Fagstein » TVA

Ethics don’t matter on TV

Fagstein — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 06:23:58 +0000

A couple of disturbing stories have come to light recently about Quebec television broadcasters' attempts to censor things that might affect their bottom line.

The first was the revelation from La Presse's Hugo Dumas that producers of dramatic programming for TVA were being asked to not show characters using iPhones. This, apparently, because Quebecor owns both TVA and Videotron and Videotron doesn't offer the iPhone to wireless customers.

That prompted a reply from Quebecor VP Serge Sasseville that actually admitted Dumas's story was true, but said that this was simply a case of a sponsor (Videotron) wanting its products depicted in the programming it sponsors. He offers the example of Ford sponsoring Radio-Canada's series 19-2, and seeing Ford vehicles being driven in the show.

Dumas in turn replied to the reply, saying the argument seemed to suggest that Videotron sponsors all of TVA's programming, and calling that reasoning preposterous.

Interference from a broadcaster into dramatic programming for business reasons is bad enough. But as Sasseville's comparison points out, we're well past that point already.

The second story is the decision of RDS to refuse to show a commercial from comedian Mike Ward that makes fun of the Canadiens. To be precise, they refused to show the ad during Canadiens games.

Their argument, and it's a really stupid one, is that RDS is the official broadcaster of the Canadiens, and it's unacceptable that an ad that runs during Canadiens games makes fun of them.

Some have noted that RDS is now owned by Bell, which is a stakeholder in the Canadiens and owns the naming rights to the Bell Centre, among many commercial deals between the telecom giant and the hockey team.

Both of these moves are ridiculous, and both reek of giant media empires abusing their ownership powers to mold programming in one area so it matches the business interests of another.

It's not that many steps from this to each media giant having its own imaginary universe, each with its own set of maybe-true facts.

TVA journalist fired for plagiarizing Rue Frontenac

Fagstein — Sun, 23 May 2010 06:00:08 +0000

You probably didn't know until this week about a journalist named Stéphane Malhomme.

It's OK, though, because two years out of journalism school, and a month into a job as a web editor for Canoe, his journalism career is over.

In case you didn't hear, Malhomme published an article on the website of Canal Argent, TVA's business network, about this guy Martin Tremblay who is fighting the government over tax money he thinks he doesn't owe them. Nothing particularly special about the story. It's topped with a quote from Tremblay (from an "exclusive" interview on Argent), and has a bunch of background below.

The article has since been pulled, but Google Cache still has it, and it was republished through the Agence QMI service, and appeared in the Journal de Montréal.

It didn't take long before the folks at Rue Frontenac, the website of the locked-out journalists and other workers at the Journal de Montréal, saw this piece and noticed that it bore a striking resemblance to one written by Martin Bisaillon that same day.

In fact, the resemblance was more than striking. Though the stories are not identical, some sentences and even entire paragraphs are. But Canoe's story makes no reference to Rue Frontenac.

Rue Frontenac cried foul, and by the next day TVA apologized for the plagiarism and said it had fired Malhomme. (As a contract worker, Malhomme did not have job security from the union.)

For the record, I've copied both versions below, with the identical phrases in bold:

Rue Frontenac version	TVA version
L’ex-financier offshore Martin Tremblay ainsi que sa famille viennent encore d’obtenir gain de cause contre le fisc, qui leur réclamait près de 20 millions de dollars. Tremblay avait été innocenté en janvier 2009 d’une accusation d’évasion fiscale par une décision du juge Réal Favreau, de la Cour canadienne de l’impôt. Toutefois, l’Agence du revenu du Canada en avait appelé de la décision en avril 2009. Dans un jugement rendu le 12 mai dernier, la Cour d’appel fédérale a maintenu cette décision par deux voix contre une. Dans un paradis fiscal Le litige opposant les Tremblay et l’Agence du revenu du Canada portait essentiellement sur le déménagement de la famille saguenéenne – le père Gérard, la mère Danielle et leurs deux enfants, Martin et feue Hélène – vers les Bahamas en 1994. L’objectif déclaré de ce déménagement était de soustraire au fisc le maximum des fruits de la vente pour 33 M$ de la société familiale Télésag à Vidéotron, à la fin des années 1980. Avec l’aide d’une armée de fiscalistes et d’avocats, les Tremblay, en accord avec l’ancienne direction de Vidéotron, ont concocté un montage financier visant à faire «rouler» les actions privilégiées et les débentures qu’ils avaient obtenues lors de la transaction avec le géant de la câblodistribution. Il en a résulté que Vidéotron a émis plus de trois millions de ses actions subalternes, d’une valeur de 44,2 M$, au profit des Tremblay en échange des actions et des actifs d’une société à numéro. Sitôt la cession réalisée, la compagnie a été liquidée par Vidéotron, tandis que les Tremblay s’en allaient vivre sous le soleil du paradis fiscal des Bahamas. Pas un dividende imposable Mais en 2004, le fisc leur a envoyé un avis de cotisation leur réclamant 9,4 M$ en impôt, plus les intérêts et les frais, soit un total de plus de 20 M$. Les Tremblay ont alors porté cette décision en appel, alléguant que la transaction n’était qu’un échange d’actions n’ayant pas généré de revenus. Au cours de l’audience tenue devant le juge Favreau, il y a deux ans, les avocats du gouvernement ont plaidé que cet échange était en réalité une distribution d’actifs au profit de la famille et qu’il s’apparentait au versement d’un dividende imposable. Ni le juge Favreau, ni la Cour d’appel ne leur ont donné raison. Martin Tremblay de retour aux Bahamas Rappelons que Martin Tremblay a défrayé la manchette en janvier 2006 quand il avait été appréhendé par la DEA à New York et accusé d’avoir blanchi pas moins de 1 milliard de narcodollars à l’aide de sa banque d’affaires Dominion Investments, basée à Nassau. En fin de compte, l’affaire s’est conclue quand il s’est déclaré coupable d’avoir laissé transiter dans les comptes de sa société 20 000 $ US provenant d’agents doubles à la solde de la DEA qui avaient mis des mois à le piéger. Une longue enquête menée par l’auteur de ces lignes pour le compte du Journal de Montréal en 2007-2008 a démontré que cette histoire a été montée de toutes pièces par les autorités américaines. Qu’à cela ne tienne, Martin Tremblay a été condamné à 34 mois de prison. Il a terminé de purger sa peine en juillet 2009 et est retourné vivre auprès de sa famille aux Bahamas. Dans cette affaire, Tremblay a engagé une poursuite contre la GRC qui n’a pas encore été entendue.	L’ex-investisseur offshore Martin Tremblay vient encore d’obtenir gain de cause contre le fisc, qui lui réclamait un total de près de 40 M$ en comptant intérêts et retards selon ses dires. Revenu Canada a été débouté pour une seconde fois dans ses poursuites. En entrevue exclusive à Argent, M. Tremblay a déclaré: "Je suis soulagé. Soulagé, mais peu surpris d'avoir gagné. Je savais que nous avions des bases solides et à l'époque, tous les avis juridiques que nous avions pris nous donnaient raison." L'Agence du revenu du Canada avait déjà déposé une accusation d'évasion fiscale à l'encontre de M. Tremblay, accusation déboutée par la Cour canadienne de l'impôt en Janvier 2009. Non découragée, l'Agence du revenu du Canada revenait à la charge en Avril de la même année. Dans un jugement rendu le 12 mai dernier, la Cour d’appel fédérale a confirmé cette décision à deux voix contre une. Dans un paradis fiscal Le litige opposant les Tremblay et l’Agence du revenu du Canada portait sur le déménagement de la famille saguenéenne – le père Gérard, la mère Danielle ainsi que leurs deux enfants, Martin et feue Hélène – vers les Bahamas, en 1994. "Je suis content pour mes parents, ils ont un certain âge et vont pouvoir avoir un peu de repos, et globalement pour toute la famille ca va nous permettre de passer à autre chose," a t il déclaré, espérant que l'imbroglio légal serait bientôt clos. Au-delà d'un climat plus clément, cette relocalisation avait l’objectif déclaré de soustraire au fisc le maximum des fruits de la vente pour 33 M$ de la société familiale Télésag à Vidéotron, à la fin des années 1980. Les Tremblay s'étaient entourés à l'époque de fine fleur des fiscalistes et avocats d'affaires, pour monter une structure financière visant à faire fructifier les actions obtenues lors de la transaction avec le géant de la câblodistribution. Ainsi, Vidéotron a émis trois millions de ses actions subalternes, d’une valeur de 44,2 M$, au profit des Tremblay en échange des actions et des actifs d’une compagnie à numéro. Sitôt la cession réalisée, la compagnie a été liquidée par Vidéotron, tandis que les Tremblay s’en allaient vivre sous le soleil du paradis fiscal des Bahamas. Pas un dividende imposable Mais en 2004, le fisc leur a envoyé un avis de cotisation leur réclamant 9,4 M$ en impôt, plus les intérêts et les frais, soit une somme qui totalisait déjà plus de 20 M$. Les Tremblay ont alors porté cette décision en appel, alléguant que la transaction n’était qu’un échange d’actions n’ayant pas généré de revenus. Les avocats du gouvernement ont plaidé eux que cet échange était en réalité une distribution d’actifs au profit de la famille et qu’elle s’apparentait au versement d’un dividende imposable. Ni le juge Favreau, ni la Cour d’appel ne leur ont donné raison. Martin Tremblay de retour aux Bahamas Martin Tremblay a déjà été inquiété par le fisc, en janvier 2006 quand il avait été appréhendé par la DEA à New York et accusé d’avoir blanchi 1 milliard de narcodollars à l’aide de sa banque d’affaires Dominion Investments. Une affaire ou M. Tremblay avait aussi eu gain de cause, même s'il avait purgé une peine de prison. Il avait fini par plaider coupable à des accusation extrêmement réduites, avoir laissé transiter dans les comptes de sa société 20 000 $US provenant d’agents doubles à la solde de la DEA qui avait mis des mois à le piéger. C'était ensuite au tour de M. Tremblay de répliquer, intentant une poursuite contre la GRC qui n’a pas encore été entendue.

Rue Frontenac version

TVA version

L’ex-financier offshore Martin Tremblay ainsi que sa famille viennent encore d’obtenir gain de cause contre le fisc, qui leur réclamait près de 20 millions de dollars.

Tremblay avait été innocenté en janvier 2009 d’une accusation d’évasion fiscale par une décision du juge Réal Favreau, de la Cour canadienne de l’impôt. Toutefois, l’Agence du revenu du Canada en avait appelé de la décision en avril 2009.

Dans un jugement rendu le 12 mai dernier, la Cour d’appel fédérale a maintenu cette décision par deux voix contre une.

Dans un paradis fiscal

Le litige opposant les Tremblay et l’Agence du revenu du Canada portait essentiellement sur le déménagement de la famille saguenéenne – le père Gérard, la mère Danielle et leurs deux enfants, Martin et feue Hélène – vers les Bahamas en 1994.

L’objectif déclaré de ce déménagement était de soustraire au fisc le maximum des fruits de la vente pour 33 M$ de la société familiale Télésag à Vidéotron, à la fin des années 1980.

Avec l’aide d’une armée de fiscalistes et d’avocats, les Tremblay, en accord avec l’ancienne direction de Vidéotron, ont concocté un montage financier visant à faire «rouler» les actions privilégiées et les débentures qu’ils avaient obtenues lors de la transaction avec le géant de la câblodistribution.

Il en a résulté que Vidéotron a émis plus de trois millions de ses actions subalternes, d’une valeur de 44,2 M$, au profit des Tremblay en échange des actions et des actifs d’une société à numéro.

Sitôt la cession réalisée, la compagnie a été liquidée par Vidéotron, tandis que les Tremblay s’en allaient vivre sous le soleil du paradis fiscal des Bahamas.

Pas un dividende imposable

Mais en 2004, le fisc leur a envoyé un avis de cotisation leur réclamant 9,4 M$ en impôt, plus les intérêts et les frais, soit un total de plus de 20 M$.

Les Tremblay ont alors porté cette décision en appel, alléguant que la transaction n’était qu’un échange d’actions n’ayant pas généré de revenus.

Au cours de l’audience tenue devant le juge Favreau, il y a deux ans, les avocats du gouvernement ont plaidé que cet échange était en réalité une distribution d’actifs au profit de la famille et qu’il s’apparentait au versement d’un dividende imposable. Ni le juge Favreau, ni la Cour d’appel ne leur ont donné raison.

Martin Tremblay de retour aux Bahamas

Rappelons que Martin Tremblay a défrayé la manchette en janvier 2006 quand il avait été appréhendé par la DEA à New York et accusé d’avoir blanchi pas moins de 1 milliard de narcodollars à l’aide de sa banque d’affaires Dominion Investments, basée à Nassau.

En fin de compte, l’affaire s’est conclue quand il s’est déclaré coupable d’avoir laissé transiter dans les comptes de sa société 20 000 $ US provenant d’agents doubles à la solde de la DEA qui avaient mis des mois à le piéger.

Une longue enquête menée par l’auteur de ces lignes pour le compte du Journal de Montréal en 2007-2008 a démontré que cette histoire a été montée de toutes pièces par les autorités américaines. Qu’à cela ne tienne, Martin Tremblay a été condamné à 34 mois de prison. Il a terminé de purger sa peine en juillet 2009 et est retourné vivre auprès de sa famille aux Bahamas.

Dans cette affaire, Tremblay a engagé une poursuite contre la GRC qui n’a pas encore été entendue.

L’ex-investisseur offshore Martin Tremblay vient encore d’obtenir gain de cause contre le fisc, qui lui réclamait un total de près de 40 M$ en comptant intérêts et retards selon ses dires. Revenu Canada a été débouté pour une seconde fois dans ses poursuites.

En entrevue exclusive à Argent, M. Tremblay a déclaré: "Je suis soulagé. Soulagé, mais peu surpris d'avoir gagné. Je savais que nous avions des bases solides et à l'époque, tous les avis juridiques que nous avions pris nous donnaient raison."

L'Agence du revenu du Canada avait déjà déposé une accusation d'évasion fiscale à l'encontre de M. Tremblay, accusation déboutée par la Cour canadienne de l'impôt en Janvier 2009. Non découragée, l'Agence du revenu du Canada revenait à la charge en Avril de la même année. Dans un jugement rendu le 12 mai dernier, la Cour d’appel fédérale a confirmé cette décision à deux voix contre une.

Dans un paradis fiscal

Le litige opposant les Tremblay et l’Agence du revenu du Canada portait sur le déménagement de la famille saguenéenne – le père Gérard, la mère Danielle ainsi que leurs deux enfants, Martin et feue Hélène – vers les Bahamas, en 1994.

"Je suis content pour mes parents, ils ont un certain âge et vont pouvoir avoir un peu de repos, et globalement pour toute la famille ca va nous permettre de passer à autre chose," a t il déclaré, espérant que l'imbroglio légal serait bientôt clos.

Au-delà d'un climat plus clément, cette relocalisation avait l’objectif déclaré de soustraire au fisc le maximum des fruits de la vente pour 33 M$ de la société familiale Télésag à Vidéotron, à la fin des années 1980.

Les Tremblay s'étaient entourés à l'époque de fine fleur des fiscalistes et avocats d'affaires, pour monter une structure financière visant à faire fructifier les actions obtenues lors de la transaction avec le géant de la câblodistribution.

Ainsi, Vidéotron a émis trois millions de ses actions subalternes, d’une valeur de 44,2 M$, au profit des Tremblay en échange des actions et des actifs d’une compagnie à numéro. Sitôt la cession réalisée, la compagnie a été liquidée par Vidéotron, tandis que les Tremblay s’en allaient vivre sous le soleil du paradis fiscal des Bahamas.

Pas un dividende imposable

Mais en 2004, le fisc leur a envoyé un avis de cotisation leur réclamant 9,4 M$ en impôt, plus les intérêts et les frais, soit une somme qui totalisait déjà plus de 20 M$.

Les Tremblay ont alors porté cette décision en appel, alléguant que la transaction n’était qu’un échange d’actions n’ayant pas généré de revenus. Les avocats du gouvernement ont plaidé eux que cet échange était en réalité une distribution d’actifs au profit de la famille et qu’elle s’apparentait au versement d’un dividende imposable. Ni le juge Favreau, ni la Cour d’appel ne leur ont donné raison.

Martin Tremblay de retour aux Bahamas

Martin Tremblay a déjà été inquiété par le fisc, en janvier 2006 quand il avait été appréhendé par la DEA à New York et accusé d’avoir blanchi 1 milliard de narcodollars à l’aide de sa banque d’affaires Dominion Investments. Une affaire ou M. Tremblay avait aussi eu gain de cause, même s'il avait purgé une peine de prison. Il avait fini par plaider coupable à des accusation extrêmement réduites, avoir laissé transiter dans les comptes de sa société 20 000 $US provenant d’agents doubles à la solde de la DEA qui avait mis des mois à le piéger.

C'était ensuite au tour de M. Tremblay de répliquer, intentant une poursuite contre la GRC qui n’a pas encore été entendue.

That's a lot of bold. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt in these kinds of cases, assume there might be a reasonable, innocent explanation, but I found it hard to come up with one here.

I asked Malhomme what happened, but he refused to comment on the matter, or, despite multiple invitations to do so, explain his actions for the record. (Journalists have all sorts of innocent-sounding explanations about why they plagiarize, usually citing some unintentional mistake in editing.) Neither TVA nor its union responded to requests for comment on the case.

A problem of education?

Like me, Malhomme is a graduate of Concordia University's journalism diploma program, a one-year intensive program designed for people who had undergraduate degrees in some other field to get the basics of journalism.

At Concordia, the most common explanation for academic cheating is ignorance of the rules. Some claim cultural differences led to a misunderstanding, or say they just didn't know how to cite things properly.

Had Malhomme simply not known how to cite a source for a story? Had Concordia's journalism program failed to educate him properly about the dangers of plagiarism?

I put the question to Mike Gasher, the chair of the department. Though he said he found it "very hard to believe" that Malhomme, whom he qualified as an "excellent student", would have been involved in a case of blatant plagiarism, he says that in general the department takes plagiarism "very seriously."

I don't know what goes on in each and every one of the 79 course sections we offer each year, but instructors are encouraged to watch for plagiarism (and any other form of cheating), and we distribute to all students a department handbook, which includes a code of ethics (also posted in all our classrooms). The point we try to underscore is that a journalist's single most important attribute is his/her reputation -- carefully built, easily destroyed.

I have a vague memory of my time in the program five years ago (before the classrooms they now teach in were even built), and though I don't recall any specific lecture about plagiarism among the media ethics and introduction to reporting classes, it was pretty clear to me that plagiarism (or fabulism - making stuff up) would not be tolerated.

"We have maybe one or two students per year -- out of more than 240 -- accused of cheating," Gasher says, including the undergraduate students in the statistics. He's not sure how many of those were guilty, or how many weren't caught in the first place. I'm not sure if a value of one per cent is high or low, and I'm not sure if the reason the number isn't higher is because people know the consequences or because there isn't enough investigation.

Gasher himself says he's "never had a single case" of plagiarism since he started teaching in 1997, probably because he requires students submit a contact list of every source in their stories. Something as simple as that is pretty good for keeping out fake sources (well, most of the time), though I'm not sure it would have made any difference in this case.

Since Malhomme won't comment, I don't know for sure if it was ignorance that led to this. But based on the above, I'm willing to guess it's not.

So why did this happen?

Too much work?

The second reason given for academic cheating - this one by people who admit they knew what they were doing was wrong - is that they were overworked, didn't have time and panicked.

Though I can't say this for a fact, I have a theory as to what might have happened here, because it's something that happens all the time.

Imagine a young journalist working for a website, expected to write not just one or two stories a day but 12 or 15 (online journalists tend to be expected to have more output than print ones). This journalist gets an email from the boss with a link to a story at RueFrontenac.com. The boss wants their website to match the story. So the young journalist is asked to write the story, using Rue Frontenac's as background. But in the process of rewriting the story, too much of the original gets inserted, and eventually the writer is exposed.

Introduction to matching

Matching is something that happens all the time, and it existed long before the Internet. When one newspaper (or other news outlet) comes out with an exclusive, or just happens to break a story first, another decides to match it with one of their own, to make sure their own readers, listeners or viewers get the information too.

This is done in one of two ways:

If the information in the story can be independently verified, the story is basically re-reported. The journalist calls the same sources, gets the same details (perhaps more) and produces their own story. Usually in these cases, the original source isn't mentioned. The ethics of this are debatable, but since the work has been done from scratch, it's believed to be unnecessary to credit whomever broke the story.

This happens in radio and TV all the time. Assignment editors read the morning paper, see some interesting story, and assign a reporter to cover it, usually talking to the same sources. Occasionally, the reverse happens, with the broadcast outlet breaking the news and the newspapers re-reporting it.

When newspapers do this nowadays, especially for big stories, they try to both match and advance the story, coming out with more details than the original had. If they can get a scoop of their own about some detail of the story, it mitigates failing to get the original scoop.

This is an example of why competition is good for journalism.

If the information in the original story can't be independently verified, the story is rewritten but credited. When you see a story in the paper that said "LCN reported last night" or "a source told CNN" or "according to a report in a French-language Montreal newspaper", it's because the story had anonymous or hard-to-reach sources. The matched story credits the original both for reasons of ethics and to save the ass of the re-reporting news outlet in case the original report happens to be false. (Stories that start "TMZ reported", for example.)

But this case wasn't either of these. The reporting wasn't redone, it was copied. And Rue Frontenac wasn't credited as a source for the story. Perhaps because the journalist naively believed that the background information about the case compiled by Rue Frontenac was public information and need not have been credited.

Of course, there's another explanation, one that explains why Rue Frontenac is so interested in this.

The union factor

The lockout of 253 workers of the Journal de Montréal will have tomorrow lasted 16 months. Though the union representing those workers had a large war chest, it won't last forever, and the Journal has still been publishing, making clear that it can keep going as long as necessary without those workers.

Quebecor, which owns the Journal as well as TVA and other news and information outlets, has been on a convergence trend recently, fuelled in part by the new Agence QMI news agency, which allows Quebecor's properties to exchange content. (That's why a story written for Argent's website ends up in the Journal de Montréal. In fact, it's how a lot of content ends up in the Journal now, making the union question the timing of the agency's creation.)

One facet of this convergence is a reputation for putting the interests of the company ahead of the interests of good journalism, combined with a reputation for holding grudges and making things personal.

It may be undeserved or only partially deserved, but it seems every week a new piece of evidence pops up here or here that makes you raise an eyebrow. Most could be dismissed innocently by themselves (like a decision not to feature Véronique Cloutier on the cover of the Journal de Montréal after the Gala Artis), but taken together even the most ardent skeptics have to wonder.

If this is truly the case, you can imagine how Quebecor would feel about one of its news outlets crediting a story to Rue Frontenac. It's just not done. Their stories might be re-reported if they cause big waves, but a Quebecor outlet would never acknowledge a website that is essentially a pressure tactic against Quebecor. (A Canadian Press story was once pulled from Canoe allegedly for the sole reason that it referenced Rue Frontenac.)

The proper thing for Malhomme to have done was credit Rue Frontenac, perhaps even with a link. But he couldn't do that.

(One thing I could add at this point is that if Malhomme had simply rewritten the Rue Frontenac story - reporting the same information using different words and sentence structures - there probably wouldn't be a scandal here. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if the value of the story was in what was reported or the way it was written.)

Why not just link?

Even ignoring the union conflict, it would have shocked me if Argent simply linked to another news outlet for story background. It's just not done. Traditional news outlets don't link to much these days, particularly not competitors.

Ask any self-proclaimed new media expert, and they'll repeat the mantra "cover what you do best, link to the rest". It just makes so much sense. Why clog your website with the same Canadian Press stories you can find anywhere else online when you can showcase original stories and content people can't get anywhere else? Why waste a journalist re-reporting a story when someone else has done all the work and you can just link to it?

In newspapers, TV and radio, you need journalists to waste their time re-reporting a story to get it into the new medium. You need to waste valuable newsprint and ink on a copy-pasted wire story from somewhere on the other side of the world because most of your readers don't subscribe to the New York Times or Le Monde.

Online, though, this isn't necessary. Except it happens all the time. When Engadget has some new scoop about an Apple product, everyone has to write their own story about it instead of just linking to the Engadget post. When some breaking news about a celebrity hits the wires, editors are scrambling over themselves to get a story about it online and suck up some of that sweet SEO juice like dogs fighting each other for scraps of food accidentally dropped on the floor. The Huffington Post has practically made a business model out of re-reporting things, re-summarizing stories and reposting videos from the late-night comics or all-news networks, profiting off the work of others.

When I see a story or webpage or blog post I like, most often I'll just bookmark it, adding it to the sidebar. (It's that thing on the right if you're looking at this on the webpage, under the headers "From my feeds" and "Recent bookmarks".) It takes two clicks (sometimes one) and it's done. So easy. If I have some pithy comment, I might tweet it. If I have something important - or just lengthy - to say, I'll write a blog post like this one. But even then, I'll link to the source material and save myself the time spent repeating it.

Maybe there's a bigger problem here

I'm not excusing what Malhomme did. And I don't have too much sympathy for him. But there are systemic problems in the way journalism is done, some that may have contributed to what happened here, pressured a young man in a way that a critical mistake cost him a career.

If journalists and their bosses learned to put honesty and fair play above competitiveness, situations like this probably wouldn't happen.

Not that I expect the system to change any time soon.

UPDATE (June 20): Malhomme breaks his silence in an open letter and interview with Rue Frontenac.

Rue Frontenac on TVA

Fagstein — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:56:34 +0000

From TVA, Feb. 19

LCN's website posted a story yesterday about Haitian prison escapee sneaking back into Quebec with evacuees. The Rue Frontenac kids protest that they broke the same story 10 days ago and the LCN story doesn't mention them, saying only that "au cours des derniers jours, des journalistes montréalais se sont aussi intéressés à cette affaire." (TVA and the Journal de Montréal are both owned by Quebecor, which has a reputation for not allowing its media assets to report anything that might put another in a bad light.)

In the video, though, which aired on TVA's 6pm newscast Friday evening, you can see about the 1:40 mark a whopping two-second shot of Rue Frontenac's website, focusing on the face of locked-out journalist Daniel Renaud. If you freeze-frame, you can even see the website's address as part of his email underneath. (No mention of Renaud's name or Rue Frontenac is made in the piece.)

So now locked-out Journal de Montréal journalists can say that the address "ruefrontenac.com" has appeared on TVA.

For two seconds.

Série Montréal-Québec: Flawless, says Journal

Fagstein — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 20:56:56 +0000

On Sunday, TVA debuted its newest Sunday-night populist attention-getter, the Série Montréal-Québec, in which 16 players from each city (each including two women, one guy over 40 and one guy over 50) compete in a meaningless eight-game tournament to determine which city is superior to the other.

I switched back and forth a bit between the TVA broadcast and an actual sporting event that actually mattered. What little I saw of the show consisted entirely of long, drawn-out American Idol-style (or, if you prefer, «Star Académie»-style) player introductions. It's one thing when you're introducing two or three people you've never met, but it gets old after the first few dozen.

Thankfully, I wasn't the only one to notice that. Le Soleil's Richard Therrien and La Presse's Hugo Dumas showed an inspiring example of Quebec-Montreal unity by panning the show and its presentation devoid of any energy. The review from Dans ma télé's Annie Fortin was lukewarm at best, with similar criticisms.

But then there's the Journal de Montréal.

Journal de Montréal - Jan. 25, 2010

I find it ironic that Quebecor's new Agence QMI put together an article (one written like a ninth-grade book report or the minutes of a school board meeting) that was good enough for both 24 Heures in Montreal and the Journal de Québec website, but the Journal de Montréal decided it needed to have one of its few remaining journalists- Michelle Coudé-Lord - write a redundant story reviewing the show (one, I should add, that was reprinted verbatim in the Journal de Québec - in fact, the latter had an identical two-page spread, only in black and white).

Then again, Coudé-Lord's story has plenty of adjectives that the Agence QMI story was lacking, and her impression was so diametrically opposed to everyone else's (including mine) that I can only conclude that she was in a different universe at the time or has become disconnected from reality:

La Série Montréal/Québec sera rassembleuse comme le fut Star Académie. On n'abandonne pas une recette gagnante. Attendez-vous à ce que le Québec se divise en deux au cours des prochaines semaines. Les joueurs sont attachants ...

Guy Lafleur a résumé fort bien ce qu'allait être cette série : «le hockey est un jeu qui nous rend heureux».

La présentation des joueurs a donné le ton. L'émotion sera au rendez-vous. Stéphane Laporte et Julie Snyder, le concepteur et la productrice de cette série, savent faire de la télévision pour et par le monde. Et encore hier soir ils en ont fourni la preuve.

Le portrait de chaque joueur nous le rendait fort sympathique. ... C'était même touchant de voir les parents applaudir dans les estrades ...

Loco Locass a interprété avec enthousiasme l'hymne national de Québec ...

Montréal commence fort avec une gardienne de but ... Ça promet.

Belle initiative de Guy Carbonneau ...

Éric Lapointe a donné du chien à l'équipe de Carbo avec une interprétation enlevante de l'hymne national de Montréal.

Une belle réalisation de Michel Quidoz ... Marie-Claude Savard, l'animatrice, fut solide et a su laisser place à l'évènement. ...

That's 16 separate praises by my count, and not a single criticism of the show. I would have reprinted the entire article here if I could do so without fear of a copyright infringement lawsuit. It's surreal.

If I ever get married, I'm having Michelle Coudé-Lord write my vows. By then she'll probably be a public relations specialist.

PR is about the only way I can explain both Journals taking two colour pages to present players from both teams.

Hell, it makes Jeff Lee (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Quebecor-owned Videotron) look tame in his video blowjob.

Despite what some conspiracy theorists might think, Quebecor-owned media were not unanimous in their praise. Roxanne Tremblay of 7 jours didn't hold back on criticisms, and followed it up with a second-day story about the show's problems.

But still, even though I'm skeptical of theories about media owners directly affecting editorial content on a day-to-day basis, I can't help wonder if Coudé-Lord's article is what Pierre-Karl Péladeau envisions for his newsroom of the future - one where unionized journalists don't stand in the way of Quebecor's self-interest with their silly journalistic ethics.

Launch parties-o-rama (UPDATED)

Fagstein — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 06:54:30 +0000

Not having been invited the time to attend all the fall launch parties being put on by the radio and TV people over the last little while, I'm pleased to see that most of them are briefly summarized in video form.

The two big ones were rebranding efforts: NRJ radio, which is what Énergie has turned itself into, and V, which is the new TQS.

But there were also launches for CKOI, Rock Détente, Rythme FM, Musique Plus, Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec, TVA, VRAK.tv and Télétoon, and fortunately the people at WebPresse believe these parties are news.

So here are the launch parties in YouTube format from various sources:

NRJ

NRJ:

WebPresse:

V

WebPresse:

Dans ma télé:

WebPresse looks at Le show du matin:

Dans ma télé looks at Le show du matin:

WebPresse looks at Le Mur:

VRAK.tv

WebPresse:

Rue Frontenac:

JVM Productions:

Dans ma télé:

CKOI

WebPresse:

Rock Détente

WebPresse:

Rock Détente:

Rythme FM

WebPresse:

Rythme FM:

Radio-Canada

Dans ma télé:

RadCan also has an entire blog devoted to the subject, with photos and videos (none of which allow you to link to them directly, stupidly).

TV columnist Richard Therrien has two articles about the launch in text form.

Télé-Québec

Dans ma télé:

More from Richard Therrien and Hugo Dumas.

Télé-Québec also has an entire website devoted to the subject, with videos for each show.

TVA

WebPresse:

Dans ma télé:

WebPresse looks at Occupation Double's (female) candidates (take a wild guess on what criteria they were chosen):

RythmeFM at the same Occupation Double unveiling:

(Hugo Dumas also has a sarcastic take on OD.)

Plus photos and text from Suzanne Lortie of Showbizz.net, articles from Le Devoir, Rue Frontenac, Presse canadienne, LCN, Métro, Journal de Montréal and two articles from Le Soleil's Richard Therrien.

VOX

OK, nobody cares about VOX, it seems. There were only two journalists present for their launch, and they were from Gesca papers. Odd since VOX is owned by Videotron which is part of Quebecor.

Musique Plus

WebPresse:

Radio Énergie:

Télétoon

Bombe.tv has the video, which concentrates mostly on some lame "viral video" ad campaign which they imply was successful. But a look at the statistics for the video in question (an intentionally bad quality amateur-style video of a Télétoon van supposedly being stolen) shows a paltry 4,000 views (12 tweets), and its leading referrer is ... a blog post at bombe.tv, which is hardly "viral" since they were in on the whole thing.

Seriously, can we please stop with these things as publicity stunts?

Or, at least, when you do something that is as clearly unoriginal as planting a fake video and manufacturing fake virality for it, could you refrain from referring to it as "new" or "something no one else has done" or "2.0"?

And not that bombe.tv has a lot of journalistic integrity built up over the years or anything, but it's still a bit disconcerting to know that they would intentionally deceive their audience for the sake of an advertising campaign.

CRTC Roundup: Hands off our InterTubes

Fagstein — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 08:01:40 +0000

The big news is the CRTC's decision to extend its hands-off policy regarding regulation of content on the Internet. The decision, which is explained in some detail point-by-point, was praised by Internet providers and condemned by actors and writers unions (PDF), both for entirely self-serving financial reasons.

One thing the commission did decide to implement was a provision regulating "undue preference", which is when a media company uses its power in one industry to help affiliated companies in another. For example, if Rogers were to arrange for Rogers Cable to carry Rogers SportsNet but dump TSN, or if Videotron were to give sweet deals to TVA and LCN, that would be considered undue preference.

The CRTC is looking for rules that would extend this to the new media environment, citing the walled gardens of wireless carriers as Exhibit A that the industry isn't very good at self-regulating.

Michael Geist has more analysis.

Martial law: Weather Network in control

The CRTC has agreed to a scheme whereby Pelmorex, the company that owns the Weather Network and MétéoMédia, would become national emergency alert aggregators, providing emergency broadcast information to local broadcasters. This scratches an itch pointed out by Public Safety Canada, and satisfies the CRTC's wish for an industry-based solution.

But, of course, there's a catch. In exchange for providing this service, the CRTC agrees to require all digital cable and direct-to-home satellite providers to require mandatory carriage of the Weather Network and MétéoMédia for all subscribers, who will get charged the $0.23 per subscriber per month fee. Currently, the networks profit from mandatory carriage only on basic analog cable.

As more Canadians move to digital forms of television delivery, Pelmorex has been anxious to get the CRTC to force its channels (and fee) on subscribers. This is its second attempt at securing such an order. The first didn't have the emergency alert component but did propose a modest decrease in per-subscriber fee in exchange. In both cases, Pelmorex talks of the danger to its business model if television subscribers are given the option to choose not to carry the networks.

The decision (which features some absurdities like nothing that the stations have "100% Canadian content" and make "a significant contribution to the development of Canadian expresson") was not unanimous. Commissioner Len Katz was highly critical that a company that has a profit margin of about 25% could be in such serious danger.

The mandate is effective Sept. 1, 2010 and expires on Aug. 31, 2015, by which point Pelmorex will need to come to the CRTC to seek another order.

Welcome Current.tv Canada

The CRTC has approved an application from a company mostly owned by a company owned by the CBC to create a Canadian version of Al Gore's Current TV. Like its U.S. counterpart, the network would broadcast short-form user-generated content.

The CRTC took issue with the fact that Current TV has a 20% interest, and forced the CBC-controlled company to make amendments to ensure the U.S. interest couldn't assert any control over day-to-day operations.

The channel is a Category 2 digital specialty channel, which is what most new specialty channels are. That means it's discretionary and won't be on analog cable.

APTN wants Olympics exceptions

The Aboriginal Peoples' Television Network, which is part of the mega consortium of private broadcasters that will show the Olympics in Vancouver next winter, has asked the CRTC for some leeway on its obligations for the two-week event. Specifically, it wants to be relieved of its French-language, aboriginal-language and "priority programming" (i.e. drama) requirements for those two weeks.

The latter makes sense if they're devoting those weeks to sports. Clearly they will be Canadian productions. But the language requests don't make much sense, especially because CTV has argued that APTN would help in bringing French-language Olympics coverage to francophones outside Quebec.

TVA Sports, TVA Junior

Quebecor is looking to expand its cable channels with new uncreatively-named networks for sports and youth programming. The former would take advantage of recent loosening of policy restricting competition in sports networks, as well as provide an eventual outlet should Quebecor's bid for the Canadiens be successful.

One pipe, one policy?

CRTC chairman Konrad von Finkenstein did some public thinking, wondering if a single policy encompassing both broadcasting and telecommunications isn't the future of the commission. Of course, he says, that's up to Parliament to decide.

Take your time

The following approved specialty channels have been given extensions to launch them:

RCS Television (rugby, cricket, soccer)
Soccer Television
Smart Living Television (sustainable living)
The Horse Channel (horse racing, equestrian events, and general horsing around)
Equestrian Planet (ditto)
Équestre Planète (ditto, in French)
South Asian News Channel (niche news in languages from the region)
Portuguese TV
Bangladeshi/Bengali TV
Arabic TV 2
Punjabi TV
ATN Cricket Channel II

Most of these channels were approved around 2006 and still haven't launched yet. After a couple of extensions the CRTC forces you to start over from scratch. Expect most of these channels to expire before they ever see the light of day.

TVA renews Vlog for third season

Fagstein — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 22:14:49 +0000

If Dominic Arpin looks happy here, it's because I've taken a file photo and used it out of context as filler art to tell you that TVA has renewed his weekly web video clips show Vlog for a third season, days after it aired its second season finale. Arpin says he's got a deal for 10 episodes so far, not including the four special-topic episodes that will air over the next few weeks.

Vlog premiered in 2007 as a half-hour show with Arpin and Geneviève Borne that screened 30-second clips from popular videos online. It took me a while to warm up to it, especially because it seemed to leech off other people's creative content without offering much in return (the show still isn't downloadable or streamable after it airs). Its erratic schedule following Occupation Double (and against RadCan's powerhouse Tout le monde en parle) didn't help its ratings, which eventually led to its cancellation.

But Arpin refused to give in. He launched his own website and began work on an online video guide, and eight months after it was cancelled, TVA brought Vlog back to life in a retooled form. Gone were his co-host and the all-white sets and giant flat-screen TVs. Instead, he'd introduce the videos webcam-style from his fake apartment. The show was also moved to Thursday nights (and eventually Friday nights) at a fixed time.

Apparently that was enough. Vlog is here to stay, and Arpin doesn't have to worry about going back to reporting.

Bernard who?

Fagstein — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 14:27:11 +0000

Luc Lavigne photo (with some improvements)

Back when Bill Haugland, a fixture of CFCF's newscast for almost a half-century and the long-time anchor of Pulse News, retired from the anchor's chair two years ago, CTV's Montreal station made a big deal about his departure. There was even a half-hour special about it, which is saying quite a bit in an era where locally-produced English-language television is extremely rare.

One of the things that special included was some classy sendoffs from anchors of competing newscasts. Not only did Global's Jamie Orchard (who worked at CTV before joining Global) and CBC's Dennis Trudeau (for a long time his direct competitor) give heartfelt goodbyes, but there were messages from the anchors of TVA and Radio-Canada's newscasts, the latter from Bernard Derome.

So when Derome, who has been in RadCan's anchor chair since (insert lame joke here), retired himself last week (albeit for the second time), the anglos returned the favour. CTV's newscast had an item on Derome's departure, and The Gazette had a feature piece and an editorial on it (despite what some in the francophone media may think, my paper doesn't completely ignore what goes on in the other solitude).

It wasn't the kind of Deromania that's been flooding RadCan and La Presse recently (note to self: retire in late December when there's no other news going on so I get more ink), but there was an acknowledgment that one of Quebec's biggest vedettes was ending a storied career.

As for TVA, RadCan's biggest (and with the departure of TQS's news division, only) news competitor ... absolutely nothing, according to Le Soleil's Richard Therrien. A big "fuck you" without saing a word.

It's sad what the drive for competition can do to strip some people of any sense of class.

It's something where, frankly, je souhaite que la tendence ne se maintient pas.

Conseil de presse outs TVA for journalistic plagiarism

Fagstein — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:42:17 +0000

The Conseil de presse du Québec has denied an appeal of a decision which blames TVA for stealing a story from the biweekly Courrier Laval that studied the condition of water around Montreal.

The story made the Courrier Laval, which then ended up in La Presse, and was picked up by Patrick Lagacé, which is how I found it.

The TVA report repeated the conclusions of the investigation without attributing the source, which royally pissed off the journalist who spent months working on the story. Their argument was that the information from the newspaper was in the "public domain" and that no copyright could be attached to an idea.

Of course, the argument isn't over copyright, it's over journalistic integrity. Journalists can't simply repeat what they've heard without saying where they heard it from. Without proper attribution, errors and misinformation can spread quickly. And no journalist should simply trust what another says is correct.

As Lagacé points out, though, this kind of thing happens all the time, especially with morning radio just reading the news out of the newspaper. The evening TV news is less underhanded about it. They'll spend a day re-interviewing the same people and producing a story of their own, but it's just as annoying when they won't say where the idea came from and who reported it first.

Newspapers themselves aren't completely without fault here either. They'll re-report stories they found with the competition or what they saw on TV news the night before, sometimes using purposely vague attribution like "a Montreal newspaper" or "reports said." But it's not nearly as bad as what you see in broadcasting.

TVA's transgression was particularly bad, but let's hope this decision acts as a wakeup call for those journalists who think they can cut corners by re-reporting stories and are too shameless to give credit where it's due.

CRTC roundup: new rules for converging newsrooms

Fagstein — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 06:56:42 +0000

The CRTC has given final approval for the "Journalistic Independence Code" proposed by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, a self-regulation body of Canada's private broadcasters.

The code is designed to replace CRTC rules about the independence of TV and newspaper newsrooms, which affect Canada's three largest private TV broadcasters:

Global TV (owned by Canwest which also owns a newspaper chain including the National Post and The Gazette - which includes me)
CTV (owned by CTVglobemedia which also owns the Globe and Mail)
TVA (owned by Quebecor Media which also owns the Sun chain, 24 Hours/Heures and the Journal de Montréal)

Currently, the CRTC has rules that the television newsrooms and the newsrooms of affiliated newspapers cannot be mixed or merged. They must be completely independent of one another.

As if to underscore how bureaucratic everything is at the CRTC and CBSC, only three of the ten points in the code actually deal with rules for broadcasters. The rest deal with how the code itself should be administered.

The new rules are:

There must be completely independent "news management and presentation structures"
Decisions about journalistic content must be made "solely by that broadcaster"
TV news managers may not sit on newspaper editorial boards and vice versa (but news managers may "sit on committees or bodies intended to co-ordinate the use of newsgathering resources")

The CRTC's rules on cross-media ownership date back to 2001, when Quebecor Media bought Videotron, which then owned TVA. The transaction meant that Quebecor would own the largest private television network in Quebec, the largest newspaper (the Journal de Montréal) and the largest cable TV company. The CRTC decided that some journalistic rules would need to be in place to protect the diversity of voices in the newsroom.

Those rules were just as vague as the new ones proposed. Newsrooms and news management decisions must be separate.

Though they sound simple, the application of those rules is all about interpretation. For example, while newspapers and TV stations can't decide on the other's coverage, nothing prevents the parent company of both from dictating news. In fact, under the new rules, nothing discourages TV stations and newspapers from "co-ordinating newsgathering resources." This could mean, for example, having TV journalists file both TV packages and newspaper articles on stories that have video, and having newspaper journalists file texts to both newspaper and TV on stories that don't.

Journalist unions, who also protested the original Quebecor takeover, also spoke out during hearings about this code, saying it didn't do enough to really separate newsrooms. But it seems the CRTC thinks it's enough for them, and with the new code approved it is allowing networks to modify their licenses to remove the original rules (TVA was first off the bat)

We'll see over the coming years how many loopholes can be found to cut down costs and introduce "efficiencies" by reducing "duplication" in the two media.

UPDATE (Nov. 25): TVA's union has objected to the request to use the new rules, saying it threatens journalistic independence.

In other news

Star Choice got slapped for not including RDI in its basic package for satellite TV customers. Star Choice's defence seemed to be that it had multiple "basic" packages, one anglo, one franco and one bilingual. The CRTC saw through that silliness and ordered it to put RDI on everyone's lineup (and pay appropriate mandatory fees, though retroactive fees will be left up to the courts). Despite this, the CRTC is asking what kind of services should be mandatory for linguistic minorities (anglos in Quebec and francophones elsewhere).
The Asian Television Network is asking the CRTC for permission to add Indian lifestyle channel NDTV Good Times to the list of networks that cable and satellite providers can offer to Canadians
Rogers has asked to add the Fox Business Network to the list of importable non-Canadian networks. I guess Rogers is bullish on the channel which has been cursed with low ratings even during the current economic crisis.
Astral wants to amend the licence for the MPix movie channel to reduce the time between when movies are made and when they can air on that channel from five years to three.
TVA has applied to create an HD version of LCN.
MuchMusic will now be allowed to add game shows to its lineup, provided they are less than 10% of the total and are "music-related" (you know, just like Discovery's game shows are science-related).

Oh, and Pauline Marois is flapping her gums again about creating a Quebec CRTC, further needlessly duplicating government institutions and burning through our tax dollars.

En primeur: TVA to resurrect Vlog

Fagstein — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 01:39:35 +0000

Those of you who follow Dominic Arpin via Facebook already know this, but for the benefit of the less-connected: TVA is bringing back Vlog, its weekly roundup of hot web videos, more than nine months after it aired its last episode, supposedly for good

Vlog was cancelled due to disappointing ratings, though it got screwed by the network and was never really given a chance over its handful of episodes. Not only was it slotted against Tout le monde en parle, but it followed Occupation double, which would almost always run long and push the show back. That wouldn't have been a problem if the audiences for the two shows were the same, but they weren't, and people tuning in at 9:30 to watch a show about Internet videos instead saw some stupid reality show about sexy people living together, with no clue when their show would come on.

When it was cancelled, there was talk about an online-only version coming earlier this year to Quebecor's new Canoe.tv website. But for reasons that Arpin promises to explain on his blog by next week when the fall schedule comes out, the network decided to try again to put it back on the air.

Arpin says they're working on a new format (perhaps going into more depth about featured videos, to deal with some criticism that they're exploiting them almost to the level of copyright infringement). Details will come about the new format, but the main difference is that Arpin is going solo. Former cohost Geneviève Borne already has a new gig at Belle et Bum on Télé-Québec.

Vlog Season 2 premieres Thursday, Sept. 28 at 9:30 p.m. on TVA.

I hate it already.

UPDATE: Arpin gives some details in a video on his blog. He mentions something about the format being more like a YouTube video blog, with him looking into a camera.

TVA hates Lagacé

Fagstein — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:06:21 +0000

I've always admired Patrick Lagacé. The way he works hard, the way he does his homework before putting together insightful commentary (instead of knee-jerk reactions), his hair, and the fact he puts me on his blogroll.

But more importantly, I admire the impact he has. Like being able to piss off the entire management team at TVA.

Yesterday, La Presse published a really long letter signed by four executives at TVA which accuses Lagacé of not checking his facts in a recent column about the network burying embarrassing news about itself and friends of owner Quebecor.

As Lagacé mentions at the end of the column, TVA is suing Gesca and Lagacé personally for his previous remarks on this issue.

For the benefit of those who don't want to read the long letter, or whose French is rusty, here's TVA's main points:

TVA's news coverage is dictated by TVA, not Quebecor. Quebecor has no control. No control my ass. You don't get to own the media unless you can tell it what to do occasionally. Obviously TVA decides what the day-to-day news is going to be, but don't tell me there isn't some middle manager who knows he's more likely to get a promotion and less likely to be fired if he suppresses bad news and promotes good news. Just look at its collusion cooperation with Quebecor-owned Journal de Montréal or Quebecor-owned Videotron.
TVA did, in fact, allow clips critical of TVA to be aired, contrary to Lagacé's insinuations. OK, sure. I'll concede that point, though Lagacé got his information from Le Soleil, which got a quote from TVA saying they can decide what to air and what not to air. But stories can be buried without being totally eliminated. Newspapers do it all the time: putting good news on A1 or A2, while leaving bad news to a brief at the back of the business section.
TVA didn't talk about 15 job cuts at TVA Québec because it was a non-story, and it was really four job cuts, and only one in news. As Lagacé mentions, it was still 15 job cuts at a regional station, whether or not some people stayed on part-time in another role.
Lagacé made no attempt to contact TVA before his article was published to check these facts. Lagacé says he tried to contact Quebecor but got no response.

Left unmentioned by both parties is that Lagacé used to be part of the Quebecor family when he worked for the Journal and blogged for Canoe. To say there's bad blood between the two might be considered an understatement.

But, of course, Quebecor doesn't control TVA. So this silly conspiracy theory has no basis, right?

TVA mad at La Presse for suggesting they have managers

Fagstein — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:55:25 +0000

The petty legal war between the francophone media continues, as Groupe TVA (read: Quebecor/TVA/Journal de Montréal/Canoe) sent a lawyer's letter to Groupe Gesca (read: La Presse/Cyberpresse) demanding that they retract statements that suggested the whole blurring-the-face-of-Bernier's-biker-girlfriend thing was done on orders from management, according to Le Devoir (subscription-locked, sorry).

Specifically, it takes issue with an article from Le Soleil's Richard Therrien and a blog post from Patrick Lagacé, both of which suggest that the decision was suspicious (the latter suggests that a friendship between Maxime Bernier and Quebecor's Pierre-Karl Péladeau might have something to do with it).

I honestly have no idea what's going through the minds of people at Quebecor (or just TVA?). Are they suggesting that management was not involved in this decision, and that any statement otherwise libels them somehow? Are we to believe that some non-management person made such a controversial decision on a major news story without discussing it with higher-ups?

And are we just to take it as coincidence that the Journal and TVA, both owned by Quebecor, are the only two news outlets that have kept her name secret?

Seriously, what's their problem?

UPDATE: The Gazette's Liz Thompson is also like: Dude, WTF?

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.

Don’t act in competing TV series in Quebec

Fagstein — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 09:33:04 +0000

La Presse reports that Louis Morissette, who stars in Radio-Canada's C.A., was scrubbed from a list of potential actors for the upcoming season of TVA's Lance et compte, even before he could audition for a part.

The reason is simple: The two shows air at the same time, opposite each other.

I've always found it cute when I could see one person on two different channels at the same time, for whatever reason. But I hadn't considered the idea that the network would care so much about it.

Karla Homolka found… again

Fagstein — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 03:01:45 +0000

The winner of this round of Where is Karla Homolka Now? goes to TVA, for their EXCLUSIVE report that she's trying to make a new life for herself in the Antilles.

Did I mention it was an EXCLUSIVE report? An EXCLUSIVE special report, even? Because this report has special EXCLUSIVITY written all over it. EXCLUSIVITATION is what it's all about. EXCLUSIVELY.

The "reporteurs d'un réseau anglophone" they EXCLUSIVELY speak of (God forbid they should name another media outlet in their EXCLUSIVE report) is Global Quebec's Domenic Fazioli, who EXCLUSIVELY tracked her down to an East-end apartment in July 2006.

But that doesn't make TVA's report any less EXCLUSIVE.

UPDATE: Both CanWest News Service and Canadian Press have put out wire stories that rewrite what TVA reported, even though TVA doesn't provide a source for their report and nobody can verify any new information about her.

Québec à la une: An advertorial in three parts

Fagstein — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 04:56:24 +0000

I was tuning into TVA this evening to catch the series finale of Vlog, when I stumbled on a documentary about the Journal de Montréal called Québec à la une.

The documentary is an interesting look at the history of the newspaper known for its attention-whoring headlines, spending its first episode concentrating on the October Crisis that brought it into the mainstream and launched its Sunday edition.

But I can't get over the fact that this is airing on TVA, which is owned by the same company that owns the Journal. In fact, Quebecor is run by Pierre-Karl Péladeau, and his father Pierre Péladeau is the guy getting a posthumous public blowjob in this rather one-sided documentary. (No mention of the Philadelphia Journal here.)

The appearance of the younger Péladeau on screen after the end of the documentary talking about how great Quebecor and the Journal de Montréal are sealed the deal. I'm still not sure if that was a paid advertisement or part of the documentary. Of course it doesn't matter, because Péladeau would have just been paying himself.

It's unfortunate, because a look at the big Montreal newspaper upheavals of the 1960s and 70s makes for interesting storytelling.

Québec à la une airs Tuesday, Dec. 4 and 11 at 9pm on TVA. The show is also available for free for Videotron Illico digital TV subscribers on its video-on-demand service (Channel 900, under "TV on demand" -> "TVA on demand").

TVA losing jobs too

Fagstein — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:32:30 +0000

The rapidly increasing downfall of Quebec journalism continues: 15 full-time jobs lost at TVA in Quebec City, to be replaced by part-time positions, multifunction journalist-camerapeople and more Montrealization of local news.

Expected to be affected by the cuts are CFCM's local news (Télé 4) and the show La Vie à Québec.

Vlog cancelled

Fagstein — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:16:12 +0000

The rumours are true. TVA confirmed this morning that Vlog, Dominic Arpin's web video show, will be aired for the last time on Dec. 2.

The network hasn't shut the door completely on having an overhauled version come back in the new year, although that glimmer of hope sounds a lot like what your ex-girlfriend tells you about the possibility of getting back together someday, to soften the blow when she dumps your ass on the curb.

Arpin, who has stayed mostly silent since he heard the news on Friday, opened up on the show's Facebook group. He'll be technically unemployed by the end of the year after leaving both journalism and his blog to focus all his energies on this project which has now slipped through his fingers. He still hasn't decided what to do with his future (welcome to the club), but he isn't too keen on going back to his old job.

His text is reposted here for those who don't have Facebook:

Désolé pour le silence-radio des derniers jours, les amis. Par respect pour TVA, il était préférable que le département des communications se charge d’annoncer le sort de Vlog plutôt que moi ou un membre de l’équipe. Ça explique notre discrétion ici depuis que le début des rumeurs. Ainsi donc, Vlog cessera d’être diffusé à compter du 2 décembre prochain. Nous l’avons appris vendredi dernier, sur l’heure du dîner. Déçu? C’est certain. J’ai dû me mordre l’intérieur de la bouche pour ne pas pleurer devant les producteurs lors de l’annonce. J’ai tellement investi de temps et d’espoir dans cette émission que je me suis senti anéanti, l’espace de quelques heures. Et puis j’ai réfléchi. J’ai réfléchi au bonheur que ce projet m’a procuré, à tout ce que j’ai appris durant les derniers mois, à ces nouveaux amis qu’il a mis sur ma route, au privilège que j’ai eu d’animer une émission novatrice en prime time à TVA. Ça, personne ne pourra me l’enlever.

Bien sûr, il y a ce sentiment d’échec qui me tourne autour, qui tente de m’écraser de tout son poids. Il a bien failli réussir, d’ailleurs. Mais savez quoi? Il n’arrive pas à la hauteur de la fierté que j’ai d’avoir participé à ce projet. Je suis fier de ce que je vois en ondes, fier de notre petite équipe qui travaille comme des malades depuis septembre, fier d’avoir créé la première émission du genre au Québec. Tant pis si elle ne revient pas en janvier, on en aura toujours bien fait une dizaine. Et TVA dit ne pas fermer la porte à un retour futur de l’émission.

Que va-t-il m’arriver maintenant? Honnêtement, je n’en sais rien. Techniquement, je peux retourner travailler dans la salle des nouvelles de TVA, mais je dois réfléchir avant de prendre ma décision.

En terminant, merci de votre support, merci pour le groupe Sauvons Vlog sur Facebook, merci de vos messages de sympathies, vous m’avez fait un bien immense durant la tempête des derniers jours. Presque autant que ma collection de scotch single malt ;-)

There was also a note from director Jean-François Desmarais:

Ce qu'est Vlog?

Vlog se veut être une représentation de la communauté web à l'antenne d'un généraliste. Avec Vlog on peut faire une intégration parfaite de la famille Québecor tout en donnant une voix à la masse. Enfin l'empire peut être en lien avec sa base. Enfin, le public peut participer de façon active au fonctionnement d'une émission. Enfin, le spectateur peut influencer un contenu et enfin le web rejoint entièrement la télé.

Vlog se veut être le porte voix des phénomènes hétéroclytes que l'on peut retrouver sur la toile.

Partir un nouveau show demande réflexion et énergie de la part de bon nombres d'intervenants. Partir un nouveau concept exige une dose de courage et de persévérance.

Pour moi, Vlog fut l'occasion de travailler avec une équipe qui voulait apporter un vent de fraîcheur ;)avec un nouveau look et un nouveau contenu.

Mais avant tout Vlog fut une porte qui nous a mis un lien directe avec ce qui est le plus important en TV: notre téléspectateur.

---

En terminant, ce fut un réel plaisir de travailler avec toi, Dominic, et je me dois de le mentionner publiquement. Merci pour cette expérience!

PS. En mon nom, je vous remercie sincèrement, membre du groupe Vlog et l'autre (comment y s'appelle encore;)))) pour votre support et vos commentaires.

Maintenant, moi, j'opte pour un rhume on the rock!

Jeff
Réalisateur Vlog

The Facebook group to save the show, meanwhile, already has 172 members and is growing. (The official Facebook group is at over 1,200.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an article to rewrite.

Vlog in danger of cancellation

Fagstein — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:48:12 +0000

UPDATE (Nov. 13): It's official: the show has been cancelled. See the latest post for more details.

Vlog, the TVA viral video show that airs after Occupation Double on Sundays, is apparently in danger of cancellation. Within hours of the rumour starting there's already a Facebook group to save the show and suggestions for what host Dominic Arpin should do now. (He's already shut down his blog, despite my objections.)

According to a funny-looking, funky-dancing, hairline-receding source at the show who I won't name (at least not in this paragraph), the rumours have some truth to them. Director Jean-François Desmarais mentions on the Facebook page that "sad news" is coming tomorrow (Monday).

If the show is cancelled (and rumours like this tend not to propagate until after the decision has been made), that would be a shame. Despite its popular lead-in show, the start-up series has been a victim of horrible scheduling (it always starts late, and it's on against Tout le monde en parle), insufficient advertising and a general lack of effort on the part of TVA to give it a chance to succeed.

But there's a more important issue here: How this affects me. You see, I interviewed Arpin for an article I wrote about Vlog, which probably won't be published for a week or two. If the show is cancelled by then, the article will be dated before it's even printed. It's not like I could just add a line that says "oh yeah and the show was cancelled". So please, TVA, for my sake, don't cancel the show (at least not until next month).

Vlog airs Sunday nights at an entirely unpredictable time between 9:30 and 10:30 on TVA. Let's hope tonight's episode won't be the series finale.

Fagstein » TVA

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