THE STATE OF PRINT MEDIA
The constant drive of Hamilton print media is largely owed to the Hamilton Spectator, the city’s near-daily newspaper published since 1846. Sold to a parent company, TorStar, in 1999, the Spec may be owned across the lake, but it has been run, staffed, and read by Hamiltonians since it first began publication.
In August 2019, the Spec’s printing press stopped rolling. TorStar had decided to send the paper to a contracted plant. With the Spec’s final issue rolling out of the historic printing press this August, 73 full-time and 105 part-time staff will be out of work. The building itself might be sold off in an effort to cut costs. The Spec will still be in print, but printing will be outsourced to a plant outside of Hamilton.
Despite the changes, John Boynton, TorStar’s chief executive, emphasized the company’s commitment to fully supporting the Hamilton community. If the Spec building is sold, Boynton anticipates keeping the head office of the Spec in Hamilton, but they are not required to do so. The headquarter’s future location will likely be based on TorStar’s financial interests, despite the importance of the Spec in the Hamilton community. With no promises from Boynton, the future of the Spec in Hamilton is not guaranteed.
The Spec has been experiencing the same issues as other organizations in the news industry, with potential readers opting for digital media or bypassing reading altogether, where readers are being lost to the recent media ‘pivot to video’ and podcast boom. Sasha Dhesi, a Silhouette alumna and the Ontario representative for the Canadian University Press, said that the printing press’s closure is unfortunate as the city is losing an important part of the community. While she is not surprised by the move of media to a digital space, she acknowledges the downsides.
“It's really sad to know that it's not in Hamilton anymore. I used to drive by the Hamilton Spectator printing building . . . every time I came into Hamilton when I was visiting my parents … knowing that the building isn’t going to be [printing] anymore is sad,” said Dhesi.
Another blow to Hamilton print media came with the closure of Hamilton Magazine. Founded 40 years ago, the publication has focused on local news, community and arts. Hamilton Magazine ran independently for a number of years before being bought out by the Toronto-based media company PostMedia. With this summer’s issue being its last, two of Hamilton Magazine’s three employees will lose their jobs, while one will assume another PostMedia position. Marc Skulnick, Hamilton Magazine’s former editor, was unable to comment.
THE LEGISLATION
Despite the precarity of print media, the federal government has committed to spending almost $600 million over a five year period, along with providing other incentives, for big media companies to stay afloat. It is unlikely that benefits from government media bailout would trickle down to Hamilton news publications such as the Spec.
An independent panel made up of media unions and associations across the country will dole out the government incentives. Panel members include the Canadian Association of Journalists, News Media Canada and the Association de la presse francophone, among others. Independent news organizations, small media outlets and individual journalists don’t have a seat on the panel. The panel gets to decide which companies received government bailouts while also representing the interests of their organizations. The very groups with a stake in the decision are the ones making it.
"I just don't think it's the right solution. I think it carries the potential to do more harm to news agencies' credibility than it does to actually do anything more than protect existing systems in the short term," said Russell Wangersky, a columnist at the St. John's Telegram, in an interview with CBC.
While legislation at the federal level will affect large news corporations, the provincial Student Choice Initiative is likely to impact student publications across Ontario.
Proposed last year, The SCI will come into effect this school year. The guidelines mandate that universities offer students the option to opt-out of ancillary fees for any services the Conservative government deemed non-essential. Essential services include athletics and recreation, student buildings, health services and academic support. Student news organizations are classified as non-essential under the SCI.
A survey by OneClass, a Toronto-based education-technology company, said that 57.4 per cent of students would opt-out of fees to support student newspapers. Jerry Zheng, a growth marketer at OneClass, administered the OneClass survey.
“I think it will definitely mean the end of print distribution for the student newspapers,” said Zheng in an interview with the Waterloo Chronicle.
The fate of student news might not be as dire as Zheng suggests. However, the option to opt-out, if taken by a significant number of students, could effectively defund campus media. Student newspapers are responsible for holding institutions accountable, providing the student body with important information and act as training grounds for journalists. Defunding student media across the province effectively silences student voices.
“If 80 per cent opt-in we’re a bit tight on cash but we’re not ruined. If only 20% opt-in then we’re destroyed. No one else is covering university content to the same degree,” said Dhesi, “Most newspapers, especially now … don’t have the resources in the same way that student news does. Student newsrooms are probably the only place where people can find stable work in news media.”
Dhesi also reflected on her own experience in a student newsroom and the diversity of voices she found there.
“If you look at student newsrooms versus actual newsrooms, you’d be shocked at which ones are more diverse — but not really. I definitely think that losing student newsrooms and losing local media that have that effect reduce[s] the amount of people that [go on in the field] and diminish[es] the quality of journalism overall," said Dhesi.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
While the move to the digital sphere may be the product of old industry adapting to the times, it could mean negative impacts for journalists and the free press as a whole.
“And I think when we think about what makes up the Canadian media landscape, more and more publications are dying off everyday, and we really need those … we rely on three major corporations to give us all our news, and that's just not a good thing,” said Dhesi.
Perhaps the Spec, the Silhouette and Hamilton Magazine represent different stages of the same trends. All have encountered the monopolization of the media industry, reliance on casual labour and decreasing funding or revenue. Stifling student news could snuff out future journalists before they even learn the trade. Overall, this constrains the field that holds the powerful accountable and keeps the public informed.
As for the future of student news, the Silhouette isn’t going anywhere yet. Hamilton print media has persisted despite challenges that come with over 100 years of publication. As print media in Hamilton moves toward a new era, journalists, publications and readerships must adapt with the changes. Still, news publications have always been more than just print. While the printing press may slow its roll, the voices of journalists will persist.
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An annual Globe and Mail survey has given McMaster University the highest grades in the country in some areas and deemed it worst in the nation for others.
The 2013 Canadian University Report was released by The Globe and Mail on Oct. 23, including the annual student satisfaction survey results.
McMaster University performed well in most areas and achieved an overall satisfaction grade of A, only being eclipsed by Western University—a consistent theme throughout most of the report.
Schools are graded and ranked in separate buy viagra made by pflizer groups according to size. This ensures that, for instance, McMaster, with a student body approaching 30,000, is not directly measured against Redeemer University College and its population of about 900 students.
In the large university category, McMaster tied for the highest grade in categories like research opportunity, campus atmosphere and academic counselling. The University was also near the top of the list for reputation with employers and quality of teaching and learning.
Mac was joined near the top of most grading categories by The University of Western Ontario, McGill, University of Alberta and University of Waterloo.
The report also shed light on some obvious areas of student dissatisfaction.
McMaster was graded worse than any university, of every size grouping, when it came to course registration. The locally well-known fact of SOLAR’s need for change is now nationally recognised.
The school is also tied for last, among large institutions, with York University in terms of city satisfaction, while other schools in Toronto and universities in Montreal and Ottawa received favourable grades and comprised of the top six on the list.
York fared the worst among large universities, acheiving an overall satisfaction grade of C+.
Medium sized University of Guelph and Queen’s University were given the highest grades in their catagory, while University of Windsor sits at the bottom of the preverbial barrel.
Grant MacEwan University and University of New Brunswick- Frederiction faired best and worst for small sized universities.
Schools termed “very small” did well for the most part. Every university in that catagory, with the exception of Brandon University, acheived a grade of B+ or highter.
The Globe’s report is different from traditional university rankings in that it is not just a ranking system. The Report gives grades to schools, and takes into account opinions for surveyed students.
Unlike the QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education Rankings and the Shanghai Rankings, the Globe and Mail Student Satisfaction Survey is more focussed on things like university environment and how students feel their university is doing, in addition to quantitative data on research opportunities and the like.
Where the other ranking systems measure things like Nobel Prize winners, endowment account balances and income of graduates, the Satisfaction Survey attempts to grade things that are more difficult to measure.
Infographic credit: Ben Barrett-Forrest / Multimedia Editor
Remember the feeling of getting your report card? McMaster was faced with that feeling this October, as the Globe and Mail published its annual Canadian University Report.
The assessment, released on Oct. 25, tried to get away from the largely data-based rankings of other organizations, instead assigning letter grades to different aspects of the university’s performance based on student surveys.
And McMaster’s administration was certainly pleased with the report card results.
“It’s extremely gratifying to be ranked by students as providing the highest quality teaching and learning experience in Canada,” President Patrick Deane told the Daily News, referring to McMaster’s first-place finish in its division for quality of teaching and learning.
Most notably, Mac ranked first in campus atmosphere, research opportunities and quality of teaching and learning, as well as second in student satisfaction, where it placed behind Western.
It also made an impression at the lower end of the large school division, placing second to last in city satisfaction and information technology. And naturally, McMaster’s infamous SOLAR system earned the university last place in course registration.
“If you take all the rankings, they add up to an interesting perspective that we’re strong, but there are some areas which need our attention,” said Deane.
The premise of the Globe’s rankings is a survey of current undergraduate students. For the 2013 rankings, 33,000 undergrads responded to a survey, and their responses, given on a scale of 1 to 9, were converted into corresponding letter grades. But the entire premise of this style of ranking is problematic, said Lonnie Magee, an economics professor at Mac.
“How would a university student be able to know about another school?” he asked. “It’s so driven by how you compare it with what you’re expecting.” He explained that since students attend only one university, such a comparison not particularly useful.
The Globe and Mail addressed this criticism in its 2012 Canadian University Report, released last October. Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, an education consulting firm that advises the Globe on the annual report, argued that student surveys are a reliable method of devising rankings.
“Another criticism [of the report] was that student[s] … had no idea what was available at any school other than their own. That’s true to some extent – but if year after year a particular institution gets results which are particularly good or particularly bad compared to other institutions of its type, then the results start to gain in validity,” Usher argued.
Magee notes that such results come from the “temptation to make the results more objective, to accumulate statistics and present them to show that your rankings are based on these ‘hard facts’ that have been collected.” He cautioned that qualitative factors like student satisfaction are tough to compare.
The Canadian University Report is one of two major Canadian university ranking publications. The other, administered by Maclean’s, is the more well-established of the two. It will release its 22nd annual rankings issue this year, while the Globe has just published its 11th.
Rather than following the Globe and Mail’s approach of a heavily student-based survey, Maclean’s compiles a number of factors to generate its rankings. Schools are divided into three categories: medical-doctoral, comprehensive and primarily undergraduate, in order to improve the comparison.
But the factors it uses for this comparison, made up largely of data from Statistics Canada and federal funding agencies, are sometimes criticized for not being entirely relevant to students or administration.
Mike Veall, an economics professor at McMaster, has published work on the effectiveness of the Maclean’s rankings. He described their methods as being a “little bit suspect in terms of gaining indicators.”
“It’s not quite clear that the indicators match quite well with what students or administrators should care about,” he said.
While there are many factors, the rankings do consider data like the number of library holdings and amount of money available for current expenses per weighted full-time-equivalent student.
McMaster has also been rated by broader, global organizations. But these, too, have their limitations.
The Times Higher Education (THE), for example, produces a rankings issue considered to be one of the best in the world.
This year, McMaster placed 88th overall in their report. But the THE also ranks by faculty, and in the “clinical, pre-clinical, and health” category, McMaster earned 14th place in the world, making it the top school in the category in Canada.
Meanwhile, QS, a British firm, ranked McMaster 152nd. A Shanghai-based organization Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) placed McMaster this year at 92nd.
International rankings methods provide a different set of criteria. While Maclean’s and the Globe consider student satisfaction, such firms as QS and THE factor in a school’s industry influence and international impact – an area where McMaster can’t compete as well, especially when factors like number of Nobel Prize winners are considered.
But in the end, a bad report card doesn’t have a huge effect on a school, Veall said. In his 2005 study, co-authored by Qi Kong, a Mac undergrad at the time, he concluded that a change in ranking has little effect on a school’s enrolment share or the entrance average of its students. A shift of one place in the rankings can, at best, change the mean entrance average by 0.3 percent, although Veall emphasized that this conclusion was “not particularly robust.”
But even though the rankings may not matter much in the end, it doesn’t mean McMaster can’t be happy with a good report card.
Something was unmistakably amiss on Oct. 1 when walking through the outdoor Mills Plaza. The Chinese Cultural Festival, hosted by McMaster’s Confucius Institute, was in full swing, full in this case meaning a single, subtle tent and a modest display of staff.
Compared to last year, when the festival encompassed the entire MUSC Atrium in an ostentatious display of cultural pride, song, dance and prizes, it was an unfamiliar offering from the usually grandiose faculty.
Dr. Angela Sheng, Associate Professor of Art History and Director Chair of the Confucius Institute, explained the reasoning behind this massive shift in festivities. “I want [the festival] to be in the open, to attract student attention and I would like it to be driven by grassroots needs,” said Sheng.
The festival, scheduled to run from Oct. 1 to 3, encompassed many aspects, such as martial arts demonstrations, student presentations and a myriad of film screenings on Thursday, still seemed oddly cut down, sporting an almost subtle profile with few students stopping their daily activities to check out the event.
The Institute, recently scrutinized for its allegedly controversial hiring and training practices overseas for prospective teachers according to a Globe and Mail investigative report, seems to be in the process of restructuring its outward appearance to appeal to a larger student body.
“The Confucius Institute is synchronous with humanities and with President Deane’s Forward With Integrity message, and we want to highlight student endeavours and give them a platform to express their work,” said Sheng.
The festival itself, while smaller in scale, promoted a single, unified message. It highlighted spirituality as a means to promote overall well-being, as well as stressing the importance of values shared between heritage students and students without a Chinese background at McMaster.
Looking forward in the year, Sheng has further plans to engage the student body in Chinese culture. “We have the upcoming Distinguished Speaker Series to look forward to. On October 30 an archeologist is going to speak about the first emperor of China. Later in November a linguist will come and speak about the phonetic system [of Mandarin].”
The Institute’s current plans do not end at festivities alone, as it is currently engaged in a proposal to found a new Chinese business course.
“It would be a language course that focuses on business language, and business etiquette and know-how that is different in China,” said Sheng.
The proposal has been submitted to the Curriculum Committee of the Faculty of Humanities and if passed will move on to review by the Senate’s Undergraduate Planning Committee this fall.
“I’d like to know what students would like [to know about China]. These projects have to be initiated by students and then they can be incorporated into next year’s budget proposal,” said Sheng on how students could get involved in the faculty.
The Confucius Institute will continue to run events throughout the year, but it remains to be seen if future showings by the organization will be equally toned down.
