Transcript of a completely fictional meeting at the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec:
Hey guys, I have an idea. We should commission a survey of Quebecers and ask them about how they feel local news has eroded over the past few years. Then we’ll release it and maybe convince some companies to stop gutting local journalism.
Replacing “Saturday Report” and “Sunday Report” with “The National”: Good. It’s your evening news show, why should it have different names on different days? Sure, it doesn’t have The Mans, but that’s not the end all and be all of CBC Television
Rebranding CBC Newsworld: Bad. Anyone who hasn’t heard of Newsworld either doesn’t have cable or doesn’t use it to get news. Neither of these things will change with a new name.
Putting L-shape on-screen graphics on CBC Newsworld: Bad. I mean, there is some room for improvement in the graphics department, but using CP24 as a guide is a bad way to start, and the idea of putting a bunch of graphics on screen like weather reports and news crawlers (does anyone read those things?) will just make it look like CTV Newsnet, in a bad way.
De-formalizing The National: To make it more like The Hour? Gonna have Mansbridge stop wearing ties and give the news while breakdancing? I doubt people ignore this program because of its formality.
Reporting rumours: You’re kidding me, right? Quoting directly from the Globe: “Newsworld will not necessarily wait for the definitive word on a story before beginning to report.” If that’s true, it means Newsworld’s journalism standards have taken a major hit.
10-minute The National podcast by 6pm: Good. Probably will have a limited audience, but so long as the resources put into it are limited, it makes sense.
More transparency in news reporting: Absolutely. Journalists (and more importantly their managers) need to get out of the mindset that they should hide where they get their ideas from. Yeah, it sucks when you get scooped. Live with it. Trying to deceive your public will only backfire on you.
Merging local news with The National: This one wasn’t explained very well, but seemed to involve having a local anchor take over at the end of the show and give some local news. It sounds good in theory, but it also sounds a lot like the CBC News Now or whatever that 6pm project was called that had Ian Hanomansing doing fake handoffs to local news anchors.
Renaming CBC Radio News as CBC Audio News: Stupid.
More foreign correspondents: CBC’s getting second thoughts since they don’t have someone stationed in India. But they also just fired a bunch of foreign correspondents. So this probably won’t happen, even though it should.
More exciting language: Bad. Anchors will be encouraged to keep viewers hooked using CNN-style marketing hype, always saying they’re covering an issue and more information is coming. I’m always surprised when news organizations believe that inserting marketing language into editorial content is OK when all you’re hyping is yourself
Online-first policy for breaking news: Good. Holding stories so broadcast can get first crack at them is just asking for someone to scoop you on it. Neither medium should wait for the other.
Extending afternoon local radio: Great. It always amazed me that CBC Radio One’s local office essentially shut down at 6pm and that even the weather reports aired after that were pre-recorded. The new plan would have 6:30 and 7pm local newscasts.
Live afternoon TV news breaks: Why not? The private networks do it. If your choice during a commercial break is between an in-house commercial pulled from a drawer and a live news update with a local anchor, go for the latter.
The STL today announced its fare table for 2009, with moderate increases in fares (though La Presse is all up about side issues including increasing the limit on intermediate fare eligibility from 22 to 25 years old, and reducing the single fare to $1 on smog days).
Though the overcrowded Deux Montagnes line gets the most new service with 26 new departures a week, the big changes are on the St. Hilaire and Candiac lines, which used to be unidirectional rush-hour services. Both lines now have lunch-hour departures in both directions, and St. Hilaire gets evening departures in both directions.
Details of the schedule changes are below. I’ve omitted schedule shifts of less than 10 minutes.
New departure at 5:30am from Deux Montagnes becomes first train of the day (previous first departure was 5:50am, which stays the same)
6:35am departure from Deux Montagnes is brought back to 6:20am
The 8am departure from Roxboro is replaced by a 7:50am departure from Deux-Montagnes (sorry, Pierrefonds residents used to their guaranteed seats)
A new departure is squeezed in from Deux Montagnes at 9:22am.
All but one morning inbound train (8:50am from Roxboro-Pierrefonds) now depart from Deux Montagnes. Train schedules between 8 and 10am in both directions are readjusted to let traffic through on the single track
A new departure is added at 10:25am, with subsequent departures pushed back by 30 minutes (11:25, 12:25, 1:25, 2:25)
Departures at 7:51, 8:51 and 9:51pm are made a half hour earlier (7:20, 8:25, 9:25)
An evening departure at 10:51 is removed
Weekdays: Toward Deux Montagnes
A new departure from Central Station at 7:55am
A new departure from Central Station at 3pm
Departures at 7pm and 7:40pm become 7:05pm and 7:30pm. The rest of the afternoon rush hour schedule is untouched
Last train of the day is now 12:15am instead of 12:30am
Saturdays: Toward Montreal
A new departure from Deux Montagnes at 8:55am means service every hour from 7-10am
A new departure from Deux Montagnes radically changes the afternoon/evening schedule: Departures at 3:55, 6:15 and 8:55 become 3:25, 4:25, 6:25 and 9:25
Last train of the day is at 11:25 instead of 11:40pm
Saturdays: Toward Deux Montagnes
Two new departures from Central Station in the morning at 8am and 10am (11am departure moved to noon)
3pm departure from Central Station moved to 4:30pm
10:50 departure becomes 10:30
Last train of the day is now 12:15am instead of 12:30am
Sundays: Toward Montreal
All departures from Deux Montagnes are now on the hour instead of five minutes before
New departure at 10am means two hours, not four, between inbound trains in the morning
Sundays: Toward Deux Montagnes
10am departure is replaced by departures at 9am and 11am
Last train of the day is now 12:15am instead of 12:30am
As if to underscore how unstable and disorganized our government is, there are two competing protests scheduled Saturday afternoon for and against the coalition government in different parts of the city.
But if you go there, you’ll probably be standing with a small crowd of gramatically-challenged Tory supporters. Everyone else is going to Complexe Guy Favreau on René-Lévesque Blvd. W., the federal building which for some reason has always been turned into Protest Central by anyone with anything to say to the federal government. That protest is the one the Liberals, the unions and the Make Parliament Work website are pointing people to. It also has over 500 people RSVPed on Facebook, which means at last five of them will show up.
Personally, I don’t think public protest is going to change anything here (is Stephen Harper going to give up power because some a few hundred Montrealers that wouldn’t have voted for him anyway told him to?). I also doubt most of the people attending these protests would have the same positions if the tables were turned and Stephen Harper was trying to use the Bloc to take power away from a minority Liberal government.
But hey, if you want to walk out in the cold carrying a sign, go nuts.
Patrick Lagacé, the teen heartthrob who came in dead last in 2007, is hoping his blogfame can catapult him back into contention.
I’m putting my money (well, not literally, I must remain loyal to the Christmas Fund and I don’t have thousands of dollars to throw away) on Marie-Claude Lortie, the foodie who is also the only woman available for bids, and perhaps not coincidentally is leading the bids at $2,000.
You know what these three megacorporations have in common? They all thought they could get rich by acquiring other media companies.
Canwest was still paying off the debt it took on when it bought the Southam newspaper chain (which includes my employer, The Gazette) when it decided it needed more cable channels and acquired Alliance Atlantis. This gave them channels including Showcase.
Bell Canada responded to Canwest’s consolidation by planning a megacorporation of its own. Bell acquired CTV and the Globe and Mail and eventually most of CHUM’s assets. In exchange for the latter, BCE sold shares in the company to the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Torstar and the Thomson family, and BellGlobeMedia became CTVglobemedia.
A lot of Rogers’s acquisitions have been in the form of CTV’s sloppy seconds (oh wait, can I not use those words?). This includes Sportsnet, which CTV had to dump when it acquired TSN, and City TV ($375 million), which CTV had to dump when it acquired CHUM. It also acquired the Blue Jays, Fido, as well as specialty TV networks and radio stations within the past decade.
I’m no financial expert, and I don’t have a very clear idea of the balance sheets of these three companies, but this is a really bad time to have debt, especially risky debt (say, holding a bunch of assets in an industry that might disappear entirely in 10 years). The economic downturn that the mortgage debt crisis precipitated is certainly affecting these companies and worrying their management, but I think the debt problem is more significant here than the advertising or subscription revenue problems.
Perhaps this might serve as a warning that consolidation isn’t always the best way to go.
Or perhaps not.
UPDATE (Dec. 9): The New York Times, which I can only assume got the idea from this blog post, has a similar analysis of U.S. newspapers (though in that case, it was taking on debt to acquire other newspapers that got them into trouble).
While the two would-be prime ministers address the nation with their talking points, and talk radio is flooded with angry phone calls, it seems obvious that many Canadians (and politicians) are basing arguments on a profound misunderstanding of the nature of parliamentary democracy. In that spirit, here are some myths being thrown about and reality checks for each:
Canadians voted for a Conservative government and Prime Minister Harper: Canadians did no such thing. Despite the impression given during election campaigns, the prime minister (and hence his government) is not chosen by the voters (you may have noticed that the words “prime minister” were not on your ballots, nor were “Stephen Harper” unless you voted in Calgary Southwest). Instead, the prime minister is chosen by the 308 members of Parliament elected by the voters. A majority of those 308 members have decided that Harper should not be the prime minister.
The coalition wants to overturn the results of the election: I don’t see where that’s the case. There are no floor-crossings involved here (and even if there were, both the Liberals and Conservatives have benefitted from such crossings and ignored hypocritical calls from the opposition that the member resign and face a by-election to ratify the change in party). The election resulted in a minority government, which means that any measure needs support of more than one party to be approved.
The Liberals were forced to act to save Canadian jobs: Oh please. This is clearly a power grab. The Liberals saw their opportunity, but it was just a matter of time before this happened. A minority situation where three of the four parties are left-of-centre and the remaining right-wing party is the one in charge just wasn’t sustainable. The economy argument is a smokescreen.
Dion is so desperate to become prime minister he’s trying to get in by the back door: While I’m sure part of Dion is gleeful about the idea, and he’s definitely better at this kind of political maneuvring than he is getting popular support from Canadians, he isn’t reversing his decision to step down as Liberal leader. The leadership campaign will go on as planned and if the government lasts that long, the winner will become the prime minister.
Making a deal with separatists threatens this country directly: If this were true (and it’s not), the Conservatives are just as guilty. Many of its laws, including matters of confidence, were supported by the Bloc Québécois in exchange for matters the two could agree on like transferring more money to the provinces. Dion’s federalist bona fides are not in question. Besides, the argument is being made on the other side that the Bloc has sold its soul to the federalists by agreeing not to take down a coalition government for a year.
The Liberals have a better plan to fix the economy: Nobody’s going to fix this economic crisis. The United States is in a recession and debt markets are in turmoil. There’s nothing a prime minister can do to fix that. They can make a small impact: the Tories want to reduce taxes and the Liberals/NDP want to increase spending, both of which will put this country back into deficit and increase the national debt. The best solution would probably be something in between, but there is no centre option here as long as the Liberals are in bed with the NDP.
The coalition will bring the stability and progressive policies needed to weather the economic crisis. Wow, I need to get some of what you’re smoking. The coalition will bring partisan gridlock to Parliament Hill in no time flat. Another election will quickly follow, in which Canadians will either punish Harper for his arrogance or (perhaps more likely) punish the Liberals for a transparent power grab.
This crisis shows why we need a majority government: Whether this crisis is good or bad for Canada depends on which side you’re on. Majority governments are by nature more stable, because they’re run by a benevolent dictator. They also have a habit of being more fiscally responsible by being able to cut spending and make tough decisions. But minority coalitions are more democratic and involve more compromise and negotiation. And when one party attempts to do something unpopular, it can be overridden by the other three parties.
If the government loses a confidence vote, an election must be called: That’s not necessary. The King/Byng affair demonstrated that. The governor-general has the option to allow another group to become the government if she feels they would have the confidence of the House.
We must protest to ensure we get the right government: While both sides are appealing to public opinion, it’s highly unlikely that any of the four parties will listen to the public which has already divided so transparently along party lines. The Liberals and NDP have already made up their minds about forming a coalition. The Bloc has already agreed not to let it fall for a year and a half. And the Conservatives are going to fight to the last breath to keep Stephen Harper in power.
Any other misconceptions you feel need to be corrected?
Question Period has gotten downright entertaining now that there’s an actual power struggle going on. But, like a bad sitcom, our politicians are just repeating the same talking points over and over.
So let’s turn this into something fun: a drinking game!
WARNING: This is extremely dangerous and can quickly lead to alcohol poisoning. Take small sips.
It includes a dig at bloggers as amateur journalists who don’t know what they’re talking about. I get the point about professional vs. amateur journalism, but I think the generalization of bloggers is a bit unfair.
To those of you (like myself) who were surprised that one of the world’s largest wire services was owned by a government, this has apparently sort of been the case for half a century now. But AFP is legally independent of the French government, with laws in place to ensure its independence. It’s an arrangement that’s even more arms-length than the Canadian government’s relationship with the CBC.
What France is trying to do isn’t take direct control of AFP but to privatize it, presumably to reduce its reliance on government funding.
AFP’s protection squad is also against privatization, which might also negatively affect its journalism. Whereas AFP has the best coverage of Africa currently (from what I’ve seen looking through their stories as a Gazette copy editor), they might be pressured to start changing their focus toward more celebrity gossip (as AP is being pressured to do).
I sympathize, but it seems these people are trying to have their cake and eat it too. They don’t want to be controlled by the government, but they want the government to fund them.
I should probably unsubscribe from this job listing service that sends me occasional emails (since I currently have a job and all), but then I’d miss gems like this one:
Position title: POS Customer Support Agent – Level 1
– Geographical area: Quebec, Montreal (Region)
– Type of position: Permanent
– Job field: IT and multimedia
“Point of sale” has always resulted in an unfortunate abbreviation.
There are many streets in Montreal that change names for no apparent reason. Drive straight and suddenly you’re on a new road. Perhaps you’ve crossed a municipal border, or are on part of a street that has been renamed in someone’s honour (or, in the case of Dorchester/René-Lévesque, both).
But this street is particularly bad.
Starting from one end:
the street turns into a square
the square turns into a type of street whose translation into English I had to look up because it’s so rare
that “street” turns into a place
the place turns into another place
that place turns into a street
And you can walk the length of all six of these streets in under 30 minutes (according to Google Maps).
What are the names of these streets? And, for bonus points, at what intersections (or other boundaries) do they change names?
UPDATE: Plenty of you got this one right. The answer is:
Rue McGill (McGill St.), from de la Commune St. W. to St. Jacques St. W.
Square Victoria (actually Rue du Square Victoria, or Victoria Square St.) from St. Jacques St. W. to Viger Ave. W. (Viger St. W.? Stupid Google Maps)
Côte du Beaver Hall (Beaver Hall Hill) from Viger to René-Lévesque Blvd. W.
Place du Frère André from René-Lévesque Blvd. W. to about 10 feet down the road
Place Phillips (Phillips Place) from that point to Ste. Catherine St. W. (and, of course, next to Phillips Square)
Rue Aylmer (Aylmer St.) from Ste. Catherine St. W. to Pine Ave. W.
