Fagstein » Blogosphere

Adams family

Fagstein — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 00:36:42 +0000

Alston Adams at a Yulblog meeting in 2008

Alston Adams was a character.

I didn't know him very well, but he was a hard guy to forget, and not only because he'd usually be the only black guy at a meeting of Montreal bloggers.

Adams had been fighting cancer for years, and blogging about it. Even though it was a serious medical condition with a depressing prognosis and no cure, he still kept going, showing up at the monthly YULblog meetings with his razor-sharp wit in tow. It could catch you off-guard, but it was endearing. With the energy and arrogance he showed, you'd think cancer wouldn't stand a chance.

It took a long time, but cancer won the battle. Adams died yesterday, according to his friends, who have been flooding his Facebook wall. He was 35.

Since they knew him better than I did, I'll point to the eulogies from his fellow bloggers:

A while ago, Adams participated in a documentary called Wrong Way to Hope, about young adults with cancer. The trailer (released almost a year ago) doesn't do justice to his personality, which was far more animated (this bit from the deleted scenes is much more representative).

There's some ironic timing here: His death comes just as the film is coming out. The premiere was two weeks ago, and the Canadian premiere is next week.

The monthly YULblog meeting is Wednesday, Oct. 6, 8pm at La Quincaillerie, 980 Rachel East. Expect Adams to be on the tips of tongues of those present.

UPDATE: Here's daily mugshots of Adams until Sept. 13, three weeks before he died.

Montreal City Weblog redesigns (change your RSS feeds)

Fagstein — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:03:31 +0000

After threatening to do so for what seemed like forever, Kate McDonnell has changed the almost decade-old Montreal City Weblog from Blogger to WordPress, and given it a redesign:

Montreal City Weblog: http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/

The new version is a big change from the 90s-era design that has gone virtually unchanged since 2001.

One of the side-effects of the change is that the old RSS feeds have disappeared, and those (like me) who subscribed via Google Reader haven't seen any new posts since Feb. 19. So you should pick up the new feed at http://w5.montreal.com/mtlweblog/?feed=rss2

The new site also allows her to enable comments, though for now the plan is to use it sparingly.

Bird’s blogging

Fagstein — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 09:46:49 +0000

Ted Bird (if I have to explain who he is you clearly haven't been reading this blog) has begun blogging in addition to his Twitter activity.

The blog is essentially an extension of his popular "Bird Droppings" radio thing, and features comments on stuff, particularly sports.

The baby Hitler front and centre on the blog's homepage should give you an idea of how little self-censorship is involved here.

I must say, though, it's just not the same without the voice...

Gazette West Island columnist Huntley Addie also talks about Bird this week.

Hour’s new blogs

Fagstein — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:28:49 +0000

I just noticed them today, but Hour (you know, the alt-weekly) has setup a community website with two blogs: Up to the Hour, a newsy group blog by the editorial team of stuff that won't fit in print, and The National Beat: Music News, whose focus should be obvious.

Jamie O'Meara introduces the former blog in its inaugural post from earlier this month.

Burgermongers

Fagstein — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 21:20:55 +0000

The Gazette's casual dining critic Sarah Musgrave interviews Chris (Zeke) Hand (formerly of the Zeke's Gallery craziness) and Ed Hawco (of Blork Blog) about their current project, the Montreal Burger Report, a radio show for CKUT, audio podcast and blog, all about reviewing local restaurants for their burgers.

The article, which was apparently written from the mythical "casual dining headquarters", includes an absolutely adorable picture of Hand taken by Hawco.

You can subscribe to the Montreal Burger Report podcast here.

Go support our local Blogathon bloggers

Fagstein — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 07:49:13 +0000

The annual Blogathon 24-hour blogging-for-charity fundraiser stunt-thing begins at 9am Saturday. Two local bloggers who have done this before are back: Sherry Osborne (UNHCR) and Stephen David Wark (Montreal Children's Hospital Autism Clinic). I wrote about Wark last year and Osborne the year before.

Go show them some love, especially at 4am when they don't think anyone's listening anymore.

You can see a full list of blogs taking part here. The idea is to post at least once every half hour from 9am Saturday (6pm PT) to 9am Sunday.

Maxime Bernier has new technologies

Fagstein — Wed, 27 May 2009 22:11:49 +0000

There's no way I can make this better than it already is. (via @mediabeat)

It occured to me I've never actually heard Maxime Bernier speak in English before (my attention must have been focused elsewhere). Now the new Conservative minister of nothing is putting it in practice with a new blog.

Don't expect him to be too honest or outrageous though, the Tories don't like honesty on their members' blogs.

Nelson Dumais and Cyberpresse need to stand up for integrity

Fagstein — Mon, 18 May 2009 21:19:25 +0000

A few weeks ago, Cyberpresse technology blogger Nelson Dumais had a curious post on his blog attacking the Quebec Press Council. It seems the Conseil de presse du Québec had issued a decision which blamed him for accepting free trips, a violation of the council's code of ethics.

The situation is somewhat nuanced, so let me explain:

The council only acts based on complaints. In this case, a reader who has a beef with Dumais accused him of being biased in favour of corporate software and against free software, because of these free junkets he went on. The complainant also accuses Dumais of censoring his comments on Dumais's blog. The council rejected both of these complaints, failing to find any bias in Dumais's work and ruling that Dumais has the authority to moderate his blog as he sees fit.

But the council did give Dumais a slap on the wrist for accepting free travel sponsored by the companies he writes about, without fully disclosing the trips to his readers. He hasn't hidden the fact that he gets these trips for free, he even wrote a blog post about it in 2006, but since not all readers will have seen that post, he should disclose it whenever there might be a conflict of interest.

Paid travel is listed as an example in the council's section on responsibilities of the press to avoid conflicts of interest:

Preventing Conflicts of Interest

The Press Council recommends that media enterprises develop clear policies to prevent and deal with conflict of interest situations. Those policies should apply both to reporters and opinion writers. All situations that risk compromising the independence and impartiality of journalists should be addressed. Examples include paid travel, privileges and gifts, as well as awards and prizes offered by any group whose main purpose is to promote something other than journalism.

It acknowledges that there might be exceptions (reporting from war zones or other far-off places where commercial travel is unfeasible), but that there must be full disclosure in those situations.

Of course, these are all guidelines. The council has no official power. It cannot fine or discipline journalists for violations, and participation in the council is optional.

So a body with no power has mostly cleared Dumais of wrongdoing, only saying that he should disclose where the companies he writes about give him free travel to their junkets. Simple, right?

Obviously not, because Dumais is pissed. And I must be missing something, because most of his readers are too, and even fellow journalists.

Dumais's argument is also nuanced. First of all, he's not on staff at La Presse or Cyberpresse. He's a freelancer, which means he basically has to look after his own expenses.

He also trots out that well-worn of excuses that everybody else does it, so that makes it okay.

Finally, he adds that in no way have these junkets affected how he reports, and requiring disclosure on every piece he writes would give people the false impression that these companies are paying him for his opinion.

But none of these excuses justifies accepting all-expenses-paid trips from software companies, much less deciding not to disclose them fully.

First of all, as any ethics expert will tell you, it's not just about conflict of interest. It's about the appearance of conflict.

Second, if these junkets truly had absolutely no effect on how journalists report, they would not exist. These giant software companies aren't morons. They know if they give you free food and free travel, you're a lot more likely to talk about their product. There might not be any direct quid pro quo, but they know you're a lot more likely to say something positive about them. And if you have a reputation as someone who bashes the products promoted on these junkets, you won't be invited to them in the future.

Finally, Cyberpresse should not be exploiting freelancers as a way of getting around paying expenses. Dumais is right that if he billed Gesca for all these trips, he wouldn't be allowed to go on them anymore (an argument that makes it clear these trips are of value to him). But if we accept that journalists should not get free travel, then even freelancers should have their expenses paid for, no questions asked. This judgment is as much a stain on Gesca as it is on Dumais.

Dumais says he doesn't have a choice in this matter. That's bullshit. He can refuse these junkets. He just doesn't want to, and neither does Cyberpresse, because they both (indirectly) profit financially from them.

Dumais and Cyberpresse must put an immediate stop to this, and stand up for journalistic integrity. These junkets should be outright banned, Dumais's previous articles online should be edited to add disclosure statements to them, and a policy should be setup to ensure that freelancers do not feel they have to deal with their own expenses when they write original pieces for Gesca-owned properties. Other media organizations should follow suit with similar policies, including full disclosure of any gifts, sponsorships, favours or expenses paid for by companies seeking favourable coverage.

Someone must stand up for ethics, even if that means he stands alone.

If Frank Zampino is getting raked over the coals for accepting a yacht trip that he paid for, why should Nelson Dumais be allowed to accept trips that were provided for free? Do we expect stronger ethics in politicians than journalists?

Our honoured mothers

Fagstein — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:11:51 +0000

Sunday's Gazette, in honour of mother's day (Happy Mother's Day, Mom!), features an article about Montreal's mommy-bloggers, including of course the Mère Indigne. The article comes with a giant picture of Caroline Allard and kids, as well as a sidebar focusing on Quebec's most famous mommyblogger.

I wrote about Allard and Mère Indigne in 2007 when her first book came out. The article isn't online, but I just posted it here, along with questions I asked her back then via email. She screwed me over saddened her readers back then by announcing she was putting her blog on hiatus. Of course, like a bad drug she couldn't stop with the blogging, posting stuff to a second blog. And she wrote another book. And created a web series for Radio-Canada.

All while raising two children.

Susan Semenak's article also discusses other Quebec mommybloggers, whom we honour on this day:

Radio-Canada.ca launches Mère Indigne web series

Quebec photographer’s legal guide

Fagstein — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 00:08:00 +0000

Francis Vachon, the freelance photographer based in Quebec City, has a good, simple guide (in French) to laws related to photography in Quebec, and what you can and can't do as a photographer without permission.

The Gazette’s new blog … about Montreal

Fagstein — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 04:02:26 +0000

The Gazette's Andy Riga, apparently not content enough with his new transportation beat, has started up a new blog called Metropolitan News at communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blogs/metropolitannews/default.aspx.

In its inaugural post, Riga promises the blog will "offer quirky looks at Montreal events, news and personalities; highlight the city's vibrant online community, from bloggers to Twitterers to video posters; and tell you what is being said about our fair city in other parts of the blogosphere."

I look forward to seeing what he's got in store, and not just because I'm on his blogroll. Riga also has a Twitter account associated with this new project, which is worth a follow.

Radio-Canada.ca launches Mère Indigne web series

Fagstein — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 05:09:27 +0000

Caroline Allard has been busy. The blogueuse-vedette known as the Mère Indigne who turned her blog about parenting into a book was on Tout le monde en parle Sunday night and Christianne Charette Monday morning talking about the sequel to the book and a new online video series on radio-canada.ca that launched Monday night starring Marie-Hélène Thibault. (The fact that these are all part of the Radio-Canada family is a coincidence, I'm sure.)

You can also see a video interview with Allard on the series website, as well as a short piece explaining the series.

Unfortunately, Radio-Canada is using Microsoft Silverlight for its video, which meant I had to install that software and then switch from Firefox to Safari in order to see it. Is Flash-based video still too difficult? Or Quicktime? Or YouTube?

Traffic up at Habs Inside/Out

Fagstein — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 20:41:59 +0000

Habs Inside/Out, my newspaper's most successful online venture so far, is seeing 100% traffic increases over last year, according to a recent post from Mike Boone. Those kinds of numbers put all of their other blogs (and mine) to shame, but they are well-deserved because of the efforts put into it by Boone, Dave Stubbs, Kevin Mio and Pat Hickey, who all contribute to bringing breaking news to the site in addition to their day jobs for the newspaper.

My photo on a T-shirt

Fagstein — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:22:51 +0000

Dominic Arpin on a T-shirt (Bombe.tv)

I was just reading a post on Dominic Arpin's blog about how he noticed a picture of himself in a video on Bombe.tv (click on "Les infos"). It's silly, but we bloggers are a vain group sometimes, we love talking about how other people are talking about us.

It's cute, a picture of Arpin being made into a T-shirt. But something seemed familiar about the picture. It looked similar to one I'd taken of him at a YULblog meet last year.

The original photo from my blog

In fact, it's the same photo, apparently taken through a Google Image search. Needless to say, they'll be hearing from my lawyers soon.

Oh wait, I don't have any lawyers.

Well that's ok. My outrage is tongue-in-cheek anyway. People can do what they want with my stuff for personal use (you know, build a shrine to me or something). So long as they're not selling them I'm OK with it. But would some credit have hurt? At the very least they could have asked me for a high-resolution version instead of taking the 450-pixel wide one on my blog.

I could have even given them the non-cropped version:

The Dominic Arpin original

Of course, it's really Arpin that makes the photo with his adorable little smile there.

Maybe I should make some T-shirts out of it. I could make a career out of printing T-shirts of Quebec blogger celebrities.

How soon the Internet forgets

Fagstein — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 07:56:08 +0000

I'm going through my feeds in Google Reader, cleaning up some dead wood from my over 500 subscriptions so I can compile a list of links for a blogroll. I went a bit nuts in 2007, subscribing to any blog I could find that was created by a Montrealer. So many of them haven't been updated since then because their authors became disinterested, started up new blogs elsewhere or because the subject material became dated.

High up my list of "inactive" blogs was one that sounded familiar: "Une vie en musique". That was the blog of René Lapalme, who wrote about music until his cancer forced him to write about that. I wrote about his blog, having never met him, shortly after he died (other bloggers had obits too). A few months later, it was wiped off the Internet. Now only a trip through the Wayback Machine can uncover some of what he said, because unevieenmusique.com is advertising cheap domains from Go Daddy.

Yes, Google Reader, I'm sure I'd like to unsubscribe.

A missing voice

Nothing like a blogger popularity contest

Fagstein — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:29:26 +0000

This morning on Christiane Charette's show on Radio-Canada, three stars of the Quebec web were invited to compile a list of the most influential Quebec web celebrities.

Like most ideas, this one was stolen from a similar worldwide list created by Forbes magazine, which put celebrity gossipist Perez Hilton at the top (just to give you an idea of what criteria they use).

All three of them posted to their blogs asking readers to make suggestions: Bruno Guglielminetti, Michelle Blanc and Dominic Arpin. Their posts got a bunch of comments (some of them wanting to plug their own blogs), and also prompted other bloggers to offer their own lists:

But there were also a lot of comments, especially from other bloggers, about how such a list goes against the entire spirit of the web.

Martine Pagé has the best writeup about the problems with this process, so much so that I feel kind of silly going over the same points. Her comments were also echoed by other bloggers.

Like her, I'll admit that I scanned the lists at least subconsciously to see if I was mentioned. (Blanc said it best: "on se rend vite compte que les listes, on s’en fou, mais qu’il faut être dedans.") More consciously, though, I wanted to see what kind of people made each list, and what kind of criteria were used to select them. Did the lists include:

Anglophones?
Professional journalists (like Patrick Lagacé)?
People who are active on Twitter/Facebook/etc. but don't have blogs?
People who are active bloggers but not on Twitter/Facebook/etc.?
Executives of web companies who don't do anything personal online?

They seemed to agree that their lists should be confined to those whose popularity stems mainly from the Internet (so no Lagacé). They also included people like Patrick Boivin and Michel Beaudet of Têtes à claques who don't blog. Blanc explains her reasoning.

The mutually-agreed-upon top 10 are listed on Charette's site. Guglielminetti and Blanc also provide their top 25 (Arpin says to look at his blogroll). It's very easy to see the influence of the three on the list: lots of representation from web video producers (five), and tech/social media/marketing bloggers (three). Renart L'éveillé points out that news/opinion/political bloggers are conspicuously absent from these lists (probably because many of them are professional journalists and were excluded for that reason).

As Pagé points out, the same names tend to come up in these kinds of lists. That's not because these three experts didn't do their jobs properly and focused on their friends, it's because that's the nature of the Web. Your Web is made up of your Facebook friends, who you follow on Twitter, which blogs you read and which YouTube channels you're subscribed to. There's an infinite supply out there, and they're all of different types, so everyone's web is going to be different, which makes this list all the more silly (in their defence, the panelists are fully aware of how silly this exercise is).

There's already an outlet for self-obsessed bloggers who want to rank themselves: It's called Tout le monde en blogue, and it judges strictly by traffic numbers (participating blogs place counters on their pages, which show their ranking to their readers). It's stupid, it's vain, it's shallow and it's pointless. But at least it's objective.

Maybe we should leave the lists to them.

UPDATE: More after-the-fact commentary from Yves Williams, Mario Asselin and (briefly) Patrick Tanguay.

UPDATE (Feb. 11): One of my blog's loyal readers totally blasts me on his for this post for having suggested that I'm above vanity (which I don't think I've done).

McDonnell on Daybreak

Fagstein — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:45:40 +0000

CBC Daybreak this morning explored newspapers vs. the Internet, and interviewed local blogueuse Kate McDonnell as well as Linkie Giuseppe Valiante. The interview is online (sadly, in streaming RealAudio format) on CBC's website.

Both McDonnell and Valiante agree that local news outlets have to focus on local news, because international news is so accessible.

YULblog relaunches tonight

Fagstein — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 09:28:59 +0000

Local bloggers (and their groupies) might recognize YULblog ... yulblog ... Yulblog ... however you capitalize it ... as a monthly meeting of local bloggers (and their groupies) for drinks, discussions and oggling iPhones.

But once upon a time it was also a website that republished Montreal-centric blog posts from its members. That part fell by the wayside because the people behind it (essentially Patrick Tanguay) didn't have enough time to maintain it (see Patrick's comment below).

Now, organization of Yulblog's monthly meetings is being handed over to the new, less busy hands of Michael Boyle, and the website is being relaunched tonight to coincide with this month's Yulblog meeting (8 p.m. at La Quincaillerie, 980 Rachel St. E., near Parc Lafontaine). It's worth braving early January weather to go see.

I hope.

Police racism? That’s so last year

Fagstein — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 08:13:27 +0000

I guess determining that the whole Fredy Villanueva thing and police not getting along well with young brown people has all been settled now, L'Actualité has ended its Montreal North blog. (Well, actually it's made it "dormant", which is kind of like when my ex-girlfriend said our relationship was just on a break - it'll be forgotten about quickly.)

The Score unites really crappy sports blogs

Fagstein — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 18:55:41 +0000

The Score, that sports channel nobody gets because it doesn't show anything, has launched what it calls the "thescore.com Sports Federation", a network of independent sports blogs for the various Canadian NHL teams, the Jays and Raptors:

Toronto's Score Media Inc. has launched theScore.com Sports Federation, connecting together a network of independent sports websites, and empowering them to reach a larger audience - with the help and support of a national multi-platform sports network.

Here are the blogs they list, not one of which (except maybe CISblog) I'd heard of before today:

Down Goes Brown (Toronto Maple Leafs blog) – http://www.downgoesbrown.com
Canucks Hockey Blog (Vancouver Canucks blog) – http://www.canuckshockeyblog.com
Five Hole Fanatics (Calgary Flames blog) – http://www.fiveholefanatics.ca
Sens Chirp (Ottawa Senators blog) – http://www.senschirp.ca
Black Dog Hates Skunks (Edmonton Oilers blog) – http://www.blackdoghatesskunks.com
Lions in Winter (Montreal Canadiens blog) – http://www.lionsinwinter.ca
Fantasy Hockey Scouts (fantasy hockey blog) – http://www.fantasyhockeyscouts.com
Drunk Jays Fans (Toronto Blue Jays blog) – http://www.drunkjaysfans.com
Ghostrunner on First (Toronto Blue Jays blog) – http://www.ghostrunneronfirst.com
RaptorBlog.com (Toronto Raptors blog) – http://www.raptorblog.com
Dino Nation Blog (Toronto Raptors blog) – http://www.dinonationblog.com
The CIS Blog (Canadian Interuniversity Sports blog) – http://www.cisblog.ca

Now, I don't follow non-Montreal sports that closely, so I'm not in a position to judge most of these, but is Lions in Winter really the best Habs blog out there? Better than Fanatique, Habs Inside/Out or François Gagnon?

Yes, my three examples are blogs backed by Big Media, but that's kind of the point. Without the access and resources of big media (whether conventional big-city newspapers like The Gazette or La Presse, or hip new media like Branchez-Vous), all you have is some guy talking out of his ass (with all due respect to my fellow ass-talkers).

Small, part-time do-it-for-the-fun sports blogs are much more likely to be successful covering niches that big media ignore: university sports, junior leagues, soccer/golf/tennis, etc. The audience is smaller, but it's also much less fragmented.

UPDATE: Getting some awesome linkhate from Drunk Jays Fans and RaptorBlog, who I guess dilligently check their incoming links. I must admit, calling me "Guy Faguette" is a rock-solid argument and really shows me how much I erred in suggesting these blogs might not be the most professional.

Fagstein » Blogosphere

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