Maggie Macintosh reports on education for the Winnipeg Free Press. Funding for the Free Press education reporter comes from the Government of Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative.

These two sentences were at the end of an August 19 news report on, among other things, a controversial education bill in Manitoba.

I had heard that the federal government in Canada was subsidizing newspapers, but somehow had forgotten.

This is a very bad sign for press freedom. Government can’t subsidize newspapers without putting its thumb on the scale.

Here’s more on the subsidy program.