Journalism Is Not Just Content: Why Canada Needs a Clear Line Between Newsrooms and the Creator Economy

Canada does not need less expression. It needs more credible information. That distinction matters at a time when public debate is increasingly shaped by short videos, personality-driven commentary, anonymous accounts, podcasts, memes and algorithmic feeds. Social media has become one of the main places Canadians encounter news, but it was not built as a public-interest reporting system. It was built to distribute content, reward attention and keep people engaged.

That does not make all creators irresponsible. Many are talented, useful and sometimes first to capture events as they unfold. But social media content and journalism were never meant to be the same thing. One is often built around personality, entertainment, speed, opinion or community. The other, at its best, is built around verification, independence, correction, context and service to the public.

Canada’s democratic framework recognizes why the difference matters. The Charter protects “freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression,” including “freedom of the press and other media of communication.” But those freedoms exist within a constitutional order that also allows reasonable limits justified in a free and democratic society. The point is not that journalists have a monopoly on speech. They do not. The point is that journalism is a discipline, not simply a format.

Why this matters now

The pressure on credible journalism is no longer theoretical. Statistics Canada reported that close to six in 10 Canadians got news and information mainly from the Internet or social media, with 33 per cent citing the Internet and 24 per cent citing social media; in the same study, 59 per cent said they were very or extremely concerned about online misinformation, and 43 per cent said it had become harder to distinguish true from false information compared with three years earlier.

Another Statistics Canada analysis found that, in 2023, 44 per cent of Canadians typically got news or information from social media accounts unaffiliated with government, scientific or news organizations. Those accounts ranked below news organizations in public trust: 64 per cent of Canadians reported low trust in unaffiliated social media posts as information sources, while 76 per cent typically got information from news organizations.

That gap is the heart of the issue. Canadians are using social platforms for information, but many do not fully trust what they see there. The Centre d’études sur les médias’ Canadian overview of the 2025 Digital News Report found that 54 per cent of Canadian respondents considered influencers and online personalities among the main threats for false or misleading information online. The same share identified Facebook as a major disinformation threat, while 52 per cent named TikTok. Only 21 per cent said the same of online news sites.

The real distinction: journalism is a process

A journalist is not simply someone who talks about public affairs. A journalist gathers information, tests it, attributes it, contextualizes it and publishes it under standards that allow the public to challenge the work. A newsroom is not perfect; Canadian journalism has made serious mistakes and has often under-covered rural communities, working-class Canadians, Indigenous peoples, immigrants, faith communities and regions outside major urban centres. But the professional claim of journalism is not perfection. It is accountability.

Canadian journalism organizations describe that obligation plainly. The Canadian Association of Journalists says its ethics guidelines are meant to help journalists “hold themselves accountable for professional work” and apply ethical principles when facing difficult situations.  The RTDNA Canada Code of Journalistic Ethics states that an informed public is vital to democracy, that journalism’s purpose is to serve the public interest, and that journalists are responsible for acting independently, fairly, respectfully and accurately.

That is different from the creator economy. A creator may be accurate, principled and serious. Some creators do careful work. Some journalists also behave like influencers, which weakens trust. But the default incentives are different. Social platforms reward speed, emotion, novelty, conflict, identity and engagement. Journalism rewards—at least in principle—verification, relevance, fairness, source protection, correction and public accountability.

A creator can post a rumour and call it “what people are saying.” A journalist is expected to ask: Who is saying it? What evidence exists? Who is affected? What is missing? What does the other side say? Is the document authentic? Is the image old? Is the clip edited? Does the headline overstate the facts? Should the story be published at all?

That is not elitism. It is the work.

Social media is mostly content. Journalism is public-interest information.

It is fair to say much of social media functions as entertainment. That includes comedy, lifestyle content, commentary, reaction videos, sports clips, influencer marketing, livestreamed arguments, political branding and personal storytelling. None of that is automatically bad. Canadians are free to watch it, make it, share it and criticize it.

The problem begins when entertainment adopts the language of journalism without accepting the obligations of journalism. A creator can build a loyal audience by being funny, angry, fast or relatable. A journalist must still be right, or at least transparent about what is known and unknown. A creator’s product is often trust in the person. A journalist’s product should be trust in the method.

UNESCO’s 2024 survey of digital content creators found that 62 per cent did not carry out rigorous and systematic fact-checking before sharing information, while 73 per cent wanted training to do so.  That finding should not be used to mock creators. It should be treated as a warning: people who now function as information relays often have not been trained, resourced or institutionally supported to meet the public consequences of that role.

The Reuters Institute’s 2025 Digital News Report describes a broader shift toward social media and personality-based news, with traditional media struggling to connect with audiences amid declining engagement, low trust and stagnating digital subscriptions.  In other words, the audience moved before the civic infrastructure caught up.

The Canadian legal system already treats journalism as more than ordinary posting

Canadian law protects expression broadly, not only professional news. But it also recognizes the distinct democratic role of journalism.

The Criminal Code contains special rules for warrants, authorizations and production orders involving a journalist’s communications, documents or data. Where an applicant knows the request concerns a journalist or journalistic material, it must go before a superior court judge or equivalent judge, and the judge may issue the order only if there is no other reasonable way to obtain the information and the public interest in investigation and prosecution outweighs the journalist’s privacy interest in gathering and disseminating information. The judge may also appoint a special advocate to make submissions in the interest of press freedom.

That protection exists because journalism depends on more than publication. It depends on newsgathering: confidential sources, documents, whistleblowers, interviews, notes, unpublished material and the ability to investigate powerful institutions without becoming an arm of the state.

The Access to Information Act also matters. It gives Canadian citizens and permanent residents a right, on request, to access records under the control of government institutions, subject to limits. Journalists use that system to report on public spending, health policy, national security, procurement, environmental enforcement and decision-making. The right belongs to the public, but journalism turns that right into public knowledge.

The Canada Elections Act shows another side of the distinction. It regulates online platforms that sell political and election advertising, requiring registries for partisan and election advertising messages on major platforms and identifying who authorized them. It also restricts foreign third-party spending during election periods. These rules do not make every online post journalism or every political video advertising. They do show that digital communication can affect democratic choice, and that transparency becomes more important when platforms carry political influence at scale.

The economic crisis underneath the trust crisis

The argument for credible journalism cannot ignore money. Canadian journalism is not only competing with creators. It is competing with platforms that dominate attention and advertising.

The Local News Research Project reported that between 2008 and Oct. 1, 2025, 603 local news outlets closed in 388 communities across Canada, while only 264 launched and survived over the same period.  News Media Canada’s account of the Local News Map reported the same closure figure and noted that 440 of those closures were community newspapers.

That decline leaves a civic vacuum. A Public Policy Forum report argued that when local news disappears, communities lose scrutiny of local government, police, schools and other institutions; it also cited polling in smaller communities showing strong belief that local news matters to democracy.

The Online News Act was one response to that market imbalance. The CRTC’s 2024-25 status report says Google Search was the only platform to notify the Commission that the Act applied to it, and that Google reached an agreement with the Canadian Journalism Collective to contribute $100 million annually, adjusted for inflation, for five years to Canadian news businesses.  Meta, by contrast, has continued to block professional news content in Canada on Facebook and Instagram, according to the Canadian overview of the Digital News Report.

This is not simply an industry dispute. It affects how Canadians learn what their city council approved, whether a hospital is short-staffed, why a school board changed boundaries, how a wildfire evacuation is unfolding, or whether a claim made by a political figure is supported by evidence.

Journalism is not government-approved speech

Supporting credible journalism does not mean asking government to decide what Canadians are allowed to believe. That would be dangerous. A free country needs room for criticism, independent commentary, citizen documentation, satire, advocacy, dissent and uncomfortable reporting.

Canada’s qualified Canadian journalism organization system is not a licence to publish. It is a tax-related designation. The Canada Revenue Agency says an organization must meet Income Tax Act criteria to be designated as a QCJO, and that designation is the gateway to certain journalism-support measures. The CRA also works with an independent advisory board that reviews whether applicants produce original news content and follow journalistic processes and principles.

That distinction is important. The public should not confuse eligibility for a tax measure with a state seal of truth. Journalism remains legitimate because of method, transparency, independence and accountability—not because Ottawa blesses it.

Where creators fit

Creators are not the enemy of journalism. In some cases, they are sources, witnesses, explainers, community conveners or specialists with expertise mainstream newsrooms lack. A local resident livestreaming a flood, a nurse explaining a staffing crisis, a farmer documenting drought, an Indigenous creator correcting stereotypes, or a newcomer explaining settlement barriers can all add real public value.

But public value is not the same as journalism unless the work meets journalistic standards. A creator who wants to produce journalism can do so by adopting the discipline: verify before publishing, separate fact from opinion, disclose conflicts, identify sources where possible, correct errors clearly, avoid misleading edits, seek response from people criticized, protect vulnerable people, and resist the temptation to turn every issue into a personal brand war.

Likewise, newsrooms should learn from creators without becoming creators. Journalists need to communicate more clearly, show their work, explain uncertainty, publish in formats younger Canadians actually use, and admit mistakes plainly. The answer is not to sneer at audiences who prefer video, podcasts or short explainers. The answer is to bring journalistic standards into those spaces.

The democratic test

The strongest defence of journalism is not nostalgia for newspapers. It is the public’s need for verified information about power.

Creators usually begin with audience. Journalists should begin with evidence. Creators often ask what will travel. Journalists should ask what is true, what matters and what the public needs to know. Creators can block critics, delete posts or move on. Journalists and newsrooms should be reachable, correctable and accountable.

That is why credible journalism matters in Canada. It gives citizens something better than vibes. It creates a public record. It attends meetings almost no one wants to attend. It reads filings, audits, budgets, court documents and contracts. It phones the person being accused. It resists convenient certainty. It tells readers when a claim is unproven. It distinguishes evidence from allegation and allegation from fact.

Social media can entertain, mobilize, expose, distort, connect and inform. Journalism can also appear on social media. But the two are not the same. A country that forgets the difference becomes easier to manipulate, harder to govern and less able to hold power to account.

Bottom line: Canada should defend broad freedom of expression while rebuilding respect for journalistic standards. The test is not whether information comes from a newspaper, a broadcaster, a podcast, a newsletter or a video. The test is whether it was gathered, verified, contextualized, corrected and published in the public interest.

En français : la liberté d’expression appartient à tous, mais la confiance publique se mérite par la vérification, la transparence et la responsabilité.

What readers can watch for: before sharing a claim, check whether the source shows evidence, identifies conflicts, corrects errors, links to original documents, and gives the people criticized a fair chance to respond.