Tag Archives: Le Devoir

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

February 17, 2010 – 8:25 pm| Posted in Media

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.

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Le Devoir discovers YouTube

January 30, 2010 – 3:45 pm| Posted in Media, Video

Michel David talks about politics and the changing media landscape.

Le Devoir has launched a YouTube channel, which features interviews with some of its artisans. Now we don't just have to imagine them being snooty about stuff, we can see it too.

There's also Benoit Munger talking about the website, but I didn't get anything new out of it.

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Bon anniversaire, Le Devoir

January 10, 2010 – 12:00 am| Posted in Media, Montreal

The first issue of Le Devoir, Jan. 10, 1910

100 years ago today, Henri Bourassa published the first issue of a newspaper he somewhat arrogantly called Le Devoir. It was a different time then, both in terms of technology (there was no concept of desktop publishing as there is now) and in terms of politics (the paper was nationalist, but that meant they wanted independence from London, not Ottawa).

Despite nearly failing many times (see a full chronology and another piece focusing on finances), the paper survives. And it's celebrating. It has an entire section on its website devoted to 100th anniversary stories, and has put its special commemorative magazine online for free in "virtual paper" and PDF formats.

They're planning on milking this for the entire calendar year, with special events and publications. It starts today, when they're inviting readers to meet the paper's artisans at Marché Bonsecours, from 10am to 1pm. There will also be a special presentation and a commemorative envelope (they do those?) issued to honour the anniversary.

Le Devoir isn't the only one celebrating. Among the celebrations from other media:

Allow me to add on: Happy anniversary. Try to stay out of bankruptcy for another century.

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Gazette, Devoir newspaper archives online

December 21, 2009 – 4:06 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal, On the Net, Technology
Gazette Stanley Cup 1986

The Gazette, May 26, 1986

Mike Rivest points out that archives of The Gazette, from 1878 to 1986, are now available for searching on Google News's newspaper archive.

For those unfamiliar with the archive, it scans countless newspaper pages, subjects them to optical character recognition, and encodes it all in a vast database. From there, you can search for stuff and it'll take you right to the newspaper page in question, highlighting the appropriate text.

The system isn't perfect. Some dates are wrong, some newspapers mislabelled. And the text you're looking for might have gotten garbled up in the OCR machine.

And not every issue is there, so you might get disappointed if you're looking for a particular issue or article.

But considering the number of requests daily to The Gazette about accessing old newspaper archives, I'm sure this will come in handy to many. (Kristian Gravenor just creamed his pants, for one)

Some quick searching has found me the Habs' 1986 Stanley Cup win (above), and these two below:

The Gazette, Oct. 15, 1966: Metro opens, but it's not the main story of the day.

The Gazette, July 21, 1969: Something about a ladder?

There's also all 172 pages of the bicentennial edition in 1978.

Le Devoir's archives are also online, though Google's newspaper search algorithm seeks out block of what it considers legible text, so what comes out are those bits of English that have been published in the newspaper.

Also available are archives from:

Non-Quebec papers include the Toronto Star and Ottawa Citizen.

Happy hunting. (Just remember, if you're searching for something significant, that newspapers are yesterday's news, so you have to search for the day after.)

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Le Devoir website redesigns … again

November 18, 2009 – 3:39 am| Posted in Media

A month ago, Le Devoir launched a redesign of its website. It lasted only a few hours until, crippled by technical problems, it reverted back to its old design.

LeDevoir.com

LeDevoir.com

Now the newspaper has tried again, with the same design, but hopefully a more robust back end.

The look is a huge change from the previous design (you can see a gallery of previous designs at the end of this article explaining the new website). It looks a lot more professional, in both the good and bad ways. It's slick, but it's very busy. It has a lot of unnecessary text on homepages. Those homepages are also long:

Really long Le Devoir homepage

Really long Le Devoir homepage

Despite the visual changes, the essentials are the same. Le Devoir remains one of the few dailies in the country to restrict some content to paid subscribers. Uncoincidentally, it also features ads very prominently offering subscriptions.

Nicolas Ritoux has some details about the genesis of the new design, from this article published when they tried to launch it a month ago.

One thing I notice right off is that while they now have photo galleries, there is no way to link directly to a Garnotte cartoon (unless I link directly to the JPEG file). It's a common problem with newspaper websites big and small.

Le Devoir turns 100 on Jan. 10.

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Spécialisées

November 7, 2009 – 3:15 pm| Posted in TV

Le Devoir today has a series of articles about the 15th anniversary of Canal D, the documentary/educational network launched on Jan. 1, 1995. About half are subscriber-locked, but there's some open ones worth reading:

Stéphane Baillargeon also discusses the changes happening at Canal Savoir, which turned 25 this year.

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Le Devoir explores Wikipédia

February 7, 2009 – 5:21 pm| Posted in Slow News Day, Technology

Le Devoir has a whole special today on Wikipedia (I'm not quite sure why). Half of it is subscriber-blocked, but the main story is free. Seems they've found some errors in Wikipedia articles about Quebec history.

The article repeats the same tired refrain of the mainstream media: Wikipedia can't be trusted because we found all these errors.

It ignores the fact that Wikipedia has never said it should be trusted. It doesn't want to be trusted. It asks people - pleads with them - to check every fact in every article (and correct/cite those that are wrong). It is not designed to be a source of information, it is designed to be a summary of information with clear citations.

And, of course, Wikipedia would never have achieved all this popularity if it wasn't immensely useful as a resource in the first place.

The problem isn't Wikipedia, it's that people have been taught to believe everything they read without question. You could argue that this isn't a proper way to setup an encyclopedia, and if so you're welcome to use all the other failed Wikipedia-you-can-trust experiments out there.

UPDATE: More from Martin Lessard.

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Le Devoir should talk less about itself

February 2, 2009 – 4:56 pm| Posted in Media, Opinion

You know, you can tell the media is paying a bit too much attention to itself when a newspaper writes a 600-word article on the retirement of one of its accountants.

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Le Devoir bucks trend, gets better

January 13, 2009 – 3:06 pm| Posted in Media

After writing what is essentially an obit of its former printing plant, Le Devoir looks to the future, and lists some improvements that are coming with is new Quebecor-owned presses. Many of them are the opposite of what you'd expect from a newspaper in this economy:

  • First edition deadline is now 10:30pm instead of 8:30pm, allowing the paper to have election results, sports results (including most Canadiens games) and concert reviews in the paper the next day.
  • A larger paper (though this part is a bit vague) "en haute saison"
  • An increase in the point size of text
  • More use of full-colour inside the paper
  • Weekly Agenda section printed using a heat set process, which means the ink won't rub off on your hands
  • Reduction in the top and bottom margins, meaning the paper will be 4cm shorter without losing any content
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Le Devoir says goodbye to its printing plant

January 4, 2009 – 3:00 am| Posted in Business, Media, Slow News Day

Le Devoir has changed printing plants, from a Quebecor-owned plant in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu to two other plants also owned by Quebecor Media.

One, Imprimerie Mirabel, prints the Journal de Montréal, Ottawa Sun and some Quebecor-owned weeklies, and will print Le Devoir for the western part of Quebec, including Montreal. The other is the Journal de Québec, which will print Le Devoir for the eastern part of Quebec.

Rather than just note the change or have an editor's note with marketingese about how excited they are with all the changes, the paper wrote a day-night-in-the-life piece as a thank you to its former plant. (via J-Source)

The biggest change that readers will notice with the change is that the early edition (distributed outside Montreal) has a later deadline - 10:45pm instead of 8:50pm. That puts it in line with other daily papers, including The Gazette, and will make a huge difference for things like election results. Later deadlines for papers distributed in the city are unchanged.

Besides being owned by a competitor, the two printing plants have both been in the news in the past year. Imprimerie Mirabel was the centre of a dispute between former corporate siblings Quebecor Media Inc. and Quebecor World Inc. (the latter a commercial printer which is under bankruptcy protection). QMI thought it had a deal on shared use of Imprimerie Mirabel, but QWI never signed the deal and bought its own press. QMI sued and lost.

The Journal de Québec printing plant, of course, went on strike to join locked-out editorial workers on the picket lines.

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Le Devoir enters the blogosphere

September 27, 2008 – 1:55 pm| Posted in Blogosphere, Media

Le Devoir, the black sheep of Quebec media online (the only major paper in Canada that still locks articles to subscribers) has joined the blogosphere with an election blog.

It's hardly a big splash considering the vast number of election blogs out there, but it's a start. Here's hoping some of their journalists continue to inch closer to the big scary Internet out there.

(via Lagacé)

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Le Devoir sued for correctly reporting outrageous cookie claims

July 23, 2008 – 5:37 pm| Posted in Business, Media, Opinion

Le Devoir is apparently being sued by a cookie company because of an article that criticized the company for marketing cookies as encouraging weight loss and preventing cancer.

I can't find the original article online, but the letter from the company in response is there: It says in no uncertain terms that the company has never suggested that its Praeventia brand cookies had these kinds of benefits:

Or jamais Leclerc n'a prétendu que les biscuits Praeventia avaient des vertus amaigrissantes.

...

Jamais l'entreprise n'a présenté ce produit «comme un aliment anticancer»

Well, I guess that settles that, then.

Here's the thing:

Screenshot from Praeventia\'s website

This web page includes the words "prevent certain cancers" three times. And though the company may be correct that they don't claim it'll cause weight loss, they certainly imply it pretty hard here (the words "weight control" also appear in the text).

Note to Biscuits Leclerc: Before you file your lawsuit, be sure to scrub exculpatory evidence from your website first.

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Le Devoir to cover Olympics

June 24, 2008 – 2:07 am| Posted in Media

Le Devoir is teasing us on all the fun stuff they're going to be doing about this summer:

  • Covering the Olympics
  • Some new weekly guess-the-writer game
  • The revival of its "Macadam" series, which nobody remembers but is basically a bunch of feature stories about things in Montreal
  • Covering Quebec's 400th anniversary and writing about its history
  • Covering a bunch of meetings and visits of foreign dignitaries

Some of it sounds mildly interesting for those of us obsessed with the local media scene, but isn't the rest of it just stating the obvious? If the paper wasn't covering the Olympics, that would be a story.

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Le Devoir works its feeds

June 11, 2008 – 3:28 am| Posted in Media, Web design

Le Devoir, whose RSS feed I had to unsubscribe to a while back because it was a monolithic feed that had 60 articles a day, has overhauled their feed system and now offers multiple feeds. Not only do they have feeds for different sections (their media news feed has a welcome new home back in my feed reader), but they have feeds for individual journalists, which is something I'd like to see other websites copy.

The next step will be having feeds for each individual keyword (they've been tagging articles with keywords for quite a while now, but haven't done anything useful with it online yet)

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Anglo ads on franco websites?

March 26, 2008 – 6:08 pm| Posted in Media, Opinion

Perhaps it's just a coincidence, but some astute francophone bloggers are noting English-only advertisements on French-language websites like Cyberpresse and Le Devoir.

Assuming it's not a technical malfunction or clueless advertising agency, should it be a scandal that an ad on a French-language website be in English? A lot of anglophones read French newspapers, watch French television and go to French websites when they can't find what they need in English. Why not put forward some ads that cater to them?

For example: If The Gazette put a TV ad on RDS during a Habs game to promote its Habs Inside/Out website, in order to reach anglophone Habs enthusiasts who can't watch the game on another network, or francophone fanatiques who want to immerse themselves in everything about Les Glorieux, would that be so bad?

Or if an anglophone school board had ads in French promoting... oh wait, they already did that. And people are pissed.

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Today is yesterday again

January 19, 2008 – 2:23 am| Posted in Media

Apparently all the pages of Le Devoir today were accidentally labelled Thursday. I'd understand accidentally putting 2007, or getting the date wrong, but how does no one notice the day of the week is incorrect?

As for the suggestion that, like a stamp with a mistake in it, these copies will be worth something someday: don't hold your breath. Mistakes in newspaper folios are common, and embarrassing.

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C’est la fin du français!

January 19, 2008 – 2:20 am| Posted in Media

Bon, garde ça: un article dans Le Devoir en anglais. J'ai jamais vu ça dans ma vie.

Sadly, it reverts to French later on, and I don't understand the point in either language.

Also, Mme Bombardier seems to think that bilingual Quebecers are all francophones who have adopted English as opposed to anglophones who have adopted French.

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Lise Payette joins Le Devoir

November 23, 2007 – 11:57 am| Posted in Media, Montreal

Lise PayetteLise 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.

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More pay walls coming down

November 15, 2007 – 10:37 pm| Posted in In the news, Media

The Wall Street Journal's Lord Master Rupert Murdoch has decided to drop the pay wall on WSJ.com content, just a few weeks after the New York Times decided to let all its content online be free. Both newspapers are betting on the fact that increased online ad revenue will balance out the reduced subscription revenue.

MediaShift has a good blog post summarizing the arguments in favour and against dropping the pay wall, including its effects on paper subscriptions and volatility of the online advertising market.

One of the blog posts it links to says in one sentence my chief concern about all this: "Are we seeing the death of the paid content model?"

I like free content. I like not having to pay to download stuff on my computer. I like being able to read articles from all sorts of newspapers. I like blogs and YouTube and Flickr.

But I'm also one of many people who is trying to make a living off of this "content" thing, and along with all this free content is a race to the bottom, with content providers seeking cheaper and cheaper content. Many now seriously expect people to work for them for free, hoping that not even five minutes of maybe-fame will be enough to cloud their judgment and cause them to ignore the fact that they have to put food on their table.

The bigger problem is that as content gets cheaper and cheaper, so does the work being produced for those low salaries. Investigative journalism disappears completely, journalists get lazy and become stenographers, columnists write uninteresting fluff about their daily lives, and the wall between editorial and advertising starts getting blurry.

We seem to accept being charged for content only when it exists on a physical medium, like books, DVDs and newspapers. Is there any purely digital content that people will keep paying for in the future, or is advertising expected to cover everything? (And with all the increasing content on the Internet, can we possibly have enough advertising interest to bankroll it all?)

We'll see. By my count only two major Canadian dailies still have pay walls on their websites: The Globe and Mail and Le Devoir. Are they coming next, or will they buck the trend?

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Le Devoir numbers improving

November 10, 2007 – 11:32 pm| Posted in Media, Montreal

Le Devoir ejaculates the news today that it's the only major Montreal newspaper whose readership has gone up this year, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Its weekday readership is up 2.4% and Saturday readers up 0.1%.

It takes the opportunity to make fun of The Gazette, whose Saturday subscriptions have gone down 4.3% in just one year.

Good for you, Devoir. But maybe you shouldn't be too arrogant about your subscription numbers, especially since your readership is fourth out of four daily newspapers in the city (sixth out of six if you include Metro and 24 Heures).

UPDATE (Nov. 13): A similar piece from the Toronto Sun, whose numbers are also up. Notice how it's the papers who are improving who publish stories about circulation numbers?

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