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The Current Transcript for February 23, 2016

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

SOUNDCLIP

We will have so much winning if I get elected that you may get bored with the winning. Believe me. I agree, you'll never get bored with winning, we never get bored.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: The man first dismissed as a joke by his rivals in the pundits is now strongly in contention for the US Republican presidential nomination. As Donald Trump prepares for tonight's Nevada caucuses, the headlines have his two closest rivals squabbling over dirty tricks and the Republican establishment still wondering how Jeb Bush burned through more than 100 million bucks without taking one state. This is a new chapter in Republican politics. But will it, can it propel Donald Trump all the way to the White House? We’re asking in just a moment. And then…Geo-politics…

SOUNDCLIP

I leave the strongest military that the world has ever known. And I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies unilaterally and by force where necessary.

AMT: The US President at the UN last fall, but increasingly the question is whether the strongest military in the world, that the world has known, will belong to another country in the coming years, namely China. In an hour we're looking at China's growing military might, how it may be used, who is wary and who thinks it’s time has come. And, if the pen is mightier than the sword, what happens when the ink dries up?

SOUNDCLIP

It is an exciting day our company Postmedia. I think it’s also a very exciting day for the future of Canadian media.

[/sc]

AMT: Things were looking up for Postmedia last March, with its regulatory green light for the acquisition of Sun Media. Less than a year later the layoffs began. In half an hour, the former editor of the Edmonton Journal on what the erosion of local news reporting in this country means for you. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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The Trump Card: Can the Donald really become president?

Guests: Steven Strauss, Shayla Nunnally, Sasha Issenberg

SOUNDCLIP

[sound bites from different people]

I am officially running for President of the United States…[clapping and cheering]

While no one expects Trump to get close to winning the nomination, that doesn't mean that they're happy he's in.

I think that if we look back on last night, it is likely to be the beginning of the end of Donald Trump sitting atop the GOP field.

I take any bet that it won't happen. I just think it's a phenomenon of reality television as politics.

I think you have to acknowledge one thing; this is Trump’s 101st day of leading in the polls.

If Donald Trump goes on to win South Carolina, after all that. I think it's very difficult to stop him.

I continue to believe Mr. Trump will not be president and the reason is because I have a lot of faith in the American people.

AMT: Well the US President Barack Obama may still be a skeptic but there is a growing, if sometimes incredulous sense that Donald Trump is on a roll that may just lead him to the White House. The tone in the coverage of Mr. Trump's campaign has certainly changed since he launched his presidency bid back in June. After wins in South Carolina and New Hampshire primaries, polls for tonight's Nevada caucuses have him once again firmly in the lead. The snickering has pretty much stopped as pundits and the Republicans and Republican establishment try to come to grips with the idea of Donald Trump leading the GOP into the next US election. We have assembled a panel to discuss what is ahead for Donald Trump, the Republican Party and the looming presidential election. Steven Strauss is the John L. Weinberg and Goldman Sachs and Company visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. Steven Strauss joins us from Princeton, New Jersey. Shayla Nunnally is the Professor of Political Science and African Studies at the University of Connecticut. She joins us from Storrs, Connecticut. Sasha Issenberg is a contributor to Bloomberg Politics and the author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. He is in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hello everyone.

MANY VOICES: Hello. Hi. Hello.

AMT: Steven Strauss, I want to start with you, back in June the idea of a President Trump seemed completely unrealistic. How would you describe his chances now?

STEVEN STRAUSS: I mean just to give a flavor for it, 60/40 for the nomination. But I'm still not seeing him as President. Maybe 10 or 20 percent chance for the presidency.

AMT: And what scenarios do you see that could lead to a presidency for Donald Trump?

STEVEN STRAUSS: Well first is going through the primaries and that at the moment is looking pretty good for him. The Republican primaries are very often winner take all. Variations are proportional but basically if he keeps pulling 30-40 percent and the other people who are going for the presidency stay in the race, he's going to go into the Convention with the largest block of votes or quite possibly with a majority. So that pathway, I think everyone's agreeing there's a clear path there. On the Presidency, I tend to agree with President Obama. I don't think the American people have lost their senses. I have a great deal of respect for the common wisdom. I do think Trump’s path to the presidency is much harder. He's going to have to pivot himself to the middle without losing his base and I think he's also going to need some kind of an exogenous shock that hurts the Democratic nominee, maybe another financial crisis, a 9/11 type of event, if it's Clinton, her legal problems blow up in a really bad way during the campaign. But barring those kind of exogenous shocks, while I think Trump can get the nomination, I don't see him getting the Presidency.

AMT: This is hard for you isn't it Steven Strauss? You don’t really like this?

[laughing]

STEVEN STRAUSS: It’s an interesting experience.

AMT: Shayla Nunnally, what scenarios do you think could lead Donald Trump to the White House?

SHAYLA NUNNALLY: Well I do believe that it is a matter of turnout. So, in seeing the American public in the way that we have witnessed public opinion and particularly how we see that the two major parties, quite honestly, appeal to racial groups and what that means for how we have seen an historical election 2008 and 2012. As far as the Obama Presidency, and the contribution of African-American as well as Latino voters, and importantly what has been a split across party lines as far as African-American and Latino voters supporting mostly the Democratic Party and of increasing number of white voters supporting the Republican Party. It really is a matter of how much these groups will turn out to the polls and what that will mean for the Trump candidacy. Even as Professor Strauss mentioned, being able to appeal to that moderate voter and in particular what that means for white voters and whether or not they will turn out for Trump. Especially as Republican voters or whether or not Trump may have a suppressing effect on that turnout.

AMT: And we've just been hearing that in the news Shayla, of other Republicans warning Republicans will stay home.

SHAYLA NUNNALLY: Yes I really do believe that this will depend upon who will be on that ticket. Who will be that vice presidential candidate who may balance out the temperament that perhaps Republican voters see that may be somewhat distracting as far as their support of the Trump candidacy. If that candidate is able to balance out Trump’s candidacy that we may well see a difference and what that can mean for Trump then being an electable candidate.

AMT: Sasha Issenberg, how far-fetched is the idea of a Trump presidency?

SASHA ISSENBERG: I think I'm roughly where Steven is. I think that you have to see that he has the easiest path to the Republican nomination right now of any of the five candidates. But any Republican who wins the nomination this summer will probably have an uphill fight. Everything we know about the structure of presidential elections in United States suggests that with unemployment as low as it is right now and the incumbent president as popular as he is, Obama's approval ratings are sitting right around 50 percent right now, that the Democrats have a structural advantage. That said we could be moving to a general election situation where with Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we have two exceptionally unpopular nominees. Their numbers outside of their own parties and in Trump's case, numbers within his own party are incredibly low. They're just not widely liked and so there is a potential that could reshuffle the coalitions in certain ways. But, you know, Trump probably has a little more upside than Ted Cruz certainly, but he also probably has a lot more downside in that he's an incredibly unpredictable candidate and he will unquestionably tack towards the center. I just don't think we know on which issues and with what sensibility he’ll do that and what that means for how the Democratic nominee responds.

AMT: Sasha you've been watching that Trump campaign closely, you’re in Vegas now, what are you seeing that stands out for you?

SASHA ISSENBERG: I saw him here last night and it was the first time I've actually been to a Trump rally in person and it was everything I had been promised. It was fairly bonkers, threats of wanton violence against protesters, this sort of ritual condemnation of the media, the odd, totally non-systematic attacks on rivals. I mean the most amazing thing about the Trump candidacy still is, and this has become highlighted, particularly in the last week as at least the political world United States has kind of come to the consensus that Rubio now is a stronger threat to him than Cruz, is how much Trump focuses his negative energies on a particular foil at a time. And you would think right now that Trump would be going after Rubio and he doesn't, he continues to go after Cruz in much the same way that he focused energies on Jeb Bush long after Bush was a threat to him. And so I think the dynamic going forward will be at what point does Trump unleash himself on Rubio? Rubio's basically been the one candidate in this field who has not gotten any sustained attack from Trump and I have to suspect that there is…I won't say a logic, but a reason behind that.

AMT: Sasha, you were at that rally, what did you feel in the room from that crowd?

SASHA ISSENBERG: There were, of the few conversations I had with voters, there were people there who were curiosity seekers or gawkers, a couple of young guys who were there for the show, but said that they were going to caucus for John Kasich here today. So you know we see these large Trump crowds and I don't think we should think universally that those are all supporters of his and where we saw in Iowa, in particular, where his numbers on caucus night were significantly below where he'd been. In polling we shouldn’t even think that all of his supporters are necessarily voters. That said, there were 8000 people in a rodeo arena yesterday and X projections for caucus turnout tonight or 40 thousand statewide, he is basically getting close to his win number if just the number of people who saw him in person in the last two days come out and caucus for him. That's a remarkable amount of just personal engagement from voters with a candidacy and that's the entirety of the Trump candidacy, is this in person spectacle that cable news basically documents in real time. He's doing none of the other things the candidates do to communicate with voters.

AMT: Steven Strauss, Donald Trump was dismissed as a serious candidate when he launched the campaign, did the pundits inside the beltway especially, get it wrong or has the situation changed?

STEVEN STRAUSS: Well, I don't know that the situation has changed. I want to go back to a comment one of the other panelists made which is sort of the racial element to this. About 50 percent of the Republican Party believes that President Obama is some combination of a Muslim or a Muslim born in Kenya, and when you look at Trump's support the correlation between that group and the people who support Trump is high. It was interesting, there were some polling, the majority of Bush voters, whatever you may think of Bush supporters in the primaries, did not believe that President Obama is a Muslim, didn't believe he was from Kenya, the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters do. So he is still very much, if you look at the size of the birther movement and then you look at Trump's polling, they’re almost exactly together and I think that's the part the pundits never really wanted to acknowledge, the element of the opposition to President Obama that has been racially motivated.

AMT: Shayla Nunnally, let's talk a little bit more about that because you do see, you made the point that this is split along racial lines as well. So if we talk about Trump, even if he wins the GOP nomination, how does how does he reach out to wider Americans or is that just not possible? How do you read what's been going?

SHAYLA NUNNALLY: Well for one we see that there's a history of this relationship, of race and politics in American politics and it is also a history that we see connected to the two major political parties. So when we speak of, for example, Trump being able to reach out to other communities, non-white communities, we see that generally there is approximately a ten percent population of black Americans who identify with the Republican Party, and thusly vote as such, and that those numbers also vary across ethnic groups of Latinos within the United States. While we see the Cuban-Americans are more likely to be Republican, a newer generation of Cuban-Americans is increasingly Democratic. So when I turn to a conversation about turnout that is very important because for example in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections we see that there was a historic turnout for both black Americans and Latino-Americans, such that they were the large percentage of voters who were able to boost the Obama candidacy, especially in the 2012. And increasingly white voters have become more Republican since the 2008 presidential election, so what that means as far as the split among those several, those three racial groups and how it will fare on Election Day in 2016, we really will have to witness, again turnout in its significance and who could capture the ultimate Presidency.

AMT: Shayla, do you see efforts at turn out now? Do you see that already ramping up?

SHAYLA NUNNALLY: I think that it will depend upon especially the Democratic Party and it being able to rally its base. And so while, by way of the relationship of the party to especially black American voters, what that means for the party which now, by way of the primary elections I believe has taken more of the liberal stance appealing to its space, but also the extreme end of the party. Again as Professor Strauss even mentioned, what it means for that party to accommodate, maybe even a middle ground. Whether or not it will be able to do that in the general election and thusly appeal to white voters who may be Democrat but also more moderate. And it can be the tipping point for the overall election in addition to that turnout for black and Latino voters.

AMT: Sasha Issenberg, you studied Analytics of successful campaigns, how sophisticated the Trump machine?

SASHA ISSENBERG: By design not much at all. You know I mean for all the talk about turnout they have focused less on mobilization than any of the other Republican campaigns. You know the project of not just trying to change people's minds but going out to find people who already support you but aren’t regular voters. And that is a resource intensive project that is the thing that parties historically have done best in the United States you know. We have a much weaker party system than Canada does but what parties do is provide better permanent infrastructure for tracking voters, collecting data on them and organizing volunteers and staff to go out and have individualized contact that will mobilize them. Trump’s antagonistic relationship with the party, apparatus with the sort of conservative movement establishment in Washington, is going to be a challenge for him structurally because he just does not have the degree of interest in those mechanics of elections or the level of trust with leaders there and so…

AMT: Well let me ask you Sasha because you really have in The Victory Lab, of course you lay all that out about this the structural advantage and how it works and really go deep into how that works on the ground. Could he change the rules? Like you talk about structural advantages but could, he's already changing rules, could he change more rules?

SASHA ISSENBERG: Certainly. And you know we have not seen an example…when we talk about the effects of media coverage or TV ads, we've not dealt with a situation where somebody generates such an immense share of free media coverage just by going out and standing behind a podium. Which is one reason why that the mystery of the Jeb Bush campaign is, you know you have one can you spend one hundred million dollars on ads and direct mail in fairly conventional political communication, who gets overwhelmed every day in the news cycle by a guy who, until very recently, was spending no money on any of that. So yes, Trump will be something we've never seen before. That said, he has only gotten 100 between 100 and 200 thousand people to vote for him thus far. Scaling that up to an election in which 130 million Americans will vote is a different type of challenge and the scale that goes into that, those aren’t all people who are just getting free media coverage on CNN anymore, a universe of voters who are paying a lot less attention to politics and usually your primary and caucus electorate. So, yes this will be something we’ve never seen before, it may change everything we know about political psychology and behavior. But we may also sort of see the limits of the media driven candidacy in a general election as well.

AMT: Steven Strauss, we’re almost out of time, but if Trump runs for the Republicans, what will change in the Democratic camp?

STEVEN STRAUSS: I think their calculus is going to change a little bit, I mean that's excluding the exogenous shocks. I would argue from the Democrats' point of view, I'd be trying to shoot for a landslide election and trying to tip the Senate and make as many gains as you can in the house. I think Trump will be a very polarizing candidate. I very much agree with Shayla's point, it's going to be a matter of turnout but I can think of nothing that would motivate the African-American community, Muslim community, Progressives in America generally to come out, so much as a Trump candidacy. And I think you're going to have Obama doing everything you can to make sure that Trump is not the next president of the United States. So actually you know there's a possibility Trump wins the presidency, but I think the more likely scenario would be a Democratic landslide.

AMT: What about the chances of an independent, Steven, just briefly?

STEVEN STRAUSS: I’m assuming that Mayor Bloomberg is the gentleman that you have in mind. I think he'd be an excellent president. I think he's a wonderful human being but I don't really have any insights as to his plans.

AMT: Shayla, just briefly, what about the vice presidential candidate should trump run for the Republicans, does that, can that change something?

SHAYLA NUNNALLY: I'm thinking once again that that candidate would have to be more moderate and thusly be able to appeal to that independent voter, who perhaps may not have an allegiance to either of the two major parties and may I also offer that I think generational politics will be very key for both parties as far as courting votes for young people no matter what their race, and that's a group that tends to be less likely to participate in turn out to election. So if they turn out it could make a difference.

AMT: Okay well, fascinating to hear all of you. Thank you for your time today.

MANY VOICES: Thank you! Thank you very much for having us.

AMT: Steven Strauss the John L. Weinberg and Goldman Sachs and Company visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, Shayla Nunnally, Professor of Political Science and African Studies at the University of Connecticut and Sasha Issenberg, Contributor to Bloomberg politics and the author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. If you want to know about US politics read The Victory Lab and let us know what you think go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent or tweet us we are @thecurrentcbc.

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Former newspaper editor bemoans death by a thousand cuts for Canada's dailies

Guests: Margo Goodhand

SOUNDCLIP

[MOVIE CLIP]

Do you know what people use these for? They roll them up and they swat their puppies for wetting on the rug. They spread them on the floor when they're painting the walls, they wrap fish in them, they shred them up and pack their two-bit china when they move or else they pile up in the garage until an inspector declares them a fire hazard. But, this also happens to be a couple more things. It's got print on it that tells stories that hundreds of good men all over the world have broken their backs to get. It gives a lot of information to a lot of people who wouldn't have known about these things if we hadn't taken the trouble to tell them. Yeah, it's a newspaper that's all.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Well, you don't have to look hard to find plenty of movies lionizing the good old days of newspaper journalism. That one, by the way, was from the 1959 film, -30-. There is no way its producers could have predicted more than half a century later that the industry would be in the throes of an existential crisis brought on by dwindling ad sales and the rise of free online news. So many papers are ceasing publication that in some places finding enough newsprint to catch your paint droppings or wrap your fish could be a tall order. In Canada, Postmedia is in particular trouble. It publishes more than 200 papers, magazines, and websites from The Vancouver Sun to The Montreal Gazette, and of course, The National Post. Its dailies reach about 6.3 million readers every week. But the company is debt ridden and continues to lay people off to cut costs. Last month it announced the merger of competing newsrooms in Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and Ottawa. Some 90 people lost their jobs. One of them was Margo Goodhand, who was editor-in-chief of The Edmonton Journal at the time. As part of our series, Eye on the Media, she joins me from our Winnipeg studio. Hi, good morning.

MARGO GOODHAND: Good morning.

AMT: What do you think of that clip?

MARGO GOODHAND: [laughs] Oh, I loved it. It’s a bit pompous but yes, there are many uses for newsprint.

AMT: It's funny and it gives it away because in 1959 he says hundreds of good men from all over the world today, he doesn’t say men and women.

MARGO GOODHAND: [laughs] No. I got so nostalgic listening to it. It was such an amazing phenomenon for so long, it's hard to believe that it has just vanished, but yes, that was a really good clip.

AMT: Tell me, when you first walked into The Edmonton Journal's offices in 2013 when you took the job, what did you see?

MARGO GOODHAND: I think that was the most striking thing. My first day was a tour of the building and what I realized then was just how much it had changed. It was a mighty titan in the community and at this point it was five floors, a very few people, and very few things. I still remember the farewell cards on empty desks and pictures of other people's kids sitting on the mantle pieces. It was like some people had vapourized. And we walked through all five floors so it was a very depressing tour, you know.

AMT: You were starting the job.

MARGO GOODHAND: It was my first day, yeah. Even the managing editor said, oh my gosh do we have to do this, but I was with a senior executive who was really scouting out to see what the building had left and what we could do with it because Postmedia has owned it for a number of years and before that another bankrupt company, Canwest. So it'd just been shuttering and getting smaller every year and at this point we were maybe two floors of people in five floors of building in downtown Edmonton.

AMT: And yet things got worse. What was the paper like by the time you lost your job?

MARGO GOODHAND: Well, that day was quite traumatic for a number of us just because it was the day that they decided to put two newsrooms together that had been rivals for 30-plus years. So, The Edmonton Sun and The Edmonton Journal, and these are people who didn't want to Christmas party with each other, they were bought out the year before we were told we were going to be two separate news rooms and then just again because of the fiscal challenges, they decided to cut both the newsrooms in half and put them together, this kind of hybrid, and now they're both putting-- this smaller newsroom is now putting out two newspapers a day, broadsheet and tabloid. It was a bit odd.

AMT: How does all of that contrast to the role the Journal once played in Edmonton say, 20 years ago?

MARGO GOODHAND: The Journal. Everywhere I went, and that was the one thing with the editor-in-chief job, is that you met so many people in the community that loved that paper and used to deliver. The cardiac surgeon would be sitting beside me and he'd say, I used to deliver that paper, I did this, and so everybody had a connection to this paper. It made so much money that it was able to do things like stake the Edmonton Oilers. When the team was being threatened to take out of town, they were the ones who put up a million bucks and said you know, we'll help to keep the team in town. They sponsored everything and they were everywhere and it was a phenomenal community institution. As they started to dwindle, I used to hear it from everybody, what's happened?

AMT: It’s the only paper in Canada that won a Pulitzer, too.

MARGO GOODHAND: Yes, it was a special citation but it was a phenomenal I mean, a huge point of pride for that paper. It’s in the lobby in the atrium and it is the only Canadian newspaper to a get this thing for fighting for freedom of speech during the So-Cred government. So, yes it has always punched well above its weight. I was proud of it the whole time I was there because the newsroom even continued to win awards and work so hard to do really ground breaking journalism.

AMT: And it continued to do, and I have to say I spent four-and-a-half years as a reporter in Edmonton for the CBC and the start of the day was to rifle through the Edmonton Journal and see what they've got that I missed.

MARGO GOODHAND: Well, I can return that. I think that that whole city is so incredibly competitive that CBC is one of the best newsrooms I've ever been in so I find that between that and the broadcast media and The Sun used to be a tremendous power so that city was quite lucky to have such strong competing media.

AMT: Margo, help us understand the decline of the paper. How did things get so bad?

MARGO GOODHAND: Let's say it started with Southam. So, they were just phenomenally profitable businesses and then Canwest bought it for a considerable amount, $3.2 billion from the Hollander era but anyways, that was in 2000 but Canwest declared bankruptcy in 2009 and at that point a bid was put together by venture capitalists and bunch of other people kind of put a bid together for $1.1 billion and that was led by Paul Godfrey in Toronto. So, they took over but they have never made money. They started from bankruptcy and they have never made money. They are holding on by the skin of their teeth. They owe $643 million the last time I heard and are spending $18 million in interest payments alone on that loan. It comes due, this is the scary part, is that it comes due in a year and I don't know how they're going to survive. They've sold every asset they have.

AMT: So, there was a lot of centralization and outsourcing of newspaper production in that process.

MARGO GOODHAND: Yes, and it was a very long slow shutter, I think. I mean, if you started back in 2000, you had very independent local newspapers, very strong, all making money, and apparently they still do. Then they started to think, well if we consolidate a little bit, if we put a little bit, if we start to outsource the pagination, that will help. We can lose some people in the local newsrooms and we can still continue to hold on to the reporters and photographers and then they start to share stories which makes sense too, but as they consolidated and continued to kind of strip some of the newsrooms, the newsrooms are all kind of now hooked up to the same ventilator and that's in the east. And I think they could go down so rapidly, that's what scares me. They are at a real tipping point especially when the newspapers started to merge, the two newsrooms in the four different cities. It, to me, meant that this is desperate times. Nobody wants to close a newsroom.

AMT: You know, before you went to The Edmonton Journal, you were the editor of The Winnipeg Free Press, one of the last independent papers in the country. How did that paper function? Does that paper function differently?

MARGO GOODHAND: So differently and I think that's really why when I was asked to write this, when I was thinking about how this all turned around, was that I was able to have that perspective. The Free Press is still okay. It is challenged, but it's nothing like-- you know and I think I went from The Free Press expecting the same experience at The Journal and then realized how gutted the Southam papers had become. So, The Free Press still has its own copy editors, it still has its own paginators. If I wanted to change a headline I could change a headline, and my first couple of weeks at The Journal, I was thinking how little control they had over things. Everything was kind of, well we don't do that here anymore, or that's not our job and we don't do that so it is not only demoralizing but it's also really tricky trying to navigate the corporate culture that has sprung up over the last ten years or so.

AMT: It's so interesting. You just wrote a piece for The Walrus and you take us through some of the stuff in your piece, and you say readers and the public in general haven't really made a big fuss as ownership has been consolidated and local content cut in contrast to what you're describing from the Winnipeg Free Press. Why do you think readers haven't made a big fuss, the public in general?

MARGO GOODHAND: There's something so fierce about the brand. I'm a newspaper reader, it feels like Christmas when I get it on my doorstep in the morning, but I think that that is how fierce it is that people will hang on to their subscription for a very long time before they really break faith with it. If the brand is strong, they will say, well it's not as good as it used to be and oh my. If you picked up a 1980s newspaper with, say on the weekend there are three insight sections and all local content, and now the insight section is four pages on a Saturday, you would say this is not what I used to have. But they will say I still want it. I want the crosswords, I want the horoscope, I want to read something and it's my local paper. So, it's surprising that I mean, the readers, they do notice, but I think that they're still so loyal that they'll continue to read it even if it's coming from a different place.

AMT: And I guess at the same time, when your boss owns 200-plus publications across the country, it must be pretty hard to pitch a story on consolidation in the company and its expansion plans, right?

MARGO GOODHAND: [laughs] Yes, I do think that that does have an impact. They're very careful, there are still journalists running that company. I remember whenever the quarterly results came out and they were, yet again, dismal and it was a must run story in the business section, but yeah, they don’t shy away from it. They are very aware of the reality that they're in. I also think that the readers aren't as aware. I don't think they realize how many papers Postmedia owns now because they bought so many, just last year another 175 more titles. So, I don't think anybody realizes how dire the situation is.

AMT: If we look at the past federal election, Postmedia instructed the editorial boards of its papers, from The Vancouver Sun to The Montreal Gazette, to support the Harper conservatives. You spoke out about that.

MARGO GOODHAND: I did. I did. I defend the right to any publisher. They own the paper, it's theirs to express their political opinion because that's been what a newspaper tradition has been since the days of Ben Franklin. People bought newspapers so that they could state their opinion, but those days to me are pretty archaic. To me now, you don't tell the voters who to vote for, that’s patronizing. What you should be doing I think, is saying that you know there are this many candidates and this person, if you believe in this, you should vote this way or something. But educating people and telling people what to do is a different thing. My biggest problem with that editorial, and there was another one, there was one in May for the Prentice government as well in Alberta, was just that it was so jarring because the editorial board was looking for a change in both elections, and if we had really been saying what we wanted to say, it would have been said it would have said we should really look for a change. Instead, we were advocating for the status quo. Our readers hated us for it.

AMT: [laughs] So interesting. You know, and of course this is not just happening in Canada. Dailies around the world are struggling to survive. Many are failing. We keep getting--the British papers going, what is it, The Sunday Independent going online only now? Where do you think Postmedia in particular went wrong?

MARGO GOODHAND: I think that the local paper still has, and I keep using the word paper and I shouldn't, a newsroom is so digital now that we could survive without sending those newspapers out to your doorstep. But a local newsroom has to be local. It has to have senior executives that are local that are linked with the community, in the business community otherwise the advertising doesn't come. It has to support the community, it has to reflect the community, it has to inspire the community. Those local newsrooms are, you know, if you start to become such a corporate entity that it doesn't feel like it's coming from your community, then you lose that, you break that trust. So, I look at The Free Press again and I think it's--their slogan is we are there for you and they do tend to have a very strong brand in this community and they're still alive. It just seems to me that the corporate-ization of those papers really ended up gutting them to a certain point and now it's so much more tenuous, their hold on the community.

AMT: So, you're talking really about ability of people to actually go out and have boots or shoes on the ground?

MARGO GOODHAND: Absolutely.

AMT: You still have to go no matter how you deliver it, whether it is digital or whatever, you still have to have somebody there who actually sees what is going on and talks to people face-to-face.

MARGO GOODHAND: Absolutely, and you know what's interesting is that there were cuts that were made like say, take the person out of Ottawa, you don’t need somebody in Washington, you certainly can't afford a London correspondent, but I was reading David Halton’s book on his dad, Matthew Halton, the other day when he was working for The Star. And what that does, when you have somebody with their boots on the ground, it gives you that bridge to the event so you can say, oh you know, Graham Thompson was in Syria and here's what he wrote about, and we should really care about this issue. So those boots on the ground are phenomenally powerful for a local reader, and that's the sad thing about gutted newsrooms is that they don't have the power to do that anymore.

AMT: And you know this happens all over, we're just talking about print. You know, The Toronto Star a couple weeks ago had a story going on at the University of Ottawa. It quoted CBC News and it was written by a Washington Post reporter in The Toronto

Star.

MARGO GOODHAND:[laughs] Really? And that again, that's because we're all connected on the web and we're all connected by Twitter so yeah, we can we start to crib that stuff but I do think it devalues some of the work that we end up doing.

AMT: So, we're talking about Postmedia. Postmedia is the largest newspaper owner in Canada. To what extent are we facing the end of local papers altogether down the road?

MARGO GOODHAND: Well, that's where I'm a bit of a Cassandra because the more I realize how indebted Postmedia is and a lot of their money is in US funds, they are 35 percent owned by a New York hedge fund, so what they're faced with is enormous interest rates, interest payments that they are paying in US dollars and it's killing them. As ad revenues decline and they're cutting everything they've got, I guess their biggest deadline is coming up. Half of their debt comes due in August 2017 and they owe $650 million and they have no real assets left except for people. My feeling is that 2017 is coming sooner rather than later and I don't know what they're going to do.

AMT: You say The National Post has been the albatross for Postmedia.

MARGO GOODHAND: I do and that's reflecting my regional background because I think a lot of the regional papers who were very strong, they made lots and lots of money and The National Post never did. We kept looking over at it, even in the years I was there. Are we really going to continue to support this because it has never made money? It made money for a brief period and it has been costing a fortune. So, there is some political will to keep that paper going in Toronto and other than that, it certainly has never been a money maker for them. It has kind of sucked dry a lot of the regional papers.

AMT: You make the point that the writing was on the wall for the owners of newspapers and has been on since the mid-2000s.

MARGO GOODHAND: Yeah. Yeah, it has. I mean, the ad revenues-- it's a perfect storm and we should have seen it coming in that ad revenues are continuing to go down, advertisers can put their money anywhere, and this is the same for broadcast media as well, any kind of media. We're all publishers now. Everybody can publish their own blog, they can write their own reviews, they can publish a book, and you can do a podcast and put it on YouTube and become an instant celebrity. So, as we all become publishers, the monopoly that we had on publishing in the fifties, sixties, seventies and right into the eighties, is gone. As that disruption occurs, I think we're all kind of grappling with this new reality, but certainly you don't need to be a publisher to put a paper out.

AMT: Let's talk about the importance of news, though. Whether it's a newspaper or it's online, what do we lose? Why should an individual member of the public care about the fact that there are fewer local reporters out there?

MARGO GOODHAND: You know what, I wonder about the

whole village on the Internet, that there's so much Twitter stuff and everybody's an expert, and everybody is outraged, and shocked, and appalled, and there is a real role for journalists who can filter through the chaff, you know, filter through that stuff and come up with, this is what happened and this is what should happen and this is why you should care and that's what I find with really good journalists, and there are so many out there. So many out there that aren't working right now but that can do that work. It actually, in the age of information, you do need to have that filter and that's where local newsrooms are so important but yes, they are an endangered species right now.

AMT: It's funny, we're in the age of information but so much of the information is now just regurgitated. We’re not sure who actually got the initial kernel.

MARGO GOODHAND: Yes, absolutely, and regurgitated and opinionated. Everything is, oh my gosh, that's just a terrible thing and you should be outraged. We seem to vacillate from shocked and appalled to this is the worst thing ever, and I think that when you lose that level of intellectual discourse, which I think newsrooms provide, that's a sad thing.

AMT: You know, last week the House of Commons passed a motion mandating a new committee to examine how Canadians experience local news. It's going to look at media concentration, the impact of digital media. What, if anything, can or should policymakers be doing or thinking here?

MARGO GOODHAND: You know, there's been so many, right? There have been so many government studies and I don't really think government belongs in the study. I mean, you still get your cowboy journalist back up. The government shouldn't be deciding who's a journalist and government really shouldn't be intervening. We're in a state of incredible flux right now, but there is good journalism being done by lots of newsrooms, it's just that huge 1980s apparatuses are now shuttering to a close and something else will come up. I read about the Halifax—there is a digital-only online newsroom in Halifax that's actually doing quite well. They've got like 10,000 subscribers, they pay a certain amount of money for their news, but they're getting high quality news. And so, you do see some places that are coming up. They're just not [indecipherable] version.

AMT: Well, and I guess the question is then, are there ways for journalists to keep working? We know that the journalism business is very lucrative for the owners of papers [laughs] so do you see a way forward for journalists and people who care about the work they do?

MARGO GOODHAND: I think they just have to. First of all, it has to be digital. It has to be something new and it has to be good and I think people will pay for it. But yes, the days of having some monopoly on publishing is over and there will be some new paradigm that will come up. The publishers are still making money and the owners are still making money. It's just the people that are putting the news out or are going fast.

AMT: What do you do now?

MARGO GOODHAND:[laughs] I don't know. I've made a joke that I have been managing decline for an awful long time. I wouldn't mind being in an industry that actually hired people instead of just slowly laying them all off, so I am looking for something different but I have no idea.

AMT: Margo Goodhand, really good to talk to you. Thank you.

MARGO GOODHAND: Thank you very much for having me.

AMT: Margo Goodhand was editor-in-chief of The Edmonton Journal from 2013 to January of this year. Before that, she was the editor-in-chief of The Winnipeg Free Press, the first woman to hold that job, by the way. The Current did request an interview with Postmedia President and CEO Paul Godfrey, he was not available. So, what do you think? Have you noticed a change in the local content of your local paper, whether it is in print or online? Where do you get your local news from? We'd love to hear your perspective. You can find us on Facebook at facebook.com/cbcthecurrent. You can tweet us @thecurrentcbc. You can e-mail us through our web site. Go to cbc.ca/thecurrent and click on the contact link. While you're there check out pictures, links and download the podcast at cbc.ca/thecurrent

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China flexes military muscles with missiles in South China Sea

Guests: Yanmei Xie, Miles Yu, Robert Farley

SOUNDCLIP

We discuss the need for tangible steps in the South China Sea to lower tensions including a halt to further reclamation, new construction, and militarization of disputed areas. Any disputes between claimants in the region must be resolved peacefully.

AMT: Well that's President Barack Obama speaking last week as a summit he hosted for Southeast Asian leaders drew to a close. China was not at that summit and apparently it was not listening because just a few hours later satellite images confirmed China had deployed missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea. It is not the first time China has asserted itself in the contested waters where tensions are already high. Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines among others, are also claiming sovereignty in the South China Sea. As China's military power grows, many worry that pressure to use that power is growing inside the country as well. No doubt tensions in the South China Sea and China's military moves in the area will be topics of discussion when the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, arrives in Washington today to meet with Secretary of State, John Kerry. For more on this, I'm joined by Yanmei Xie, she is the senior China analyst for the International Crisis Group, and she joins us from Beijing. Hello.

YANMEI XIE: Hi. How are you?

AMT: Well I'm curious to know what you know. These satellite images show Chinese anti-aircraft surface to air missile installations on Woody Island, about 300 kilometers southeast of the border. How significant is that?

YANMEI XIE: So first of all, I think so far what remains to be confirmed is whether the stationing of those missiles will be permanent. China had stationed missiles on the island before but for military exercise purposes. So they were removed after the exercises were concluded. But this time there was no such occasion to accompany the deployments. I think military experts are still debating the significance of the specific deployment but overall in the South China Sea, what’s for sure is that China is expanding its air defense and it wants to enhance its maritime domain awareness. This is to say that China wants enhanced capability to know who is there and doing what; mainly with an eye on the US and its allies.

AMT: Well what other steps has China taken lately to bolster its claims in the South China Sea?

YANMEI XIE: What has been stirring the region are China’s massive reclamation efforts in the Spratly Islands, which is further south in the South China Sea therefore closer to other South China Sea claimant and coastal states. So far China has built several byways on those artificial islands. And recently evidence emerged that China has deployed radar and even high resolution radars on those islands. Those could be the Chinese efforts to enhance its ability to monitor and collect intelligence against foreign vessels, foreign airplanes, and even submarines in the future.

AMT: Well in fact there's a story out of Beijing this morning that reasserts China's right to develop those island outposts and they're called defensive measures for civilian purposes.

YANMEI XIE: Correct. The line between defensive and offensive can be subjective and it can be subject to spending. Also a lot of these facilities can be dual use. So a runway can be used for search and rescue; for the search and rescue helicopter, for civilian airplanes, and it can be used for fighter jets. Radar can be used for search and rescue as well as for military purposes, the same as the docking facilities. So it's likely that China will fully exploit these dual use facilities while claim that those are for civilian purposes or for defensive purposes.

AMT: And so how have Taiwan, Vietnam, and China's other neighbours responded?

YANMEI XIE: Because of China's recent deployment of the missiles is on the island solely disputed with Vietnam; Vietnam was the only South East Asian country that has explicitly voiced their opposition. Other countries had remained mute, but as you've seen that all the countries gathered in Washington in the summit with President Obama. So overall, on the bigger trend, the region has been feeling uncertain of China's long term strategic intention. They've been quietly asking the United States to be firmly footed in the region and provide a counter weight to China. A couple of them who have traditional security arrangements, such as the Philippines, and Singapore, have explicitly invited the US to come back.

AMT: So they're talking about basically wanting their own military, capabilities through the US, bolstered or reinforced?

YANMEI XIE: Correct. So it's a multi-layered effort for a lot of these countries. One, they’re boosting their own defense capabilities. They’re also enhancing security cooperation amongst each other and with regional powers such as India, Japan, and Australia. And they're asking for more protection from Washington.

AMT: What claims has China had historically to these waters and islands?

YANMEI XIE: So China claims all the land features in the South China Sea based on historical evidence. But the more problematic claim is the so-called nine-dash line, which is this dotted line that extends from the Chinese coast all the way down to the southern part of the South China Sea which loops in pretty much the majority of the surface area of the South China Sea. And the nine-dash line violates a fundamental principle of international law of the sea and the principle goes that you can only claim Maritimes fear based on your land feature. The nine-dash line is not based on any claim to land territory. China has not clarified the exact extent of the nine-dash line. It has not clarified the geo-coordinates, and it has not clarified exactly what sovereign rights it wants to enforce the nine-dash line. Instead, the Chinese coast guard has been sort of evicting other countries surveillance vessels and fishing vessels. So this kind of uncertainty coming from a superpower in the region is quite frightening to the regions small countries.

AMT: Okay. Yanmei Xie, stay with us I want to bring two others into this conversation to discuss the implications of all of that. Professor Miles Yu is a professor of military history at the United States Naval Academy. He’s us joins us from Annapolis, Maryland. Robert Farley is a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. He’s joining us from Lexington, Kentucky. Hello, gentlemen.

MILES YU: Hello.

ROBERT FARLEY: Good morning.

AMT: I want to pick up on what we're just hearing. Miles, I should clarify, that you're speaking on your own behalf not on the behalf of the US Navy. But what do you make of these actions of China specifically the missile deployment and the things that preceded it?

MILES YU: China is one of the only countries in the world that is rising as a modern nation based upon their desire to restore to its imperial past. So this was something that worries a lot of countries in the neighbourhood. And I think that China has that drive, has that sort of ideology it's a modern nation. Imagine Russia, imagine Turkey, the oldest of old empires trying to claim its old territory; that's something that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable.

AMT: Well Robert Farley how much of a gap is there between the military capabilities of China and the West? How much has that gap been changing?

ROBERT FARLEY: There's still a pretty substantial gap between US military capabilities and Chinese military capabilities. The Chinese have certainly been narrowing that gap by improving their submarine, their sea surface, and their air capabilities, and especially by building ballistic missiles that can strike US warships especially at some distance. But the United States remains sort of the class of military power in the region. The Chinese at best can try to keep the United States out, which is different than say they can compete with the United States on a one on one basis.

AMT: Miles, what's motivating China's push to improve its military.

MILES YU: Well it wants to realize its Chinese dream, as the Chinese of current president phrases it. And they have to really realize that the United States, as Mr. Farley mentioned, maintains a very dominant role in the West Pacific, particularly in the South China Sea in terms of basically military predominance. So that is something that China is focused on. So in order to reach it’s sort of national goal, you have to keep the American predominance away. Get rid of it. It’s as if there’s some game in their mind even though they don't admit it.

AMT: You're talking about keeping the US dominance away, you know over the last couple of years I've been sort of reading occasionally you'll see a high ranking Chinese military official, usually naval, say something about the strength of the Chinese military versus the US; they're very aware of the US versus China especially in that region.

MILES YU: Yes. I think in terms of parity in military hardware, the traditional platforms, China still has a long way to go. We're talking about cruise missiles, air defence ships, aircrafts, fighter jets; those things the Americans maintain an edge. However that gap is closing. In terms of traditional platforms, I don't think it’s a big worry. What really is important for us to keep in mind is China is developing something that is very weak in the American defence system and that is cyber, number one. Number two is attack satellites and space weapons. And number three is electromagnetic warfare; China is doing a much better job than we are. And on other hand, both countries were racing to develop a new drone warfare capability. So in those new areas, I think you will see the difference.

AMT: So would you see China catching up to the US in terms of military supremacy especially as military needs shift and you've just raised those specific points where it's moving ahead?

MILES YU: In the overall military strength, I think it remains still asymmetrical, in other words USA is far ahead of China. However in some key areas, particularly weapons to disrupt and destroy command and control systems such as satellite weapons, China is the only country that’s doing this very robustly. And, you know, with modern warfare our entire military defense system is totally reliant on these high altitude military satellites and I think that China is getting on our nerves. That's why the US government is responding very quickly.

AMT: Robert Farley, how worried should the West be about China's rise?

ROBERT FARLEY: I think that the United States and the West, although there really aren't any other Western countries in this part of the world, I think the United States needs to be legitimately concerned about some of the sort of direct moves that China’s been making that violate maritime law, that violate international law, and that threaten to disrupt the regional balance. I mean what this is doing is its driving Vietnam in particular to pursue an arms buildup and it's driving some of the other countries. At the same time, I think we need to have a little bit of perspective about China's efforts in this regard. For one, I think as we've all sort of pointed out here, Chinese capabilities remain far behind US capabilities and that's something that’s almost universally held by analysts. Second, when we step back and we consider what China's encroachment looks like compared to what Russia's encroachment looks like in countries like Ukraine and Georgia; China looks positively restrained. Beijing seems to have a sense of where it can push and how it can push and it seems to have a set of limits that it believes in with regards to how it's going to pursue its foreign policy objectives. And I think it's important to keep that in perspective when we're thinking about the future of US-China relations.

AMT: I guess we have to have some perspective as well. If the US military is present in some of these other countries close to China, from the Chinese perspective that can be troubling as well.

ROBERT FARLEY: Absolutely. The Vietnamese in particular are openly talking about purchasing not just American but also European weapons with which to fight China. You can make all sorts of poor comparisons about this in terms of the US and Cuba and so forth. But the United States has lots of allies in the region. The United States does have what really looks like to the try to perspective to be an encircling set of bases. And the US does have a massive military advantage. Again, understanding that from the perspective of Beijing and understanding the degree to which Beijing is still looking restrained, I think, is important at this time.

AMT: Well, Yanmei Xie, let's talk a little bit more about that because you are in Beijing. How does the public view the country's military growth in China?

YANMEI XIE: Overall the Chinese public is very supportive and proud of their strong military. I think decades of nationalist education has created several national consensus’, one that China has been suffering for, metaphorically, 100 years under the hand of Western imperialists and that humiliation should never happen again. And only a strong military can guarantee that. And China has to vigilantly guard against threats to its national security and territorial integrity. And these maritime disputes, in Chinese minds, serve as a reminder that China still has lost territory and not recovered therefore it needs to build up defence to ensure the integrity of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Finally, a strong military is an enormous source of national pride. Last September, China had a massive military parade showing off the latest advanced weapons. And the Chinese people were glued to the television and the Chinese social media were filled with a very proud expression of support for the military and love for the country. To the extent that when one actress did not post on the Chinese Weibo, which is the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, she did not post on her Weibo account the Chinese national flag, she did not express support for the country or the military, but showed photos of her son that day. She was completely vilified and savaged it on social media for being a traitor, and for not loving the country enough. And overall when Chinese people take pride in the progress that the military has made, they’re also aware that they have a long way to catch up with the main rival of the United States. So I would say overall, the country is very supportive of defence buildup.

AMT: That's really interesting but Robert Farley is that really so different? Sort of the pride in the military; we see that in the United

States.

ROBERT FARLEY: Oh certainly. But I think, as Yanmei points out, in China the context is within this concept of two centuries of national weakness, right? And that's a weakness that has spread even into deep into the Cold War where China was at a significant military disadvantage with respect to the United States and to the Soviet Union and even to Japan. And so being able to demonstrate what is becoming a first rank military, but still behind the United States, but is rising to be a first rate military is something that is extremely impressive to the Chinese people and it's something that the Chinese people can justifiably be proud of.

AMT: Yanmei, is there any discussion about China maybe moving too fast or too far? Is this a debate that happens in China?

YM: There's no open debate. In general, the media is state controlled; so generally it’s state propaganda. So there's no visible debate about whether the country should spend so much on the military out in the open at all. And if there’s discussion on social media, such voices are shouted out as being unpatriotic.

AMT: Miles Yu, China is developing better weapons, and growing its military; what are the chances it will actually use that stuff?

MILES YU: Well that’s actually a very good lead to what I was going to say. The earlier question about China versus Russia, I think currently in the West we have this Cold War mentality that's been developed over the years. And that is that the ultimate threat from a sovereign state comes first from Russia and then China. I think that China is now a major a sovereign state that really threatens the US in a military sense. First of all, China has an economy five times bigger than Russia's. So they have a lot of money, you have three trillion dollars in foreign currency reserves, so you can spend a lot of money on military defense. That's why China’s military development is very fast. And for 20 years, its defence budget increases by double digits. And allies, yes we have allies in Asia Pacific and all over the world. However the chances that China will attack US allies is far greater than Russia. China’s continued rhetoric against the two major allies in Asia, Japan and the Philippines, with which we have a mutual defence arrangement; so that really is something that's very scary.

AMT: We haven't seen China go to war for a long time. Are you concerned that that those in leadership positions see things a little more hair trigger?

MILES YU: I think it’s more inclined than in the past. In last four or five years, you’ve seen Chinese leadership as a whole is becoming more and more confident about its own military capabilities. And this may be true; it may have something just in our own mind. But strategic calculation matters. So this is why China has become more and more aggressive because they have calculated the United States even though we have preeminent dominance in the area. But we're also casualty averse. The theory goes, if you strike a heavy blow against United States, because of the casualty aversion; it will withdraw. That’s exactly what the Japanese were thinking people before Pearl Harbor. So you have this kind of very serious strategic, I would call miscalculation about the United States. And also you talked about mentality earlier, the issue of China’s national pride and humiliation was mentioned. It's true. But also don't forget that China itself was also an imperial power in the past so it's not just a victim. China has 14 countries that align a border with it. China has a land dispute with virtually every one of them.

AMT: Robert Farley, what do you think?

ROBERT FARLEY: I think that Miles makes a good point that the overall threat profile from China is greater than Russia and it's going to be in the future because China is going to be a more powerful economic actor, it’s going to be a more powerful military actor even if it still lags behind. It’s still buying Russian military equipment. And it still struggles to make some equipment as sophisticated as the Russians are building right now. But despite its weakness Russia has invaded two countries in the last ten years. Invaded two of its neighbours, killed people, and take an actual territory. Not built Islands, actually taken parts of other countries. If you're looking at a country that is restrained, you're looking at how trying is acting; one that's trying to carve out a bigger better space for itself rather than one that's looking like it's trying to upend the entire international system. And so when we're comparing these two countries, their behavior to me seems much, much different and that's despite the fact that China is becoming a much more powerful military actor than Russia. It just does not at this point seem to me to be a country that wants to knock over the table, right? It wants a bigger space at the table.

AMT: Yanmei Xie, what do we have to keep in mind then, as you speak to us from Beijing about this whole conversation about the Chinese military?

YANMEI XIE: I think among the sort of the Chinese foreign policy elite, the military elite among the leadership, there's no intention to start a conflict. They have a pretty realistic understanding of where the Chinese armed force is. One, we established they still have a long way to go to catch up with the United States. Two, there's awareness that although the hardware buildup has gone a long way, they aren’t sure about the software, which is the training and the professionalism of the soldiers and commanders. It's only recently that China has started reforming the military to clean up the rampant corruption to revamp the military from traditional land based forced into a modern naval force and modern air force. So those are pretty recent measures, I think Chinese leadership has a pretty realistic pragmatic understanding of where that is.

AMT: Okay well we have to leave it there. It's fascinating to hear all of your opinion thank you for this discussion.

ROBERT FARLEY: Thank you.

YANMEI XIE: Thank you.

MILES YU: Thank you.

AMT: I've been speaking with Yanmei Xie, she is the senior China analyst for the International Crisis Group she joined us from Beijing. Robert Farley is senior lecturer at the University of Kentucky, he's in Lexington. Miles Yu is a professor of military history at the US Naval Academy. He joined us from Annapolis, Maryland. Let us know what you think of this conversation, you can tweet us we are @thecurrentCBC. You can e-mail us from our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. And if you're just joining us part way through, go to our web site, download the podcast, listen right there, www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. You can also find us on Facebook.

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Feb. 23, 2016 episode transcript

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