Monthly Archives: November 2007

| TV

Don’t put a tax on free TV

The CRTC is, for some strange reason, reopening a debate it already dismissed a year ago about whether or not broadcast stations should be able to get fees from cable and satellite carriers like specialty channels do currently.

The argument is over whether over-the-air broadcasters really need the extra money. The CRTC says it wasn’t convinced (but may be now?), while the broadcasters say they’re struggling.

This is the wrong argument to have.

Instead, these broadcasters should be explaining to the CRTC why I should be paying, through mandatory fees to my cable company, for television channels I get freely over the air. It’s like your landlord tacking on a “sunlight surcharge” because the light passes through your apartment’s window.

As for their argument that they’re not making enough money: Tough. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the television business. It’s not the government’s fault your product is junk and nobody wants to watch it.

| Video

YouTube Canada is pointless and insulting

YouTube exploited the media’s cluelessness about the Internet to get some free advertising launched its Canadian site today, with a big press release and everything.

YouTube, an American video-sharing website, was not available to Canadian Internet users prior to today. Internet traffic would be stopped at the border, searched, and then forced to pay taxes and duties before being allowed to continue. As a result, no Canadian-made videos had ever appeared on the No. 1 video-sharing site.

Oh wait, none of that is true? Then what’s the purpose again?

“YouTube Canada”, which looks exactly like regular YouTube except that its featured content is from obviously-Canadian sources, is basically nothing more than a bunch of content licensing agreements with media outlets like Dose.ca (funny they don’t use CanWest’s crappy internal video portal), the Canadian Football League, CBC and others. You’ll note that these groups already have YouTube channels, which just makes the pointlessness of this launch even more apparent.

The Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram was one of the few not to be taken in by the smoke and mirrors. He asks, very reasonably, what the point of a “localized” Canadian site is in the first place. (His remarks remind me a bit of Casey McKinnon’s views on CanCon.)

One thing that Ingram didn’t mention though, is a mistake a lot of these companies make when they create Canadian versions of themselves: The “Canadian” YouTube is English-only.

It’s not that YouTube lacks translation abilities. YouTube France is in French. So what’s the story?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Guy Bertrand or anything. But to launch a website branded as “Canadian” in only one of its languages is a pretty big “Fuck You” to francophone Canadians.

So colour me underwhelmed about all this.

| Montreal, Radio

Respect? Pleasure? On Montreal radio?

In an effort to fool reassure the public that their purchase of Standard Radio to create an even huger media megalopoly isn’t a bad thing, Astral Media ran full-page newspaper ads this weekend:

Astral ad

The ad, which implies that Mix 96, CHOM FM and CJAD won’t … uhh … change the logos they put on their baseball caps, I guess… includes this bit of hilarity:

… Please be assured of our commitment to continue providing the same great listening pleasure you have come to enjoy. Respect for our broadcast audience and the public in general is a core value of Astral Media…

I can only guess from this that Astral Media haven’t actually listened to CHOM or Mix 96 for more than a few minutes.

(The fact that CHOM and Mix 96, two radio stations that should be competing directly, are controlled by the same owner, is an entirely different issue.)

| Media, Montreal

Plagiarized in your own paper — NOT

The irony is just too much.

It appears that La Presse’s letter of the week for Oct. 27, about the oversexualization of young girls, was plagiarized from quoted* a Patrick Lagacé column a month before.

As Lagacé puts it: Plagiarized in your own paper, c’est fort en ta…

* The story gets better: The letter actually properly referenced Lagacé’s column. But the citation was cut from the letter before it was published, leaving only the copied text. Now Lagacé, and a copy editor somewhere in the La Presse editorial department, are eating a double serving of crow.

I’m trying not to laugh.

| In the news, Media, Montreal

Another violent death story

Reporting on unexpected deaths is one of the most difficult things a reporter can be assigned to do. They involve going to a family’s home, ringing on their doorbell, and hoping that their response will be a desire to talk rather than frustration and anger at all the media salivating for a juicy quote or exclusive interview.

Then there’s the interviews with neighbours. It used to be, once upon a time, that neighbours knew everything about each other. They socialized, borrowed cups of sugar from each other, and did all of those neighbourly things we hear about in the movies.

But even in a small community like Ile Perrot, neighbours today know embarrassingly little about each other. They stay indoors and surf the Internet. Conversations with neighbours tend to take place only when both have children who are the same age.

So when 3-year-old Bianca Leduc was killed last week, after two teenage drivers lost control of their speeding vehicles and ran her over, the quotes from neighbours were less than impressive. “She was a beautiful little girl who always seemed happy, but I didn’t really know her well,” says one neighbour who wouldn’t give a name. Another, who was also the mother’s landlord, could only muster a few words about how the mother always paid her rent on time.

Neighbours of Brandon Pardi, the 18-year-old charged in the case (the other is a 17-year-old friend who can’t be named because he’s underage), were similarly uninspiring in their quotes: “like the average kid, not more, not less” was one.

La Presse’s Patrick Lagacé managed to track down Pardi’s girlfriend (who insists this was an accident and he would never hurt anyone) and wrote this gut-wrenchingly emotional story (even he couldn’t keep his feelings in check).

It doesn’t take long after something like this for the blame game to start. Some target the lack of police presence on the island, others blame the fact that 17-year-olds are allowed to drive, still others blame the cars themselves. Supporters of Pardi seem to prefer to blame nobody, considering this a tragic accident.

Perhaps I’m going out on a limb here, but I blame the kids. Kids who speed recklessly, gambling over-confidently that their power steering, anti-lock brakes, high-traction tires and other safety features will prevent them from getting into an accident. Then, when their disregard for common sense results in injury (most often to others), they pretend like such an event could not possibly have been predicted.

Perhaps I’m wrong about this. Nothing has been proven yet in a court of law, and nobody can say for certain if the two drivers were reckless (or, technically, even if they were speeding).

Sadly, it doesn’t matter. Even if they’re haunted by the image of this little girl for the rest of their lives, or are convicted to decades-long sentences, there are plenty of other reckless drivers out there to cause even more death.

UPDATE: It’s interesting how this story will play out, since the victim was a cute, suburban white baby, while the suspects are rich, suburban white teenagers.

Bianka already has a Facebook group with a few hundred members. Pardi’s friends apparently set one up as well, though it doesn’t seem to be public anymore.

Lots of posts related to this story on this blog.

CORRECTION: Earlier versions of this post listed the girl’s name as “Bianka Leduc”, based on news reports. The media seem to have agreed on “Bianca” now as the spelling of her name.

| Business, Media

CanWest outsourcing more layout to non-union workers

The Tyee has an article about work being outsourced from the Vancouver Sun and Vancouver Province newsrooms into non-unionized positions in Hamilton, Ont. Currently, Hamilton takes care of things like stock pages and sports scoreboards, work which can be replicated for more than one paper. The TV Times is also produced out of one location, with the local programming grids and paper’s logo slapped on at the end. But now CanWest’s Vancouver papers are sending more pages to be done there, which is worrying union leaders.

This is kind of one of those grey areas with unions. Is it OK to hire non-unionized workers for union jobs if it’s being done in another city? Can you shift jobs from a unionized part of a company to a non-unionized part without problems?

Sun editor-in-chief Patricia Graham calls the layout being transferred “essentially a mechanical function.” The article doesn’t give details about what exactly is being transferred, but I’m guessing it’s debatable how “mechanical” such a function really is.

UPDATE (Nov. 10): J-Source has another post on the CanWest situation, including a union response alleging that Global is violating its CRTC licenses by centralizing its newsrooms.

| Montreal

School board election results

I don’t blame you if you slept through it, but yesterday was school board election day across the province. Turnout in English boards (which have a much smaller electorate because you have to specifically request to be added to it) was low, about 10-30%. Turnout for the French boards was comically bad, in the low single digits.

That probably had something to do with the fact that there were no issues in this election, nobody knew anything about the candidates, and school boards are powerless to make any meaningful changes about how our kids are educated anyway.

Still, for those who care (the immediate families of the candidates come to mind), here’s a quick breakdown of what happened.

English Montreal School Board

EMSB results (PDF)

  • Spiridigliozzi: Wards 8, 11, 15, 21, 22, 23 (plus 16, 17, 18 and 20 by acclamation)
  • Barbieri: Wards 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 14
  • Mancini: Wards 1, 4, 7, 10, 19
  • Independents: None

The EMSB election, as Henry Aubin explained it, was a battle between chairman Dominic Spiridigliozzi (whose team had a slim majority on the board) and Rocco Barbieri and Angela Mancini, who work together and whose candidates did not compete against each other for seats. Despite having four candidates elected through acclamation (including Spiridigliozzi himself), the team managed to win only 10 of the 23 board seats, with the rest going to Barbieri and Mancini’s teams. This will represent a major shift in the way this board is governed.

Spiridigliozzi lost 3 incumbents: vice-chair Elizabeth Fokoefs (NDG Ward 3), Daniel Andrelli (St. Henri/Point St. Charles/Westmount Ward 6) and George Vogas (Plateau/Park Ex Ward 13)

Two of the races were extremely close (close enough that judicial recounts have been ordered): Rocco Barbieri won by a margin of only seven votes: 319-312. Julien Feldman (also on Barbieri’s team) defeated incumbent George Vogas in Ward 13 by only six votes: 319-313, with 52 votes going to independent Adam Beach. (A second independent, Ilias Hondronicolas, dropped out.)

As for Bryce Durafourt, who I had high hopes for, he received only 49 votes against Barbieri’s Liz Leaman (454) and Spiridigliozzi’s Mario Pasteris (200).

Lester B. Pearson School Board

Official results

Not as fun to analyze as the other board because there weren’t any declared teams and there were only seven races. Two incumbents, Howard Solomon (who’s been there 14 years) and Don Rae (a one-time incumbent whose website is filled with stock photos of smiling kids), lost their seats.

Commission scolaire de Montréal

List of winners (PDF)

Wow. You can’t go wrong with a 100% victory, but that’s exactly what the MEMO group did here, picking up 13 acclamations and winning all eight contested elections against independents. Even Dominique Cousineau, whose campaign apparently consisted of pointing out that her opponent was named Mostafa, won her board seat. I can’t find a list of the vote totals (though with a turnout of less than 4%, maybe they’re embarrassed to show them).

Commission scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys

List of winners (PDF, apparently scanned from an old fax machine)

With 20 of 21 seats contested, this board’s election was the most active. Diane Lamarche-Venne was the big winner, picking up 14 seats of the 19 her candidates ran in (including herself and one candidate who was elected through acclamation). Jocelyne Bénard-Rochon, who ran 17 candidates, only saw three victories, and lost her own seat to a Lamarche-Venne candidate.

Surprisingly, four independent candidates, three of whom ran against at least one of the parties, also picked up seats: Guylain Desnoyers, Jean-Guy D’Amour, Sonia Gagné-Lalonde and Sarita Benchimol (the latter ran in Cote-St.-Hamp-West, which didn’t see any party candidates).

The turnout was also abysmal here, at just over 3%.

| Business, Montreal, My articles

TWIM: Kids, money

Bryce Durafourt

This week, I talked with Bryce Durafourt (above), who’s running in the school board elections for the English Montreal School Board in TMR/Saint-Laurent. He’s 20, a McGill microbiology student, curler, and ran for city councillor the 2005 municipal election in Saint-Laurent, only to come dead-last as the only independent candidate.

So I asked him: What’s up with that?

Also this week (though not online) is an explainer about the status of the Canadian dollar, which is constantly hitting new highs compared to the U.S. dollar. It also mentions the situation in Zimbabwe, home of the least-valued currency in the world and one of the worst examples of hyperinflation since the 1940s.

| Media

Media don’t take quizzes seriously

First CBC’s Test the Nation had a small problem with its algebra, then a Cyberpresse quiz was riddled with grammatical errors. Now comes news that a TVA spelling quiz had errors of its own.

The blog post points out that the test was developed by a French teacher and that this teacher made the errors. It also gives some complete B.S. about how the media is thorough in its research, which it clearly isn’t.

Having a professional create the test was a good move for TVA. But not having the test verified by another professional was where they failed. It’s relying on a single source to verify that something is accurate. This is one of the first things they tell you in journalism school not to do.

But TVA wasn’t concerned too much with accuracy, because they didn’t take it seriously. Just like the other tests given in the media, it was nothing more than a gimmick to fill air time and possibly generate ratings. Infotainment that had nothing to do with quality journalism.

Until the media start taking these kinds of tests seriously and having them properly verified, the public can put about as much faith in them as they have in the spelling accuracy on this blog: not mcuh.

| Blogosphere, Media

When should business trump journalism?

Perhaps it’s unfair to prey on the defenceless student media, but there’s an issue brewing behind the scenes that’s just so interesting on a larger scale.

The Link and The Concordian, the two student-run newspapers at Concordia University, are mortal enemies and they are fiercely competitive (after a few years of one paper being clearly superior to the other). They compete over design, contributors, editors, money and anything else they can think of.

I bring it up because it makes me wonder what rules should exist in general for journalists when it comes to their competition. Some media flat-out refuse to refer to direct competitors by name, unless it’s to report bad news about them. Many have rules restricting staff (and in some cases even freelancers) from contributing to competing media. And, of course, there’s the whole problem of when media outlets report on themselves.

Blogs, for the most part, take a completely different position. They welcome competition, link to their posts, hang out together and exchange tips. The idea there is that becoming part of a community helps everyone in it.

Who’s right? Is the cooperation among blogs simply because they’re such small enterprises and they’re trying to get noticed? When big blogs become large, mainstream, corporate-owned companies instead of some guys in a basement, will they too try to actively shut out their competition?

At what point do we have to stop being journalists and start being businesspeople?

(Note: This post was edited at the request of The Link, who wish to keep their dirty laundry in their own hamper. The main point still stands.) 

| Business, Montreal

Staff reductions at The Gazette

The Gazette

The news hit the fan today thanks to a CP story about a Gazette memo which indicates the company wants to reduce the size of its editorial staff to save money.

Publisher Alan Allnutt said in a memo to employees that management is doing all it can to avoid layoffs (which it’s required to do under its union agreement), and is offering another round of buyouts for those who want to leave voluntarily. (The formula offers a lump sum payment based on how long an employee has worked for the paper: 4.5 weeks per year of service, which works out to a year’s pay if you’ve been there 11.5 years).

Still, most people are looking at this story with disappointment, especially considering recent job cuts at TQS and Global, as well as a general feeling of a decline in quality at mainstream publications due to budget cuts.

It also puts into perspective moves like this:

The Gazette: “Send us your news”

First appearing last week, this new page on the paper’s website encourages visitors to “share your news” by submitting text, audio, photos or video in the hope that such an action will either get a story written about a subject or that your submission will be posted online.

Just about every major media outlet is doing this (see CNN’s iReport for another example, or the Ottawa Citizen version), because it preys on people’s desire to get their 15 minutes of fame, it sounds all Web 2.0-ish and pleases their marketing departments who can say they “get it”, and of course it helps the bottom line because these amateur reporters aren’t paid a cent for their work.

I’ll be looking into some of these issues of “user-generated content” for upcoming articles in this same newspaper (can you feel the irony?), so stay tuned.

In the meantime, what do you think of all this? Should newsrooms be squeezed even further? Are journalists not working hard enough? Are TV, radio and newspaper news departments destined for extinction? Is free, user-generated news the future? Feel free to comment below.

UPDATE (Nov. 4): Deborah Jones of J-Source has some thoughts on the CanWest situation in general.