Written by Shannon Lewis, President, Canadian Media Directors’ Council
Most mornings, before my two young children are awake, I bring the newspaper in from the front step. It is a small ritual, but the paper in my hands carries real weight. A journalist asked the questions, verified the facts, and tracked down the people closest to the story. The reporting was debated and tested, and an editor decided what was ready to publish and what was not.
Today is World News Day, when newsrooms around the world remind us of a simple truth: trusted journalism matters. We have marked it for years, but this one feels different. Because of where Canada stands right now, redefining who we rely on and what we build for ourselves, the truth is no longer something we can take for granted.
At the recent Canada Investment Summit, 167 major projects were put in front of the world’s largest investors, and nearly half a trillion dollars in commitments followed. Energy. Natural resources. Artificial intelligence. Defence. I read all of it with optimism. We are finally treating the question of what we own and what we depend on as a serious one. When the federal government launched AI for All in June, it made a point that has stayed with me: the technology shaping Canadian life should reflect Canadian values, and that only happens if we build and choose some of it ourselves. The same logic applies to news. If we are serious about controlling our own future, trusted Canadian journalism belongs on the list.
Canadian journalism is both a mirror and a foundation. It reflects our communities back to us and provides the common ground we need to disagree, decide, and move forward. While I deeply value this country’s appetite for genuine debate from boardroom tables to dinner tables, that debate depends on something fragile: a shared set of facts. Journalism does not ask us to agree; it gives us the credible information required to form our own views. In a country this large and diverse, that shared reality is what holds us together.
The World Economic Forum ranks false and misleading information as the second-most serious risk facing the world over the next two years, behind only global economic conflicts. Closer to home, Canadian news outlets have not been able to publish on some of the country’s most used social platforms since August 2023. Research released in June by McGill University found that only 41 percent of Facebook users and 26 percent of Instagram users are even aware of it.
No single company created this gap, but it proves a dangerous point: when credible journalism slips out of view, something else instantly fills the void. Closing it will take governments, tech platforms, publishers, and advertisers acting together.
Artificial intelligence now raises the stakes even further. While it offers incredible possibilities for creativity in our industry, it also threatens to flood the remaining spaces with noise. I am an optimist by nature, but not a passive one. We must demand that AI removes friction, not responsibility.
NewsGuard has identified more than 3,700 websites built to look like news outlets while publishing AI-generated material in 16 languages, often with no human oversight. These sites exploit the same open internet the rest of us depend on, which is why we have a shared interest in making them easier to spot.
In his closing remarks at the Canada Investment Summit, Prime Minister Mark Carney noted that “when we become our own best customer, we give ourselves more than anyone can take away”. That is exactly what the Canadian Media Manifesto asked of our own industry five years ago, on this same day: that agencies and marketers advocate for local media and 25% per cent of their digital advertising budgets totalling approximately $380 million annually to Canadian media. The numbers are not small. Canada’s media sector contributed $22.6-billion to our economy in 2024 and supports more than 193,000 jobs. But the return that matters most is not financial. It is our ability to see ourselves clearly and to make decisions from the same set of facts.
My children will get their news in ways I cannot yet picture. The format will change, but the standard should not. They will inherit whatever we choose to fund. There is no independent future without a shared set of facts. On this World News Day, let’s fund the truth.
