News
Around Red Deer July 25th…..
3:26 pm – Poshika Dhingra from Red Deer was one of eight young leaders from across Alberta that received a Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Citizenship Medal at Government House in Edmonton today. Read More!
3:09 pm – Red Deer RCMP say the death of a man found in an alley near 55th Street this afternoon is not considered suspicious. Read More.
11:03 am – Innisfail RCMP have made multiple arrests over the past week, including that of a Red Deer man and seized stolen property in the process. Property included trucks, trailers and firearms.
For more local news, click here!
10:38 am – Some fun events coming up in and around the Town of Innisfail over the next couple of weeks. Read More!
10:27 am – Heads up Red Deer drivers, Alberta Transportation will be paving on 2A north of 11A and south of Red Deer until August 19th. Paving will take place during the day and evening and there will be lane closures.
10:16 am – Some central Alberta families are among 52 being recognized from across the province with Century Farm and Ranch Awards on Thursday, July 27th. Read More.
For more local news, click here!
9:27 am – Sunshine, warm temps and live tunes on the Ross Street Patio from 11:30 am – 1:00 pm today! Read More.
9:14 am – A preliminary report on a standalone shelter will be released early by The City of Red Deer after the Province of Alberta announced potential funding for the planning and development of temporary shelter services last week. While the full study is not yet complete, a decision to release a preliminary report was made by City Council Monday night because of tight provincial timelines that call for Expression of Interest (EOIs) to be submitted by August 11, 2017. Read More.
9:00 am – Full implementation of automated traffic enforcement at select intersections in Red Deer will be delayed after City Council decided to modify the timeframe from August 11 to November 1, 2017 to start issuing violation tickets. There will also be an increased focus on public education so that citizens and drivers understand the expanded program before they get a ticket in the mail. Read More.
For more local news, click here!
8:52 am – There are some road closures to avoid in Red Deer today. Details Here.
8:42 am – Parkland Mall is seeking artisans running home-based businesses for the 6th annual Mall Street Market between October 20th and 22nd. Chosen vendors will have floor space to display and sell unique, handmade goods at the Mall. Interested parties can apply online before August 15th and chosen vendors will be notified by August 18th. Read More.
8:26 am – Red Deer’s Poshika Dhingra will receive a Queen Elizabeth ll Golden Jubilee Citizenship Medal at Government House in Edmonton today. The ceremony to celebrate the citizenship and volunteer service of youth leaders from across Alberta will start at 2:00 pm and be hosted by Her Honour, the Honourable Lois Mitchell. Read More.
Catherine Herridge
How X And Joe Rogan Broke The Back of 60 Minutes
TOP LINE: | |||||||||||||||
Super consumers of news are flocking to X and other platforms that support independent journalism, diverse voices and embrace transparency. The post election TV ratings abyss is driven both by technology and by the public’s loss of trust in Mainstream media. | |||||||||||||||
DEEP DIVE: | |||||||||||||||
To buy MSNBC or not to buy? | |||||||||||||||
This week’s headline that Comcast will spin off its cable channels underscores the tectonic shift in the media marketplace and how technology is providing the exit ramp for competing platforms. | |||||||||||||||
When my job as a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News was terminated in February, I took a few months to educate myself about the marketplace because so much had changed since I left Fox in 2019. What I found was genuinely surprising, a little frightening and, oddly, re-assuring for the strength of our democracy. | |||||||||||||||
You can’t argue with the data. It is compelling. On Election Day, according to @Xdata, the platform boasted record usage of 942 million posts worldwide and 2.2 million hours of watch or listen time over approximately 160k live events. The X data crushed engagement numbers for the mainstream media (MSM.) | |||||||||||||||
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By example, a Tucker Carlson interview on X has 35 million engagements. The CBS Evening News has 4.5 million viewers. If I had to choose, I’d take 30 million engagements on X because it represents explosive growth. | |||||||||||||||
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The new super consumers of news are flocking to X and other platforms that support independent journalism, diverse voices, and embrace transparency which can strengthen democracy. This is nothing short of an industrial revolution driven both by technology and by loss of trust in corporate media. | |||||||||||||||
In 2023, Human Rights lawyer Jacob Mchangama wrote about the upheaval and resulting, “elite panic.” | |||||||||||||||
“Elite panic is this recurring phenomenon throughout the history of free speech, where whenever the public sphere is expanded, either through new communications technology, or to segments of the population that were previously marginalized, the traditional gatekeepers, the elites who control access to information, tend to fret about the dangers of allowing the unwashed mob — who are too fickle, too unsophisticated, too unlearned — unmediated access to information. They need information to be filtered through the responsible gatekeepers and it may be even more dangerous to allow them to speak without adult supervision. That’s a phenomenon that we see again and again. And we’re seeing it play out now on social media. … [Elite panic is] one contributing factor to the free speech recession.” | |||||||||||||||
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If you asked me four years ago, if a presidential candidate could skip a 60 Minutes interview, I would have been skeptical. Four years later, candidate Trump bypassed the legacy news magazine and instead, sat down with Joe Rogan. As of this writing, the marathon sit-down viewership reached 51 million views. | |||||||||||||||
There is no doubt Rogan is a skilled interviewer who can draw out his subjects and deliver huge audiences. Compared to heavily edited network TV reports, the raw, unedited format reveals much about the subject. In politics, the podcast is perfectly suited for the “beer question” which measures a candidate’s authenticity and likability. | |||||||||||||||
The progressive Harris campaign took a more traditional media approach and came up short. Neither celebrity endorsements which feel less relevant nor a 60 Minutes interview seemed to move the needle. The combined audience of the 60 Minutes Kamala Harris interview and its views on YouTube landed at about 10 million, far less than what Rogan and X delivered. | |||||||||||||||
The legacy of the Kamala Harris 60 Minutes interview is not her responses but the lingering controversy over the CBS’ interview edit. And that is where the public’s loss of trust in the media comes in. I believe this is another driver of the audience exodus. | |||||||||||||||
CBS aired two different answers from the Vice President to the same question from correspondent Bill Whitaker about the Israeli Prime Minister apparently ignoring the Biden Administration. | |||||||||||||||
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Since, a credible complaint has been filed at the FCC alleging “news distortion” at the network with a reasonable demand that the full, unedited Kamala Harris transcript be released. CBS News has said “it fairly presented the interview to inform the viewing audience and not to mislead it.” | |||||||||||||||
In the October newsletter, I explained that releasing the full, unedited transcript would resolve these questions. There is ample precedent. | |||||||||||||||
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As a senior investigative correspondent at CBS News, I interviewed President Trump at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. I advocated for and CBS News published the full, unedited transcript. | |||||||||||||||
The CBS News Trump interview was not a special case. The full, unedited transcript from Attorney General Bill Barr’s 2019 interview with CBS chief legal affairs correspondent Jan Crawford was also shared by the network. And more recently, 60 Minutes released the full unedited transcript of its interview with Fed Chair Jerome Powell. | |||||||||||||||
If the current trend continues, in the 2028 election cycle, the broadcast networks will firmly take a back seat to podcasts, town halls, and investigative journalism on X. For independent journalists and small digital newsrooms, the challenge is developing revenue streams that are viable. | |||||||||||||||
In February, I was not comforted by the analogy that losing my corporate reporting job was like getting pushed off the Titanic when there were still seats in the lifeboats. In retrospect, I wonder if it may turn out to be more accurate than I initially thought. | |||||||||||||||
After turning down job offers for which I remain grateful, I began building the Catherine Herridge Reports brand on X and in the newsletter marketplace. These platforms are the new media beachheads. Content is King. | |||||||||||||||
I’ll have more to say about the future of journalism and why journalism is called a profession for a reason. Look for exclusive new content on media accountability in the coming days! | |||||||||||||||
Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter and supporting independent investigative journalism! |
Business
Broken ‘equalization’ program bad for all provinces
From the Fraser Institute
By Alex Whalen and Tegan Hill
Back in the summer at a meeting in Halifax, several provincial premiers discussed a lawsuit meant to force the federal government to make changes to Canada’s equalization program. The suit—filed by Newfoundland and Labrador and backed by British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Alberta—effectively argues that the current formula isn’t fair. But while the question of “fairness” can be subjective, its clear the equalization program is broken.
In theory, the program equalizes the ability of provinces to deliver reasonably comparable services at a reasonably comparable level of taxation. Any province’s ability to pay is based on its “fiscal capacity”—that is, its ability to raise revenue.
This year, equalization payments will total a projected $25.3 billion with all provinces except B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan to receive some money. Whether due to higher incomes, higher employment or other factors, these three provinces have a greater ability to collect government revenue so they will not receive equalization.
However, contrary to the intent of the program, as recently as 2021, equalization program costs increased despite a decline in the fiscal capacity of oil-producing provinces such as Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Newfoundland and Labrador. In other words, the fiscal capacity gap among provinces was shrinking, yet recipient provinces still received a larger equalization payment.
Why? Because a “fixed-growth rule,” introduced by the Harper government in 2009, ensures that payments grow roughly in line with the economy—even if the gap between richer and poorer provinces shrinks. The result? Total equalization payments (before adjusting for inflation) increased by 19 per cent between 2015/16 and 2020/21 despite the gap in fiscal capacities between provinces shrinking during this time.
Moreover, the structure of the equalization program is also causing problems, even for recipient provinces, because it generates strong disincentives to natural resource development and the resulting economic growth because the program “claws back” equalization dollars when provinces raise revenue from natural resource development. Despite some changes to reduce this problem, one study estimated that a recipient province wishing to increase its natural resource revenues by a modest 10 per cent could face up to a 97 per cent claw back in equalization payments.
Put simply, provinces that generally do not receive equalization such as Alberta, B.C. and Saskatchewan have been punished for developing their resources, whereas recipient provinces such as Quebec and in the Maritimes have been rewarded for not developing theirs.
Finally, the current program design also encourages recipient provinces to maintain high personal and business income tax rates. While higher tax rates can reduce the incentive to work, invest and be productive, they also raise the national standard average tax rate, which is used in the equalization allocation formula. Therefore, provinces are incentivized to maintain high and economically damaging tax rates to maximize equalization payments.
Unless premiers push for reforms that will improve economic incentives and contain program costs, all provinces—recipient and non-recipient—will suffer the consequences.
Authors:
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