Peter Menzies: Google shuns the big media moguls in decision over news fund—but it’s Canadian consumers who will pay the heaviest price

An ad hoc collection of independent operators has won the right to chant “Who’s your Daddy now?” to Canada’s largest media moguls.

Google had a choice between two bids for the right to be in charge of the $100 million fund it had agreed to finance in exchange for an exemption from the government’s disastrous Online News Act. One group was composed of the CBC, the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB), and News Media Canada, which represents large legacy newspaper companies. The other—the freshly founded Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC)—includes 12 much smaller organizations such as Pivot, The Resolve, IndigiNews, Village Media, and the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations.

Google made its choice to go with the CJC group, it said, because their proposal was most closely aligned with its principles and the intent of the fund to offer “diversity of representation, a robust governance structure, a high level of transparency, and assurance that as much funding as possible would go to news organizations.”

The winners will now be scrambling to put their governance structure in place. The losers are left to mutter behind the steering wheels of their BMWs. Google meanwhile waits expectantly for its exemption application to be approved by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which is pretty much in charge of Canadian journalism now.