OP-ED: Journalism was meant to challenge power. Now, it just echoes it

The legacy media have traded the pursuit of truth for partisan activism.

Photo by The Climate Reality Project on Unsplash

By: David Leis

David Leis is President and CEO of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy and host of the Leaders on the Frontier podcast.

Canada’s media is not failing because people stopped reading it. It is failing because people stopped trusting it.

For decades, the media was one of the central pillars of a free and democratic society. Its role was straightforward: to hold power to account, present competing viewpoints and give citizens the information they needed to make informed decisions.

Canada does not lack journalists. There are more platforms, more voices and more content than ever before. The problem is that much of the system no longer operates as a free press.

It behaves like a managed one. And Canadians are starting to notice.

The most obvious reason is simple: government funding. Today, roughly 2,000 media outlets in Canada receive some form of federal support through tax credits, direct subsidies and programs introduced since 2019 to support journalism.

Even if journalists insist the funding does not influence their work, the perception alone is damaging. Media depends on trust. Once the public believes coverage may be influenced, even subconsciously, trust erodes.

But funding is only part of the problem.

When media organizations depend on government programs to survive, incentives change. Stories that challenge power become riskier. Editorial decisions become more cautious. Coverage begins to align, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly, with a prevailing narrative.

During the last federal election, much of the coverage centred on the United States and President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, issues that dominated daily life for Canadians, such as housing costs, affordability and rising crime, were pushed aside. That was not an editorial accident. It was a choice, and it shaped what voters believed mattered most.

The same pattern shows up in policy coverage. When the federal government announced it had reached NATO’s two per cent defence spending target, much of the reporting simply repeated the claim. Far less attention was given to how the target was met through accounting changes and reclassification of existing spending rather than through a meaningful strengthening of Canada’s military capacity.

This is not a small oversight. It is the difference between informing the public and reinforcing a preferred narrative.

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Too much reporting now begins with a conclusion and works backward. The goal is no longer to discover what is true, but to support what fits the prevailing view inside the newsroom.

That is not journalism. That is advocacy.

There is nothing inherently wrong with opinion. A healthy media ecosystem depends on strong viewpoints from across the political spectrum. But traditionally, there was a clear line: opinion lived on the editorial page, while news reporting aimed for objectivity.

That line has blurred.

When advocacy replaces inquiry, the consequences are predictable. Certain stories are amplified. Others are ignored. Questions that should be asked are left unasked. Over time, the range of acceptable opinion narrows.

Voices that fall outside the dominant perspective are not debated. They are dismissed. Entire areas of discussion are treated as settled when they are not. The result is a media environment that increasingly speaks to itself instead of to the country.

A media that does not consistently challenge power cannot hold it to account. When coverage aligns too closely with government priorities or avoids politically sensitive issues, the public is left with an incomplete picture of reality.

The irony is that while legacy media struggles, independent outlets are gaining ground. Many operate without government funding and rely directly on audiences for support. Not because they are perfect, but because they are doing what audiences expect: asking harder questions, covering neglected issues and being transparent about their perspective.

More government funding will not restore trust or independence. Narrowing the range of acceptable viewpoints will not rebuild credibility.

A healthy media ecosystem requires distance from government, not dependence on it. It requires competing viewpoints, not managed consensus. And it requires journalists willing to follow facts wherever they lead, not where prevailing narratives lead them.

There is no shortage of media in Canada. What’s missing is a press willing to hold power to account.

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