OPINION: What we learned from the Australian News Media Bargaining Code for C-18

By Howard Law, former director of media locals for Unifor, who writes in mediapolicy.ca The Australian finance minister’s overdue anniversary review of the groundbreaking News Media Bargaining Code (NMBC) gives Canadians some welcome pointers on how to think about, improve or critique our bill C-18, the “FaceGoogle” Online News Act. The report does two things well, the first being an evaluation of how well the Australian legislation was implemented. The other is that finance minister (‘Treasurer’ in Oz lingo) Jim Chalmers unapologetically backs the code as an anti-oligopoly law and downplays using the code as a tool for reshaping news journalism. Both...