Unifor floats local news as ‘service of exceptional importance’

By Ahmad Hathout The director of media for Canada’s largest private sector union said Tuesday the CRTC could view local news as a service of “exceptional importance,” making it qualify for mandatory distribution, to drive more support for the expensive-to-produce programming. Such a mandatory distribution could be imposed on online streamers as well, said Unifor's Randy Kitt, who urged the commission to not let market forces determine the fate of a sector that has seen mass layoffs recently. “We'll just lose more jobs, we'll lose more journalists, we'll have more news deserts, and our democracy will slip away,” Kitt said...