What the hell is going on with Canadian media right now?

What happened to Huffington Post this week, and how you can support independent media outlets in Canada.

Hey there, and welcome to the 22nd issue of The Supplement, a newsletter that fills in the gaps of your other news intake. This is Sam, one-third of the Supplement team! 

Each week, we pick a question submitted by you, our readers. If you’d like to submit a question for a future week — it can seriously be about anything — then email us at thesupplementnewsletter@gmail.com. Befriend us on Instagram, and on Twitter. We don’t bite!

This week, we’re tackling this question: What the hell is going on with Canadian media right now? 

TL;DR: Very soon after Buzzfeed acquired Huffington Post, it shut down HuffPost Canada and Quebec, laying off dozens of staffers and depressing the entire Canadian media community in the process. This comes during a particularly tough year for the industry. But hope is not entirely lost, and we have some fantastic independent media outlet recommendations for you. 

If you’re wondering why everyone in Canadian media is depressed this week, we have answers for you (and a note of hope, in case you’re already feeling a little too bleak about this week’s edition). 

On March 9, HuffPost Canada and Quebec were entirely shut down, laying off two-dozen workers in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal in the process. The goriest detail is that full-time staff were invited to a morning Zoom call with a password essentially spelling out “spring is here” before being told that they would know the fate of their jobs by 1 p.m. that afternoon. Nobody, including HuffPost’s managers, knew what was coming. 

The same day, the Canadian and Quebec sites were completely shut down — with no warning.

Samantha Beattie @Samantha_KB

Without telling us they've shut down our site.

The move comes three months after BuzzFeed, an American media company, acquired HuffPost (also an American company) from Verizon in November 2020. Just a few weeks ago, around two dozen workers with HuffPost Canada and Quebec had filed for union certification with Communications Workers of America (CWA), a prominent Canadian media union.

HuffPost Canada Union @HuffpostCAUnion

We have been told this decision was made before our organizing effort and is not linked to our unionizing. Still, it is even more devastating in the wake of the hope and optimism we had following a strong union drive.

Many American journalists working for the site (affiliated with another union) were also laid off. 

“The financial struggles of the Canadian piece of the business led to the decision to close it,” a BuzzFeed spokesperson told PressProgress. “The decisions were made after we examined the state of the business, following the finalization of our acquisition in February.”

Maybe it’s easy to read excuses about pandemic-era bottom lines and feel a tinge of sympathy for media companies trying to make it through. But keep in mind this November statement from Jonah Peretti, Founder and CEO of BuzzFeed, as they acquired HuffPost:

And, of course, this: 

Luke Savage @LukewSavage

Every time I hear about a round of media layoffs, I instinctively check to see what the CEO has been up to lately and how they're handling what must be a difficult professional moment. Unrelatedly, here's the $5.2 million house Buzzfeed CEO Jonah Peretti just moved into.

Laura Bassett @LEBassett

HuffPost employees, after a year of working through a pandemic that isn't over, were invited to a meeting today with the password "spring is here," where they were told 47 of them would be laid off. They would only know if they still had a job if they didn't receive an email by 1

The Canadian media industry has been contracting for years, but the past year has been particularly tough. To get a sense of the impact, check out J-Source’s tracker of the layoffs, wage cuts, service reductions and closures that have happened since last year.

Just last month, Bell Media — one of Canada’s largest radio, TV and broadcast music operators — cut an estimated 210 jobs in Toronto alone in a round of layoffs. Some radio stations went off air for a break and simply never came back, with continuous music replacing their lively host-driven broadcasts. 

Andrew MacDougall, consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper, wrote a compelling op-ed for the Ottawa Citizen about how all of this is expanding news deserts, leaving entire areas of the country without dedicated media coverage. The Local News Research Project has delved further into this.  

So how can you help? We love the work of blockbuster outlets like The New York Times, but there are just as many smaller, independent Canadian media outlets hitting it out of the park right now that don’t get the same millions-strong subscriber counts. We’re pretty much constantly urging you to diversify your media coverage — but now more than ever, please throw your support behind them.

I put out a call for suggestions on my personal Twitter and got such a great response that I couldn’t possibly list them all in bullet points. Check out the thread (don’t forget the quote tweets!) here: 

Samantha McCabe @sam_mccabage

Today's edition of the @The__Supplement newsletter is going to list some of the independent, kickass Canadian media outlets our readers should follow and support. Which ones should I recommend?

I’m particularly intrigued by newly-announced outlet The Breach, which broadcast its launch on March 4 with a star-studded video of backers that included Naomi Klein and David Suzuki. The Breach promises to be a new, progressive outlet providing “critical and investigative journalism that helps map a just, viable future.”

The Breach @TheBreachMedia

Help us launch a new Canadian media outlet — adversarial, unbeholden to corporate owners, and committed to enlarging the sense of what’s politically possible. Sustain this journalism by becoming a founding member of The Breach: breachmedia.ca

Lots of these newer media outlets also don’t have a paywall. They operate on a membership basis (though the name of that structure may vary), meaning you can choose how much you can afford to pay on a single-donation or monthly basis while still getting all of their content for free. Trust me when I say that every dollar counts. 

Here’s someone to follow:

I’m obviously going to recommend you follow the talented people affected by these layoffs. Let’s start with Mel Woods, a queer writer, audio producer and journalist who covered Western Canada and viral trends for HuffPost. Mel’s writing always brightens my day and gets me up-to-speed on what everyone is talking about. 

Start with this very important thread she wrote:

Mel Woods 🌾🌈 @intothemelwoods

Despite being at HuffPost for two years, working the same hours and doing the same work as my coworkers, I will likely not be getting any sort of severance package because I was technically a contractor. (THREAD)

Maija Kappler @MaijaKappler

Today @HuffPostCanada and @HuffPostQuebec employees, who lost our jobs yesterday, found out we're getting the generous severance package that @HuffPostUnion in the US negotiated in 2017.

Here’s a story to check out: There’s already about 35 outlets for you to check out in my tweet, linked above. Isn’t that enough homework for today?

The Huffington Post Canada website as of March 9.