News about news

• The far-right group Atalante stormed Vice’s Quebec offices, made a lot of noise and left. The FPJQ is shocked and disgusted by the attempt to intimidate journalists.
• The Ukrainian government faked the death of a Russian journalist in order to try to catch who was trying to kill him. The move has prompted some discussion and concern that this further erodes people’s trust in the media and government at the worst possible time.
• Canadaland has a story about CBC News matching competing news organizations’ scoops without credit. This is a common problem in the industry and a pet peeve of mine as well, but it goes far beyond the CBC. Many, maybe even most mainstream news organizations with decades of experience work under the guideline that you only need to credit a competitor until you’ve independently confirmed the news yourself. If news organizations had to disclose where they first heard about all the stories they published, news would read a lot differently. (Also Frank magazine points out it has been scooped by Canadaland without credit in the past.)
• RTDNA Canada announced its national and network award winners, with CBC getting many of those (51 in total, 6 for the Montreal team). Winners from here:
  • CBC Montreal digital on Quebec City mosque attack
  • CBC Montreal digital on Montreal floods
  • CBC Montreal website
  • CBC Montreal’s Montreapolis podcast
  • CBC Montreal radio on flooding
  • CBC Montreal television for Out of the Shadows: Inside La Meute
  • CTV News Channel, Quebec City Mosque Shooting
  • CJAD 800 for Andrew’s Let’s Talk Story
• The FPJQ is moving its Quebec journalism awards ceremony out of its annual conference and into its own special gala, next May, as part of its 50th anniversary celebration.
• The Don Martin/Arthur Kent defamation case has seen its damages increased to a total of $450,000. Martin published a column in the National Post 10 years ago that harshly criticized Kent, an Alberta politician.
• Two TV journalists at WYFF in Greenville, S.C., were killed while covering a storm when a tree fell on their news van.

At the CRTC

• Christianne M. Laizner has been appointed vice-chair of telecom at the CRTC, for a five-year term beginning July 17, after a year serving as interim vice-chair.
• The commission has approved a proposed relocation of CHAA-FM’s transmitter from Olympic Stadium to the Mount Royal antenna. The station (FM 103,3 Longueuil) said it had to move because of complications from work on the stadium tower, and they would likely get evicted eventually anyway. A potential conflict with Kahnawake’s K103.7 was avoided with an agreement that would still allow K103 to boost power should it find a way to do so.
• The CRTC says Shaw is within its rights to repackage Bell’s Investigation Discovery channel in a way that would cause it to lose a significant number of subscribers. The commission has a conflict resolution system, but Shaw and Bell Media have a valid distribution agreement that allows Shaw to do this.
• The CRTC has approved a power boost for the CBC Radio One transmitter in Chandler, in the Gaspé region.
• The commission has put out a call for licence renewal applications for licenses ending in 2019. Included are radio stations such as CJLO 1690, Cogeco’s CIME-FM in St-Jerome, The Jewel 106.7 in Hudson, CJSO-FM in Sorel, community stations CKVL-FM 100.1 LaSalle and CINQ-FM 102.3 (Radio Centre-Ville), and CFQR 600, the TTP Media station that is still waiting to launch talk programming. There are also TV stations including Canal Savoir and ICI.

Ethical reviews

• CBC ombudsman: Report about a fatal fire at a Nova Scotia building was justified in reporting the cause as an electrical fault even though the fire department changed its conclusion after the story was published.
• CBC ombudsman: There was no reason for Michael Enright not to attend a legal conference, but he should not have accepted them paying his expenses, and the CBC has reimbursed them. He was not paid to be at the conference.
• CBC ombudsman: A Carol Off interview with an Israeli politician was tough but she did not lose her temper and her pointed questions did not show bias.

TV

• ABC has pulled the plug on its most popular new show after its star Roseanne Barr posted a racist tweet. CNN explains how that morning went down at ABC.
• Corus and Bell have dropped plans to sell Historia and Séries+ after the Competition Bureau said it wouldn’t approve the deal.
• CBC Television has announced its fall programming slate, which includes new dramas BUT ALSO STREET LEGAL. Settings for new series include PEI, Dartmouth, N.S., “a small northern town” (Parry Sound, Ont.), Vancouver and the high arctic.
• CTV has announced its summer schedule. The Amazing Race Canada starts July 3.
• CTV has also announced what new American series it has picked up. And Bell Media’s specialty channels have a similar list. The latter notably adds CW series Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow to an unnamed specialty channel from CTV Two. The full fall schedule comes out during its upfront presentation next week.
• DAZN has acquired exclusive Canadian rights to UEFA Champions League and Europa League games, which means TSN will no longer carry them, unless another deal is reached. DAZN already has rights to NFL games (which caused problems when it had technical issues distributing them online) and is continuing to expand.
• OMNI, which is looking for viewer support to keep itself alive in a CRTC proceeding, has announced it will broadcast Toronto Blue Jays games in Tagalog on Saturdays starting some time this summer. Details like start date and on-air staff are TBA. The CRTC is accepting comments on OMNI’s renewal until next week.
• Rogers has announced casting for Season 2 of Bad Blood, the series based off Montreal’s Rizzuto crime family. Since most of the Rizzutos have been killed (in real life and in the series), most of the cast changes from Season 1, leaving only Kim Coates.
• Richard Therrien of Le Soleil talks to Télétoon about its programming plans.
• V won’t be creating a second season of urban dance competition show Danser pour gagner, after it disappointed with ratings this winter.
• Chantal Lacroix, who has made a career out of shows that renovate the homes of people in need, has a new show that revisits some of the people she’s helped to find out how they’re doing. It started this week on Canal Vie.
• Z has a new original series called Porn to be Wild, following two Canadians trying to make it in the Los Angeles porn scene.
• Reporters, hosts and anchors at CP24 in Toronto have officially joined Unifor local 723M.
• TVA Sports will have a new morning and noon show weekdays starting this fall, hosted by Charles-Antoine Sinotte and Jean-Philippe Bertrand, that will feature audience participation through phone-ins and social media.
• Twitter has reached content deals with Canadian broadcasters including Corus and Bell Media to produce new short-form content tied to those broadcasters’ properties including the MMVAs and ET Canada.

Radio

• Corus has completed, presumably, the repurposing of AM talk radio stations into a Global News Radio network, switching iNews 880 in Edmonton (CHQT) into Global News Radio. It follows rebranding of stations CKNW 980 Vancouver, CHQR 770 Calgary, CJOB 680 Winnipeg, CHML 900 Hamilton, CFPL 980 London and CFMJ 640 Toronto, giving it stations in seven of Canada’s 10 largest English-speaking metro areas (eight if you include Kitchener, which is within 100km of three of those stations). Montreal and Ottawa are the other two, and Corus does not own AM stations in either market.
• Christiane Charette is back on the Radio-Canada airwaves, hosting a 5à7 show weekends this summer.
• Sportsnet has a new podcast with Stephen Brunt and Jeff Blair.
• Toronto’s Q107 has dropped its Psychedelic Sundays show.

Print

• Winners of the Grands Prix des Hebdos have been announced. Winners include Info DImanche in Rivière-du-Loup (7), Le Manic in Baie-Comeau (6), the Courrier de Saint-Hyacinthe (6), L’Écho de Frontenac in Lac-Mégantic (6) and Le Reflet in Candiac (5).
• The New York Times talks to one of its illustrators about the technology he uses.

Online

• Bill Brownstein talks to the woman behind Montreal-based porn site ManyVids.
• The Weather Channel in the U.S. is no longer going to post video to Facebook, having decided that it’s not worth it.
• The Globe and Mail profiles Ed the Sock, who is trying to make a comeback with his own online venture.
• NPR has decided that having “blogs” is confusing readers as to what that means, so it’s getting rid of them.

Telecom

• Quebec is getting a new area code: 367 will be added to the region covered by the 418 and 581 area codes in Quebec City and eastern Quebec as of Nov. 24.
• The Kativik Regional Government has reached a deal with Ice Wireless to provide cellphone service to the 14 communities of Nunavik in northern Quebec, replacing the current satellite service.

Other

• Bell and Evenko are buying a majority stake in Just For Laughs, so it remains under Canadian control and doesn’t run into issues getting government grants.
• The makers of Sesame Street failed to get a court to stop the promotion of a Melissa McCarthy movie that parodies the muppets in a vulgar way.

News about people

Such a difficult thing to share with you. pic.twitter.com/5qWScO4fQa

— Kevin Frankish (@KevinFrankish) May 29, 2018

• Kevin Frankish is leaving Breakfast Television Toronto.
• Esther Bégin has been named a new anchor for CPAC, with a French-language daily show starting this fall.
• Luce Julien, fresh of being appointed as editor-in-chief at Le Devoir after a long career at Radio-Canada, is going back to Radio-Canada as its news director, replacing the retiring Michel Cormier.
• Émilie Perreault, who recently left a job on the morning show on 98,5 FM in Montreal, is creating an interview series for ARTV, about people whose lives are transformed by a work of art.
• Andrea Bellemare is leaving CBC Montreal for Toronto to be a social media producer for CBC Radio.
• Tommy Schnurmacher, recently retired from CJAD, has decided to get off his butt and finally write his memoirs, but rather than shop it to a publisher, he’ll publish it on a daily basis online for free, starting June 4.
• Mike Cohen talks to Alyson Lozoff, formerly of Sportsnet in Montreal, about her new job as rinkside reporter for Vegas Golden Knights games.
• Marie-Sylvie Lefebvre has been named director of acquisitions at Groupe V Média.
• Journalist Mathilde Roy has left l’Actualité for Protégez-Vous.
• Darya Marchenkova is this summer’s first reporting intern at the Montreal Gazette. You can read her stories here.
• Priya Sam is leaving CTV Atlantic’s Morning Live to join Your Morning in Toronto as Lindsey Deluce’s maternity leave replacement for the next 10 months.
• Susan Lunn is leaving CBC Radio for a new job at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
• Madeline Smith is leaving Maclean’s to join the Star’s Calgary bureau.
• Raphaël Bouvier-Auclair is leaving Radio-Canada’s Ottawa bureau to become its correspondent in Washington.
• Tamara Altéresco will be Radio-Canada’s new Moscow bureau chief, replacing Raymond St-Pierre.
• Travis Dhanraj is leaving CP24 to join Global News as its Queen’s Park bureau chief.
• Colin D’Mello is leaving the CTV Toronto weekend anchor desk to become its new Queen’s Park bureau chief.
• Natasha Grzincic has left the Toronto Star for Vice’s Motherboard.
• Bill Brownstein talks to Montreal actress Sarah Booth.
• Barack and Michelle Obama have a Netflix production deal.
• NBC’s Doc Emrick had some kind words for Leah Hextall, saying he thinks she could be the first woman to do regular play-by-play on NHL broadcasts.
• Énergie radio host José Gaudet got into some hot water commenting on a viral video about a woman defecating in a Tim Hortons by referring to “un Gregory Charles” in reference to poop. He apologized for comparing a black man to human excrement. At least one complaint has been filed with the CRTC (which will likely kick it over to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council).
• Jerry Sullivan has taken a buyout from the Buffalo News after it axed his sports column.
• Peter King has written his final Monday Morning Quarterback column for Sports Illustrated.
• Hockey journalists covering Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final wore some red on Monday in honour of the late Red Fisher.
• Randy Tieman hit his first hole in one.

Obituaries

• Rolande Allard-Lacerte, author and former Le Devoir contributor

Good reads

• The end of news on TQS, 10 years later, by Richard Therrien of Le Soleil
• BuzzFeed on how a man decided to make up a ridiculous fictional personality to expose the lack of vetting at Odyssey, a website of first-person experiences.
• The Gazette’s Stu Cowan talks to Paul Wilson, the new PR boss at the Montreal Canadiens. The team is being a bit more adventurous on social media and is now finally disclosing salaries when player signings are announced.
• Philadelphia 76ers director of basketball operations Bryan Colangelo appears to have set up several anonymous Twitter accounts, which he used to bash players and try to leak confidential information.

Upcoming events

• National Magazine Awards, June 1

Jobs

• Videojournalists, City Montreal
• Program Director, K103 in Kahnawake (deadline: June 1)
• Digital broadcast journalist, Global Halifax (deadline: June 1)
• Backend and frontend developers, elections, CBC Toronto