quarter of 2023 in comparison with the identical three-month interval in 2022, regardless of a decline in income in a few of its media operations. The windfall follows Quebecor’s acquisition of telecom firm Freedom Mobile.
“To say that there is an overall crisis in the media system is simplifying things,” Hermida mentioned, “because what you have is a company like Quebecor who ? (is) still making money in other sectors, in its telecom and its mobile, in other areas, but not the same amount of revenue in producing news.”
But Quebecor CEO Pierre Karl Peladeau mentioned it’s “unreasonable” to imagine one a part of his firm ought to subsidize one other.
“It is important to understand that Quebecor manages each of its subsidiaries independently and is accountable to its shareholders,” Peladeau mentioned in assertion shared by way of e-mail. “It’s unreasonable to expect Videotron or Freedom to finance the media crisis, just as it’s unreasonable for the National Assembly to demand staggering rental fees, in excess of $100,000 a year, to cover all the societal issues debated there.”
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