Fagstein » Journal de Québec

The entirely unbiased history of the Journal de Québec lockout

Fagstein — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:40:51 +0000

The Syndicat Canadien de la fonction ~~public~~ publique (Canadian Union of Public Employees) has put together a 23-minute video (in French and with English subtitles) about the 15-month lockout of editorial employees (and subsequent strike by press workers) at the Journal de Québec in 2007 and 2008.

As you can imagine, being a union-produced video, it's hardly detached from the situation and presents a somewhat distorted view. There are no interviews with Quebecor or Journal management (who knows if the SCFP even tried). Talk of the deal that was eventually reached talks of it being a huge victory for the workers, while in reality it was more of a reasonable compromise between the two sides' demands.

Even though the labour disruption ended in the summer of 2008, the saga is far from over. The union is appealing a court decision that nullified a labour board ruling that the Journal used scabs as subcontractors during the lockout. There's also a fight over Quebecor Media wanting to add additional Journal de Québec journalists to the National Assembly to make up for the Journal de Montréal journalists currently being locked out.

Looking back at the conflict also serves as a comparison with the current situation at the Journal de Montréal (and Le Réveil, whose 26 locked-out workers want to go back to the table). The chasm between workers and employer in Montreal is even larger than it was in Quebec, although many of the issues are the same.

But the union, and the documentary, are right about one big thing: The MédiaMatinQuébec experiment changed the face of labour disruptions involving journalists, and is serving as a template. The template couldn't be entirely replicated by the STIJM in Montreal (Montreal already has two free newspapers - one owned by Quebecor - and the territory is larger than Quebec City), but the Rue Frontenac website might not have happened were it not for MMQ.

Unfortunately for the union members, Quebecor also learned from the Journal de Québec lockout. It learned how to get around anti-scab laws, and made sure its Agence QMI was setup so it could take news from other sources and reproduce them in the Journal de Montréal.

If the Journal de Montréal workers end up with a deal similar to what the Journal de Québec workers got, that will probably also be hailed as a huge victory for the union. But who knows how long it will be until that happens. Both Quebecor and the STIJM are prepared for the long haul.

Le Trente also has some discussion about the SCFP's video.

They weren’t scabs after all

Fagstein — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:41:04 +0000

In December, Quebec's labour relations board made a precedent-setting decision in a case pitting the Journal de Québec workers union against the newspaper and news agencies Quebecor did business with while the union was locked out.

In the decision, the Commission des relations du travail expanded the definition of "workplace" in Quebec's anti-scab law, ruling that since journalists perform their work outside of the office, their workplace is anywhere and everywhere.

The decision had huge implications for labour in the information economy. Unlike factory workers, information workers can do their job from just about anywhere, submitting their data to the employer when they're done with it. Under this decision, the Journal de Québec and other employers couldn't simply contract out work to other companies that was being done by its own employees.

Quebecor and the Journal de Québec appealed the decision, and this month Quebec Superior Court overturned the CRT's decision, setting the definition of "workplace" back to what it was before.

As a result, the workers deemed scabs by the CRT have had those labels removed by the court.

And anyone who does a job that deals mainly with processing information and data has lost the protection that a union might have given them, because they can be simply replaced by subcontractors in case of a strike or lockout.

Coverage:

Presse Canadienne
Radio-Canada
Rue Frontenac, home of locked-out Journal de Montréal workers
Journal de Québec, amusingly using an "Agence QMI" story

As Agence Nomade pops the Champagne corks, the union says it might appeal the decision, but it seems that this might ultimately go to the politicians at the National Assembly, who will have to make clear what their intention is about banning replacement workers.

Sorry, you're a scab

The publication of the Journal de Québec decision comes on the same day that the Quebec Press Gallery rejected an application by two of its employees, who are attached to Agence QMI's new parliamentary bureau. The decision came after a long debate about whether to accept members who have involvement in companies with labour disputes.

After rumours circulated that Quebecor might sue members of the press gallery's board, it also adopted a resolution protecting thost members in case of legal action related to their official functions.

Journalist unions win big in Journal de Québec decision

Fagstein — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:57:34 +0000

In a decision handed down Monday by the Commission des relations du travail, Quebecor Media and the Journal de Québec were found to have illegally used scab labour to replace locked-out and striking workers during the 15 months they were on the picket lines.

The decision is a huge victory not only for the Journal de Québec workers' union, but for journalist and other unions in general. It sets a precedent for what qualifies as "workplace" in Quebec law, extending its definition beyond the physical building where offices are located.

For those unfamiliar with the story, editorial workers at the Journal were locked out in April 2007 after negotiations on a new contract were stalled over the issue of convergence (having journalists do multimedia jobs). Immediately, press workers went on strike, and the Journal was left with just over a dozen managers to put out a daily newspaper.

Shortly after the labour conflict began, we started hearing about news content providers that appeared out of nowhere: Keystone Press, a photography agency, and Agence Nomade, a wire service. In addition, reports that news conferences in Quebec City started seeing reporters from "Canoë", which is Quebecor's web portal and shares content with its newspapers.

The union complained that this was essentially scab work. The decision finally got resolved after the conflict ended, even though the issue had become moot by then (the Journal fought to get the issue dismissed after the labour conflict ended, but the union pushed to get a judgment).

The details

Among the findings in the judgment (50-page PDF) concerning the scab labour:

Keystone Press, dubbed a scab company by the union, tried unsuccessfully to pitch its freelance services to the newspaper until the day after the lockout, when it was contacted by the president of Sun Media. Up to that point, the photography company had no office in Quebec, but had three photographers in the region the next day, taking photos of news events. The Journal would ask Keystone to cover specific events, and would then have exclusivity over the photos for a 36-hour period. Keystone in turn signed agreements with its photographers (in English) which paid them a set rate per hour of work. The commission singled out Geneviève Larivière, Antoine Leclaire and Pierre Gauthier as scabs.
Ferron Communications, a PR company, was hired by the Journal to provide news articles. It hired two journalists, Bernard Plante and Dominic Salgado, to cover news for the Journal. This continued until about June when the Journal found this method of operation too expensive.
Canoë, Sun Media's web portal, had no journalists in the Quebec City region before the labour conflict (for that matter, it didn't have much of a news operation at all - it was an aggregator of Quebecor's newspaper and TV content which it would throw online). A few weeks after the lockout began, they put out ads looking to hire journalists in the region on a temporary basis. The group of journalists inluded Plante and Salgado, as well as Geneviève Riel-Roberge, Hubert Lapointe, Marc-André Boivin, Reine May Crescence and Mélanie Tremblay.
In August 2007, all these journalists were told they were working not for Canoë, but for a company called Agence Nomade. This company, a wire service, was actually an idea by Quebecor CEO Pierre-Karl Péladeau. It was ostensibly setup by Sylvain Chamberland, one of PKP's friends, to compete against Presse Canadienne (Canadian Press's French equivalent). It offered its content exclusively to Quebecor Media (including TVA, 24 heures, Journal de Montréal, etc.). Because Nomade retained no rights to its content, Canoë and Quebecor could pretend it was theirs. Again, the Journal would "ask" that certain events be covered, and Nomade would "decide" what it would cover based on that. Journalists would file to Nomade, who would forward texts to Canoë and the Journal.
Despite these changes, the journalist scabs would always present themselves as being journalists for Canoë.
The journalists, who had to work exclusively for Nomade (and hence, Quebecor and hence, the Journal de Québec) as scabs on repeating short-term contracts got a salary equivalent to $40,000 a year for their troubles.

The issues

In the end, the judgment came down to three questions:

Were these journalists working for the Journal? The commission ruled that no, they were not. They weren't being paid by the Journal, and were not taking orders directly from the Journal.
Was the Journal using the services of these workers to replace locked-out workers? The commission ruled that yes, the Journal was actively making use of these workers' services to replace their own. They assigned stories and photos which were then filed directly to them for use in the newspaper. Though technically the scabs were working for Agence Nomade, which in turn worked for Quebecor Media, the work they were doing was mainly for the benefit of the Journal.
Were the journalists at the workplace of locked-out workers? This one was where the commission broke new ground. The idea of workplace wasn't an issue in the days of factories with big pieces of equipment. You couldn't work as a scab unless you were on the premises. But journalists with the Journal did most of their work outside the building, and so the commission ruled that wherever they did their work, either at the courthouse or at news conferences or at the National Assembly, these scabs were at their workplace.

What this means

Two unions are going to be very happy with this news: the union representing journalists at the Journal de Montréal (who will hold a press conference Tuesday to discuss its own contract negotiations as its current one expires Dec. 31) and the union representing journalists at The Gazette (their contract expired June 1 and they're back at the negotiating table in January).

Had Quebecor won this case, it would have been a manual for other companies on how to get around Quebec's liberal anti-scab laws. Have the journalists be freelancers, working for a separate company, and filing mainly for the website. But the commission threw a wrench in that setup, and that puts the unions in a much better bargaining position.

There's still some room to maneuvre if someone wants to try this again. A lot of the focus was over the fact that the Journal asked for specific news events to be covered. Not to mention the fact that all of this was setup after the labour disruption started. Had those things been different, the decision might have been a little more murky.

But it'll be much harder for a media company to get around a labour disruption in Quebec by outsourcing work to a third party. And that creates a huge shift in the balance of power away from newspaper owners and toward newspaper unions.

In case you're interested, there are press releases from the union and from Sun Media.

Coverage elsewhere

UPDATE (Jan. 7): The Journal is appealing. The union says it's not surprised.

Journal de Québec employees back at work

Fagstein — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:01:20 +0000

Employees of the Journal de Québec returned to work on Tuesday, 15 months after being locked out and days after the last issue of their self-produced strike paper, MédiaMatinQuébec (whose website has since been shut down).

The paper (and its website) hasn't undergone a significant transformation yet, but expect work on that to begin in haste over the next little while.

MédiaMatinQuébec is dead

Fagstein — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 07:51:35 +0000

MédiaMatinQuébec's final issue: August 8, 2008

After more than 15 months, 317 editions and 12.5 million copies, MédiaMatinQuébec, the paper put out by striking and locked-out workers from the Journal de Québec, published its final issue this morning (PDF). Next week, the 252 workers return to the Journal de Québec and start re-learning how to do their jobs (which now will include increased use of multi-media for journalists), thanks to the deal that was approved last month.

In other words, it's ok to like the Journal de Québec again (though it remains to be seen what it will take in from all that the employees have learned from putting out a paper over 15 months).

The MMQ's final issue, at a staggering 80 pages, is filled with congratulatory ads from local businesses and unions, as well as retrospectives on the paper and the union's long fight. In fact, other than the crossword and horoscope, that's all that's in those 80 pages. Stories about the 15 months of the paper's existence, a collage of the best photos used in the paper, and mostly first-person retrospectives from dozens of employees who struggled through 15 months working in a cramped office, getting up early and standing in traffic handing out newspapers for pennies of strike pay. (Michel Hébert has a more poetic obit on his blog as well as a copy of his final column.) It's also interspersed with comments from readers who say they'll miss the free paper with no filler material, no wire services and 100% local news compiled by dedicated professionals.

You've never seen so many people happy to see their paper cease to exist. But then, that was its goal all along. The deal reached with the Journal wasn't what either side wanted, but it was fair. And now everyone can return to work and start receiving a proper paycheque again.

More importantly, MédiaMatinQuébec may have changed the face of media union pressure tactics forever. Taking what happened during the CBC lockout to the next step, they put away their baseball bats and picket signs and protested by doing their jobs. And the public loved them for it.

MédiaMatinQuébec is dead. Long live MédiaMatinQuébec.

Union approves deal at Journal de Québec

Fagstein — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:46:34 +0000

Employees at the Journal de Québec have voted overwhelmingly in favour of a deal in principle with their employer, starting the process to end the labour conflict after more than 14 months out of work.

The deal, worked out overnight during intense negotiations, includes the following points:

A five-year contract
2.5% pay increases per year
An end to outsourcing of classified jobs to Kanata, Ont.
A four-day, 37.5-hour work week (9 hours, 22 minutes and 30 seconds a day), except for classified which work 37.5 hours over five days
A week more of vacation for part-time/temporary workers who have worked more than 10 years
A guaranteed minimum number of journalists covering Quebec City news, but allowing reporters to perform multimedia jobs
Changes to pensions and retirement benefits, plus a bunch of other stuff that I'm sure even union members didn't care much about

The union says that MédiaMatinQuébec will continue publishing until the employees return to work, which is still weeks away.

Analysis

The terms of this deal seem to be a pretty solid down-the-middle compromise on key points (which prompts me to ask the question: Why the heck did it take so long to hammer out a deal?). The 2.5% per year increase and 37.5-hour work week is consistent with the employer's demands, but the workers keep their four-day week intact and avoid outsourcing of jobs to non-unionized employees elsewhere.

The announcement doesn't go into much detail about the other main issue: asking workers to perform multimedia jobs in addition to print reporting. It will be interesting how this major sticking point is eventually resolved.

This conflict has had mixed reaction from the public. Some have questioned some of the seemingly unreasonable clauses the contracts contain (starting with the four-day work week) and said the Journal needs much more flexibility. But most came out on the side of the workers, thanks in large part to MédiaMatinQuébec which laid out their position on a daily basis and made them out to be the underdog against the evil corporate media empire of Quebecor.

If this conflict is finally resolved, it will be good news for the Journal, good news for its workers, and will change the face of media union pressure tactics here for a long time.

But in the end, only one winner emerges from the prolonged, 14-month conflict at the Journal de Québec: Le Soleil, its direct competition.

Comparisons to the Montreal Star, which folded after a prolonged strike, are already being made.

Now we wait and see what happens at the Journal de Montréal, which is also in contract negotiations.

UPDATE: LCN has some interviews and other video on the subject.

Commentary on the matter also from:

La Presse's Patrick Lagacé
JDQ columnist Michel Hébert
MédiaMatinQuébec itself (Thursday's edition (PDF) has it on the front page, along with a big Bonne Fête Québec in a funny little coincidence)

Indefinite lockout

Fagstein — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 05:52:24 +0000

There seems to be no end in sight for the Journal de Québec labour conflict which began in April 2007. As much as local unions are standing behind the workers and their MédiaMatinQuébec newspaper, those funds aren't infinite. At some point, MMQ or the Journal are going to fold for good. Maybe both.

Meanwhile, Canadian Press has an overview of the difficulties getting Quebec Sun Media employees (basically now the Journal de Montréal) to "adapt" to the Internet. It casts the issue as if it's the union being resistant to change, which I imagine is not how they see it.

It’s the boat that sails through time

Fagstein — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 21:05:25 +0000

Ouch.

I guess those journalists are probably useful for something after all, like making sure the Page One story isn't entirely wrong.

To their credit, today's paper had "Mea culpa" in big letters on its front page... wait, what? It's about meteorologists not accurately predicting summer weather three weeks in advance? Oh, yeah. That's much worse.

Don’t forget the Journal de Québec

Fagstein — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 05:50:51 +0000

The Agence France-Presse wire service has a piece on the ongoing Journal de Québec labour conflict. Nothing new for those who have been following it (though it includes a suggestion that advertisers who left the Journal are now trickling back), but the issue is getting more worldwide coverage.

Journalist, criticize thyself

Fagstein — Thu, 01 May 2008 07:00:51 +0000

This is why people don't trust the media anymore: La Presse says TVA isn't covering the Journal de Québec situation fairly, because both are owned by Quebecor.

There's this thing with the media that's always annoyed me:

Journalists love to talk about their industry with other journalists
People love reading about the media (within reason, of course)
Journalists are hesitant to write about matters that are "in the family" (owned by the same company) or within the media outlet itself, whether because of paranoid self-censorship or orders from upper management not to pursue a story
Journalists and their media outlets will never talk about their competition, unless it's to report something bad about them, in which case they go all out.

La Presse isn't immune to this. Neither is The Gazette (the paper I work for), nor any other media outlet I can think of. And the larger the corporate empire, the worse the problem gets.

Why can't they be more honest about themselves? Giving a union boss criticizing a platform to criticize you makes you look bad, but denying that union boss a voice makes you look worse.

Remember: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up.

One year and counting

Fagstein — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:00:10 +0000

A bit of union propaganda from the locked-out and on-strike workers at the Journal de Québec, who have been out of work for a year, and are still producing a daily newspaper off raised money while their old one deteriorates. Today, they're encouraging people to boycott the Journal de Québec to protest the continued lockout.

UPDATE: Today's special issue (PDF) is 56 pages, and filled with ads. Meanwhile, Steve Proulx argues that while he isn't taking a position either way, it's worth noting that the Journal's current contract gives some rather extreme benefits to workers: high salaries, four-day weeks, paid days off on their birthdays, etc.

MédiaMatinQuébec approaching anniversary

Fagstein — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 07:47:40 +0000

As the calendar turns to a full year since Journal de Québec staff were locked out of their newspaper and responded by launching their own, spokesperson Denis Bolduc appears on Gauthier to explain his case, which has garnered so much national media attention that the group put out an English-language edition explaining the situation (PDF).

Local newspaper union news

Fagstein — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:13:39 +0000

La Presse: According to Michel Leblanc, an agreement in principle has been reached between the union and employer, which will remove the disparity between newspaper journalists and online journalists, and would bring back the blogs that were suspended in September, including that of Tristan Péloquin (remember him?). ~~No word yet from official sources~~. Patrick Lagacé confirms, saying there will be a general assembly on March 19 for union members to approve the deal.

Le Journal de Montréal: Steve Proulx quotes Le Trente that a strike (or lockout?) is on the horizon, because the manager-to-employee ratio is high. JdM employees are paid generously (so much so that my colleagues were shocked to hear pay rates for equivalent jobs there), and Quebecor might look toward building on the "success" of the Journal de Québec. (See some analysis by Julien Brault) (UPDATE March 5: Proulx has an update based on statements from some anonymous sources within the Journal)

Le Journal de Québec: Tomorrow, the 10-month-old lockout/strike will set a new record for a labour dispute at a French-language Canadian newspaper, eclipsing the previous record set by Le Soleil in 1977. (The irony, of course, is that the Journal itself owes much of its early success to that very dispute.) Mario Asselin is starting to lose his zeal for the fight.

The Gazette: Also management-heavy in preparation for new contract negotiations this spring, the paper has decided to lay off 46 employees in its Reader Sales and Service department, transferring call centre operations to a centralized centre in Winnipeg as of May 30. The union is fighting the move, calling it a violation of a contract clause against outsourcing. (UPDATE March 5: The layoffs have been put on hold while arbitrators sort out the union issue.)

Triste

Fagstein — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 08:30:50 +0000

Ten months and counting...

Journal de Québec: 9 months and counting

Fagstein — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:51:50 +0000

Locked-out and striking workers at the Journal de Québec have asked for an arbitrator to finally help put an end to the conflict that's been going on since April.

The seemingly unsustainable situation, where the paper has been relying on quasi-legal Canoë, Journal de Montréal, wire service and management workers to put out the paper while the unionized workers have been publishing a competing free paper five days a week, has gone on so long that union members are being offered subscriptions to the Journal, and MédiaMatin has started a classified section:

The Journal is clearly not ready to back down, and as long as the union gets support from its solidarity-bretheren (the latest is the Réseau de transport de Longueuil) as well as overwhelming moral support from the public, they're not about to fold up shop either.

Le Devoir’s 6 big media issues for 2008

Fagstein — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 04:52:55 +0000

Le Devoir looks at six big issues the media will have to tackle in 2008:

What do we do with TQS? Its current format isn't working, what should we change it to?
How do we finance television? Should cable providers be forced to hand over money to over-the-air broadcasters?
How long will the Journal de Québec situation go on? MédiaMatinQuébec has been running for eight months now, and the two sides are just now getting together to talk. What will an eventual agreement say, and how will that affect other media?
How do we handle journalist multitasking? Media are expecting reporters to write, take pictures and edit video reports without paying them anything extra. La Presse's union has already ordered journalists to stop blogging. The Journal de Montréal is knee-deep in union issues about convergence (which is in part why it doesn't have a real website). Will the media eventually realize that more manpower is needed to produce for different media, or will the quality of journalism drop as journalists spend more time formatting stories than finding them?
How will online distribution royalties be handled? The WGA will solve this eventually when it reaches a deal with U.S. movie and TV producers. But Canada has problems too. Quebecor is still trying to figure out how to get more programming onto its crappy Canoe.tv site. Will content creators get what they deserve, or will they be screwed over en masse?
Will we have Internet CanCon? Or will the pseudo-CanCon we already have get even worse? How will the CRTC deal with the blurring of the line between the Internet and cable providers, television/radio broadcasters and telecom companies?

Do you have any answers?

If only bus drivers had writers like these

Fagstein — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 23:41:44 +0000

Via Martine, the WGA, the American writers union which is currently ~~holding us hostage by denying us House-isms~~ on strike for the rights to more than mere pennies from DVD sales and all of nothing from online publishing of TV shows and movies, isn't lying down or holding useless marches with picket signs. They're creating media to rally support for their cause.

In essence, it's a tactic we've seen before but on a much larger scale. When CBC employees were locked out in 2005, they started producing blogs and podcasts to keep communication going. After it was over, the blogger for CBC Unlocked, Tod Maffin, was given the job of running Inside the CBC, a decidedly uncorporate, uncensored blog about the inner life of the Mother Corp., with its blessing.

Locked-out journalists at the Journal de Québec are still, since April, putting out a competing daily newspaper as part of their pressure tactics. The move has rallied support among other unions (who have helped them financially) politicians and newsmakers (who refuse to deal with Canoe reporters, a fly-by-night "wire services" and other scabs) and readers (who have cancelled subscriptions and are picking up the competing paper).

With Hollywood, the tactic that's getting the most play is online video (ironic since the dispute is over how little they get paid for online video). Writers for popular shows like The Office, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have been cracking jokes on YouTube, and the actors are coming out to support them. Some like McDreamy and co. talk calmly about the issues, others like Sarah Silverman make the funny, and then there's Sandra Oh.

The latest campaign, called "Speechless", involves short black-and-white clips of actors in a world without scriptwriters. Most of them are of the actor-stands-blank-faced-and-says-nothing variety. Others are pretty funny. There's a new one every day.

Some of my favourites below:

Episode 1: Holly Hunter tries to get some input on a script written by an outsourced Indian company.
Episode 6: Kate Beckinsale and David Schwimmer. (Do I need a reason beyond Kate Beckinsale to post this video?)

Episode 8: An adorable whistling duet by Filliam H. Muffman. It makes no sense in this context, but they're just so cute together.

Episode 10: An otherwise forgettable talking-but-no-words-come-out number by Desperate Housewives Eva Longoria and Nicolette Sheridan ad-libs into hilarity.

Episode 11: Laura Linney tries some writing of her own, with disastrous results.

Episode 12: Rapid-fire clips of a bunch of actors holding signs that say "speechless". And not D-list ones either: William H. Macy, Kate Beckinsale, David Schwimmer, Matthew Perry, Susan Sarandon, Eva Longoria, Holly Hunter, Gary Dourdan, Bill Hader, Joshua Jackson and a bunch of other people you know by face but not by name.You can see all the videos here.

Of course, campaigns like this only work if you have the public's support. Writers and journalists have it because they're grossly underpaid professions and the rights they're demanding are hardly unreasonable in the face of megacorporations with huge profits. Support for the WGA is almost universal, even among some of those people who stand to lose from a prolonged labour conflict.

Unfortunately, groups like STM bus drivers don't have that kind of public support. They're seen as overpaid whiners with too much power who don't care about the public. (An informal CTV News poll had 91% of about 1,000 respondents saying public transit workers should not be allowed to strike.)

Maybe if Susan Sarandon did a video for them they'd get more public support.

Then again maybe not.

UPDATE (Nov. 28): For those who want more low-brow late night writers strike videos, check out LateShowWritersOnStrike.com.

Lise Payette joins Le Devoir

Fagstein — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:57:07 +0000

Lise Payette, the journalist turned radio personality turned TV personality turned politician turned TV writer turned TV producer turned newspaper columnist, has joined Le Devoir seven months after quitting the Journal de Montréal because of her steadfast refusal to cross picket lines.

Payette quit the Journal in April because her columns were being republished in the Journal de Québec, whose editorial employees had just been locked out. She refused to cross picket lines, and declared that her articles would no longer appear there.

Payette's leftist leanings, combined with her sovereignist politics as a former PQ cabinet minister make her a good fit for Le Devoir. Let's hope she takes a few readers with her.

Her first column, which discusses how the Yvettes destroyed her political career and how she never thought she'd write for Le Devoir, appeared this morning.

Kicking a reporter out: Good for journalism?

Fagstein — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:18:33 +0000

Québec solidaire kicked out a Canoe reporter from a Quebec City meeting on Sunday. The reason was simple: the reporter was replacing locked-out Journal de Québec workers, and because QS is all crazy-leftist and such, they're not about to accept a scab.

But is that an acceptable reason for kicking a journalist out of an open political meeting? Where do you draw the line between legitimate interference and scary Stephen Harper-style cherrypicking of reporters?

Journal de Québec problems not hurting bottom line

Fagstein — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 07:50:27 +0000

A new financial report from Quebecor Media thumbs its nose at striking and locked-out Journal de Québec workers, saying that profits have exploded since the work stoppage in April.

It's funny how giant media conglomerates are swimming in profits but still feel the need to cut cut cut journalism jobs.

And while the Journal is saving a lot of money in salaries, it's hard to say how sustainable it is to run a newspaper without journalists. (Though no doubt Quebecor would love to find a way to make it work.)

Fagstein » Journal de Québec

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