Fagstein » Le Devoir

Le Devoir to charge for tweets

Fagstein — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 10:00:18 +0000

Though it remains the only major newspaper in Quebec to charge readers for complete access to its website, Le Devoir apparently wants to increase the scope of its paywall, and is starting a pilot project that could see users paying for Twitter updates.

Le Devoir's journalists have been quietly setting up Twitter accounts (you can see media reporter Stéphane Baillargeon's here) in preparation for this plan.

How it would work isn't too complicated: It takes advantage of a Twitter feature that allows people to protect their accounts and only allow those who are authorized to receive their tweets. The trick is coordinating the paper's subscriber database (those who subscribe to Le Devoir would get the tweets for free) with some way of automatically authorizing (and de-authorizing, as the case may be) access to the Twitter accounts.

Le Devoir's Web technology team says it's just about ready to begin wide testing of this new system, for a full public launch sometime in the summer. It'll be up to the marketing and editorial sides to find a way to make readers want to pay to read updates from the paper's columnists and reporters.

Whether anyone will pay for bits of information 140 characters at a time is the big question. But Le Devoir's paywall exists, so why not extend it to Twitter?

A writer’s newspaper

Fagstein — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:40:30 +0000

In an effort to ~~be even more elitist snobs than they already are~~ honour authors as the Salon du livre opens (and we're in the middle of book awards season), Le Devoir hands over today's issue to 33 authors.

The authors (including Dany Laferrière, Caroline Allard, Fred Pellerin and David Homel) were paired with Le Devoir's journalists for the day yesterday - an activity chronicled in a two-part liveblog and photo gallery.

Though Le Devoir is one of the few remaining publications in Canada to use a paywall, all the authors' pieces are currently free online. You can see them listed here.

There's also a cartoon by Michel Rabagliati and a podcast of interviews about the issue (with bonus sounds of a fake typewriter in the background).

Le Devoir starts podcast

Fagstein — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 06:52:58 +0000

Continuing its year-long project of pretending everyone cares about its 100-year history, Le Devoir has launched a podcast ("baladodiffusion", in the proper français), in which it invites people to tell stories about the past century. To kick it off, Clémence Desrochers talks about the 1955 Rocket Richard Riot, and Claude Robinson talks about Nelson Mandela.

They're short vignettes, 7-8 minutes long. No interviews, just someone telling a story with a bit of music in the background.

Maybe this will appeal to some people, but to me, if you're just going to read some text into a microphone and call it a podcast, why not just give us the text and let us read it to ourselves?

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. Perhaps there's a value to having Claude Robinson read stuff to you. You be the judge.

You can subscribe to Le Devoir's podcast here or through iTunes.

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.

Le Devoir discovers YouTube

Fagstein — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:45:28 +0000

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.

Bon anniversaire, Le Devoir

Fagstein — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:00:47 +0000

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:

A special of Tout le monde en parlait about Le Devoir's 100 years, on RadCan at 2pm or viewable online
A six-minute report for the Téléjournal on Thursday, centred around one of its oldest readers
A special of Tous pour un on Radio-Canada about Le Devoir
Maisonneuve en direct devoted a show to the paper on Friday, having publisher Bernard Descôteaux sit in and talk to callers.
RadCan's archives has a piece on the 75th anniversary in 1985, and another TV report from 1993 that apparently never aired.
La Presse's André Pratte wishes the paper a fruitful future, while Steve Proulx gives five reasons he likes Le Devoir.
The Gazette's Hubert Bauch writes a full-page feature about the newspaper and its 100 years. Similar featureish stories from Metro and Presse Canadienne.
LCN invited Descôteaux in studio for a ten-minute interview about his paper's anniversary.

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

Gazette, Devoir newspaper archives online

Fagstein — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:06:49 +0000

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.)

Le Devoir website redesigns … again

Fagstein — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:39:58 +0000

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

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

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.

Spécialisées

Fagstein — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:15:13 +0000

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:

A piece about Canal D's programming, which includes a brief mention of my favouritest show ever, Mayday. Mayday is produced in Quebec for both Canal D and the Discovery Channel, and with the help of its massive tax credits, is exported to countries around the world.
A blowjob discussion of owner Astral Media's branding strategy. It says it likes to give each network its own brand and let it do its own thing. (Apparently that logic doesn't apply to its radio stations.)
A look at how the documentary filmmaking industry has changed with the digital media revolution.

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

Le Devoir explores Wikipédia

Fagstein — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:21:12 +0000

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.

Le Devoir should talk less about itself

Fagstein — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 21:56:26 +0000

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.

Le Devoir bucks trend, gets better

Fagstein — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:06:27 +0000

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

Le Devoir says goodbye to its printing plant

Fagstein — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:00:57 +0000

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.

Le Devoir enters the blogosphere

Fagstein — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 17:55:45 +0000

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)

Le Devoir sued for correctly reporting outrageous cookie claims

Fagstein — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:37:23 +0000

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:

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.

Le Devoir to cover Olympics

Fagstein — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 06:07:44 +0000

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.

Le Devoir works its feeds

Fagstein — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 07:28:05 +0000

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)

Anglo ads on franco websites?

Fagstein — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 22:08:45 +0000

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.

Today is yesterday again

Fagstein — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:23:55 +0000

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.

C’est la fin du français!

Fagstein — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 07:20:24 +0000

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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