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One leftie podcast network to rule them all
77 Plays4 years ago
We speak with Andre Goulet of the Harbinger Media Network about his plans to knock Ben Shapiro and Pod Save America off the Canadian political podcast charts. We also discuss Canadaland, the future of the CBC and what's next for the Progress Report.
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Transcript
Introduction to Duncan Kinney and Andre Goulet
00:00:16
Speaker
Friends and enemies, welcome to The Progress Report. I am your host, Duncan Kinney, and we're recording today here in Amiskwichiwa, Skigan, otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta, here in Treaty 6 territory. We're joined today by Andre Goulet, the president, CEO, first among equals, king, really, if you think about it.
00:00:32
Speaker
of the newly launched Harbinger Media Network. And like I mentioned before, I think that sounds biblically corporate. I'm the executive director because we're a registered nonprofit. So that's like a new title for me. Not completely comfortable with it, but definitely great to be here with you in the city of champions. And you have a beautiful studio. Thank you for having me. Yes. The city of champions. No, I kid, of course. I mean, I am also an executive director of a nonprofit.
00:01:02
Speaker
but of a tiny non-profit, much like Harbinger Media.
What is the Harbinger Media Network?
00:01:06
Speaker
So you may have noticed on the last episode that Progress Up were to put out that we had a stinger. We had an opener that talked about how we were a part of the Harbinger Media Network. And we talked about a couple of shows that were on the network, what those shows were up to, shows that we liked, and just kind of like
00:01:25
Speaker
you know, gave you a little teaser of what else is on this Harbinger Media Network. And that's what this episode today is about. It's like, what the hell is the Harbinger Media Network? Who is this Andre Goulet character? Can we trust him? And also just wanted to broaden that discussion out to like the realities of Canada's media ecosystem, especially on the left and especially when it comes to podcasting. So, Andre, what the hell is the Harbinger Media Network and why did you feel the need to build it?
00:01:55
Speaker
And yeah, when I was looking at the show notes, it's like I didn't feel the need to build it. People were already building it. And it was just happening all over the country with more than a dozen shows, 20 shows, whatever, and everyone kind of with similar ethics and values and ideology and sort of a tonal approach to podcasting. So I guess I just sort of tried to be in touch with different shows and I produced a bunch of different left shows.
00:02:21
Speaker
And this community began to form. And it was really cool because, yeah, shared everything in many ways. And then it kind of got too big. And I realized it was really pan-Canadian and had so many talented people and really great, awesome folks. And so I started scheming and just thinking, well, how can we pick this up to the next level? And that's when the Harbinger Media Network started to kind of come together
00:02:49
Speaker
with in a collaborative fashion with a lot of our comrades around the country. So it's definitely not a me project. It's an us project, which is one of the reasons it's cool and one of the reasons why I'm confident it's going to be really rad because there's so many of us pulling in the same direction.
Challenging Right-Wing Media
00:03:04
Speaker
So basically, we're a group of leftist podcast and content creators joining forces to create a media network that's going to challenge existing right wing and corporate media dominance in French and English.
00:03:13
Speaker
from coast to coast. And that's the boilerplate, but it's a good boilerplate and I feel really good about it. Yeah. So the idea here is that, you know, of the dozens of left-wing podcasts that have sprung up across the country kind of in the past three years or so,
00:03:30
Speaker
that we will assemble like Voltron and smash the kind of corporate media elite here in Canada. That's the general idea. 80s kids remember that Voltron was cool and it was really essentially a bunch of different robots coming together to make one big one. And that really hits the idea because for a lot of our shows, when we're alone, it's hard to kind of extend our reach and find new listeners and find a new audience.
00:03:55
Speaker
So it seems to reason that by coming together, we will be more powerful and we'll be able to reach more people. So that's going to be a work in progress. But if people look at the charts,
Canadian vs. American Podcast Charts
00:04:07
Speaker
they suck. They're really bad. And it's the Canadian podcast charts. I'm looking at chartable.com right now.
00:04:13
Speaker
for the politics charts. And in the top 10, well, there is a Globe and Mail podcast that comes in at number four, and that's between the NPR Politics Podcast at number three and the new Michael Cohen, Mia Culpa, he's a Trump's lawyer who's now in jail or something. There's the Lincoln Project, there's Marianne Williamson's new podcast, the flakiest of the Democratic contenders, and then Canada Land Commons comes in there too as the other Canadian content. Pod Save America is number one, just to give you a sense of like,
00:04:42
Speaker
the sort of Neolib content that most people are listening to. So that's weird. Why is 75% of content, and that's approximately the number according to a recent study from the podcast Exchange, which is an organization in Toronto, why is it all American, right? So that's what we're up against. Not only is it American, but I mean, those podcasts are godawful.
00:05:09
Speaker
You know what I mean? Like the fucking Lincoln project, like fuck off or the pod save America, just like, Oh God. And so, and so just like, you know, I'm not a, I'm not really a podcast scientist. Uh, but the reason Marianne Williamson's podcast, uh, looks like it launched and hit the top 10 is cause the whole podcast infrastructure is weird. And, and the way that those, those charts function and the way that, uh, people,
00:05:36
Speaker
don't have the capability to find out about new content. That's really what we're up against. So by coming together and creating Harbinger, the idea really is that we're going to just sort of elevate all of us at the same time. So it's really exciting. And I just get filled with a white hot rage whenever I look at the top 10, top 50, top 100.
00:06:00
Speaker
Yes, very much so. We didn't do a Harbinger intro for the show. I think it largely would have been overkill since a big chunk of the show is talking about Harbinger, but why don't you take a minute to hype up a couple of shows, talk about who's on the podcast.
Shows and Creativity at Harbinger
00:06:15
Speaker
Shows people may have heard of, shows people may not have heard of.
00:06:17
Speaker
Yeah, and I will actually go through, let me go top to bottom, from west coast to east, in British Columbia, out of left field in Victoria, People's Media platform in Vancouver, and left behind in North Vancouver Island. In your province, there's Alberta Advantage in Calgary, and you guys, and Kino Lefter, the socialist film podcast in Edmonton.
00:06:39
Speaker
Jeremy Appel's Big Shiny Takes. He co-hosts with Eric and Marino. They're in the GTA. He's in Medicine Hat. That's Big Shiny Takes. Oats for Breakfast, also in Toronto, and Nashua Khan's Habibti, Please in, I think, Mississauga, or sort of the GTA. Le Planche de Vache is a show I produce. What's that one about? Let me just interrupt you. I haven't heard of that one. Le Planche de Vache? No, the Habitsi one, the one out of Mississauga. Yeah, thank you. Nashua Khan is the co-host and sort of like,
00:07:08
Speaker
creative drive behind Muslim Rum Springer, which is a really rad show that covers kind of like Canadian stuff, but also some American stuff. And they're, they're, they're kind of huge. So she is launching a new show, has launched a new show that's going to be with Harbinger. So it's, it's a conversation show. She brands it as a grab a cup of mint tea and have a conversation with the girls. And I think that sounds really fun. And she's just got some great guests. She had Leah Gazzan on the NDP MP.
00:07:36
Speaker
a couple weeks ago and people like that. So she'll be doing sort of in-depth interviews with people from I think a sort of academic and activist and intellectual side of Canadian social issues. So that's an exciting show and I just, Nasha was awesome. So it's really cool to have her as part of the.
00:07:54
Speaker
community. Yeah, yeah. So moving past Toronto and then into Le Bel Provence, Le Provence de Vache is a show I produce in collaboration with Ricochet French. And these, okay, so this is the third season. And these guys, it's amazing that the two hosts are a couple of public intellectual academic professor types. And they
00:08:13
Speaker
The last episode, episode two, the whole third season is dealing with the American election and having conversations about that. They brought on a humorist to explain some wacky side of American politics like the electoral college. They have the former co-host who lives in way far North Quebec now to talk about veterans issues because he's a former Canadian Armed Forces guy.
00:08:34
Speaker
And they had two women come in who are experts in far right organizing in the United States to talk about that. I had to edit this thing with six different guests. It was insane and totally in my second language, which is like super hard. But it was also so amazing and what they're doing with like the scope of their ambition is really cool. So Le Planchet des Vache is
00:08:54
Speaker
rolling right through until the Americans meet their God on November 3rd. Speaking of Americans, 49th Parahel is Rob Russo's show, also in Montreal, which is awesome. Le Fissel, another Montreal show, which is a sort of feminist discourse about social issues and critiquing society and stuff like that. Paris Marx's Tech Won't Save Us in St. John's, Newfoundland,
00:09:22
Speaker
And Hilary Agro's Bread and Poppies is going to be launching a new season with us beginning in November. And she has a show that deals with sort of like drug policy and left politics. So this is 15 shows, plus a new show that I'm launching next week called The Harbinger Society. And it's going to be kind of
00:09:40
Speaker
a forum to take in all of these disparate parts and highlight different podcast hosts, different left media people in Canada and also some interesting fun surprises with some comedians and stuff like that. So it's going to be cool. It's going to be really creative and really interesting and definitely the kind of stuff I love doing. So the Harbinger Society is going to be launching next week. So yeah, big community, 15 shows and a bunch of shows, a bunch of shows sort of in the
00:10:08
Speaker
in the archives of well-read, news you can use, Radio Free Winnipeg, and my old show, Unpacking the News. Really cool to have those as part of the community too. Very cool. That's the whole list. Yeah, we've got shows in French, we've got shows in English, we've got shows
00:10:26
Speaker
all on the left, situated on the left, but approaching the podcasting format from a variety of different identities and politics and approaches. It's not like there is no central figurehead telling us all what to broadcast. Absolutely not. One thing that was really important when we were kind of
00:10:48
Speaker
forming what this would look like would be to really keep things horizontal and organic because top-down doesn't work with the kind of work we do, right? So my role is really to help facilitate and help to kind of aid people in building community, but everyone's still completely independent in doing their own thing, which I think is rad, right?
Funding the Network: Listener Support vs. Corporate Sponsorship
00:11:08
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that's, that's super exciting. And yeah. And so what is the business model? I mean, I assume you're going for, you know, big corporate sponsorships from, you know, Facebook, Google, the big law firms, you know, Deloitte and Touche, Loblaws, the Silby family, the Sapudos, all of, of our Titans of industry here in Canada, they should be kicking in, you know, 50 grand a year minimum, right?
00:11:31
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to get a lot of money from corporate sponsors. No, we're not taking any advertising. That was also pretty clear from the outset that there's no way. I mean, what, are we going to promote beer or something? No. So it is- Mattresses, baby. There's money in mattresses still. Well, this is it because there's a model that kind of works for big shows in podcasting, but that's not us because we wouldn't sell mattresses. It would be absurd and also stupid.
00:11:55
Speaker
So, it's definitely a listener supported model and much like shows and Progress Albert itself has a listener or reader supported system, there is an ask from supporters that they find a way to part with three bucks a month or five bucks a month to kind of keep this idea, to help grow this idea of
00:12:16
Speaker
of making an alternative media poll, right? Because we have a sort of Balkanized left forum of different stuff all over the country. But to me, it's really cool to be building bridges between those different spaces and trying to elevate like the entire left as a sort of community effort. So to me, that's really important. And part of that means we
00:12:40
Speaker
formally registering as a non-profit and like having a board of directors that there's like good oversight to make sure that we have our shit together and and all of that sort of professionalization is what's really important to me so just to speak to the board for a sec I feel awesome we have a
00:12:56
Speaker
Jennifer Green, who's a poli sci prof at U of T and an expert in some really cool things that's kept my mind right now. Roberta Lexler, who teaches at Mount Royal University in Calgary and teaches about movement politics and the history of the NDP and stuff like that. And Kainagata, who is a former journalist from BC originally, but did TV journalism in Montreal for a bunch of years, quit and moved out to BC to become one of the
00:13:24
Speaker
organizers at Dogwood. So now he's like a comms guy and does activism work. So he really kindly agreed to join this board. So I feel wonderful about the people who are going to be, you know, who we're going to be answering to, to kind of like, help us elevate this and make it a professional, professional effort. So you said listener supported and fair dinkum. I mean, that's, that's our, our approach here at Progress Alberta. I suppose the,
00:13:50
Speaker
The question is, are you doing any exclusive content or are you just making the case that this thing should exist purely on its own and that all the work that's being done will be provided to the public kind of thing? No, because
00:14:10
Speaker
It's not a fair ask to just say, hey, support an altruistic vision, right? Like you have to be offering something back to supporters. And so what Harbinger will be offering is
00:14:24
Speaker
uh, my show, the harbinger society, which is going to be exclusive to, uh, supporters who support the network, uh, at a beginning tier of $3 a month, which is pretty good deal. Um, and then there's going to be three or four episodes a month. I'm basically going to do six episodes seasons. So like, uh, over 60 days, release six shows, then take a month off and then come back and do it again.
00:14:44
Speaker
So season one, I have some good guests lined up already and I'm really excited to start getting into it and taking the opportunity to kind of do some of the more creative kind of narrative building that I sometimes would do with my show Unpacking the News. I really enjoy that. We'll also including
00:15:02
Speaker
roundtable conversations and interviews. And just a quick note, when you talked about the sort of diversity of shows that we have, it's true. There's a lot of, I think there's a lot of varying approaches to how we present our left ideals to the audiences. One thing that's interesting though is we're primarily talk, right? Like everyone kind of does talk stuff. So something else that I'm really excited about at Harbinger is, I feel really lucky to have Aliyah Pubani
00:15:31
Speaker
and Ali Graham, who did the impostor with Canada Land. And they're going to be hosting a sort of incubator where they're going to be mentoring some voices that maybe don't always have access to, to, you know, doing podcasts or maybe don't have the skillset to put out content. And they're going to be incubating sort of more narrative driven stuff. One show they're doing right now, which is really interesting in Toronto, which is not part of our community, but which I really support and think is awesome.
00:15:58
Speaker
is they've been going to the Moss Park encampment where a lot of unhoused people are living right now and they are interviewing people and then getting their stories, recording like 80 hours worth of tape and then turning it into a five episode season. Super ambitious, these guys are geniuses and it's really exciting to think that they're gonna, to think that they would be willing to play a role as mentors with Harbinger. So it's great to have them on board.
00:16:26
Speaker
And it's exciting to, to kind of like do more narrative stuff. But yeah, with, uh, with the, the ask to, uh, supporters to like throw us a few dollars a month, what they will get is access to, uh, the show I'll be putting out. We'll also have other exclusive content, including Abdul Malik's, uh, off court podcast, which is going to be released in early January. They're making it exclusive to harbinger.
00:16:48
Speaker
10 episode seasons released weekly. And it's going to be a show about like where the intersection happens between sports and history and left politics. And I'm really looking forward to that. So yeah, there's going to be some really cool things that we're putting forward that people won't find anywhere else so that they will have a reason to want to support the broader goal of just creating and establishing a sort of a broader left podcast community.
00:17:17
Speaker
I think I disagree with you there, and I think there's some fundamental tension in the reader-supported media sphere about offering up exclusives or paywalled content to supporters as opposed to what we do or what an organization like Canada Land does, which is like, hey, our work is kind of
00:17:40
Speaker
is only good or useful if it has a broad audience. And as an organization that we do muckraking, we do investigative journalism, our pitch is that we're not going to have exclusive content. And because we believe that our content needs to be seen by as many people as possible and that
00:18:00
Speaker
the value in it comes from having as wide a possible audience as possible. We're working on an investigative piece right now that I think a lot of people are going to care about, give a shit about hopefully later this week, maybe early next week, about essentially corruption within the UCP and certain conservative connected legal firms.
00:18:18
Speaker
I wouldn't put that behind a paywall. I wouldn't put the podcast on that behind a paywall. I don't know if there's a correct answer to this. Obviously, we're selling different things and different products and have different pitches, filling different niches, but I still think that that's an interesting division even just within the ... God, I hate using this word, but the media entrepreneurship or the nonprofit media world. You know what I mean?
00:18:45
Speaker
I don't disagree with you at all. And yeah, so you make me sort of reflect on the fact that it's become a best practice in podcasting to offer exclusive content. And that's not the case for like most shows because most of us don't have that leverage to make people want to give us any financial support. But you do see it with Chapo Trap House and you do see it with Canada Land to kind of
00:19:08
Speaker
have stuff that's going to be more exclusive for supporters. So I think finding the balance and that tension is one of the challenges. But it's also worth saying that
00:19:17
Speaker
like these shows come out initially and they're they're uh paywalled but a month later they do become available to everybody so like that's going to be the model i'm using it's not like permanently uh just like reserved for the supporters it's it's just it's it's sort of a tease to kind of um coerce people into coerce is a terrible word why did i use that it's a kind of like
00:19:38
Speaker
to kind of just persuade people or give them a perk for choosing to part with their hard-earned three dollars. A nudge. It's a gentle nudge. Exactly, yeah. It's a gentle nudge. I mean, yeah, like the very good podcast that I enjoyed a lot, the blowback podcast, it was eventually free, right? I listened to it for free. I didn't give a dime to Brendan James and Noah Coleman.
00:20:02
Speaker
But I very much enjoyed the show and I was very glad that it eventually became available. It was a deep investigative look and funny, quite funny. They had some very funny voice actors on and some good bits about the Iraq War, which is a pretty important piece in my life. I graduated in 2001.
00:20:21
Speaker
uh, from high school in 2001. And like, you know, it was just kind of my early adulthood is kind of dominated by this, uh, event that we don't really talk very much about anymore. And it was really good content. And, um, but they had gotten a big contract from Stitcher to kind of initially produce it. It was like an exclusive offering on Stitcher, which is like a pod catching app, as well as like, they're trying to turn it into a, you know, a platform as well, like with these exclusive bits of content.
00:20:46
Speaker
And yeah, no one has figured it out. I don't think news, media, talk, radio, however we want to frame what it is we're doing. The business model for all of these is just rapidly getting swallowed up by Google and Facebook. The attention economy, the attention industrial complex, I think that's the term that Cory Doctorow uses. There are no
00:21:13
Speaker
there's no space for small players anymore. And so you have to make your case directly to the people and build up your audience directly.
The Struggle for Small Media Players
00:21:21
Speaker
And so it's an interesting struggle, right? And I think, and as Progress Alberta has kind of been going through a relaunching, a re-pivoting, kind of a re-imagining of what it is that we want to be kind of when we grow up. And Progress Alberta as an organization is going to be five years old in January.
00:21:39
Speaker
Um, you know, I don't know. Congratulations to be track of us for that long, but like, and, and the progress report as a, as a podcast and, uh, and a, and a new site, it will be, we only really launched it last summer. So we had kind of been filling in, uh, we would occasionally do investigative reports and we just publish it on our main site. If we would, we would go to like labor unions or foundations and we would say, Hey, we want to do, we want to look into private schools and how shitty private schools are.
00:22:07
Speaker
in Alberta and they'd be like, yeah, we agree. That's an important story for someone to dig into. Then we would go and produce a bunch of original content on private schools, how shitty they are. One thing we did in the past, which we're doing less of now is campaigning or political organizing or community organizing where we would
00:22:27
Speaker
there would be issues and we would go out and it would be mostly cheap and cheerful online stuff. We didn't really have the resources or capacity to do meaningful on the ground organizing. As the organization has grown, we have figured out that that's just not
00:22:46
Speaker
what we're good at. We are good at muckraking. We are good at online journalism, being a media organization. Those are our strengths compared to trying to get government A to change policy B, you know what I mean? The dream with this notion of a broad
00:23:07
Speaker
left podcast community is that even though the audiences are smaller right and like reach X amount of people when we come together it's it's just it really is a way to elevate because if there's a cumulative fifty thousand listeners
00:23:22
Speaker
every week for these 15 shows. Well, if we're cross-promoting each other, talking about each other, guessing on each other's shows, and really creating, and this sounds lame, a shared universe of left podcasting, then audiences will find out about it. And as that becomes larger and stronger,
00:23:40
Speaker
then more and more people find out about it. Because what's the potential audience of people who would be sympathetic to left perspectives in Canada? It has to be 3 million, I'm guessing. That's a lot. So how do you reach more people? I think that's one of the real challenges and one of the reasons why, like you're saying,
00:23:57
Speaker
it's really important to come together. And well, this is sort of one of the strategies that seems to work. The Harbinger Extended Universe, baby. I mean, it sounds so stupid. It's also stupid. Spider-Man will somehow be in here. And this is also going to sound lame to some people, because obviously it's a so-called country. But you could also call Harbinger a kind of so-called nation building, because the stupid country is too big. And it's really hard to sort of have this sense of things that
00:24:25
Speaker
we share in common or anything. So when we are collaborating and cooperating and finding ways to work together or even knowing more about what the other folks are doing, it's a way to kind of just like grow this sense of space. And I feel like in that growth, then that includes
00:24:42
Speaker
a space for conversations about ideology and about issues and about values that we often don't see in Canadian media because like we mentioned at the outset of this conversation, it's decrepit, it's broken, it sucks, it's really bad. So yeah, like it's going to be a long goal, like a long game, but I'm really excited to be like starting out on that path because I think it's absolutely
00:25:07
Speaker
essential to have a space where in the form of podcasting, the left can exist as something that's clearly unified, if that makes sense. So let me pitch you the newly imagined, reimagined version of The Progress Report, something we've been working on for a long time and we are going to have a fundraising drive around and we do want to
00:25:33
Speaker
At some point, the emergency wage subsidy is going to end and we are going to have to go out and raise a bunch more money if we want to continue to exist. Here's the pitch. The progress report will be independent investigative journalism with
00:25:48
Speaker
sharp left wing analysis and opinion on Alberta's conservative hellscape. And that's the niche we want to fill. I mean, I think thinking of it as a regional can of land, but with better analysis and better politics than Jesse Brown. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm sorry. I got to push back. Jesse has the best millionaire tech bro, anti-media establishment, ex-media establishment person, reputation in the country. And I for one love it. You don't love that. You can't support that.
00:26:19
Speaker
I mean, I like some things that Jesse. I do too. I like a lot of things he's done. The Wii stuff has been fantastic. I mean, I'll never give them a dime as long as Jen Gerson is being employed by them. I don't want to throw you off your pitch for more than one second, but like,
00:26:38
Speaker
Basically, I listened to the first three or four years of Canada Land and it was like, you know, great until I kind of figured out that Jesse had one, Jesse had like three tricks and they weren't that great. So I don't know. I think that really feels a good space and like there's lots of good people that create stuff with that organization. Having it be personality driven though, I think is a mistake and that's a big difference with what we're doing with Harbinger is it's really driven by the shows. But back to Progress Alberta. Sorry, back to the pitch.
00:27:06
Speaker
And the progress report, I mean, yeah, we got, we got off on a tangent on candlelight, but yeah, so like the backbone content that we produce as part of the progress report will be this weekly podcast as well as our weekly free email newsletter. And then we will be producing content and investigations, uh, as they are required, as stories pop up, as people pitch us, as things, as events occur, uh, you know, the progress report will, you know, depending on our capacity and interest, uh, you know, be writing about the world around us, we'll be publishing online.
00:27:35
Speaker
And so we are soliciting, we are asking for people to come pitch us. We do have friends of people who you may have heard of on those podcasts, our contributors to the Progress Report. Abdul Malik has written for us. Laura Cruz from Kino Lefter has written for us.
00:27:52
Speaker
Being a podcaster does not disqualify you from contributing to the progress reports. So if you've got stuff that you think the world needs to know about, and if you've got a novel take, if you've got some interesting information, if you've got, I mean, we'll do occasional spicy hot takes just to keep people interested. It's cheap content. But I think our bread and butter is these investigative pieces where we're able to actually
00:28:20
Speaker
do work that no other organization would ever even think of doing. That's our pitch. What do you think? I think it's awesome because I really respect the work you and Jim do. It's so specific and energetic.
Progress Alberta's Future and Investigative Journalism
00:28:38
Speaker
I grew up in Alberta. I was there for high school and university from 1992 to the year 2000.
00:28:43
Speaker
I understand the culture and I understand the sort of lack of any kind of diversity in the media. And of course, I think it's probably gotten worse in the last 20 years. The Edmonton Journal was dependably left wing back when I was growing up in Alberta.
00:29:00
Speaker
So yeah, I really just respect the work you guys do. And it seems like this is the business model that would work for you guys. And then to kind of, if I may, tie it back to Harbinger, you also are creating this kind of shared universe of Alberta media or helping to create it with some of your comrades like with Laura and Abdul. And you know, Alberta Advantage, you're in touch with those guys too. It's really great to have this sort of left that just knows what the other guys are doing and who are kind of all in it together in a way, right?
00:29:33
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And we've appeared on each other's shows, The Upper Advantage and Kino Lefter, and it's great. I mean, I think our business model is similar to the Canada land, right? Or produce compelling content, get people to listen and read, and then get a small percentage of those people to chip in monthly.
00:29:50
Speaker
Part of that is also getting people's email addresses through the newsletter and not depending on the algorithm. Depending on social media algorithms to promote your content is just unless you think you're willing to sink a bunch of money into them. We're always going to be structurally at a disadvantage on the left. If anyone is listening and is trying to do something similar, invest early on in
00:30:17
Speaker
being able to communicate directly to your audience. We have an email newsletter list that is, I don't know, 12,000, 13,000 people, and that is so valuable to be able to speak directly to people and not depend on Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey and various other fucking psycho billionaires to get your content in front of people.
00:30:43
Speaker
Yeah, and that reminds me that one of the important ways that we're working towards achieving success with launching Harbinger is that we're partnering with Passage, the online journal at readpassage.com and just sort of like, I don't know, extending that community into left opinion and sort of amplifying that entire left infrastructure of media and creating space for future relationships with some of our other
00:31:09
Speaker
other friends in, in left Canadian media. Um, and to me, that's just like really exciting. I mean, the fact that progress, uh, what you guys do is, is sort of part of this family sounds lame, but you know what I mean? The fact that, uh, ricochet French is, is part of that extended family. So you can call it a family.
00:31:26
Speaker
Sure. I mean, like to me that is rad because it just means that like we get to reach out, whether it's just like sometimes skill sharing, sometimes just like, uh, just some question about something, sometimes just finding support and having other people care, whether your show lives or dies. You know what I mean? Um, so yeah, so I really, I really love the work you guys do. And I think your plan is, is super rad for sure.
00:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, and a bit of news too, we are changing our structure. We did start off as a nonprofit corporation here in Alberta, and we are maintaining that overarching corporate structure, but we are changing it so that we are a worker-run and worker-managed nonprofit corporation.
00:32:09
Speaker
Essentially, the board now has the rule that a majority of people on the board have to actually work for the organization. Ultimately, it is now possible for me to be fired. I am no longer God Emperor King of the Progress Report and Progress Alberta. Well, I mean, I still have to send in a couple of final bits of paperwork, but that is in the works. We are not technically going to be called a worker cooperative because that would require de-registering and then
00:32:37
Speaker
Um, registering under a new act, which, which is a bunch of people work that we didn't want to do, but we are functionally going to be again, a worker run and worker managed, um, you know, nonprofit. And, and, uh, I think that's important. I, uh, it's not fun being a boss. Um, it's very stressful and not, not that it, not that it will be any like less stressful, but I will be working in a more horizontal arrangement in the future with my colleague Jim and any future colleagues that we bring on.
00:33:06
Speaker
in the future. Yeah, I also think that building the audience, being able to talk directly to your audience is just a key part of all of this, right? You're just not able to ask for money and are able to find supporters if you don't have that initial hardcore base of people that you can talk to directly. And Joe Rogan has like, fuck you, money, right?
00:33:32
Speaker
I don't like Joe Rogan, I don't listen to his show, but he has a massive audience and he didn't and he built it.
00:33:40
Speaker
you know, not by being dependent on some massive network, you know, he kind of built it off of his own work. Yeah. And for people who don't know it, and there's something to be admired there. Yeah. I agree. Um, although, you know, so yeah, he's getting paid, he's getting paid millions, uh, for his new Spotify exclusive show. Uh, but of course he's like a deeply problematic, uh, Liberty, often libertarian guy who's platformed a lot of really just despicable,
00:34:06
Speaker
But yeah, he's been successful, although he's also kind of the poster child for what's weird about the way podcast distribution works. But yeah, I don't know. I don't want to take away from your point that like he has built something and without having huge support behind him outside of his listening base. The Joe Rogan example, I think is another useful jumping off point to just have a little bit of a discussion about a little idle gossip and speculation about the oncoming death of the media industry.
The Future of Traditional Media
00:34:33
Speaker
I graduated from journalism school, you know what I mean? I spent a lot of my 20s fretting about what is to be done about media. And by and large, I've seen media executives largely shoot themselves in the dick and or just raid the cookie jar in the post media's case.
00:34:57
Speaker
So the business fundamentals of news have not fundamentally changed since I was in journalism school over the past 12 years. Classified ads, Google and Facebook have eaten all of the usual typical sources of revenues that newspapers had and even broadcasters had.
00:35:19
Speaker
And, um, you know, these, the typical media players in any major city, especially the newspapers are in terrible fucking shape. I don't know. Tell me if it's any different in your part of the world.
00:35:29
Speaker
No, no, it's the same everywhere. And I think what, yeah, I think if we're sort of projecting it all into the future, well, it's like right now we basically have a zombie media system. So it kind of continues to shamble forward. But yeah, post media has no way forward. I don't, I don't see that like managing to hold on for much longer. I don't know if the government support kind of
00:35:51
Speaker
resuscitated it just briefly or what, but the Toronto Star is also looking real bad. And so things just kind of keep getting worse, more constricted, the content sucks, the quality sucks. I'm not a China basher, but I noticed that the Globe and Mail has two pages and two pages in their front section that's like from the Chinese government, like paid for two sort of promotional pages.
00:36:15
Speaker
So there's lots of sketchy shit going on with all of Canadian media in the mainstream. So it seems like it is definitely dying. So yeah, what does it look like in five years? Well, I think you have organizations like you guys being stronger because you do fill a space and do it well. And a space like Harbinger where the left podcast community can come together
00:36:37
Speaker
Um, yeah, like we can fill that space. So it does seem like it's going to become more compartmentalized. The sprawling Calgary does a great job of doing that sort of micro, uh, regional journalism. Um, so yeah, I think we're going to see more of that. Well, what about you? I mean, I have a question. What do you think is more likely does post media finally, you know, have a stroke and die suddenly all at once and then it's sold off for parts or is it, is it just kind of like,
00:37:02
Speaker
passed from oligarch to oligarch who again doesn't really care whether it loses money or not and it's just kind of happy to have
00:37:09
Speaker
the power and influence that a large newspaper chain gives you. Yeah, you're making a good point. I wouldn't guess that any Canadian oligarch would have much interest in pushing money into something that was hemorrhaging money, just because the reach isn't great enough. So it's hard to see that happening. I know La Press, which is the legacy newspaper in Montreal,
00:37:37
Speaker
Um, they registered as a nonprofit like two years ago and stopped all of their actual paper print as well. And so they're like trying to like explore this, like just totally different way of being a media enterprise and staying alive. What the English Canadian media is going to look like. I don't know, because you know, it's owned by two or three companies and they are not great and things are not going well. And, um, I don't know, there's, there's something.
00:38:03
Speaker
really ghoulish about us rubbing our hands together gleefully, waiting for them to expire. But at the same time, it's really hard to want to support them when there is just so much like, I don't know, white, like white male content that comes out of them. And a lot of it very, very bad. And of course, it's obscene that the sun chain of newspapers is also owned by the broadsheets in most Canadian cities. So there's basically like a one company town in terms of media.
00:38:31
Speaker
That's us, baby. Edmonton and Calgary. Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun. Calgary Herald, Calgary Sun. Totally. I don't know. I think Galen Weston or the Silvie family might just buy it up and just, hey, we need a flyer wrap and a distribution system. I don't know. It just becomes like the coffee news. Let's just end it there. And I think that the final thing that we got to talk about is the CBC. Yeah.
00:39:00
Speaker
I really liked the idea put forth in that largely ridiculous shattered mirror report that essentially pitched the idea of CBC becoming an open source nationwide wire service. You know, anyone could, and open source being that anyone could subscribe to it and use the content produced by this wire service for, you know, any news organization that they were running.
00:39:28
Speaker
And I really liked that idea, you know, like having boots on the ground and the finances to cover legislatures and city halls is like exactly kind of what's needed, but go ahead.
00:39:37
Speaker
Yeah, and I really like the title actually, Shattered Mirror, because it sounds like a fiction paperback that you'd find in the spinner rack at a Greyhound bus station, which we don't have anymore. So that wouldn't be able to get good distribution. But I also like the idea of, yeah, like putting the significant CBC financing largely into nationwide wire service. This is such a rad idea for sure. Make it a public service.
00:40:05
Speaker
Like treated as a public service, you know? Yeah, like not as a, as this kind of like fiefdom of news that is like, you know, in competition weirdly for like ad dollars from like, from the broadcasters, which is a fucking loser's game anyways, and just like fully commit to it as something that is required in order to keep people informed. You know what I mean? I mean, that's largely how it's viewed. Like when you look at like CBC in the North,
00:40:34
Speaker
Um, you know, like there's just like literally no other news gathering organizations or news dissemination organized organizations up there just cause there isn't the population density. Like that type of idea I think is, is so much more powerful than like.
00:40:50
Speaker
what they're doing now? Well, I think people should talk about this idea because probably, although I'm not super informed about this, probably the issue is that there are structural reasons in terms of how CBC operates independently from the government in terms of management, in terms of how it sees itself,
00:41:05
Speaker
and the government being mostly only willing to kind of like slap down CBC and like take away their money and occasionally like refund them. So they're both like majorly underfunded and also like using the funding for a lot of crap that like we wouldn't care about. Like, I don't know, we don't, you and I probably don't watch a lot of like CBC TV. So yeah, finding a space in some of that mandate to actually turn it back into or amplifying like the sort of regional stuff. I mean, that
00:41:35
Speaker
was the original intent of the CBC and that's actually a really amazing thing and a beautiful thing in terms of like the history and the media history in this country. So we do have like as this zombie continues to shamble forward in terms of Canadian media,
00:41:50
Speaker
We do have this cool thing that's not as good as most other countries' public media, but it is pretty good compared to the American public media. And it does have a whole infrastructure in place that could allow us as a so-called country to have a functional and serviceful public broadcaster, which would be amazing for sure. How dare you, Andre? My partner has watched every single episode of Murdock Mysteries. Oh, really? Nothing.
00:42:17
Speaker
Nothing will ever replace it. I mean, she has watched it, but it's like it she's like doesn't she doesn't pay it. She doesn't pay attention to it. It's it's extremely like background noise for like when she's doing shit during the day. But some of the crimes, some of the crimes he solves are very complicated. He's a very good detective.
00:42:32
Speaker
Exactly. Okay. I think that is enough for today. We'll end it on, on a, on a fucking Murdoch
Supporting Harbinger Network
00:42:39
Speaker
mysteries. Let's do it. So this whole episode was a bit of a plug for Harbinger network, but now is the last time you get to plug Harbinger network. How can people be a part of it, figure out what's going on, give you money, that sort of thing. Totally. We're going to launch the website in mid November. For now, please go to harbinger, media network.com.
00:42:57
Speaker
and find out how you can support this initiative. $3, $5 a month would be so rad. Also, follow us on Twitter, at Harbinger Tweets, and on Instagram and Facebook, at Harbinger Media. Folks, you know what to do. The Holy Trinity. Like, share, subscribe.
00:43:15
Speaker
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Leaving reviews is also very helpful. So if you can take a moment to give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, I will say a little prayer and thank you silently. I don't know, just got very biblical at the end there. The other big thing that you can obviously do to help us keep going and to keep a roof over my head and Jim's head is to join around the 250 other folks who
00:43:39
Speaker
regularly contribute monthly to The Progress Report. The easiest way to do that is just go to theprogressreport.ca slash patrons, put in your credit card, five, 10, $15 a month, whatever you can afford. We would really appreciate it. Also, if you have any notes or thoughts, things you think I need to hear, things you think I fucked up on, I'm very easy to reach and I will gladly correspond with people.
00:44:00
Speaker
Not enough people take advantage of this. Every episode I end with my Twitter name and my email, and I get a shockingly low amount of interaction given for how large our audience is. You can reach me on Twitter at Duncan Kinney, and you can reach me by email at DuncanKatprogressalberta.ca. Thanks so much to Cosmic Family Communist for the amazing theme. Thanks to Andre Goulet for being our lovely guest.
00:44:22
Speaker
It's been really rad to be here and thank you for having me. And it's really fun to be part of this ongoing left media infrastructure building project that we're all a part of. So yeah, thanks for the forum and thanks for, thanks for hanging out. Yeah, my pleasure. And finally folks, thank you for listening. Goodbye.