When I first got to Vancouver some thirteen years ago I had some pretensions towards getting into the journalism business here. I figured out a few story angles and chased interviews like any aspiring freelancer should, and set out to hone my craft. I got involved politically and pitched stories and interviewed co-workers in bands after their gigs. My general journalism trajectory involved padding my relatively thin portfolio by adding clips by places like the Georgia Straight and then moving my way up to the Sun and the Province. Maybe I’d end up riding a desk and doing this full time.

Then university happened and I didn’t have time to work a full time job, go to school full time and do freelance journalism on the side because there was no more ‘on the side.’

Now I wasn’t exactly here during the Straight’s heyday, which depending on who you ask was apparently in the 1960’s when it was home to non-mainstream political opinion, but when I got here it was still a respectable home for arts and culture journalism. Even then, though, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that it was propped up financially by the naughty-girl adverts next to Dan Savage’s syndicated column. By the time emerged from my university chrysalis with a newly minted degree and crippling debt it was clear that the leeches had already been at the Straight. It was thinner and the stories less hard hitting.

Besides, the trend for journalism was online. Anybody who’s anybody knew that. The print media is an old dying animal, fit only for bankers and other stalking animals, circling around to take their pound of flesh before finally putting the animal out of its misery.

Now the Straight isn’t even that, as per Equity Guru’s Chris Parry’s article on its acquisition by Media Central (FLYY.C) a few months ago. Now here to add insult to injury, Media Central’s latest gig involves getting into an affiliate marketing partnership with waterproof footwear company, Vessi.

There’s nothing particularly wrong with Vessi and this isn’t about them.

Launched in 2018 in Vancouver, Vessi’s normally in the business of producing and selling waterproof sneakers, but in April of this year, they introduced the Vessi Community Fund, which gives away $1,000 for 10 days to people looking to make a difference in their community. Because people love a good charity story, Vessi tripled their sales during the quarter and now expects to hit one million customers by the end of the year.

Doing charitable things for your community, even if you get a little profit kickback in the back end, should be rewarded with a signal boost. But it’s this little nugget tucked in the back of the press release that’s stuck in my craw:

“MediaCentral carefully selects its partners ensuring principles align and that its readers will gain value from the promotion. All sponsored content is marked as such and upholds to the highest level of journalistic integrity.”

That’s 100% untrammelled Grade-A bullshit right there.

One of the first things that’s pounded into your in year one of J-school is that if your stories are selling a product then you’re not doing your job right. University level journalism studies sheds a bit more light on the grey areas of this issue: neoliberal journalism is always about hocking products because of who owns the production, and in the eternal Faustian struggle between editorial and marketing—marketing always wins, but MediaCentral is taking that one step further by selling us cow-shit and telling us its ice cream.

“We have seen positive month-over-month revenue growth from our existing affiliate partnerships and forecast affiliate marketing to be a significant sales driver as we move into the future. At MediaCentral we are focused first on the experience of our audience, and we will continue to ensure that any partnership we enter into will benefit and align with our readers interests and preferences,” said Brian Kalish, CEO of MediaCentral.

Read the previous quote over again. It’s a fitting epitaph to good journalism and in its place we have infotainment and listicles and other mind-numbing brain dumps. Whatever best serves the audience experience and benefits and aligns with their interests—good journalism informs first and the information is useful for decision making. What MediaCentral is offering is a ‘customer experience’ that best suits their bottom line. Expect anything that doesn’t contravene the buying mood. Less coverage. More listicles. More esports and finance and less culture and politics.

There’s no word on whether or not they’ll be keeping the nudie-girls and the Dan Savage column, but while you’re looking for it you can finger past the in-text links and banner ads of the editors from each outlet who have given the thankless task of producing content to drive consumers to Vessi’s website.

But hey, Vessi’s products will appear on the digital platforms of Media Central’s platforms, including NOW Magazine and the Georgia Straight. And MediaCentral will do their part by signal boosting out to their 6.5 million strong audience.

Isn’t that special?

—Joseph Morton