Markham Stouffville Review, November 2023

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8 MARKHAM STOUFFVILLE REVIEW COMMUNITY NOVEMBER 2023 Community Health Clinic expands as respiratory season approaches Oak Valley Health is now offering enhanced care services to help protect the community this fall and winter during what is anticipated to be a very challenging flu and respiratory illness season. This expansion builds on the early success of the Community Health Clinic (CHC) located in Stouffville. Staffed by nurse practitioners, the CHC offers same and next-day appointments for patients seeking care. With the expansion of services, the CHC is now able to provide care to all patients six months of age and older, as well as rapid access for paediatric patients. Along with in-person appointments at the CHC, Oak Valley Health has partnered with Ontario Health and the Eastern York Region North Durham (EYRND) Ontario Health Team (OHT) to offer virtual care. This service operates after hours and is available for those who require timely access to care for urgent, non-life-threatening conditions that can be addressed virtually. This service is also appointment-based and operates daily between the hours of 1-9 p.m. Appointments for adult and rapid access paediatric care, both in-person and virtual, can be booked through oakvalleyhealth.ca. “With the upcoming fall respiratory season, we are grateful for this expansion of the CHC. This is a step towards making health care more accessible to everyone in our community,” says Elena Pacheco, vice president and chief operating officer. “Additionally, the expansion will help ease the burden for families and children and reduce the strain on our busy Emergency Departments, particularly as we expect to see a rise in influenza, COVID-19, and RSV.” In partnership with the EYRND OHT and Well Plus Compounding Pharmacy, Oak Valley Health opened the CHC in May 2023, providing health care services for individuals without primary care providers, allowing patients to access immediate and follow-up care when necessary and appropriate. “At the CHC, we see a variety of family medicine and care needs, most often related to respiratory, viral, and gastrointestinal illnesses,” says Terri Stuart-McEwan, vice president, clinical programs and chief nursing executive. “We welcome all patients to see one of our practitioners for in-person or virtual assessments, as well as followup reassessments to ensure our patients are improving.” These enhanced services will support the health of our community this respiratory season, providing new options for patients and families to access care. The CHC will also work to relieve the Emergency Departments of non-acute volumes. A Very Merry Motown Christmas A holiday tradition continues. Colourful, engaging and full of fun. A Very Merry Motown Christmas takes you to a time when the best holiday playlist was filled with the unmistakable soul, rhythm, and groove of classic Motor City cool. Enjoy hits from Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Diana Ross, Gladys Knight and The Supremes, and others, alongside Christmas and Motown classics. Christmas is a time for celebration and what could be more festive than a holiday tribute to the best from the legendary music powerhouse era of Motown. Performed by an all-star class of musical talent, led by visionary musical director George St. Kitts. A consummate entertainer and versatile vocalist, St. Kitts performed in Toronto’s “The Lion King,” and as Sammy Davis Jr. in “The Rat Pack Show.” His musical talents have been showcased on the international stage and on numerous award shows. St. Kitts, in harmony with Mondo Entertainment Inc., has put together innovative arrangements for these holiday classics that are both familiar and refreshing. This show provides holiday family entertainment at its best. A Very Merry Motown Christmas will light up your evening on Nov. 23 at the Markham Theatre. Visit markhamtheatre.ca for more information.
NOVEMBER 2023 COMMUNITY 9 MARKHAM STOUFFVILLE REVIEW Local news the victim in government, big-tech battle BY DUNCAN FLETCHER Social media is about sharing. While some arguably overshare frivolous details of their lives, social media has become an important platform to share fun and often important community news and information. But if you’ve tried to share a great article from a local, regional or national news outlet lately, you’ve undoubtedly found that impossible. You can’t even share the URL. Similarly, if you want to check out the Stouffville or Markham Review’s latest post on Facebook, sorry. You can’t do that either. Either way, you’ve probably found a message simply saying, “This content isn’t available in Canada.” But it’s not the news source preventing you from seeing its content. We wish we could share as much as possible with you. In response to new, and some might say, misguided federal government legislation, the Online News Act will force companies like Meta (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp’s parent company), as well as other large digital social outlets like Alphabet (Google, YouTube) to compensate traditional media for news they create and then shared on social sites. In response, Meta has gone nuclear and erased all hint of news from its platforms – large and small. Google has also said they will follow suit shortly, erasing all search results for Canadian news articles on their platforms. The upshot of this legislative stand-off is that your access to legitimate news content will be severely curtailed, and news sites will be unable to share even the most critically important information except on their site. The backdrop to this story is a longrunning erosion of advertising dollars from “traditional media” to trackable digital platforms over the last 15 years or so. Trackable is a keyword here. Facebook and Google have exceptional data collection capabilities and know how to use it. They know where you go on the internet, what you like, when you are online and where you’ll likely go. They see what news interests you and where you go to get it and use the data they get from your behaviour and target ads your way and advertisers pay to access you through various means that the big two provide. It’s been a resounding success. Over 80 per cent of all digital ads in Canada go to the big two at the expense of traditional advertising outlets — namely news sources. Traditional media have tried to adapt by putting all their content on websites and gaining what meagre digital ad dollars might trickle down to them, which isn’t much – even for more prominent outlets like the Toronto Star, CBC, CTV etc. Even these outlets don’t have the power to drive sufficient traffic on their own sites to live off the ad revenue as they once did when the content was delivered in print or on traditional broadcast mediums. So, knowing that many people have become accustomed to accessing news via social media, most news outlets post links there, hoping to redirect the valuable eyeballs back to their sites. Markham-Stouffville Review General Manager Duncan Fletcher, seen here with print and online versions of the paper, says that local media is being threatened by misguided government policy and combative tech giants. On the surface, it seems like a win-win, doesn’t it? Facebook gets data and news sites get referrals through links they post. Over a third of Stouffville and Markham Review’s traffic has typically come from social media. We don’t complain. Sometimes we’ve even paid Facebook to boost our posts. However many more prominent Canadian news outlets contend that the dominant market position Facebook and Google have has been achieved on the backs of traditional media as Meta, Google, et al, don’t produce any news content they display and benefit from. Also, they note, that ad dollars from local businesses go right back to a foreign jurisdiction and invest precisely zero back into local communities. And so, traditional media are demanding some of the ad money back from them even if Facebook and Google don’t make ad sales directly from news content. Facebook, for their part, says, ‘Don’t blame us for building a better mouse trap. If you want more ad dollars, build a better system.’ They also argue the millions of eyeballs they send to news sites are payment enough. If news outlets don’t think they’re valuable, don’t post on the platform. That is a good point in principle. But do they owe Canadians nothing beyond well-targeted, increasingly expensive ads? The Canadian government, allegedly in the interest of promoting a strong and vibrant domestic news sector, agreed with news content producers. Following similar legislation enacted in Australia, it produced the Online News Act, which will force big digital to collectively negotiate with Canadian news outlets and distribute payment to them for any links used on their platforms. Further, the Online News Act grandiosely claims the Act’s outcome will be the “sustainability of the Canadian news ecosystem, including the sustainability of independent news businesses….” The details about how the negotiating process will work are still to be determined, and assessing what each link is worth will be messy. But estimates from both the government and Facebook/Google suggest numbers totalling upwards of $200 million a year. The digital giants will resist being squeezed, and even if they do buckle, any funds that do go back to media as a result of the Act will be sucked up by larger, lumbering, traditional, money-losing news organizations like the already governmentfunded CBC or struggling newspapers like the Toronto Star who support the Act. Torstar, the parent company of the Star, has sought bankruptcy protection for Metroland newspapers which includes the Stouffville Sun-Tribune and Markham Economist & Sun despite already having a revenue-sharing deal with Facebook. Traditional news sources are losing money so fast that whatever money is wrung from Facebook or Google will not change the trajectory of their business. The Online News Act is not doing anything to help build a more vibrant media landscape. It is merely a last-gasp attempt to shore up a failed business model and delay the inevitable. While big traditional media suck up what they can, small, local, independently owned outlets like the Stouffville and Markham Review will get nothing from the Online News Act arrangement. That’s because the Online Act contains a stilted and dated view of a news organization. It itemizes, that, among other characteristics, a news business must employ two journalists to be eligible. Many owner-operated news organizations stay afloat with the assistance of freelance reporters. Many of these small organizations wouldn’t qualify for this funding (unless Indigenous-owned). That doesn’t square with the new media reality where many highly qualified and talented writers, photographers, and digital media producers, having worked with big media, increasingly strike out on their own and provide much-needed and insightful local content, often online only. In the Review’s case, a family-owned outlet whose two owners have collectively, more than 60 years of media experience doesn’t count as an independent news business no matter how many local stories we write or of what quality or worth they are because we’re classed as owners and not paid exclusively as journalists. The dozen or so contributors and freelance writers who write on our printed pages and websites don’t count either. Even though paid, they are not officially employees, so not classed as journalists for the purposes of the Act. So here we are. The federal government doesn’t classify us as a news organization, but Facebook and Google are punishing us like we are. So, who’s looking out for local news? Well, it’s up to us. I guess. But we’ll need your help. First, pick up our print product and pass it on to a friend when done. They are available at local grocery stores, libraries, community centres and other high-traffic locations. Patronize the good advertisers that still spend money on local news. They are getting good results and helping pay for local stories to be told. If you’re a local business, consider spending some of your local budget on local media directly, in print or online. We offer packages that combine both and you’ll be noticed as a business that cares about independent news. Secondly, bookmark our website in your browser and any other local site you like. Go straight to the source often and don’t rely on Facebook to decide what can be shared with you. If you like the format, our print product is replicated on our site in an interactive PDF, but we update the site daily with more news and information than we can fit in print. And then hope that common sense prevails, and the government looks to more productive ways of engaging digital reality than subsidizing a dying business model and Facebook and Google stop acting like the schoolyard bully. There are better ways forward. Maybe even call your local MP and let them know you expect more from the government than the misguided, news-killing Online News Act. Tell them you read about the whole mess in a local, independent news outlet. Now, one of very few left.
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Markham Stouffville Review, November 2023

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