The Kent Commission report

Three decades ago, Canadians watched as a major media merger took place and two newspapers folded on the same day. Within one week of the two papers — the Winnipeg Tribune, which was 90 years old, and the Ottawa Journal, 95 — shutting their doors for good, a Royal Commission on the state of newspapers was struck on Aug. 22, 1980 with a mandate to determine how to preserve and enhance newspaper journalism in this country and critically review the increasing concentration of ownership: “Our task is to look at the industry as a whole; to suggest, if we can, a better course for newspapers in Canada; to recommend whether law or policy should be different for the future.” (Kent Commission report, p. xi)

In 1981, the Kent Commission, as it came to be known, filed its final report after crossing the country and hearing from citizens, academics, publishers, owners, journalists and editors. The full report is available for download and spans 12 chapters. It is a remarkably detailed view of the news industry, one that hasn’t been repeated since. If you’re not keen on reading all 14 chapters (I was — just call me a nerd), I provide the “Press Notes” version below for chapters 1-12. The final two chapters covering the commissions conclusions and recommendations are in a separate post.

Freedom of the press is not a property right of owners. It is a right of the people. It is part of their right to free expression, inseparable from their right to inform themselves. (Kent Commission report, p. 1)

Chapter 1 – “The Scope of Concentration”

The opening of the report gives an overview of the newspaper industry — it is a snapshot of the industry at a particular point in its history. The chapter outlined increasing concentration of ownership and predicted continued concentration without government intervention. There was also a tip to the Davey Committee, that had looked into the state of Canadian news a decade earlier. The Davey Report first pointed to the problem of ownership concentration, noting that papers can only thrive when “the operation is financially secure and … people who care more about journalism than about balance-sheets control the editorial product” (Kent, p. 18).

Chapter 2 – “The Public Trust”

The Kent Commission report then outlined the social and philosophical responsibilities of the Canadian media, but balanced that with the reality that the news was a commercial endeavour and a business like any other. At its heart, journalism is about the search for truth, the report said, and journalists perceived their first duty was to the reader, not the paper. Surveys of journalists at the time showed that reporters weren’t worried about the future survival of newspapers, but rather whether the quality of news would continue to diminish.The Kent Commission wrote that journalists believed newspapers should dig deeper into stories and “assume the responsibility of finding and publishing what the public should know rather than seeking to satisfy the lowest common denominator of popular demand as determined by market studies and advertising surveys” (p. 31).

Despite these grumblings, the commission wrote, there had been no newsroom uprisings in English-speaking Canada. But an uprising — or at least a change — was needed. As quality diminished, so too would the number of readers and ultimately threaten the long-term future of Canadian newspapers, the commission warned.

Chapter 3 – “Under the Law”

After talking philosophy and business realities, the commission turned it focus to the legal issues regarding newspaper ownership. Under the British North America Act, both the provincial and federal governments had the power to assert control over newspapers, either through copyright, libel, tax, labour or business regulation laws. However, freedom of the press — at that time not explicitly laid out in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms — can only be curtailed at the federal level. The commission then furthered its position that the federal government should use its powers to help newspapers and improve the quality of Canadian journalism.

The simple, inescapable fact is that newspapers are not like other business ventures. The public’s interest in vigorous competition among newspapers is not one that can be quantified in any dollars-and-cents terms. It has to do with the number and quality of individual voices finding expression, voiced undaunted and undiminished by dollar concerns. (p. 59)

Chapter 4 – “The Newspaper as a Business”

The general finding from the commission was that newspapers were indeed profitable during the study period. A financial analysis done for the commission found that net income between 10 and 15 per cent of total income. Newspapers, the commission argued, were generally highly profitable. This finding was in stark contrast to what newspaper owners told the commission at public hearings.

While the major newspaper owners were telling us at our public hearings that their chief concern was “survival,” our financial research was telling us that they were surviving quite nicely. For its owners, the Canadian newspaper industry is, so to speak, the Queen Elizabeth of life rafts. (p. 84-5)

Chapter 5 – “Running the Business”

The business of providing news was changing in 1980. Digital news was in its infancy and television had began to supplant the newspaper as the main source of news for the public. Adapting to this new environment was key for newspaper survival, but there was little financial incentive to adapt at the time. The commission wrote that there was little room for further market penetration for newspapers and  increasing the volume of content didn’t always mean more profits in single-newspaper markets. In short, there was little incentive to invest when there was no outstanding return on investment. Without investing in content, the newspaper would slowly march towards becoming nothing more than a carriage for advertising, the commission wrote.

Chapter 6 – “The Newsroom”; Chapter 7 – “The News Serivces”

These two chapters focused on the way journalists acted in this environment. The former chapter looked at the way newsrooms interact with management and expressed the concern that concentration of ownership moves management loyalty to the corporation and away from local readers. As the chapter noted, if you don’t make it in one place, the corporation can move you to another location to try again! The latter chapter looked at how news services helped or hindered the path towards increasing the quality of Canadian journalism, and also questioned whether the market could sustain more than one news services.

Chapter 8 — “The Public Agenda”

The commission found that the public believed there was a decline in the quality of Canadian political journalism and a related “decline in regard for the newspaper as an institution” (p.135). This decline in standing was directly related to the decline in coverage and the increasing concentration of ownership, the commission wrote. However, this finding was tempered by testimony to the commission that the rise of corporations had removed local paper’s dependence on local advertising interests and therefore improved editorial independence.

Chapter 9 — “The Quest for Quality”; Chapter 10 — “Performance”

These two chapters combined spoke to the need for the news industry to look at itself and make changes to improve quality and thereby renew their social contract with Canadians. The former chapter gave an overview of the development of press councils around the country, the creation of the country’s first newspaper ombudsman or public editor at the Toronto Star, which still has one of three public editors in the country and the only newspaper ombudsman in Canada, and the development of journalism schools. The latter chapter focused on the need for the industry to improve salaries – “newspapers profit by their workers’ personal dedication to journalism” (p.173) — and “employ people with special knowledge and the ability to communicate it to the laymen. In no other way to do we get a society capable of making informed choices” (p.168).

One interesting point in chapter 10 was the comment from one reporter that they felt their performance had declined because they didn’t feel their job was secure. A second point, and one that stood out to me for obvious reasons, was the call for improved and more widespread news education programs (a.k.a. News Literacy) to help implant knowledge of the role of the press in society. A third point was that quality news was giving readers what they needed, not necessarily what they wanted.

Readers look to newspapers to tell them what is important. They are met by newspapers conducting market research so that readers will tell them what is important. Editing-by-survey creates a feedback loop in which editors, reporters, readers, and advertisers all hold hands in an inward-looking circle. The search is for readers’ psyches, not for the news. (p.172)

Chapter 11 — “An Industry in Transition”; Chapter 12 — “Outlook and Issues”

These two chapters looked at the future of the newspaper in a digital environment and can be summed up by the following quote:

The test of the new information system is their contribution to freedom and diversity of the press as it has come to be understood in our society. There should be the widest possible access with only the minimum supervision by the state necessary to secure such access. (p.205)