News about news

• The Journal de Montréal has filed a complaint against CBC/Radio-Canada after its investigative programs reported a story that it believed it got the scoop on, and even used one of its pictures without authorization. The story is posted here.
• Some marketing genius behind the movie A Cure for Wellness set up a series of fake news websites to help promote the film. They were taken down after BuzzFeed investigated.
• A Pew Research study shows that people who get news online generally don’t remember where they read what they learned.
• Radio-Canada is organizing its first hackathon.
• A discussion on Wikipedia has resulted in the Daily Mail being deemed “generally unreliable” as a source of information, and therefore “generally prohibited” for that use. This is being interpreted as a “ban” by news media, which isn’t that far from the truth.
• The STM took a swipe at MTL Blog last week after it repeated a misleading story falsely alleging that the new Azur trains were too big for the metro tunnels. Spokesperson Amélie Régis told Radio-Canada: “Je me permets de vous mettre en garde contre les articles de ce site, qui sont souvent erronés, les rédacteurs ne vérifiant jamais leurs faits auprès de [la STM]”

TV

Things print reporters do that annoy TV reporters. #youreinmyshot (Now waiting for rebuttal about annoying things TV reporters do…) pic.twitter.com/1ypZEoowmA

— Maya Johnson (@MJohnsonCTV) February 14, 2017

• Keeping Canada Safe is the name of the new Canadian emergency services documentary series that will air on CBC starting in March. Eight half-hour episodes produced by Force Four Entertainment (Keeping Canada Alive, Border Security).
• TSN announced its Major League Soccer broadcast schedule. It has rights to all 34 games of the Vancouver Whitecaps, all 34 games of Toronto FC, and 12 Montreal Impact games (the national ones sold by MLS). TVA Sports will broadcast all 34 Impact games in French. New this year is the opening of a Saturday afternoon MLS window on CTV, which will show 10 games at 1, 3 or 4pm, three of which are Impact games.
• Former freestyle skier Jean-Luc Brassard let loose some steam about Canadian broadcasters failing to pay attention to amateur winter sports, including the championship win by downhill skier Erik Guay last weekend. The story notes that CBC/Radio-Canada, which broadcasts “Olympic” sports on weekends, couldn’t agree to the price the ski federation’s agent demanded for the rights to that event.
• Production has begun in Montreal on FUBAR, the second original scripted series by Viceland Canada.
• Casting is taking place for the next season of Canada’s Worst Driver. The Montreal Gazette’s Bill Brownstein talks to the casting director about what they’re looking for. (Fans of the series will be pleased to know that this season’s “winner”, Krystal McCann, has admitted she has a mental health issue and needed an attitude adjustment, and took steps to get better.)
• CTV has greenlit a new one-hour, 10-episode detective series.
• Distributor eOne sold the CTV miniseries Cardinal to the BBC and other broadcasters in Europe.
• Franco-Ontarians weren’t too happy about the lack of representation of themselves on Radio-Canada. The broadcaster pointed to investments in digital to better connect people with communities, which nicely avoids having to ask itself why almost everything broadcast nationally on Radio-Canada television is based in or about Montreal.

Radio

• CNN visited Quebec City to talk about hate speech there, and that includes interviewing its talk radio personalities.
• The Globe and Mail’s Sean Gordon talks to Ron Fournier about his career.

Print

• Broadcaster Magazine has been shut down.
• Le Devoir, La Presse and Le Soleil have begun legal proceedings against a website called La Dose Pro, accusing it of violating copyright.

Online

• Véronique Cloutier’s Véro.tv channel on Radio-Canada’s Tou.tv Extra launched on Tuesday. C’est juste de la TV lays out what programming it offers on the $7 a month service.
• The Canadaland Commons podcast is coming back, with three new hosts to replace the hosts who left who replaced the hosts who left.

News about people

• Barry Morgan, recently let go by CJAD, tried his hand at doing a video report for the English Montreal School Board, hired on a freelance basis by Mike Cohen, who is in charge of communications there.
• Postmedia columnist Michael Den Tandt has left the company “for another opportunity” that hasn’t been disclosed yet. The departure was immediate upon being announced.
• Jeff Yates, who was the “Inspecteur viral” fact-checker at Métro, has been hired by Radio-Canada. His old employer is therefore looking for a new fact-checking columnist.
• Jean-Philippe Cipriani has left La Presse Canadienne and gone back to L’actualité, to head its digital content team.
• Mike Piperni, a Montreal TV veteran, retired after 40 years. Piperni joined RDS in 2008, and before that he had been news director at CTV Montreal. He also worked at Radio-Canada and TQS, in both cases in the sports department.
• Laura Armstrong is the new Blue Jays beat writer for the Toronto Star.

Good reads

• The Globe and Mail asks if Canada’s 10-point system for determining if TV and film productions are Canadian shouldn’t be expanded to include things like setting. It notes that other countries in Europe have more comprehensive points-based systems.

Jobs

• Digital news editor, Presse Canadienne (deadline: Feb. 17)
• Executive Producer, CBC English Services, London, Ont. (deadline: Feb. 20)
• Fact-checking journalist, Métro (deadline: March 7)

Upcoming events

• Feb. 25: Day of action to protect press freedom
• March 24-26: Radio-Canada hackathon