Monthly Archives: November 2007

| Media, Navel-gazing

Honesty is the best journalistic policy

La Presse’s Paul Journet has a story on a journalist for TVA, Karine Champagne, whose three sons attend École Horizon-Soleil. That’s where a 12-year-old boy with a congenital heart defect died after being shoved on the schoolyard by an 11-year-old girl.

Champagne acted first as a mother, giving interviews to journalists complaining about the school’s response to the incident. The next day, she talked about the incident on TV as a journalist.

The article presents this as a journalistic faux-pas, but I’m not so sure. Is it wrong for a journalist to report on something merely because they’ve expressed an opinion about it?

It’s an issue I’m wrestling with, as I both comment on and write about stories that interest me. I try to keep an open mind, I welcome opposing viewpoints, and I like to learn new things. I believe in respecting conflicts of interest (so, for example, I won’t write about a family member’s business without disclosing the relationship), but does having an opinion represent a conflict in itself?

A Wired article explores journalists who blog, and a key sentence in it struck with me:

Reporters are people, too (really), and just because they express opinions doesn’t mean their reporting should be dismissed out of hand, as long as they arrive at their conclusions honestly, through rigorous reporting.

Honesty is something I think has been forgotten in all the talk of journalistic ethics. It means a lot of things:

  • Explaining how you come to your opinions instead of hiding them
  • Being honest to yourself by accepting the fact that you might be wrong
  • Not pledging allegiance to any one group or cause, surrendering your objectivity to the whims of their leaders
  • Not being afraid to disclose things about you that may affect how your reporting is perceived
  • Being self-critical, and being able to admit to yourself when your objectivity has been too tarnished by personal involvement in an issue that you can’t tackle it fairly as a journalist
  • Not being afraid to bite the hand that feeds you (a rule broken by many journalists who keep quiet about their employers for fear of being fired)
  • Allowing people who disagree with you to speak for themselves

I’m sure there are others.

I’m not one of those “objectivity doesn’t exist so don’t bother” people. I believe in fairness, and in not allowing your opinions to interfere with your journalism when you write about an issue. I believe in asking questions to learn instead of talking to people you already agree with. But I also believe that people can only believe what you tell them when they can trust you. And in order for them to trust you, you have to be honest.

The most important thing you have to be honest about as a journalist is how you think.

But enough of me. What do you think? Am I completely wrong about this?

| Navel-gazing, Public transit, West Island

Hindsight is 470/20

The West Island Chronicle looks at the new extended service on the 470 Express Pierrefonds, which you’ll recall had weekday daytime service added to it a couple of weeks ago.

Based on conversations with users, the article concludes that the extended service is popular, but people are annoyed with the fact that there’s no service after 7pm or on weekends. They’re also having trouble with connections, missing the bus by a few minutes:

“Anyone who has university courses until 7pm or right after has to take two buses to get home, it’s really annoying,” she said.

…

Another point of contention seems to be that the bus’ arrival and departure times at the Fairview shopping centre, which is the West Island’s largest bus terminal, do not line up conveniently with those of other buses leaving Fairview.

David Chernofsky, a Dollard des Ormeaux resident, said that he had to wait 15 to 20 minutes on average for the next 208 bus when exiting the 470 at Fairview.

Really? If only someone predicted exactly that before the service started…

That’s great news, unless you plan on staying downtown past 7 p.m. or want to go downtown on the weekend. And really, how many kids in the West Island would want to do that?

Another problem is with the schedule. About half the people who use the bus (based on my oh-so-scientific anecdotal guesstimation) use it solely for its metro shuttle part, and use another bus to get between home and Fairview. Most of those buses run every half hour on the half-hour, so they’re timed to arrive at the terminus and drop off their arriving passengers a few minutes before the half-hour mark.

Thing is, all but two of the eastbound departures from Fairview take place six minutes before the half-hour mark, about the same time as these buses are arriving. It’s a schedule that seems almost designed to make people miss connections from about a dozen different bus routes, and I can’t seem to find any reason why the schedule as a whole can’t be delayed by six minutes to make the transfers easier.

I-told-you-so’s aside, it’s good the STM is recognizing this so quickly. Expect more evening departures and schedule realignments. The STM will be meeting with West Island mayors today to discuss bus service further.

| In the news

More cries of “police brutality”

As predictable as the sun’s rotation around the Earth, the militant student group ASSÉ, which is on “strike” this week against the unfreezing of tuition (despite the fact that most of its members are CEGEP students who don’t pay tuition), started a fight with riot police during one of their protests and is crying “police brutality”.

It’s not that I think there aren’t any rotten eggs in the police department, or that their tactics aren’t a bit heavy-handed when it comes to protesters (fully-armored riot cops don’t exactly have to fear for their lives against kids), but at some point the boy has to stop crying “wolf”. Especially when the protesters are the ones starting the fights.

| Media

Concordian sorry for offending Muslims

The Concordian has issued an apology to Muslim students after a recent cover of the paper had the word “Allah” apparently used in such a way that was considered offensive to some. They realized this after copies of their paper went missing, apparently taken and destroyed by offended students.

Ironically, the editor says he she checked with two Muslims to see if they were offended before the paper went to print. Clearly he didn’t check with fanatic enough people.

| In the news, Montreal, Public transit

Another STM strike?

It sounds a lot like déjà vu: Montreal risks being “crippled” again by a transit strike.

The STM union representing bus and metro drivers and ticket-takers voted 97% in favour of a strike mandate today. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll strike, but it does mean the union can call one at any time. Negotiations broke off last month after a long stalemate at the bargaining table.

To be clear, this is a different union than the maintenance workers’ union that went on strike in May. Those workers agreed to return to work (after a pretty serious public backlash) but reserved the right to go back on strike. They have not yet agreed to a contract.

The only difference between the two: If this union goes on strike, you can blame the bus drivers for it.

UPDATE: The STM wants the union to stop pressure tactics that involve making managers do more work, such as bringing buses to the wrong garage or not locking up metros at night.

| West Island

A city planner is getting rich somewhere

The City of Montreal has decided to spend $700,000 to study the feasibility of an urban boulevard on the area reserved for the Highway 440 extension in western Pierrefonds. They’ve already decided, though, that this won’t include a bridge to Ile Marois Bizard.

Hopefully the study will find a way to justify a project that won’t help anyone get to work any faster.

| In the news, Montreal

Fabrikant gets his way

It’s said there is a fine line between insanity and genius. Valery Fabrikant is a textbook example of this.

Fabrikant was a very smart man who became an engineering professor at Concordia University. When he became frustrated with the academic backstabbing going on at the department, he decided to start killing his colleagues. To this day he feels he was justified in doing so.

He’s in court again, a decade and a half after the shootings (for which he was convicted and is serving a life sentence), to follow through with a lawsuit he filed before the killing spree began. Throughout the proceedings, he has been acting like a lunatic, insulting the judge, raising frivolous objections and basically doing everything you’re not supposed to do in court (including, of course, representing yourself). His more immediate goal was to get the judge to recuse himself from the case, claiming the judge stopped listening to his incomprehensible ramblings.

And it worked.

The judge, fed up of the insults, finally gave in and removed himself from the case. His reasoning was that he can no longer be counted on to be impartial because Fabrikant has gotten on his nerves so much.

I guess that’s one tactic you’ll see taught in law schools now: If you don’t like the judge presiding over your case, insult and annoy him until he throws in the towel. Or maybe you’ll just see it on a Boston Legal episode.

So: Insanity, or genius?

UPDATE (Nov. 27): The next judge dismisses the case, calling it frivolous. So insanity it is.

| Business, Media, Technology

“Hyper-local” doesn’t mean anything

I just read another news story that quotes a media company using the term “hyper-local”.

Can someone explain to me what the heck this term is supposed to mean? I’ve looked far and wide over the Internet Googled for an explanation, and many of the “definitions” include words like “paradigm” that sound like they explain things but really don’t. In the end all I could find was that “hyper-local” meant “local news”. So why not just call it that? Why make up a new word for something that already exists and has been done for centuries?

Of course, the answer is it’s mostly marketingese, a way for newspaper companies to sound like they’re doing something new and exciting while they cut staff in their newsrooms.

Newspapers can no longer afford to each have their own foreign bureaus. So they concentrate their reporters locally, covering news that they can’t get from wire services. Maybe they’ll have one writer in the state/province or national capital, one on special assignment and one travelling with the local sports team. The rest comes from services like Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse who provide truckloads of content for a hefty annual fee.

(TV is even worse, with a handful of local and national reporters repackaging what was in the newspaper that morning. Most radio newsrooms, meanwhile, consist of a guy reading articles from the local newspaper on air — and maybe crediting the source)

So what’s new then, if reporters are already focused on local stories?

Well, there’s a trend toward “citizen journalism”, in which newspapers setup community websites and encourage its citizens to provide the site with free content. Then they can fire reporters who have the audacity to expect payment for their work.

From a business perspective, it sounds fantastic. It’s cheap, it’s new, and it’s local, so there’s less likely to be a lot of competition.

But from a journalistic perspective, it’s a nightmare: a race to the bottom to see how much news can be “crowdsourced” freely to the community. Investigative journalism, feature writing, fact-checking and objectivity thrown out the window in favour of political name-calling, thinly-veiled press releases and dozens of uninteresting opinions about the plot developments of prime-time TV shows.

Perhaps I’m being a bit too idealistic, but I’m not that worried. Most media companies don’t have the online expertise to understand how to make these websites work. They underestimate the amount of competition they’ll have for even the smallest markets, and they overestimate the quality of journalism that crowdsourcing can provide. They think they can replicate a for-profit version of Wikipedia (or, more accurately, Wikinews) without any incentives for contribution.

What I am worried about is how much further big media is going to sink in quality before real, quality competition from new media starts to emerge. My blog can’t compete with over a hundred experienced journalists at the local paper. But when the local paper is down to three interns and a web forum, that’s going to change.

| Technology, TV

Vlog cancelled

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.

| Media, Montreal

Airbus PR stunt a success

Airbus A380

In case you hadn’t heard, Airbus brought their A380 super jumbo jet into Trudeau Airport as part of a promotional tour. The A380 is the largest passenger airliner in the world, and will spew greenhouse gases like there’s no tomorrow shuttling hundreds of people in each flight.

In essence, it’s just a PR stunt for a somewhat notable aircraft which Montreal won’t see for a long while anyway, since no airline has plans to use it here.

But that didn’t stop Airbus’s expensive PR team from getting local journalists to write story after story after story after story after story after story after story after story after story about its arrival here. Some focused on the fact that the airport had to spend a lot of money to accomodate the plane but most were of the “big plane lands locally” variety.

It’s not that this isn’t an interesting story, both from a business perspective and for plane afficionados, but did it really warrant more than 10 minutes of live coverage on CTV News at Noon?

UPDATE: Le Devoir explores when we might see the A380 in commercial service here. But the only answer they can get out of Air France is “soon”, and even that’s a maybe. It won’t be for a half decade at least.

| Media, Sports

National Post reruns sports scores

Via Regret the Error, the National Post has one of the most unhelpful corrections in the history of newspapers:

Due to a production error, incorrect information appeared on the sports results page in some editions of yesterday’s paper.

The Post regrets the error.

So what was the “incorrect information”? The page, which appeared on Nov. 8, was in fact the scores page from Oct. 23, a full two weeks earlier. It had all the scores from Oct. 22 games, as well as things like the over/under for the Red Sox/Rockies matchup in Game 1 of the World Series.

It wasn’t all bad. It was nice seeing “Canadiens 6 Bruins 1” again.

But you’d think the Post could just admit someone screwed up and put an old page in, instead of obfuscating the mistake with correctionese.

| Montreal, Pop quiz

Montreal Geography Trivia No. 1

Let’s start this easy:

What is the longest road entirely contained within the limits of the City of Montreal?

First one with the correct answer gets a free hug.

UPDATE: Correct answer below. Gouin Blvd., the longest street on the island, runs through Pierrefonds, Ste. Geneviève, Roxboro, Cartierville, Ahuntsic, Montreal North and Rivière des Prairies before ending at Sherbrooke Street near the eastern tip of the island (a total of five boroughs).

Senneville Road extends Gouin Blvd. west into Senneville and around the western tip to Ste. Anne de Bellevue, but it’s not counted in this trivia question.

Only Sherbrooke St. sees more borough action, crossing through Côte-des-Neiges/NDG, Ville-Marie and then straddling the borders of Plateau Mont-Royal, Rosemont-Petite-Patrie and Mercier/Hochelaga-Maisonneuve before ending in Pointe aux Trembles/Rivière des Prairies (6 total). In between it stops in the independent cities of Montreal West, Montreal East and Westmount. There are also separate, unconnected Sherbrooke Streets in Lachine and Beaconsfield.

The bonus question, whether one can drive from one end to the other uninterrupted, is also correct below. The street is one-way through eastern Ahuntsic, and oncoming traffic meet at de Lorimier Ave., forcing a detour toward Henri-Bourassa Blvd.

| Montreal

Anglo myths exposed

Montreal philosopher Pierre Desjardins has an article in Quebec City’s Le Soleil about how horrible Montreal is. It’s getting some reaction from defensive anglo Montrealers who object to his suggestions that Westmount anglos control everything.

That, combined with some comments on Patrick Lagacé’s blog about the Office québécois de la langue anglaise has forced me to conclude that there are many unilingual francophones who need some education about the other solitude.

So as a public service, I’m going to dispel some myths concerning the Maudit Anglais (in a language that its targetted audience won’t understand, just to be ironic). Though there may be some anglos who fit these descriptions, they aren’t the majority.

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