News about news

• RTDNA Canada has published the nominees for its regional awards. CBC Montreal and CBC Quebec laud their 27 nominations for television, radio and digital, which reflects more the surprisingly high number of categories than the work of the public broadcaster in this province.
• J-Source has updated a story from a couple of years ago about diversity among columnists across the country. Unfortunately the response rate was low, so it’s hard to make conclusions, but the data it does show isn’t very promising.
• La Presse published a story noting it lost a Quebec Press Council decision over a story that failed to get reaction from both sides.
• CBC’s ombudsman has a report about journalist Jacques Poitras using two Twitter accounts — one associated with CBC, the other to promote his book. The report mostly defends Poitras, but points out the dangers of wearing two hats online.
• The Courrier du Sud, a Transcontinental newspaper, yanked a caricature of Philippe Couillard after the premier’s office complained about it. Reaction to this story is that while the caricature may be crude, the premier’s office overstepped and it is well within the bounds of fair comment. (Couillard denies asking for the cartoon to be yanked.)

At the CRTC

• Newcap has asked the CRTC to drop its 15% special-interest music requirement for CHLG-FM 104.3 in Vancouver (one of the stations Bell got rid of after it bought Astral). It says the station lost $10 million in seven years.
• CBC has applied to replace low-power AM transmitters with low-power FM transmitters in Lebel-sur-Quévillon and Senneterre.

TV

• The Canadian Screen Awards were Sunday. If you don’t want to watch the nearly three-hour show, CBC has some highlights, mainly from the acceptance speeches that celebrated diversity in the screen. Or if you want to read someone shit all over another culture by celebrating his ignorance of it, you can read Marc Cassivi.
• TVA Sports will be broadcasting the FIS cross-country skiing World Cup event this weekend, after broadcasters were criticized for not showing winter sports on TV live or even at all. (Broadcasters argued the rights were too expensive.) The fact that this event is in Quebec City certainly helps.
• Skiers weren’t the only ones complaining about lack of TV coverage. Caroline Ouellette of Les Canadiennes complained that the team’s recent Clarkson Cup win wasn’t broadcast on television in French (even though most of the team’s players are francophones from Quebec). Producing a live hockey broadcast is expensive, but Sportsnet was already doing it in English, so why not add a couple of franco play-by-play guys?
• Saturday Night Live is planning four half-hour Weekend Update episodes this summer.
• A popular Korean TV series is prompting a lot of Korean tourists to visit the Quebec City locations featured in it.
• Work on the new Maison Radio-Canada is going to cause noise that will force TV series being produced out of the old building’s basement to move.
• For the first time in more than 20 years, a woman will be on the play-by-play team during March Madness.

Radio

• Sportsnet has stolen the radio broadcast rights for Vancouver Canucks games from Bell Media for five years beginning next season. Rogers says it hasn’t decided which station will air the games. It owns one AM station, News 1130, and two FM stations, Kiss 104.9 and Jack 96.9, in the market. So 1130 would be the obvious bet, but another possibility would be starting up a new AM radio station in the market. Or maybe Bell would be willing to part with one of its two Vancouver TSN stations, since there will now be fewer scheduling conflicts. If it does end up on 1130, it could rebrand as Canada’s third Sportsnet radio station, or just do like 98.5 does in Montreal and stay news-talk during the day and sports at night. Or maybe they put the games on FM. There are many possibilities here.

Print

Le Globe and Mail ferme officiellement son bureau de l'Assemblée nationale, qui était vacant depuis la retraite de Rhéal Séguin pic.twitter.com/SeuagQX5gQ

— Charles Lecavalier (@Lecavalier_C) March 14, 2017

• The Globe and Mail has cleaned out its office at the Quebec press gallery, since the newspaper no longer has a reporter based in Quebec City.
• The cuts continue at Postmedia (my employer). That across-the-board 20 per cent job cut is has filtered down to the layoff stage in Vancouver, where 54 layoff notices have been issued, mostly in editorial. (The union has vowed to fight.) Meanwhile, non-unionized employees are seeing major cuts to their benefits, from vacation time to pensions to mental health assistance.

News about people

J'ai le plaisir d'annoncer que je suis la nouvelle correspondante parlementaire de La Presse Canadienne à Québec!

— Caroline Plante (@cplantepresse) March 13, 2017

• Caroline Plante was quickly picked up after being laid off at the Gazette: She’s now a reporter for Presse Canadienne. (And yes, she knows she has to change her Twitter handle)
• Rachelle MacDuff is the new editor in chief of Métro in Montreal
• Adrian Lee is the new opinions editor for Maclean’s.
• Several beat changes at the Globe and Mail: Dakshana Bascaramurty? becomes the paper’s first ever race beat reporter; Justin Giovanetti leaves Edmonton to become the Ontario provincial government reporter; and Janet McFarland moves to the real estate beat.
• Marie-Christine Trottier has left Montreal municipal politics to join the Quebec City parliamentary bureau for the Journal de Montréal/Québec.

Good reads

We’ll pay you in visibility, said the person in the equation who needs visibility.

— Tamy Emma Pepin (@TamyEmmaPepin) March 13, 2017

• Beisan Zubi on why she just endured sexual harassment on Parliament Hill rather than report it
• The Globe and Mail on a copyright imbroglio at Concordia University (and Michael Geist’s response)
• Atkinson Fellow Catherine Wallace on the idea of museums as newsrooms (yeah, make your own jokes)
• The Toronto Star on sports TV people doing podcasts
• La Presse visits a fake news factory in Georgia (the state, not the country)

Jobs

• Copy editor, Les Affaires (deadline: March 16)
• Videojournalist, CTV Winnipeg (deadline: March 16)
• Journalist (contract), Le Devoir (deadline: March 17)
• Deputy executive producer, Montreal Gazette (deadline: March 20)
• Design editor, Globe and Mail (deadline: March 20)
• Tenure track professor in data journalism at Concordia University (deadline: March 24)
• Videojournalist, CBC Saskatoon (deadline: March 27)
• Assistant general manager, FPJQ (deadline: April 2)
• Journalists, Journal de Montréal (deadline: May 2)
• Mandarin-speaking reporter in Vancouver, Globe and Mail
• Reporter, Metro Ottawa

Upcoming events

• March 24-26: Radio-Canada hackathon
• May 20: Canadaland in Montreal