OMG what is happening in the world today is utter chaos. Leaders of the world are astonished as the actions of one man in his ambition to make America great again. That’s the key word “Great Again". Like the fall of any empire there is a stage of denial and history is repeating itself again. Just ask the Romans during their decline.

 

According to the words of Aristotle, an Ancient Greek philosopher and polymath (384-322 BC)

 

“Man is a political animal who seeks happiness by different ways and different means and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government. There is a struggle for power to determine who is master”

 
 Sounds familiar? Lets call it the “Trump Effect”

 

What will this chaos mean for publishers in 2025?

 

A USA invasion of Canada has happened before economically (the digital publishing industry is a textbook example). Canada's history as a branch plant economy of big USA firms, is still true today, so what's the big deal now. We are also of the hewers of wood with a resource rich country that has now become in vogue. But...

If anybody has read “The Confessions of an Economic Hitman” you know what you are seeing now is part of that playbook for world trade with Trump as the frontman, just like a movie script with Trump as the reality star president of the USA. This arrogance will be their downfall as the rest of the world will circle the wagons and give somebody humble pie.

Whatever the case there is a global reset happening and what does that mean to publishers? When you don't know the expected results yet. Typically, Canadian firms let USA companies shoot it out and partner with the ones left standing after the gunfight, but the USA is now shooting at everybody. We need to duck, bob and weave now and maybe a little bit of treachery too to survive.

 

Time to button down the hatches is the first step as the first thing that will be cut is advertising in a period of uncertainty for 3-6months. The “Trump Effect” is a new/old phenomenon and needs to be monitored carefully. The issue for Canadian publishers is that the market is already owned by USA digital giants already, so we are already screaming “ Who is Your Daddy” and the Online News Act is to remedy that. So in many respects we know what can happen to a Canadian industry dominated by USA firms. We can only guess and fear what is going to happen next.

 

A side effect of the “Trump Effect” is a growing trend to buy Canadian, which is a good thing with Canadian media. The CMDC has been advocating a Buy Canadian initiative “Canadian Media Manifesto” amongst their member agencies that control 90% of the media spend in Canada. This should get additional momentum in 2025. A Google Adsense and Facebook ad strike by all governments will be a great symbolic show of strength. We need government’s to stop advertising with USA media too! Here is an a Facebook ad from the Town of Whitby. Lets hope we can shame them too. https://www.cmdc.ca/cmm

 

Here is a local firm that is benefiting from the Buy Canadian wave. Woah Dough provides a gluten-free line of baked goods and cookies and is now the official gluten free cookie of the Enercare Centre in Toronto. https://woahdough.ca/

All levels of government are jumping on the buy Canadian bandwagon, which may be a rash decision in the heat of the moment, just asked Rob Ford, the premier of Ontario, when he tried to jack up the electricity rates for our American friends/family. The Canadian way is what Alberta is doing and that is what we should do, you don’t cut off the energy supply to your friends and family and that is what Americans are. Be kind and compassionate. Anger only makes things worse and can cause pain for generations. What Trump is doing has happened in Canada (Oka crisis 1990 in Quebec) on a smaller scale (but resulted in military action) that we can learn from.

 

 

Another side effect is that our Canadian identity is being challenged and our values are being tested and we are seeing “ How much Canadians love Canada” showing up everywhere, which is inspiring. The “Elbows Up” rallying cry that’s being adopted is very Canadian through our hockey roots.  “Mr. Elbows”, Gordie Howe a Canadian hockey icon that played for the Detroit Red Wings, who always went into the corners with his elbows up for puck battles. That’s right Canadians are hard nosed and ya don’t want to pick a fight with them. 

 
COPA 2025 to introduce "Best Patriotic Story"

The COPA’s want to hear more stories like this year. The COPAs this year will be introducing a new Free category for the “Best Patriotic story” that unites Canadians for a common cause. Details will be announced. Let’s show them that Canadians are a proud nation and don’t want to be American, plus face the possibility of medical bankruptcy, I had to throw this shot in, let’s call it a hockey face wash. LOL Also, you never divorce yourself from your family, cause you have a unpredicatable old uncle, that can't make up his mind. And friends are for life.

The Top Ten Scores from this is years COPA saw a west coast slant this year The Narwhal, The Discourse and UBC taking 4 spots in the top 10 and The Narwhal getting top billing with 97.5/100 score from the judges. School entries received top scores this year that included Red River College, based in Manitoba and University’s King College in Nova Scotia. The other top ten scores came from Ontario - Travel Zoo, Toronto Life, IJF and Fête Chinoise.  Please check out this year’s top 10 with the links provided..



2025 SCHEDULE
May 1: Call for Judges
July 1: Call for Entries
Aug 18: Early Bird Deadline
Sept 30: Entry Deadline 
Dec 15: Finalist Announcement
Feb 2026 : COPA Party/ Zoom-cast

This is National newspaper week; an occasion to look at the challenges the news business faces.

Pepper Parr, Publisher of the Burlington Gazette is writing a series of articles on the state of the industry. Pepper has been a judge of the COPAs and this series is also on the site at this link. This is the second of a series on the changes taking place in print media and the challenge keeping the public informed.

 

In the period leading up to 2000 media found itself facing realty difficult times. When Y2k (remember that event) was upon us no one really knew what was going to happen when we moved into the new millennium.

 

 

Media covered the event like a wet blanket – there were those that said it wasn’t really a problem while others suggested the machines that drive production would come to an immediate halt.

 

Media did a lot of reporting – but they didn’t pause to ask: what does this mean to us as an industry?

 

I don’t recall reading about any industry wide workshops; I don’t recall seeing anything in the way of op-ed pieces on what the industry needed to do in the way of changes.

 

Media covered disruption – without realizing that they were in line for some major disruption to their industry and they weren’t prepared.

 

The industry no longer had the aura of Watergate or the Pentagon Papers that made reporters heros – at that time thousands flooded into the industry wanting to be reporters. Reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were the subject of close to fawning news stories, television specials and movies.

 

By the late 1980s journalism schools were being closed.  The number of students that graduated got smaller and smaller.

 

The age of the men and woman in the news rooms was made up of people in their late 40’s and 50’s  – there was no new blood coming into the industry.  And there were few MBAs on staff of the large newspapers.

 

Those that were public corporations had financial analysts looking at profits which were decent at the time – what those analysts didn’t see was that the boat was moving quickly toward a Niagara size waterfall.

 

When the disruption of the revenue sources began media didn’t have a Plan B – they watched is losses began to climb and subscriptions slowly slipped away.

 

 The data relates to American newspaper – the number will not be much different for Canada.