CBC is expanding the reach of its local and regional news. According to the network, the move is part of CBC News’ goal to bridge the gap in communities where there is no CBC or other media presence.
CBC News will hire up to 30 new permanent journalists in 22 communities across the country, including six locations in BC; one location in the North; nine in the Alberta Prairies, Saskatchewan and Manitoba; three in Ontario and one location in Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. With the additional roles, CBC News will increase its presence from 48 to 66 local stations and agencies nationwide.
The news expands on CBC’s statement last November when it said it would hire up to 25 journalists in more than a dozen locations, with a special emphasis on Western Canada. Instead of 25, there will be now 30 hires. Early last year, the network also launched 12 new FAST channels, focusing on news in each community.
CBC’s expansion follows the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission’s (CRTC) approval of Google’s plan to compensate Canadian news organizations for the use of their content. Last year, the CRTC granted Google a five-year exemption from the Online News Act after the tech company filed an application to be exempt from it. Instead, the CRTC ordered Google to pay $100 million to Canadian news outlets annually. The Canadian Journalism Collective (CJC), a federally established non-profit organization, is distributing the money to qualifying news organizations across the country.
Meta plans to cut low performers from its workforce
Meta intends to lay off up to 5% of staff members based on their performance assessments, according to a company memo.
The owner of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads has stated that staff affected by layoffs will be notified by February 10 and will get pay as previously guaranteed. Zuckerberg stated that the cuts were made to ensure that the company employed the best personnel possible. Employees whose positions are removed will be replaced by new hires in 2025.
The cuts represent Meta’s largest layoffs since it eliminated 21,000 jobs, or nearly a quarter of its workforce, in 2022 and 2023. According to its most recent quarterly report, the company has more than 72,000 employees.
The layoffs come after Meta announced last week that it will end its third-party fact-checking program and instead adopt the Community Notes model used by X, which relies on crowdsourcing to flag potentially misleading content. By removing the fact-checking check, Meta will stop degrading verified content and will no longer overlay full-screen warnings that users must click on before they can view a post – it will use a much less intrusive label that indicates additional information for those who wish to see it. Following its announcement, Google searches on how to delete Facebook, Instagram and Threads accounts experienced spiked. According to Google Trends, related searches such as “alternative to Facebook”, and “how to delete Threads account,” became the most popular searches last week, with an increase in popularity of over 5000% compared to previous periods.
