Fagstein » bad ideas

The contradictory stock photo

Fagstein — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 06:00:18 +0000

I find it funny how the lady in the Sun News Network promo complaining about how "political correctness has run amok":

is the same lady promoting government assistance to old people in Quebec:

(Click on the photos to get links to where they come from)

This is, of course, a stock photo. I tracked it down to German photographer Martina Ebel, who sells it through various stock photo sites. She confirmed the photo was hers, though she didn't give me information about the model, who appears in dozens of other photos taken by Ebel.

I'd be willing to put money on the assumption that this nice-looking old lady is not Canadian, has never requested financial assistance from the Quebec government, and has never watched the Sun News Network.

But that's not important, right? What's important is the illusion that this photo represents an actual person we can relate to, and who are news media or the government to dispell us of the false impressions they planted in our minds?

Besides, it's so heartwarming that right-wing media blowhards and left-wing government money wasters have at least one thing in common: the same taste in generic old women.

STM takes down its totem pole

Fagstein — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 20:05:16 +0000

A new bus stop sign design was shown off with a new shelter design

Last fall, the STM showed off - with great fanfare - a prototype for a brand new bus stop shelter, which it installed on René-Lévesque Blvd. near Jeanne-Mance St. Installed along with it, a few feet away, was a prototype for a new bus stop sign pole, as seen above in this photo I took last week.

Cool, I thought, but as hip as it looked, it also meant losing a lot of information, such as what metro/train stops a bus will go to, whether it's a rush-hour-only bus or express bus or night bus, and the bus stop code. All this information was moved to a panel lower down that has schedules and other info.

More importantly, I thought, it's going to be more complicated to add routes to this totem pole, and you can't indicate detours or disruptions in service like you can by slipping one of those temporary bus stop covers over the traditional signs.

With the new night bus network taking effect on Monday, adding four new routes to this stop (and the deletion of this leg of the 515 bus, which also took effect Monday), I passed by on Sunday to see if they had updated the totem pole.

The STM has replaced its prototype totem pole stop sign with a regular one

As it turns out, they've taken it down and replaced it with a regular bus stop sign.

On the shelter itself, there is also a list of bus routes that stop there. I remarked that it seemed limited to nine routes (the exact number that stopped there at the time). Now it will need to fit 12.

A list of stops on the shelter remains unupdated

So far that sign (and a similar one on the inside) remains unchanged, which could lead to some user confusion. (Then again, you can't really read it at night, so maybe it doesn't matter that the night buses aren't listed there.)

Hey, it's a pilot project. Sometimes these things fail. I could point out that I saw these problems the first day I saw this new design, but instead I'll just hope the STM has learned its lesson.

UPDATE (July 5): Andy Riga talked to the STM, which downplayed the significance of the totem pole and said it was not part of the new bus shelter design pilot project. "It was a suggestion of the designer to put an element of clientele info," Marianne Rouette told Riga. "So, as it was not intended to be permanent, we came back to the bus stop model we currently use."

CTV Two: The second-rate brand

Fagstein — Tue, 31 May 2011 08:20:37 +0000

BBC Two. ESPN2. CBC Radio 2. TSN2. And now Bell Media has added another broadcaster to the list of brands whose names literally scream out "second-rate stuff goes here": A Channel/ATV will become CTV Two, they announced on Monday.

Of course, A Channel is a second-rate channel, carrying mostly American programming that CTV has the rights to but can't fit into the main network's schedule. And I wasn't exactly crazy about the /A\ branding either, particularly because of how ungoogleable it was.

A poll apparently told Bell that CTV's brand is the most trusted media brand in Canada, and so it has decided to use that brand to maximum effect. It can't turn A Channel stations into CTV stations directly (most are too close to existing CTV stations), so it'll impose its brand and add a number to it because they can't think of anything better to name it.

Another change will be rebranding the newscasts as "CTV News" - so they'll be indistinguishable from CTV newscasts in all the other markets. Whether viewers of the local stations want this is, of course, irrelevant. The decision comes from the top, using the same logic that killed the Pulse News brand in Montreal.

CTV seems to be implying that it will put more effort into the network than it has in the past, giving it higher-profile shows instead of third-rate crap. It promises "one monster acquisition to anchor the schedule" - which I guess means that they're going to give the network a single hit show and otherwise keep the relationship between the two networks unchanged.

Using A as the sloppy-seconds network is the main reason it has never been profitable. And it will probably remain that way. But part of Bell's deal with the CRTC when it purchased CTV's assets was a commitment to keep the unprofitable A Channel stations running for another three years. So we'll see this experiment continue whether or not it's successful.

There may not be a lot of money for newscasts or original programming for the A stations, but apparently there's plenty of money to keep rebranding this network every few years. Hopefully whoever came up with the stupid name and cheap logo didn't get paid too much.

UPDATE (June 2): The announcement of CTV Two programming for this fall contains little of interest. Certainly no "monster acquisition" I can see.

All-traffic radio: A $9-million waste

Fagstein — Tue, 24 May 2011 23:40:22 +0000

Coverage map for CINW 940AM at 50,000 watts, as submitted to CRTC

Last week, news came out that Cogeco and the Quebec government have reached a deal that will see the creation of two new all-traffic AM radio stations in Montreal set to open in the fall. The project will cost taxpayers $9 million over three years.

It's the most ridiculous use of $9 million I've seen in a while.

The history of 690 and 940 AM

Montreal has had two giant holes in its radio spectrum since January 2010. Both frequencies - 690 and 940 kHz - started out as CBC stations. CBM (CBC Montreal) moved to 940 and CBF (Radio-Canada Montreal) moved to 690 in 1941. They were among Canada's oldest AM radio stations and each had clear-channel status, meaning that they could operate at 50,000 watts and did not have to reduce power overnight to avoid interference.

Clear-channel status is highly sought - or at least it was. There are only about a dozen such stations in Canada (CKAC is the only active one in Montreal), and the clear-channel status means they can be heard from very far away with a good enough antenna.

Despite this seemingly huge advantage, CBC decided in the late 90s to move its AM stations in Montreal to FM - 88.5 and 95.1 MHz - where they remain today as CBC Radio One and Première Chaîne). The argument was that FM provided better quality audio and the signal would be easier to capture in the city. The tradeoff - that the signal would no longer be carried by skywave to neighbouring provinces and territories - didn't seem to be such a big deal. It was a controversial move at the time, particularly for CBC Radio listeners who had better reception with AM than FM.

In 1999, the decades-old CBC transmitters were shut down and the frequencies vacated. Métromédia (later Corus Quebec), which owned CIQC 600 AM and CKVL 850 AM, wasted no time in snapping the clear channels up, and moved those two stations to the vacated frequencies. They were reborn as all-news stations CINW (940 News) and CINF (Info 690).

We all know how that turned out. The anglo all-news station didn't work out financially, so they changed it up into a news-talk format in 2005. When that didn't work either, they fired everyone and started played music in 2008. (Info 690, meanwhile, kept going with their news format). Then, in January 2010, Corus pulled the plug on both stations and gave up. They returned their licenses to the CRTC.

Since then, the frequencies have remained vacant. Clear AM channels that it seems anyone could have had just by asking. But no takers.

In 2010, Corus agreed to sell its Quebec assets to Cogeco. This included the transmitters for CINW and CINF, even though they were inoperative and had no broadcast license. The deal was approved in December, giving Cogeco the equipment (and a lease on the transmitter site in Kahnawake until 2021) but no idea how to use it in a way that could make it profitable.

And here's where the Quebec government comes in.

Congrats, Cogeco lobbyists

According to documents they submitted to the CRTC (you can download them yourself from here), Cogeco found out about the Quebec transport ministry wanting to improve the way it communicates information about traffic disruptions to the public. With all the construction work expected to come (the Turcot Interchange, for example), they wanted to minimize the pain to drivers by keeping them as well informed as possible.

Cogeco went to them and proposed a ... let's call it a partnership. Cogeco would provide the transmitter, the programming, the staff. The government would provide access to traffic information and lots and lots of money.

The government thought it was a great idea, and on April 14 they published their intention to award a contract to Cogeco. The deal was finally announced last week by the government and Cogeco (PDF) and the CRTC announced it would hold a hearing on the proposal to give the licenses back to CINW and CINF. News coverage was brief, most just regurgitating the press release:

The station, which according to the deal must be operational by Oct. 31 (though the target date is Sept. 1 pending CRTC approval), would broadcast live from 4:30am to 1am weekdays and 6am to 1am weekends and holidays. This information includes:

Traffic status on highways and bridges
Road conditions
Information on road work sites (it's unclear if this is just those run by the transport ministry or all municipal sites as well)
Highway safety tips
Weather conditions

In other words, the kind of stuff you'd expect from any traffic information radio station. Missing from this list is an item about providing information on public transit service. It's unclear why both sides left this out of their press releases, but it's contained in their CRTC submission and in the contract between the government and Cogeco, and I would imagine the intention is to include such information in their broadcasts.

The deal also includes promotion of the station by Cogeco and 25 minutes a day of airtime for the ministry.

Cogeco says it plans to use CHMJ in Vancouver (owned by Corus) as a template. That's also an all-traffic radio station, but with one major difference: It's not funded by the government.

You could also compare it to The Weather Network and MétéoMédia, which provide all-weather programming, funded mainly by subscriber fees that all cable subscribers must pay for the channels.

Why this is a bad idea

I appreciate that the ministry wants to improve communication about traffic and road work. But they're doing this by getting into the broadcast business. The figure of $3 million a year might not be much, but it represents about three-quarters of the stations' proposed budgets. Cogeco also predicts that figure will rise if the contract is renewed beyond three years (the CRTC asks for seven-year projections for a station's finances) to $3.3 million a year for the next three years.

Put simply, this is a solution to a problem that does not exist. I mean, seriously, is the biggest complaint about commercial radio that there aren't enough traffic reports? Just about every station does traffic reports every 10 minutes during rush hours. CJAD does it all day. All this without any specific funding by the government to do so. Even CBC Radio One does traffic reports, including public transit updates. (The CBC is funded by the federal government, but that funding doesn't come with a requirement to do traffic updates. CBC Radio does traffic reports because it knows that's what rush-hour listeners want to hear.)

This isn't to say an all-traffic radio station wouldn't make sense. CHMJ is trying that format. And it's a good idea for AM radio, because most portable music devices these days can't receive AM radio, but most cars can. But if there's a demand for it, then it can be done without government funding. And if there isn't a demand for it, why bother?

Cogeco's own submission to the CRTC says there are about 1.3 million vehicles travelling in the Montreal area during the afternoon rush hour (less in the morning), which means more than $2 per vehicle per year spent on these stations. They expect their market share will be 1.5% for the anglo station and 1.6% for the francophone station. Based on their estimated total weekly hours of listening, the English station would expect about 1,000 listeners on average (more, obviously, during rush hour) and the French station about 3,000 listeners.

And CRTC submissions are usually pretty optimistic.

Why this is overkill

The other thing that bugs me about this is the choice of channel. Cogeco wants to put both these stations on clear channels, and have both running 50,000 watts day and night. The reach of these stations, as you can see from the map at the top of this post, is not just the greater Montreal area, but as far as Gaspé, Moncton, southern Maine, Kingston, northern Ontario and even Labrador. The vast majority of its listening area couldn't care less what happens on the Champlain Bridge.

Then again, if nobody else wants the frequency, I guess it's better to do that than nothing at all. But surely we can find a better use for such a powerful signal than traffic reports for one city.

There are also some strange proposals, like having a roving reporter patrol the city to report from the scenes of major traffic events. Compare this to the private sector that has helicopters flying overhead to report on traffic and other issues. It's a government employee doing a job that the private sector is already doing better.

What the government should spend its money on

In the grand scheme of things, $9 million isn't a lot of money. But rather than spend it on duplicating a service the private sector already does for free, how about the transport ministry use it more wisely. Spend it on adding more traffic cameras, providing better real-time information to traffic reporters, better ways of getting information to smartphones and other portable devices, improving the Quebec 511 service. Create a database of road work (both provincial and municipal) that can be integrated into Google Maps and used to suggest better routes to drivers.

Or, you know, they could use it to improve the province's highways. At least repave the kilometre or two closest to the Ontario border, which will give the most psychological bang for the buck and end those silly anecdotal cross-border comparisons.

The CRTC will be hearing the two applications for all-traffic radio stations on July 18 in Gatineau. Comments and interventions are being accepted until June 20. The contract is contingent on CRTC approval and would be cancelled if CRTC approval doesn't materialize before Oct. 31.

UPDATE (May 31): A Gazette piece says that there was a call for bids in this deal. That's not entirely accurate. On April 14, the transport ministry published its intent to give a contract to Cogeco (a document that starts off by saying "this is not a call for bids"), and gave competitors 10 days to indicate that they could provide a competing offer for the deal - something that if accepted would have led to a formal call for bids. After the deadline passed, the ministry gave the deal to Cogeco.

I don’t want to be a professional journalist

Fagstein — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 21:19:19 +0000

Members of the Fédération professionelle des journalistes du Québec are being asked to vote today until Thursday on a proposition to establish the "title" of "professional journalist", in an effort to improve journalists' working conditions and give them more power to maintain their integrity.

The goal is a laudable one. But here's why they should vote "no":

When the FPJQ first decided to consider this idea in the fall, I wrote a blog post panning the idea. I picked apart the argument for creating a professional journalist status, as well as the supposed perks having such a status would give people. I also criticized the examples given of France and Belgium, where such statuses exist but whose media environments aren't nearly the same as ours.

My primary concern wasn't so much that journalists were getting more rights, but that these rights would be given only to those people deemed worthy of them.

Journalism has existed as we know it for decades without needing any type of formal accreditation system. So, I asked, why should we establish one now? What problem is it solving?

Still, because a big study on the issue hadn't been released, I held off on a final judgment. Maybe it would convince me that I'd been wrong, that the perceived disadvantages of such an accreditation system would be vastly outweighed by the positives.

The famous report (PDF) from Dominique Payette came out in January.

I remain unconvinced.

Is this necessary?

It's very clear from the material being shared with members that the FPJQ wants people to vote yes. There's no effort at balance in the arguments here. No space given to the possible downsides of separating "professional" journalists from non-professional ones.

The Payette report into the state of journalism is also heavily biased in favour of this system.

Payette's argument is that convergence (read: Quebecor) and the ease with which people can share information have had a detrimental effect on journalism, and establishing a professional title (though not necessarily an order like we have for doctors or lawyers) would somehow help fix this problem.

Payette makes her case based on a statement early on in the report:

Depuis quelques années, on observe au Québec une réduction du nombre de producteurs d’informations originales d’intérêt public, et ce, malgré la multiplication des plateformes de diffusion.

No source is provided for this statement, nor is it made clear who is doing the observing here. Yes, many newsrooms are smaller than they once were. But we also have many more newsrooms than we used to have, and lots of people are using different forms of media to get their message across. Is there really less original news of a public interest being produced? Has someone studied this to see if it's actually the case?

Payette's report notes that "l’information d’intérêt public est fragilisée par le développement de médias spécialisés ou de « niche »", as if the creation of more specialized news sources is somehow a bad thing. I would argue the opposite, that instead of general-interest journalists learning the basics of an issue and giving a simplistic (and potentially wrong) explanation of it to the public, we now have experts in various fields willing to give in-depth analysis of issues.

Whether those experts are "journalists" is a good question.

The Internet and changing consumption habits have radically changed journalism. In some cases for the better, in some cases for the worse. That's change, and we have to change with it.

But despite all the fretting about how journalists are being laid off and media empires are no longer what they once were, there's little justification in the material I've read for the establishment of a massive bureaucracy that won't actually regulate much.

Recommendations hard to swallow

Where Payette's report gets really scary is in some of its recommendations. As I said in the previous post, some of the ideas for benefits of the professional journalist status sound good but should be applied to everyone.

The protection of sources, for example, should apply to anyone whose protection of a source is for a journalistic reason, not just someone who has a card saying they're a journalist.
Preferential treatment for access to information requests would make a lot of journalists happy, but would hurt those who don't have journalist status and want to get information. In many cases, non-journalists making access to information requests want to get data on themselves or a family member, and their needs are much more important to them than a journalist's curiosity. And, of course, there are cases that gum up the system that come from journalists themselves. Quebecor's massive access dump on the CBC, for instance, would now be given preferential treatment and make the problem even worse. (Thankfully, a suggestion that journalists' A-to-I requests all be free of charge has been dropped.)

Then there are the recommendations that are just crazy:

Allowing journalists to leave work and take full paid leave of up to a year because they don't believe their working conditions allow them to be fully ethical is just asking for years of litigation.
Restricting government advertising to Quebec Press Council members would create all sorts of problems. Could governments no longer advertise on billboards or on Métrovision or on specialty channels because they aren't run by people who employ journalists?
Changing the law to prevent anyone who has been libelled from seeking any damages from media who follow standard policies about corrections gives those media less of an incentive to stop libelling people. I'm not suggesting that people should be able to sue for millions because of what's written in the paper about them, but people who are wronged by the media (for example, being accused of a crime when they haven't even been charged) deserve compensation.
Setting up a 1-800 number for the Quebec Press Council so people can get ethics advice sounds like a really stupid idea and a giant waste of money.
Requiring all professional journalists to pass a French language test and get regular French language training not only ignores the fact that that not all journalism in Quebec is done in French, but it also sounds like its goal is more about politics than it is about journalism. (The Suburban clearly wasn't happy with this suggestion.) The report makes a case that language skills are vital to proper communication (though I don't think too many people are failing to be informed because of journalists' quality of French), but there are no similar recommendations for other skills journalists should have, like math, basic science or history.

The FPJQ's vote isn't necessarily to accept all the recommendations of the report, but this entire project is based on that report, and the association hasn't rejected any of the ideas above.

The Payette report isn't all bad. There are some decent recommendations here:

Allow freelance journalists to negotiate on a level playing field and ensure their contracts have a minimum standard
Allow journalists to represent themselves at access to information hearings, as non-journalists are allowed to do
Increase support for small regional independent media (through government handouts or other measures)
Having the government follow an open data policy and put raw data online as much as possible
Forcing municipalities to publish publicly-accessible documents online and provide adequate public notice of council meetings and their agendas

But none of these in any way require the establishment of a title of professional journalist.

Better or worse for new media

Some bloggers and independent journalists are praising the idea, thinking they will improve their working conditions. Nathalie Collard of La Presse went down to South by Southwest and concluded her vision of the media universe contrasted radically with the visions of young media entrepreneurs.

Criticism from journalists has unfortunately been very little. Most are quiet about it, perhaps unsure of their opinions. Some support the idea (like Le Soleil's Pierre-Paul Noreau). Some hate it (like The Suburban and The Gazette - which makes it seem as if there's a language divide here, but Voir's Jérôme Lussier is critical too). Some don't think this has been properly thought out. Le Devoir's Josée Boileau asks the simple question: then what?

That's a big question. The reports and recommendations kind of skip over the most important question of why this is even necessary, preferring to spend most of their time discussing how it would work (and even then, many of the not-unimportant details are left until later).

Some make a false comparison between independent journalists and artists. But this proposal wouldn't establish a union for journalists, and artists don't have a title or the same kind of ethics code that would be so vital for journalists.

Conflict of interest

The FPJQ is obviously in favour of this project, because it would give a legal status to the federation. It says people wouldn't have to be members of the FPJQ to get official journalist status, but only members could elect FPJQ executives who decide who sits on the council that decides who can become a journalist.

The Quebec Press Council, a separate body whose membership is voluntary and whose powers are practically non-existent, also embraces Payette's report. That might have something to do with the six-figure government handouts she wants the council to receive.

Judging from the fact that a preliminary proposal was approved unanimously at the FPJQ's annual meeting, it's likely this vote will also pass with a huge margin. Only FPJQ members are allowed to vote (and I'm not one of them), even though the decision - if it moves the government to action - would affect every journalist working in Quebec.

Then again, as far as this blog is concerned, whether I'm really a journalist could be up for debate soon.

UPDATE (April 6): Nathalie Collard has a letter from Le Devoir's Louis-Gilles Francoeur saying he's voting against this idea, not because he opposes having the title of "professional journalist", but because he opposes having the FPJQ (as opposed to the press council) be the one to administer it.

UPDATE (Nov. 16): Disagreements over who should administer this scheme has resulted in the FPJQ being less than enthusiastic, and could mean abandoning the project.

Badly-timed celebrity deaths

Fagstein — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 06:49:05 +0000

Jerry Orbach, Susan Sontag, Benazir Bhutto, Michelle Lang, Tony Proudfoot, Rémy d'Anjou.

What do these people have in common?

They had the misfortune of dying in late December in recent years, meaning their presence on year-end obituary lists is hit-and-miss.

Orbach and Sontag died on the same day, Dec. 28, 2004, according to Wikipedia. That, more than some editorial decision that they weren't important enough, was why they were left off lists of celebrity deaths that year, like this one from Associated Press and this one from Hour.

This year, Radio-Canada's Regards sur 2010 special ended with a long list of important people (particularly Quebecers) who died during the year. Missing from that list is former Alouettes player Tony Proudfoot, because the news of his death came the morning of Dec. 30, the day after the show aired. Some print lists, like this one from Postmedia News and this one from Canadian Press, include his name (at least in their latest versions - this one from Postmedia and this one from CP don't have it).

Radio-Canada's year-end special, which was repeated on Jan. 2, is also missing Rémy d'Anjou, who died on Dec. 27, even though he was important enough for Radio-Canada itself to run an obit.

This is the problem when you summarize something before it's over. I realize there's a desperate need to fill space just before New Year's, but publishing a list of people who died during a calendar year before the year is complete is like printing the boxscore of a hockey game before the last buzzer, or publishing a review of a movie before the final act. It's inaccurate, and obituaries is a place where accuracy is pretty important.

And it's not like you can just hold them over for next time. Tony Proudfoot and Rémy d'Anjou won't be appearing on any "they left us in 2011" lists.

Show me your paper’s papers

Fagstein — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:08:32 +0000

It's not always so easy distinguishing journalists from the rest

At its general assembly on Nov. 28, the Fédération profesionnelle des journalistes du Québec will be debating a series of motions recommended by the organization's executive committee. Among them is a demand for a parliamentary commission into the Journal de Montréal lockout, an update to its ethics guidelines to reflect the development of social media (a subject I've been invited to speak about at a panel discussion the day before), and a bill of rights for freelancers.

These things sound pretty good (though the wording of the demand for a parliamentary commission sounds like its goal is to get the government to publicly embarrass Quebecor and come down against the creation of the QMI Agency news service).

There's also a motion to expand the definition of "Quebec", as silly as that sounds, to include those media organizations that "étant établie au Canada, entretient avec le Québec des liens historiques et culturels", which sounds a lot like they'll accept francophone journalists from just about anywhere in Canada. I'm not necessarily against this, but it opens up a can of worms (will the FPJQ now have to deal with the Ontario and New Brunswick governments?) and reinforces the idea that there's a French mediasphere and an English one, and the FPJQ is on the French side.

But the motion that really bothers me is a proposal to setup a certification system for journalists.

Our poor reputation

The genesis for this idea appears to have come out of a survey the FPJQ did of journalists, in which they expressed concern for the quality of journalism that's being done these days, concern that the line between journalists and non-journalists is fading, and a wish that everyone who considers themselves a journalist should be subject to the same ethics codes.

The solution, the FPJQ has suggested, should be the creation of a title called "journaliste professionel" which can only be bestowed upon real journalists who make their living doing journalism. And since having the government decide who can be a journalist is an attack on basic constitutional freedom, they'd rather an independent third party do this instead. For reasons of practicality, they've suggested ... the FPJQ.

I don't want to sound alarmist, but ~~it's my job as a blogger to exaggerate~~ some of the implications of this are downright scary.

Around the world

In researching this idea, I tried to look for other places where such a system is in place or has been proposed. Lots of third-world countries have tried this, leading to rebukes from journalist organizations who quite rightly complain that this could easily lead to governments suppressing undesirable reporting.

Recently, a Michigan state senator suggested creating a registration system that would bestow the title upon those who had a journalism degree, a minimum amount of experience and who were employed at a recognized news outlet. The idea was quickly shot down by those who say it's an attack on the first amendment right to freedom of speech.

It's not just governments that have suggested this though. The president of the Society of Professional Journalists suggested such a system in 2007. Others have come forward with the idea as a way of differentiating real journalists from biased blowhards. If lawyers can require licenses, why not journalists? If meteorologists can have a voluntary certification system, why not general assignment reporters?

One country that has already setup such a system is Belgium, and the FPJQ has invited Martine Simonis of their journalists' union to speak about her experiences there since a law recognizing "professional journalists" was created in 1963.

Like in the Michigan case above, the title requires employment at a media outlet, a certain amount of experience, an age floor (21), a requirement to abide by ethics rules and a prohibition against working in communications.

Perhaps I should wait until Simonis speaks, but I don't know if a system in a country that has a national collective agreement for journalists would work here.

The fine line

The FPJQ motion is particularly vague on the specifics. How would this system work? Would it be based on the Belgian system? How does someone get accredited? How do they get de-accredited?

Most importantly, what advantages come with being accredited that non-professional journalists will be denied? My research into the Belgian system shows that it's not much. Discounts on travel, more parking privileges, a photo ID card and the added access that comes with it.

Seems kind of minor for all the work involved in registering.

For clues, I went to a document prepared by the FPJQ in 2002, the last time this was brought up. There we have a bit more specifics on what an accredited journalist would get as far as perks:

Free access to information requests. That sounds good in principle. But the current law is pretty clear on payment: a government organization can charge a reasonable fee based on the work and materials used to compile the information requested. Requiring government agencies to absorb these costs would punish them, and open the door to abuse. Quebecor, which goes crazy with requests for details of just about everything having to do with the CBC, would not only gain knowledge through this exercise but also be able to punish the corporation financially in the process. But the worst part of this is the implication that non-journalists will have to pay. There are plenty of cases where non-journalists seek access to government information for non-journalistic reasons. Now would they have to find a journalist to process their request for them?
Free access to court records. Same problem. People might want access to criminal dockets for all sorts of reasons. For this to be mentioned is to suggest that non-journalists would not enjoy the same privilege.
Freedom to protect sources. The courts are currently sorting through the issue of protecting anonymous sources, and may develop a test that determines whether someone can claim a journalistic privilege to avoid testifying in court. But that would apply on a case-by-case basis and would depend on the circumstances. The court is unlikely to say that all cases involving a professional journalist accredited by a non-governmental body must be immune from prosecution.
Freedom to refuse assignments that put their lives in danger or threaten their journalistic integrity. I don't know of any news organizations assigning people to war zones against their will. But maybe it happens. There are certainly cases where journalists are asked to do things they're ethically uncomfortable with. But these are matters for collective agreements. (And does this imply that non-professional journalists can have their lives put in danger against their will?)
Right to be represented by their employer if sued for something they did professionally. Most news organizations already establish that in cases like libel they will assume the defence of the accused journalist. Many even extend this to freelancers. The reason is simple: People who have been wronged by a news organization will sue the organization, not just the journalist.

In all of these cases, the question we should ask isn't whether journalists should have these rights, but whether non-accredited journalists should be denied them.

Free parking next to fire hydrants: Another perk of professional journalists?

Definition problem

And how do we determine who is a journalist anyway? Sure, a general assignment reporter for a major newspaper qualifies. But what about:

A newspaper publisher? Do management get an automatic free pass even if they don't do journalism in their daily jobs? What about clerks? Technicians? Advertising salespeople? HR? Where do you draw the line within a news organization? What if one person does more than one job?
Columnists? Is Richard Martineau a journalist? Pierre Foglia? What about Joseph Facal or L. Ian MacDonald or Liza Frulla? Or Steven Guilbeault? Does it depend on whether the columnist's primary employment is at the news outlet?
Locked-out and laid-off workers? If a professional journalist's status is all about his job, what about those that don't have one? Would "professional journalist" include those people working at Rue Frontenac? Is the certification automatically revoked when someone gets fired?
Freelancers? The Belgian system accepts them, and an association of Quebec freelance journalists has come out in favour of this idea. But many freelancers don't do freelance journalism as their primary job. Many do corporate copywriting, or they have day jobs and write about their fields as experts. What criteria would be used to judge whether they qualify as "professional"?
Marginal publications? No one doubts that La Presse is worthy of accreditation, but what about publications that are mostly advertising? What about those neighbourhood Transcon weeklies that don't have any full-time journalists and consist mainly of republished borough press releases and advertorials?
Student and volunteer publications? It stands to reason that in order to qualify as a "professional" journalist, you have to be paid to do it. So by definition, news outlets based on the work of volunteers wouldn't qualify. So goodbye student papers, college radio stations, community TV. You're not journalists, and you never will be.
Comedians? Is Jean-René Dufort a journalist? Rick Mercer? Jon Stewart? Do they get accepted even though they're hardly bound by ethical guidelines, or do they get rejected even though they are a source of news for so many people?
Non-fiction authors? Lots of biographers and writers of non-fiction perform journalistic acts, even though they may be self-employed or at least not employed by a news outlet.
Bloggers? I'd probably get into this exclusive group because I'm employed as a copy editor at The Gazette. But if I wasn't, would I still be eligible? It's not like I make any direct money off this blog. And if a blogger like me can get in, what about the Clique du Plateau? What about Midnight Poutine? Or Four Habs Fans? Or Spacing Montreal? Or Montreal City Weblog? None of them have professionals working for them, but some produce serious journalism. If you establish that some of us are journalists and some aren't, where do you draw the line?

(I ask these questions rhetorically, but I'm actually interested in what people think. Feel free to give a yes or no to all the above in the comments.)

Journalist?

These issues aren't minor points of clarification, they go to the heart of the issue. Journalism comes in far more forms than it used to, and not everyone fits the cliché. Define too narrowly, and you exclude a lot of people who are contributing to journalism. Define too broadly, and anyone can call herself a journalist and the accreditation holds no meaning.

The Quebecor problem

Even if you could solve all the above, there's the giant question of enforcement. What happens when a journalist fails to live up to the ethical code? They could get stripped of their title, but still keep their job. Are they not "professional journalists" anymore?

The Quebec Press Council already tries to separate serious journalism from the rest. Membership in the council is voluntary, and it has no power to enforce its decisions, but mainstream news organizations become members and pay fees because it gives an added layer of credibility to their work. And it saves them from having to hire an ombudsman.

But the council has been losing members recently. Quebec broadcasters like RDS argued that because they already have to deal with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council they shouldn't have to belong to a separate oversight body. And Quebecor decided its publications shouldn't have to answer to a third party which it felt was biased against them. They've even threatened to sue if the council continues to make judgments against Quebecor's publications.

If Quebecor can't agree to be part of the press council, does anyone seriously believe it would accept this "professional journalist" certification proposed (and administered) by an organization it has all but dismissed as being controlled by unionists?

And if Quebecor rejects this certification, it becomes practically useless as a way of separating serious journalists from non-serious ones.

Another body that has to set rules defining journalists is the Quebec press gallery, which covers the National Assembly. And again, it has run into problems with Quebecor, denying membership to two journalists from the Journal de Québec because they would replace locked-out journalists from the Journal de Montréal. Would a journalist accreditation body act similarly to deny this title to those who act against union interests? The FPJQ hasn't supported the press gallery's move to exclude these journalists, but it hasn't exactly taken Quebecor's side in debates about journalism either.

Formalizing the clique

These issues, the definitional problems, the slippery slope of rights to freedom of expression, the need for an oversight body that wasn't needed before, and the probable non-participation of some news organizations, might be worth tackling if there were serious benefits to journalist certification.

But even the arguments made in favour of this move have problems:

Legal acknowledgment of journalist status will help combat media concentration, ensure better working conditions for journalists and protect their freedom from outside pressure. I find zero evidence that this would happen. Certifying journalists won't magically cause Quebecor to dismantle its QMI Agency news service. Working conditions are set by collective agreement, and unless this proposal also involves a national union for Quebec journalists, it won't have any impact on that. And if journalists aren't already protected by their employer from outside pressure, certification isn't going to change that.
This move will establish a common code of ethics that applies to all journalists. The FPJQ already has a code of ethics. The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council already applies an ethical code on private broadcasters. And the Quebec Press Council has its own set of standards and practices. All of these are similar and based on a similar set of fundamental journalistic values. I'm certainly not hearing massive protests over the fact that different but similar codes of ethics are being applied to different journalists.
This will set clear boundaries between real journalists and ... uhh ... not. There's no question a boundary will be set. Either someone is accredited or they're not. But is that a good thing? There are plenty of people who practice journalism part-time, as a side job, or who host shows on LCN. I don't know who I'd classify as a journalist, and I'm one of them. Or maybe I'm not. The point is that this boundary will be artificial, rather than simply codifying a barrier that already exists.
This will improve the reputation of journalists among the public that has lost its trust in them. People who have lost trust in journalism aren't going to change their minds because those journalists have decided to certify themselves. The latest issue of the FPJQ's own magazine has a blogger on its cover that complains about the "clique du Plateau". The response to this isn't to have members of that same clique decide who's worthy to join their ranks.

Everyone wants to be a journalist, but sometimes there need to be limits

Accreditation if necessary

There are situations where some person or body has to make the distinction between a journalist and a non-journalist. These are situations of scarcity and aren't codified in law. Government press galleries decide on their own membership (which has caused problems in the past), but anyone is welcome to report on the government's activities. Entertainment event producers give free passes and previews to journalists to raise the profiles of their shows, but have to be discriminating so they don't give free passes to everyone who just doesn't want to pay to see a show. Professional sports leagues also give special privileges to journalists that require them to make a judgment call.

But in most matters, anyone can be a journalist. Anyone can find out information, talk to people about it and publish what they find. And a lot of people do. Massive amounts of journalism are produced every day without anyone needing to be certified to do it.

Trust is earned

Journalists are kidding themselves if they think having a card that says "PRESS" on it is going to make them more trusted among the public. Accreditation no more helps journalists than it does police officers, lawyers or doctors. Trust is earned, and can't be simply handed out in card form. Some journalists have trust bestowed upon them because they're hired by reputable organizations, but that reputation has been built up over time. Consumers judge whether to trust a journalist or news outlet based on their records, whether they've been fair and honest in the past, and how much original reporting they produce. One that's deemed untrustworthy based on its record isn't going to be able to save itself by waving that "professional journalist" card in anyone's face.

Journalism has worked out just fine for centuries without needing an accreditation system. It has problems, mostly related to the amount of trust that society puts in the profession. This poorly-thought-out idea doesn't solve those problems, and I would argue only makes the situation worse.

Unless the FPJQ can make a really convincing case next weekend, I see no value in this proposition.

UPDATE: A study group looking into the state of journalism in Quebec has produced some (really long) research papers into this issue, looking particularly at the historical context here and elsewhere. You can read Richard E. Langelier's report from March about the debate here (PDF) and his look at the situation in France an Belgium here (PDF).

UPDATE (Dec. 6): Rue Frontenac's Jean-François Codère has some thoughts on how public financing for professional journalists could be justified, and later takes on right-wing pundit Eric Duhaime's criticisms of his thoughts.

UPDATE (Dec. 14): Some more from the FPJQ conference, including a video of people's opinions and PDFs of the slide presentation and speech by Belgium's Simonis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNHTSMNMW7g

New bus shelters are so sharp it hurts (UPDATED)

Fagstein — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:15:00 +0000

UPDATE (Nov. 25): The Gazette's Andy Riga reports the STM says the average price for these shelters is actually lower than what they reported earlier. Also see below my photos of this shelter at night.

A prototype of the new STM bus shelter at René-Lévesque Blvd. and Jeanne-Mance St.

On Monday, the Société de transport de Montréal made a big splash of this rectangular glass box, inviting the media to take pictures and witness a dramatic unveiling. This is the model of a new style of bus shelter that the STM is planning to replicate hundreds of times.

Michel Labrecque, the STM's chairman, said the biggest thing about it is the look, and how the aesthetic design of the shelter will draw more transit users in. People want to wait in something "sharp", he said, something that looks more like the future than the stone age.

The shelters will cost between $14,000 and $16,000 about $12,000 each, not including the development cost, which will bring the total price for 400 shelters to $14 million. Even then, it's significantly more than the price of existing shelters.

After installing three prototypes (the other two will come next month), the STM will seek input from users before making the order for the rest.

Not wanting to pass judgment before I saw it myself, I decided to pass by the shelter on the day after the big announcement, when all the TV cameras, PR people and giant tarps had long gone (and when the weather wasn't so rainy).

Users line up next to the "totem pole" near the shelter

The first thing I noticed was how the shelter was empty. Everyone was waiting for the bus at the stop more than 10 feet away.

Nobody's using the shelter while waiting for the bus

I stood nearby observing the behaviour of transit users waiting for one of ten buses that stop here at the beginning of the afternoon rush hour. I stayed for a little more than half an hour, watching as about 50-60 people waited for and boarded buses.

In that time, only one person entered the bus shelter. Everyone else waited at the "totem pole" - and because the natural tendency of bus lineups in Montreal is for them to start at the flag and expand upstream, the line moved away from the shelter instead of toward it.

Now, the weather didn't exactly encourage people to seek shelter. It wasn't raining, it wasn't particularly cold or windy, and nobody had to wait that long for their bus.

But for something Labrecque considers so "sharp", this shelter seemed to prompt very few people to want to actually use it. I heard plenty of comments about the design from people chatting with their friends and colleagues (mostly positive), but I don't think the purpose of this thing is to be looked at.

I also noticed that the shelter seemed pretty small. About the same size as its predecessor. There's another version of the design that doubles the interior space, but I think it would have made sense to install it here.

Shelter features

Here's what you'll find in this new shelter.

At the entrance to the shelter, an orange strip indicates ... something

Like many shelters downtown, the entrance to this one is on the side opposite where the bus stops. I imagine this was done for safety reasons - to prevent people from stepping out into the street and accidentally getting hit by a bus. But it forces people to walk away from a bus when it approaches. This makes it more likely the driver will think the person isn't interested in getting on and drive right by the stop. It would make more sense to back the shelter a bit further from the curb and put the entrance on the side facing the bus.

Like in previous shelters, a network map is attached to the glass wall

The map is glued to the wall instead of being in a glass enclosure

If you touch the map, you'll find it has a rough texture to it, probably a result of the anti-graffiti coating they've given it. It's also glued to the glass, while the previous design had a paper map behind a glass casing. This will probably make it more difficult for maps to disappear from the shelter, but it will also make it more difficult to replace the map when it gets updated.

Near the roof inside, a list of bus routes that stop here

A similar list outside

The shelter has a list of the routes that stop here - separate from the totem pole which replaces the old bus stop sign. The design of the list of buses on the shelter seems to suggest a hard limit of nine routes per stop. In order to fit more of these coloured boxes, a second row would need to be added or the boxes would need to be made smaller. Of course, there are very few stops in the city with as many bus routes passing through, but they exist. And it doesn't seem crazy to think they might add a 10th to this stop.

Motion sensor in a half-sphere under the ceiling

Lights in the shelter are to be controlled by motion sensor, so they don't waste energy unnecessarily. That makes sense, but it's worth pointing out that the previous shelters were lit by having large backlit ads, something the ad company would not want dimmed just because nobody's in the shelter.

The bench seats two

It's unfortunate to see that despite making changes to improve the design of the shelter, the bench is still basically the same. The seat (the brown part) is made of some plastic-like material that remains comfortable even in the cold. The metallic parts appear to be aluminum, which conducts heat very easily and will be cold as hell during winter.

It's pretty rare that I see people use these benches. Maybe there's a psychological reason, maybe they're too small or people think they're too dirty. Whatever it is, this design doesn't seem to be making it more inviting.

A solar panel on the roof provides power

To emphasize how green the STM is, this shelter has a solar panel on top which provides power that's used to light it at night. The STM says some will be solar-powered and others connected to the electrical grid.

The totem pole

A "totem pole" shows a colour-coded list of buses that stop here

The second part of this new design is the "totem pole", which replaces the old bus stop sign. It also has schedules for each bus attached to it.

In the case of the stop at René-Lévesque and Jeanne-Mance, this pole is inexplicably about 10 feet away from the shelter.

The first thing that comes to mind when looking at this is to wonder what the colours mean.

As a transit buff, I know that dark blue is for regular routes, green is for express routes, and light blue is for special routes (the 515 is a tourist bus that goes to the old port, and the 747 is the airport express bus). There's also black for night buses and gold for seniors' buses. But there's no way to discover this at the stop. So the colour backgrounds become this secret code that only the elite few can decypher.

The detoured 15 Ste. Catherine bus stops here

Another disadvantage to this new design becomes apparent when I notice two things. First of all, the 15 bus is stopping here, even though it's not listed on the totem pole or the shelter. It's stopping here as part of a (long-term) detour because of construction on Ste. Catherine Street.

The schedule for the 80 bus shows it doesn't stop here

Secondly, the 80 bus is listed as having a stop here, but it doesn't.

The route for the 80 bus was changed because of all the construction around the Quartier des Spectacles to make a temporary detour permanent. Instead of taking Jeanne-Mance, the bus now takes St. Laurent until Ontario and then heads back to the Place des Arts metro. But because of construction at St. Laurent and Ste. Catherine, the bus has been detoured back onto its original route - Jeanne-Mance now being open to through traffic.

Under the old design, the STM would slip a specially-designed detour flag on top of the bus stop sign, indicating which buses stop there and which have been detoured. Under the new design, people have the impression that the 80 bus stops here unless they think to look at the schedule.

A typical schedule and route map, this one for the 535 bus (that doesn't actually stop here)

The 535 schedule, meanwhile, gives no indication that this stop has been moved.

I don't know if the STM is developing a small condom to put over the flags of bus routes that have detours, or if it'll just paste something over its schedule, but the potential for confusion seems to be larger.

A list below the schedules gives the text line and other information on how to get bus schedules electronically

The verdict

Perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on it because it is a prototype and those things always have unforeseen issues. It also does look very nice.

But aside from motion-sensor lighting, which isn't exactly a top priority right now, there's little here you can't find in existing shelters at half the price.

Image consultants, which I can only imagine the STM has too many of right now, always want to change things so people will pay attention to what's new. But all that's changed here is the look.

There are serious improvements that can be made to bus shelters to make them more attractive to riders. It starts with being heated in the winter, then having schedules at a glance inside the shelter (which isn't the case here), and a comfortable place to sit and wait (which also doesn't exist on the tiny bench).

The improvements here are bells and whistles at best and at worst a waste of money on fulfilling some industrial designer's wet dream.

If you asked bus users or potential bus users would make them more likely to use the bus, I doubt "make the bus stop sign more sharp" would rank high.

Blue and yellow lines!

The fact that nobody wants to use this shelter right now should be clear evidence that this design is ill thought out.

UPDATE (Nov. 11): La Presse's Lysiane Gagnon goes way over the top in her criticism, calling these "des abribus de millionnaires" - as if the super rich would use an unheated shelter to wait for a bus in the middle of winter. Take that with the same grain of salt as her suggestion that nobody uses bike paths in Montreal, or that Bixi is a financial disaster.

UPDATE (Nov. 25): Curious about how this shelter works at night, I revisited it a few days later after dark.

The new shelter at night: Neat, but not very bright

What struck me was how dark and uninviting it was. The picture above is brighter than how the scene actually appeared (I needed a pretty long exposure).

Recessed lights provide minimal brightness

There are lights in the ceiling of the shelter (supposedly they're motion-controlled, but I didn't see them turn off or on while I was there). But compared to the previous CBS Outdoor shelters with the domed roof and giant backlit ad, it felt kind of dark.

You'll note that the part of the shelter that lists information on the buses that stop here and the bus stop code is unlit.

The totem pole is completely unlit

The problem is worse when it comes to the nearby totem pole that lists the buses that stop here and their schedules below. It's completely unlit, which not only makes it seem like it's inactive after dark, but also makes it hard to read the schedules.

On the side facing the sidewalk, the schedule is impossible to read because it's so dark

I'm not exaggerating how dark it is here. Even with my pretty good night vision, I couldn't read the schedule on this side.

The side facing the street is barely readable thanks to the street light

I had better luck on the other side, but even then it wasn't easy. Someone with poor eyesight would struggle with this.

The garbage can is too dry

Fagstein — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 05:27:26 +0000

Automatic sprinkler systems annoy me quite a bit. I mean, we get enough rain here that it's really not necessary to use the public potable water supply to water the grass.

But those behind the Place de l'Adresse symphonique of the Quartier des spectacles know it's important not just to keep the grass drowning in water, but to keep the garbage can and sidewalk wet at all times.

Grass drowning in sprinkler water for no apparent reason

The metro car contract: a depressing timeline

Fagstein — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 19:05:02 +0000

Just to recap:

May 2006: The Quebec government announces it's going to hand a $1.2-billion contract to build new metro cars to Bombardier without putting it out to tenders. It reasons that Bombardier is the only company that can build the cars in Quebec on rubber wheels. Competitor Alstom immediately points out that it could have done the same.
June 2006: Alstom sues.
January 2008: A judge rules in favour of Alstom, which he says has a right to bid on the contract.
February 2008: The Quebec government starts from scratch, opening up bidding for the contract.
November 2008: Bombardier and Alstom submit a joint bid on the contract. Being the only bidders, they quickly get it.
November 2009: The Quebec government decides to double the scope of the contract from 340 to 765 cars, replacing not just the oldest cars but the entire fleet.
December 2009: Chinese company ZhuZhou comes out of nowhere and demands to be able to bid on the new contract. ZhuZhou promptly sues. A Spanish company, CAF, does the same.
January 2010: A judge rules that because of the expanded scope of the contract, these new companies should be allowed to bid. The STM puts out a call for interest, but competitors argue it's rigged to ensure that Bombardier-Alstom gets the contract. ZhuZhou says it will sue.
March 2010: Both China's ZhuZhou and Spain's CAF express interest in bidding for the expanded metro contract.
May 2010: Bombardier-Alstom sues.
June 2010: A judge rules against Bombardier-Alstom, saying the STM can put out a public call for bids on the expanded metro contract.
July 2010: The STM decides to start from scratch for a third time, opening up bidding for the expanded contract
October 2010: The Quebec government decides it will start from scratch a fourth time, and just hand over a $1.3-billion contract without putting it up for bids. It cites the urgency of acquiring new cars. CAF says it will sue.

(Projected):

January 2012: A judge rules that the "urgency" argument doesn't hold up, and orders a call for bids on the new metro car contract. Bombardier-Alstom sues.
March 2012: The STM puts out a new call for bids, and 12 more companies come out of the blue to express interest.
May 2012: The STM picks Bombardier-Alstom as the winner of the bid. ZhuZhou, CAF and a bunch of other companies promptly sue.
September 2012: A judge rules something, but nobody reads the judgment and everyone just announces they're going to sue each other.
October 2012: The Quebec people sue the government for incompetent mismanagement of their funds.
December 2012: The world comes to an end. All evil dies in the apocalypse. Civil courts stop functioning, and all lawsuits are dismissed.
April 2025: The first new metro cars are delivered. Quebec Premier Patrick Huard participates in a photo op and pretends it was all his doing.

Front-seat driver

Fagstein — Sat, 18 Sep 2010 08:20:14 +0000

A woman sits on the bus driver's armrest greeting passengers

Maybe I'm being a bit of a prude, and insufficiently open-minded. And I know it can get boring when you're driving a bus late at night.

But it just seems somewhat ... inappropriate to have someone sitting with you in the driver's seat as you're driving the bus. Not only does it look rather unprofessional when people start to board the bus, but I'm pretty sure the people who tested the bus for safety don't recommend people sit there.

There's a seat right by the front door, and at this particular moment it's unoccupied. Maybe you can sit there instead. Don't worry, your conversation shouldn't suffer.

UPDATE (Oct. 2): After having a similar experience - this time with children - Gazette reporter Anne Sutherland has written a story about bus driver behaviour, which appeared on Page A3 of Saturday's paper:

Bus driver story by Anne Sutherland on Page A3 of Saturday's paper

The photo becomes officially my first freelance photo for The Gazette. Of course, had I known that would happen when I took it, I would have tried to make it a lot better (and taken it at a higher resolution).

Me!

The story also quotes me briefly about my experience:

Here’s another, I hope, rare example of bad behaviour by bus drivers:

Montreal blog Fagstein posted a photo taken Sept. 17 of a female passenger riding on the armrest of a male driver’s seat.

“This was on the 361 bus at 2:30 in the morning,” said blog author Steve Faguy, who works as a copy editor at The Gazette. “The woman was sitting there the whole time, about 30 minutes. If the guy had to do some kind of emergency manoeuvre, he can’t do it with her on his lap.”

New media is awesome and all, and I work at the Gazette and put together a bunch of pages every day, but there's still something about seeing a piece of paper with my name on it delivered to over a hundred thousand households that makes me a bit giddy. Running my first photo about a third of a page (I've cropped out the ads) on A3 of the Saturday paper ads icing to the cake.

He’s like Hitler, get it?

Fagstein — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 05:38:53 +0000

The Lyndon Larouche campaign uses subtlety and rational reasoning

And here you thought it was only in the United States that you could find the crazies.

Sure, Hitler killed millions of Jews and all, but Obama told NASA they couldn't send people to the moon again! IT'S THE SAME THING, PEOPLE!

A Moving Day trash tip

Fagstein — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 06:43:27 +0000

Papers left for trash on Moving Day

A little late for this year, obviously, but next time, it's probably best not to leave government documents with your personal information all over them out on the curb.

In fact, this applies whether or not you're moving.

Listen to Le Devoir (or, you know, don’t)

Fagstein — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:25:55 +0000

As part of its centennial celebrations, Le Devoir invited Hexagram to record audio from their newsroom. You can listen to a four-minute clip of it on their website.

But as much as I'm fascinated with the minutiae of the inner workings of the media, I'll recommend giving this one a pass. It's background noise, and there isn't much said. No screaming of "on tue la une!" or other newspaper clichés.

Newspaper newsrooms are, in fact, very quiet places. There are reporters on the phone with police or other sources, editors conferring with each other on matters important and trivial, and the usual office gossip during downtimes. But otherwise, it's quiet as reporters type their stories, and editors read and proofread.

Unless something crazy is happening, or you're in a meeting, there's just not anything interesting to listen to.

CHOM changes logo, pretends it’s more than that

Fagstein — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 04:27:09 +0000

CHOM's new logo

That's CHOM's new logo.

No, seriously.

They launched it this morning, to great fanfare:

With PJ Stock joining the morning show this week (it will be "Chantal, PJ and Bad Pete"), it made sense to do it now. CHOM had risked being the only Montreal music station not undergoing a bullshit renaissance over the past year (see Mix 96, Q92, Énergie).

They made a big deal of it on the morning show, though I can't figure out what other than the logo is changing. The tagline is still "The Spirit of Rock", and it sounds like the music is still going to be the same (Pete Marier made a vague reference to "nicely tempoed rock and roll"). The press release makes mention of "more music" (sound familiar?), but gives little details. It lists three bands: 30 Seconds to Mars, Cavo and Shinedown (three bands I've never heard of) as examples of music that will "now strengthen the core of music that CHOM listeners love", whatever that means. Listening to their music just now, I can't say that makes me terribly optimistic.

But, it also reassures loyal CHOM listeners that Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Pink Floyd and Metallica aren't going anywhere.

You can listen to their new audio branding here, which sounds pretty indistinguishable from their old branding if you ask me.

The logo

CHOM's old logos are everywhere, they're familiar, and they feel like the kinds of logos you'd find on a classic rock station:

CHOM's old bumper-sticker logo

With a 2002 redesign, it kept the red and black motif, even if it lost some of its charm. Still, it was clean and simple. Professional, even if a bit too corporate:

CHOM's most recent logo

This new monstrosity of a logo looks like it was cooked up by a 14-year-old in his basement using Adobe Illustrator. The black and orange seem to evoke a Harley Davidson-esque feel* (without being so similar that they'd get sued over it), but other than that there doesn't seem to be any reason behind it. Why orange? Why something that looks like an American highway sign? (Is it because Tom Cochrane's Life Is A Highway is going to be even more overplayed?) Why go overboard on the simulated gradients?

*UPDATE (Feb. 2): Apparently it's no coincidence. Their contest of the week involves giving out a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Why is there nothing about this logo that makes me think of Montreal or rock music?

It's been compared to a U.S. hockey team's logo. I can't think of a worse insult.

If this is CHOM's "new baby", I'm just going to have to be brutally honest: It's a really ugly baby.

UPDATE (Feb. 11): Hour's Craig Silverman explains the new logo with comments from program director Daniel Tremblay (and quotes this blog post). Rue Frontenac also has a piece on CHOM's attempts to attract a younger audience.

Just give money, m’kay?

Fagstein — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 01:14:02 +0000

Mittens for Haiti!

I passed by this donation bin setup at Concordia for Haiti. In it, I saw bags with scarves, winter coats, and mittens.

I'm guessing they were from people who have never been to Haiti, and who aren't experts in meteorology. (Or, as someone comments below, hopefully for Haitian refugees coming here, which would save on shipping costs.)

The difficulty in getting supplies (particularly the right ones) to disaster zones is one of the reasons charities ask you to give money instead of stuff. A lot of stuff, unfortunately, is useless.

Hope for Haiti Now is on until 10 p.m. on CBC, CTV, Global, CityTV, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, Vermont Public Television, CNN, MuchMusic, MTV Canada, National Geographic Channel, WGN, WPIX and BET. Quebec's Ensemble pour Haïti airs on Radio-Canada, TVA, V, Télé-Québec, TV5, LCN, RDI, MusiMax and Musique Plus.

Remember if you're watching the U.S. special to donate to Canadian charities to take advantage of the government's donation matching program 1-877-51-HAITI or canadaforhaiti.com.

The Globe Ad Fail

Fagstein — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 01:39:07 +0000

Newspaper advertisements - both in print and online - often suffer from failure of context, where the ad seems inconsiderate next to specific kinds of news stories (usually bad ones).

In newspapers, it tends to happen because advertisers don't know what copy will appear next to their ads, and copy editors often (for good reason) don't know what ads will appear next to their copy. The most obvious example is an ad for an airline next to a story about a plane crash (which is why airlines regularly pull their ads after plane crashes, and editors are told not to put plane crash stories next to airline ads).

The Globe and Mail Jan. 20 Pages A8-A9

In today's Globe and Mail, American Express has one of those special-order ads, the ones with a weird shape that dominate pages without filling them, purposefully leaving holes for editorial copy so that readers' eyes will stay on the page.

The ad reads: "Tired of standing in line?" (or, more accurately, "Tired of standing in liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine?" - the lower-case "I"s like little stick figures weaving across the two-page spread), with a kicker that talks about travel (it doesn't say so explicitly, but the assumption is plane travel for a vacation).

You can probably figure out where this is going by now.

Two editorial holes appear on the page, and both contain news about Haiti. On the top, two standalone pictures from photographer Peter Powell of people struggling for survival. The headline reads: "Where food and water are worth fighting for". On the bottom, an article from Paul Koring about the overtaxed Port-au-Prince airport.

It's not just an ad fail, it's a huge, spectacular double fail filling a two-page spread in the middle of the A section of Canada's national newspaper. Making fun of standing in line is cute anywhere in a newspaper except next to a picture of starving Haitians beating each other up for the necessities of life. And having an ad about vacation travel works everywhere except next to a piece on how the airport is congested at the most awful place on the planet right now.

It's not like it was a massive coincidence that this stuff ended up on this page. Haiti coverage is all over this paper, and has been for the past week.

So, then, I have to ask: Did no one at American Express Canada (wow that's a silly name) think for a moment that the holes they left for editorial content might be filled by news from a disaster that's already a week old, and that such coverage might not play well with their campaign? Did no one in the Globe's advertising department put two and two together?

This is the risk you run when you book these kinds of ads, especially in the A section. Advertiser beware.

A study into Quebec media

Fagstein — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 23:51:54 +0000

Quebec culture minister Christine St-Pierre announced at the FPJQ conference that she has ordered a study be done on the future of media in Quebec. Dominique Payette, a professor at Université Laval and former journalist for Radio-Canada, has been put in charge of this study.

The scope seems to be pretty large, and could touch on everything from whether newspapers should be subsidized to whether the government should fund a news department at Télé-Québec. (My knee-jerk reaction to both would be "no".)

Although the situation in Quebec media is different from the rest of the world (some would say we're behind the times, which is a plus for newspapers and television networks), I don't know if it's so different that a study like this will bring any new insight into this debate that has already been over-analyzed by self-proclaimed experts all over the world.

More information at Le Devoir, Agence France-Presse (!) and Projet J, which has an interview with St-Pierre.

All your eggs in one Scribd

Fagstein — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:21:00 +0000

This blog post at the Globe and Mail is kind of funny.

It started off innocent enough: the Globe wanted to embed a part of the auditor-general's report into a news article, so it posted a chapter to a website called Scribd, which converts PDFs into embeddable Flash applications.

The auditor-general, however, apparently took exception to that move. It wasn't because of copyright infringement - the report is freely available on the AG's website. It was because, the office said, "On the Scribd website, it appears, or it makes it appear, that anyone using the document or accessing the document has an ability to adapt the content and use it in different ways."

Their concern was people altering the document, and potentially making others believe the alterations were genuine.

Setting aside for the moment the AG office's apparent misinterpretation of technology and the power people have to alter other people's Scribd documents, not to mention the fact that this in no way prevents people from forging AG reports (is this really a big issue? Is there a huge auditor-general-report counterfeiting industry out there I don't know about?), I suppose such a concern makes sense. And besides, all they were asking was to link to the report on the AG's website instead, a small accommodation.

The Globe initially relented, replacing their embedded Scribd document with a link to the PDF on the AG's website. But after the public (well, okay, noted copyright activist Michael Geist) objected, the Globe changed its mind and reposted the Scribd document.

The auditor-general, determined to push its case, then filed a copyright infringement claim with Scribd itself, and Scribd took the document down. The Globe responded by hosting a copy of the PDF on its server and pointing to that.

As Geist says, this is a clear case of government exploiting crown copyright against the media (unlike in the United States, government publications and works in Canada are subject to copyright, though it is rarely enforced). It also brings up questions about the Globe's editorial processes and the auditor-general's office wanting to control information.

But the last part of this story makes me wonder: Are we relying a bit too much on fly-by-night third-party free-as-in-beer services?

It's one thing to use Google Analytics or WordPress or Linux, but Scribd? Twitter? CoverItLive? These services are young, run mainly out of venture capital financing (instead of a sustainable business model), and there's no guarantee they won't just close up shop tomorrow, taking all our data with them. (And unlike Linux or WordPress, they're not open source, which means they control their software and your data.)

As the Scribd case showed the Globe, the service can unilaterally delete your data, and there's nothing you can do about it. Twitter has periodic outages that nobody can control, yet some have already turned Twitter into a mission-critical component of their business model.

Just because it's free - even to big media companies - doesn't mean it's a good idea.

CBC fee-for-carriage solution isn’t really one

Fagstein — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:42:43 +0000

The fee-for-carriage/local TV debate is over. The CBC has solved it. In was a stroke of absolute brilliance, the Mother Corp. has come up with a system that makes local broadcasters happy, reduces cable costs for consumers, and provides a fair system that doesn't threaten cable companies' profits.

Oh, and they solved the digital TV transition problem too.

Haha, just kidding. Their proposal does nothing of the sort.

On Tuesday, the CBC heralded a submission it made to the CRTC that "offers a solution to the issue of the affordability should a compensation regime for the value of local television signals be implemented."

I asked the CBC for a copy of this submission, and they kindly forwarded it to me. I've uploaded it here for you to read (PDF).

Here is the key part of the CBC's proposal (emphasis mine):

The CRTC should require cable and satellite companies to offer consumers a small, all Canadian basic package which would include all local television stations plus a few other licensed services. The rate for this small basic package would not exceed a maximum rate established by the CRTC. This would ensure the affordability of television service for all Canadians.

Consumers would be free to purchase – but would not be required to purchase – any additional services they may want that are not included in the small basic package. The cable and satellite companies would negotiate with broadcasters to determine the compensation payable for the services they distribute – including the local television services in the basic package. The CRTC would act as arbitrator in any situations where the parties could not agree.

The CBC explains how this would work in its "straightforward" three-step process:

First, the Commission would need to determine the services to be included in the streamlined basic package.

Second, the cable and satellite BDUs would have to negotiate wholesale rates with the programming services included in the new basic package – including the local television stations. Commission arbitration would be available if the parties could not reach an agreement.

Third, the Commission would approve the proposed rate to be charged for this basic package.

Wait, hold on a second. Wasn't the entire point of "negotiation for value" that consumers would have the choice of what local television stations they would carry on cable? The CBC's proposal does away with that (what a surprise) and goes back to forcing the cable companies to carry their stations. It mentions that they would "negotiate wholesale rates", but what kind of negotiation can you have when the only response the cable and satellite companies can give is "yes"?

So this would go to "arbitration" in front of the CRTC. Which means the CRTC would simply set the rate for carrying local stations.

In other words, this is fee for carriage.

In fact, it goes beyond fee for carriage. Now the CRTC would set the price for basic cable as well, and say what channels can and can't be carried on it:

Cable and satellite BDUs would not be permitted to include any additional services in the basic package beyond those required by the Commission.

Surely they could throw in some freebies (like advertising channels) and nobody would get hurt.

The CBC's argument includes a lot of charts and data showing that cable and satellite companies are rolling in cash while broadcasters face certain doom. These things, of course, we knew already. It also brings up all the "save local TV" talking points, like how taxes aren't taxes:

It has become all too common in the Canadian communications environment for cable and satellite companies to disguise items on their consumers’ bills as government imposed retail taxes when they are not (e.g., “system access fee”, “government regulatory recovery fee”, “LPIF tax”, “CRTC LPIF Fee”).

While fee-for-carriage is still up in the air, the LPIF fee is a tax as much as the GST is. It's a mandatory percentage fee added to the total price of a service that's taken by the government. The fact that the CRTC says the cable companies should pay it instead of consumers is semantics at best.

It's not that I oppose the LPIF, or even fee-for-carriage, but don't get all bent out of shape because we call a tax a tax.

Cheap cable solves digital TV?

The submission also pretends to offer a solution to the digital TV transition. In addition to requiring many people across the country to modify or replace television sets that are up to half a century old, the transition will mean many Canadians in remote regions won't have access to free, over-the-air TV, because the broadcasters are too poor/cheap to replace the analog transmitters with digital ones.

I've already argued that this digital transition is completely unnecessary, and that goes double for remote areas with few television stations. But the CRTC is going ahead with it anyway, and in August 2011 will create a problem where none existed.

So what is the CBC proposing? Well, their argument is that cheap cable can replace free television:

While not everyone would choose to subscribe to such a service, those who did not would not be deciding on the basis of affordability.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it's because Bell thought up the same thing with cheap satellite. Both seem to ignore the fact that cheap is not free. Though it's unclear how much basic cable would cost under CBC's plan (I'm willing to guess it won't be much cheaper than it is now), it will still be infinitely larger than zero.

There's also another problem with this idea: The CRTC setting the rate for basic cable tips the economic scales, and reduces the incentive for entrepreneurs to enter the cable market, especially in remote areas where the economies of scale don't work out as well in their favour.

Perhaps the CRTC would set a different rate for big-market and small-market cable, but then it starts to get more complicated.

What is basic?

The CBC's submission is based on the premise that basic packages contain a bunch of channels that Canadians don't want and are being forced to pay for. It doesn't list them, nor does it list the channels it would want to keep.

To get some context, I looked at the channels that are included in my basic (digital) service through Videotron:

10 broadcast stations:
- CBFT (2, Radio-Canada)
- CBMT (6, CBC)
- CJOH (8, CTV Ottawa's retransmitter in Cornwall)
- CFTM (10, TVA)
- CFCF (12, CTV Montreal)
- CIVM (17, Télé-Québec)
- CFTU (29, Canal Savoir)
- CFJP (35, V, ex-TQS)
- CKMI (46 Global)
- CJNT (62)
Three parliamentary channels:
- Assemblée Nationale
- CPAC (French)
- CPAC (English)
Eight must-carry specialty networks
- CBC News Network
- RDI
- The Accessible Channel
- Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network
- The Weather Network
- MétéoMédia
- Avis de recherche
- TV5
Télé Achats (an advertising network that would be silly to demand subscriber fees)
VOX, Videotron's public access channel
Cable barkers, including the Canal Info Videotron (Channel 1), the video on demand barker channel and the Viewer's Choice / Canal Indigo barkers
GameTV
Local radio stations, Galaxie and other audio-only services

With the exception of GameTV and the advertising channels (which we're not charged for), these are all part of the basic service because the CRTC requires it to carry them.

So which of these channels would the CBC make discretionary? Surely not the parliamentary channels, nor the cable access channel, nor its own all-news channel.

Maybe I'm on the wrong track. For one thing, Videotron forces its customers to choose a package (either a theme package or an a-la-carte channel package) in addition to the basic service. This would stop under the CBC proposal.

On the satellite side, there's Bell TV, whose digital basic package includes, besides broadcast television stations and must-carry networks, the following:

Treehouse
W Network
CTV News Channel
Vision TV
Teletoon Retro
MTV Canada
The Shopping Channel

These would also be pulled from the basic package under the CRTC proposal.

There is also, of course, analog cable, in which everyone gets the same service. That includes more channels, including:

Vision TV
YTV
MuchMusic
TSN
CMT
VRAK.TV
MusiquePlus
RDS
Showcase
Bravo
Discovery Channel
W Network
Canal Vie
MusiMax
Canal D

But analog cable doesn't provide for discretionary channels, at least not on the level of digital.

Despite my criticisms, there's some merit to some of the CBC's proposal, specifically the creation of a basic package, whether on satellite, digital cable or analog cable. The practice of forcing people using digital services to add packages to basic lineups needs to stop.

But what the CBC is proposing is fee for carriage, and that's a tax. And it would do nothing to stop the cable and satellite oligopolies from further solidifying their hold on the market.

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