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REFLECTION 2023: A look back into a year of chaos

Vaughan reporter Brian Capitao looks back at social media blogs misreporting and looks at the future of journalism

Yorkregion.com
Jan. 2, 2024
Brian Capitao

This may sound odd, but the story that had the most significant impact on me this year; is a story about a story that never happened. It was the now infamous story about aerial gondolas in Vaughan.

As a reporter, one of the things that gives you cold sweats is when you get scooped on a story. And as our small newsroom gets smaller, it may happen more.

Imagine my surprise when, one day, I got an email from a co-worker about how aerial gondolas are being looked at by the city I’m supposed to be covering? How could I have missed such a significant event?

Blogs had been reporting the story, and I had been incredulous. Surely, as a municipal beat reporter, the City of Vaughan would have at least hinted that it was a possibility to me.

So, off I went to dig into the matter. I put in a call to Canada’s Wonderland and contacted the City of Vaughan. My suspicion had been correct. The blogs had misreported.

But Pandora’s box had opened. If you know anything about the spread of actual fake news, then you know how hard that genie is to put back in the bottle.

Often incorrect or misleading news goes far beyond the reach of the information that corrects it.

I did my best with a "fact-checking" article reporting on why these blogs had reported inaccurate information and where they gotten the information from.

To me, it was an example of why we need news reporters and not just bloggers to cover current events and things happening around the GTA.

So, I wrote a snarky piece on the matter; months later, several other reporters and I have been laid off. Meanwhile the blog I had chastised for misreporting was now in a hiring position.

With only about 15 per cent of Canadians willing to pay for online news, according to the Angus Reid Institute, something is amiss -- 85 per cent of Canadians do not pay for online news.

Recently making headlines was political candidate Pierre Poilievre berating a Canadian Press reporter for asking a tough, but fair question. People outside of the media were cheering him on as he lambasted the reporter. This is a serious candidate for Prime Minister, someone who is openly snide to the media, but instead of scorn, it scored him political points.

As a reporter, it often feels like people are actively cheering for you to fail. What some don’t realize is that reporters are far from elites and are professionals intent on raising issues for greater public awareness.

But cutbacks make our jobs more difficult. I once remember getting a call from a woman who wanted me to look into a local issue and “use the full resources of our newsroom.” I barely had the heart to tell her, that each reporter in our newsroom was covering an entire municipality themselves.

Times have changed. The public has gotten accustomed to the idea of free. Social networks promoted the idea and now Bill C-18 is the consequence.

If people support the government’s efforts to help the industry with tax rebates incentivizing them to pay for subscriptions, maybe the industry will bounce back. Maybe.

If it doesn’t, we can expect more blogs to do the service that actual news outlets did, potentially putting the quality of information at risk. We will be a less informed public.