Canadian newspapers are in trouble, and Christian publications aren't immune. But that's not deterring staff in the country's 50-plus faith-based newsrooms from pushing ahead with their message of hope and reconciliation.
North American print journalism has been in crisis for the better part of a decade. Mainstream titles across Canada and the United States continue to close as readership declines, alongside a host of financial problems stemming from the economic recession and the rise of the Internet. In 2016 alone, two major Canadian publications – the Guelph Mercury and the Nanaimo Daily News – went out of business while other media have continued to trim employee numbers in an effort to remain viable.
In May, Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey warned the Canadian federal government that the fourth estate is in distress and needs help. Newspapers' golden age has passed and it is now possible to envision major North American cities operating without a newspaper. Many major two-newspaper markets in Canada were recently pared down to just one publisher of record, with some predicting these markets will decrease even further as the business model of attracting advertisers by selling print words to readers continues to erode.
Alongside the declining economic model, a fragmented media landscape means major stories effecting change can now be lost in a deluge of social media content. Previously able to push headlines into public consciousness at will, new digital technologies have crippled newspapers' long-held capacity to effect change.
For years, citizens learned societal priorities and connected with their communities through newspapers. But recently, journalists' power to shape the public agenda has been in decline, rendering the industry a shell of its former self. Once known as the "bible of democracy," newspapers are in crisis and could soon become extinct.
Canada's Christian media landscape is as diverse as the country's varied terrain and communities, retired Christian reporter and author Lloyd Mackey told Convivium from Surrey, B.C., in August. The Canadian Church Press (CCP), a national association of Christian publications, currently lists 53 titles as members.
Mackey helped found the now-defunct BC Christian News, a newspaper he compares to Manitoba's Christian Week. Other outlets still going strong include the Christian Courier (St. Catharines, Ont.), Faith Today (Richmond Hill, Ont.) and Geez magazine (Winnipeg).
Other CCP members include denominational publications such as the United Church Observer, the Anglican Journal, the Presbyterian Record, the Canadian Lutheran, the Canadian Baptist, the Mennonite Brethren Herald and the Catholic Register. Mackey noted that many of these member publications have found continued success by establishing an online presence.
In terms of the country's Christian radio and TV presence, the majority find their way north from the United States, save for some significant influencers such as Crossroads Christian Communications and its flagship program, 100 Huntley Street. Journalism personalities such as Michael Coren, Lorna Dueck and David Mainse have also served to advance faith-influenced television over the past decades.
Mackey, meanwhile, spent more than 40 years in Christian and community newspapering, initially based in Chilliwack, B.C., and later Ottawa, where he authored books on Stephen Harper and Preston Manning. Now 76, Mackey said the importance of Christian media lies in its ability to bring perspective to Christian readers in terms of where their faith fits into a broader community context.
In general, Mackey said denominational publications conduct theological coverage but also work to bring public policy issues to the fore. Throughout his own career, Mackey drew on his community news experience to draw together the faith communities served by his publication in an attempt to have them understand one another more fully.
The long-time community newspaperman believes Christian publications have the ability to focus stories on collaboration and conciliation, maintaining that newspapers and other media link communities within communities in a way no other institution can. While secular media continue to focus on conflict in a bid to sell newspapers, Mackey said he believes it is a Christian publication's role to bring ideas of reconciliation to the forefront, noting it was Saint Paul who first described members of the faith as ambassadors of mediation.
"More light than heat" became a motto Mackey adhered to throughout his career as he focused on substance over conflict. His continued hope is that more reporters will go beyond conflict in favour of substance and Biblical perspective when telling stories.
"I think it's important to keep it simple and interesting," Mackey said of Christian storytelling and putting religious issues into context. "I think there will be times there will be a tendency for mainstream media to pick up on a story in a Christian medium and sensationalize it beyond its real value. That can be unfortunate."
In his 2011 Mel Smith Lecture to students at Trinity Western University, Mackey said the Christian press plays an important role in Canada's pluralistic society – setting forth ideologies, histories and stories of the faith's movement just as those of other faiths and ideologies do the same. He also noted the "power of story," in which good writers are able to effectively communicate their message by humanizing the values, beliefs and doctrines of the Church.
Despite an uncertain future, the value of the Canadian Christian press and its collective message only rises as the country continues its rapid shift toward a post-Christian worldview. Mackey argued that there are still many ways Christians can speak or be effective, even as Canada's founding faith feels the early effects of marginalization. Servant leadership, for instance, is a necessary trait if Christianity wants to regain a prominent role in a pluralistic setting, he said.
"While it's true it seems the faith gets marginalized, it also comes through in surprising ways," Mackey added, noting it may be the work of an "invisible hand." Going forward, however, writers and defenders need to bear in mind that the demonization of opposing views is not an effective tactic.
It's true that Christian media outlets are facing the same troubles as their mainstream Canadian counterparts, but that's not all. "We're also enjoying the same opportunities, such as the potential to reach much wider audiences online using a variety of platforms," Christian Courier editor Angela Reitsma Bick told Convivium.
While her biweekly Reformed newspaper has maintained a steady subscriber base for the last eight years – a victory in Reitsma Bick's eyes – she noted that during that same period, many other Christian publications have shrunk, stopped printing a paper version or folded altogether. The Christian Courier is privileged to have the backing of its readership, she noted. "It's clear from the response to our last fund raising campaign that readers want the Christian Courier to survive."
While it is true that Christian media is in decline, needing to turn inward to get readers, it's not all because of marginalization. Reitsma Bick noted the undercurrent of worry at April's Canadian Church Press convention in Toronto – a tone largely spurred by financial worries.
The world is reassessing the value of journalism, she wrote in her June column for the Christian Courier. Plummeting revenues have resulted in news organizations experimenting with funding models. Like many faith-based media, the Christian Courier is run on a combination of subscription, advertising and donation, yet Reitsma Bick acknowledged the paper is actively searching for alternative funding models.
Additionally, mainstream media's "God beat" continues to shrink as the country's media landscape is overhauled. In an article published in the Christian Courier last April, Dueck said the widening view that religion ignites violence has resulted in easy headlines citing Christianity versus Islam – now a dominant theme in secular media's religious coverage. She also called the privatization of faith and subsequent secularization of Canada a "great loss," resulting in honest ignorance on religious matters among secular reporters.
Because of this, the nation desperately needs faith-filled journalists in all sectors of the industry alongside independent voices like the Christian Courier, to supplement the Christian perspective lost in mainstream media. "We are hungry for meaning," said Reitsma Bick. "For hope, community and a sense that our lives matter."
And despite the troubles facing the beleaguered media industry, she chooses to view both them and society's rapidly shifting values as opportunities, aiming to continue to give body to a Reformed perspective on what it means for Christians to follow Christ within the culture that they are placed.
"The Christian Courier reports not on all the ruin but on all the redemption in the world, all the places where we see God: in our homes, schools, churches, communities and conversations," she told Convivium. "Ours is ultimately a hopeful message, which a post-Christian society might hear with new ears."
