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Marc Edge: The Postmedia Effect (Paperback, 2023, New Star Books) 4 stars

Even as their readers move on-line and their advertisers look elsewhere, daily newspapers continue to …

Comprehensive and alarming

4 stars

In-depth examination of the increasing concentration of the Canadian media landscape (speaking here from a city where I have the 'choice' of five daily newspapers, four of which are owned by Postmedia...). Covers the process by which Postmedia has gradually bought up more and more newspapers, closing many of them, and shifting the increasingly-centralized editorial take to the right. Also covers the complicated financial structure of Postmedia and its ownership by various, mostly US-based, hedge funds and other opaque financial institutions. Because the book is so new, it's also able to cover the various forms of subsidy provided by the Liberal government, and how they've often ended up just propping up the debt payments of the hedge funds, while being inaccessible to smaller independent news outlets. Not a cheery read, but useful in understanding the way Canada's democracy is going...