The new Pulse ... err, CFCF ... err, CTV Montreal website
It’s not even that we made fun of CFCF’s website for how bad it was, how it looked like it hadn’t been redesigned since the 90s (actually, its last redesign was in 2004, but that wasn’t much better than its 90s look). It’s that it was so bad it was completely off the radar. You couldn’t link to news stories because there was no archival system for them. Forget Web 2.0, it wasn’t even Web 1.0.
Well, some of that’s changed now. CTV has rolled out new websites for all its local stations, including CFCF in Montreal. It includes crazy Web 1.0 features like having individual stories on their own pages, links to wire stories, and individual pages for special features. The weather page has actual graphics from the show and even an embedded video of the latest local forecast (which for some reason is done exclusively for the web instead of just taking video from the latest newscast). It’s even got an RSS feed, and the video player is improved (it’s embedded instead of being a popup).
Looking for crap? Well they have that too. The community calendar page and lotteries page both have that vintage 90s feel to them. The traffic page is nothing but links to Transport Quebec highway cameras.
If you’re expecting bleeding-edge features like the ability to comment on stories, sadly you’re out of luck. They point you to a contact form if you want to comment on a story. But they include handy Facebook and Digg links, so you can comment on the story on someone else’s website. There’s hints of a mobile site, but apparently that’s available for every local station except Montreal.
Melissa Wheeler continues the tradition of hot web reporters
RadCan also rolled its new design into service recently. It’s apparently to spotlight audio and video (which, coincidentally, is what RadCan is all about), but the audio and video player is just as crappy as it was before, mainly because it’s still based on Windows Media instead of Flash.
Brigitte (Maude Guérin) and Sandra (Jessica Barker) ... almost ... in Chez Jules
I took a peek at this Chez Jules show a while back when it was all the rage, and for some reason I went back there recently to catch up. Since when did it turn into a girl-on-girl almost-makeout fest? Had I known these just-friends would be throwing their faces into each other’s chests, I’d be a much more loyal watcher.
Gazette reporter James Mennie gets interviewed by TVA
Scrums are a fact of life in the news media. An important event happens, and every news outlet is there to cover it. TV cameramen, print photographers and reporters huddle around an important figure and save time by essentially doing the same interview.
(Despite the continuing threat of convergence, each outlet still sends its own team to major events, even if a particular empire might be represented by more than one journalist.)
No one knows the news business better than those in it, but even many of us were surprised when the media gathered outside the room where the Montreal Newspaper Guild was holding meetings on whether to approve a new contract.
Locked-out workers picket outside the Journal de Montréal on Tuesday
Le Soleil did the rounds of the provincial parties and found they’re not about to anger journalists in the Journal de Montréal labour dispute. The Parti Québécois and Québec solidaire are, as you might expect, solidly behind the union. The Liberals and ADQ are more on the fence, but aren’t going out of their way to grant interviews to scabs.
In other Journal news today:
Stéphane Gendron (remember him? He used to be a small-town mayor or something) says he’ll continue writing for the Journal. His excuse is that he’s not a journalist and he loves hearing himself think too much to cut off that avenue of communication. He also thinks the union is evil.
ProjetJ has a piece about media convergence and how this conflict is all about Quebecor wanting Journal writers to promote the activities of other groups in the Quebecor Media empire.
Le Devoir’s Paul Cauchon has an analysis of the situation, which he says could go on for a long time. He also mentions that Pierre Karl Péladeau got a 28% pay raise last year, so the economic crisis must not be hurting him too badly.
The Journal de Québec, who have totally been there, are trying to support their colleagues, though their options are limited because they can’t refuse to have their articles reprinted in the JdM.
At a general meeting Sunday afternoon of the Montreal Newspaper Guild, the union which represents Gazette employees, editorial and reader sales workers overwhelmingly rejected an offer from their employer for a new four-year contract.
The primary reason for the rejection was the employer’s demand to change language on union jurisdiction, which is a clause in the contract that says any work done for The Gazette must be done by members of its union. Management wanted to add language that would allow them to freely outsource jobs outside the province.
For Editorial (the unit I belong to), the vote results were 23 for, 95 against for an 80.5% rejection. For (what’s left of) Reader Sales and Service, the results were 4 votes for and 11 votes against for a 74% rejection.
In a separate meeting, the advertising bargaining unit approved a new fourtwo-year deal by a vote of 17-9 (65%). That unit had a weaker strike mandate (59%) and the vote was expected to be close.
Classified and business office workers are under a separate contract which is still in effect.
Elizabeth Thompson (I really need to get a better picture of her), who was The Gazette’s Ottawa Bureau Chief until she accepted a buyout and the paper closed its bureau, accepted an offer for a job at Sun Media yesterday, she tells Fagstein.
As promised, she will continue to cover Parliament Hill, though instead of focusing on Quebec issues in Ottawa she will be dealing with national issues as part of its team of five reporters on the hill.
Her articles will appear in Sun Media papers, including Ottawa/Toronto/Winnipeg/Edmonton/Calgary Suns, the London Free Press, 24 Hours/24 Heures, Kingston Whig-Standard (and other Osprey papers) and, of course, the Journal de Montréal and Journal de Québec.
That probably means that her articles could be used in scabbing the Journal, but unfortunately she has no control over that (and neither do wire services like Canadian Press, or the journalists at the Journal de Québec).
Thompson wouldn’t comment on salary or other aspects of her contract, but a source close to the issue said she has been given her own office, assistants and corporate jet, along with a lifetime supply of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey and an apartment at the Château Laurier. (You know, I should probably stop using that source.)
Early Saturday morning, management at the Journal de Montréal locked out 253 of its employees, mere minutes after an agreement with the union not to launch a labour dispute had ended. The lockout apparently came during the night, late enough that workers would still contribute work to the paper, but early enough that management could sneak in a note to readers about the labour disruption.
Both sides, naturally, blame the other for failing to negotiate. In reality, both sides have held firm on their demands since the contract expired on Dec. 31, and a lockout has been all but inevitable when both sides left the table this week.
Journal management plan to continue publishing during the lockout. The union is also planning a publication called Rue Frontenac, which right now just has a video of employees who are on the picket lines.
Rue Frontenac
In what has become the norm for journalist labour disruptions ever since the Journal de Québec’s incredibly successful MédiaMatinQuébec, the union launchedRueFrontenac.com, a website which they will use to continue working as journalists. Unlike MMQ, there are no plans for a print version of the paper. Right now the website contains a video with black-and-white pictures of locked-out employees. They’ve also started a Facebook group.
The Journal’s side
In its press release announcing the lockout (conveniently available in English), the Journal says the Syndicat des travailleurs de l’information du Journal de Montréal “has left the company no choice.” It says the lockout is needed because of the “urgency of the situation and the need for far-reaching changes to the Journal de Montréal’s business model”.
The company suggests there were pressure tactics that were disrupting the functioning of the newspaper, which is the first time I’ve ever heard of such a thing. Naturally, they don’t hint at what those tactics might be.
In its analysis of the current economic situation facing newspapers, it stresses the need for the Journal to have more flexibility with online operations (the reason it doesn’t have a real website is because of restrictive clauses in its union contract) and the need for employees to become more efficient. This, of course, means they want to lay off a bunch of them:
“…as it will be impossible to maintain all jobs at the paper, we have already made a commitment to offer employees who will have to leave the Journal generous separation packages accompanied by relocation support.”
The press release closes on the fact that the Journal’s workers enjoy some of the best salaries and working conditions in the Canadian media industry. This is true, and a source for much jealousy among fellow journalists like myself. But as Patrick Lagacé points out, the Journal makes no mention of not being profitable (suggesting that it is still very profitable). Any cost savings from payroll would go straight toward that bottom line.
In a two-page letter to readers in Saturday’s paper, editor Lyne Robitaille says they want to increase, not decrease, the number of journalists working for the Journal. She also says the union’s suggestion that the paper made $50 million in profits in 2008 is false, though she refuses to provide budget figures to corroborate that statement.
The union’s side
The STIJM’s press release focuses on how this lockout will affect families, which probably won’t elicit as much sympathy as they think considering (a) their working conditions are disgustingly generous and (b) they’re getting very generous strike pay (76% for two years) because of the massive fund that’s been built up since the Journal first started 45 years ago.
They declare outright that anyone who does their work (24 Heures employees, Journal de Québec employees, or those of mysterious fly-by-night news agencies) are scabs, and they call on advertisers and readers to boycott the paper.
The union says it wants the Journal de Montréal to start a website, and all their contract demands is that management negotiate it with them (translation: the union has to approve any plan). They say they want a professional site, not a carbon-copy Canoe-branded dumping ground for articles and photos (like what they’ve done with the Journal de Québec).
The issues
Most of the points of dispute are the result of management demands for changes to the existing contract that the union has refused to consider. They include:
Increasing the work week from 30 hours (4 days) to 37.5 hours (5 days), with no extra pay
Laying off 75 employees
25% pay cut for classified employees
20% reduction in benefits for all
Clauses that would give new hires fewer rights than existing employees
Flexibility to reassign workers to do multimedia work for the website
How this will end
This conflict could easily last for years. The Journal has plenty of sources from which it can draw “content”: The Journal de Québec (ironically), 24 Heures (where they just hired a bunch of people), Canoë, the Sun Media chain, and perhaps even TVA and LCN.
Meanwhile, the union has a vast strike fund, as this is the first labour disruption to hit the paper since its launch 45 years ago (part of the reason for that is management concession to union demands, which is why their contracts are so generous).
The Journal de Québec lockout lasted 15 months before an agreement was reached. And the two sides there were closer together than they are in Montreal.
Long labour conflicts tend to end when the union’s finances have run out, employees are demoralized, and exhausted management throw them a bone with a sweetened offer. Both sides make concessions, but the union side will make more.
Expect an end similar to what happened at the Journal de Québec. The union will agree to a longer work week, though at a salary cut much less than what Quebecor is demanding. Multimedia flexibility will be granted and the Journal will finally launch a website (though it will be of poor quality like the JdQ’s). And the Journal will gain the right to make layoffs, but with enhanced severage packages. These are all just gut feelings of mine, so take these predictions with a grain of salt.
Hear ye hear ye
One thing that might shorten this time period is the courts. A huge decision was handed down last month that decreed much of the work used for the Journal de Québec was scab labour. Though Quebecor is appealing that ruling, it severely restricts their options, No mysterious come-from-nowhere press agencies can be used to fill space, and reporters from other Quebecor-owned media can’t be assigned to do work for the primary benefit of the Journal.
There will almost certainly be disputes in court over this. If the STIJM can knock down enough of the Journal’s options, it may force them to stop publication and move fast on a new offer. If the STIJM loses enough cases (which is unlikely in a province with such strong pro-union values), their situation could become hopeless and they’d be made more willing to concede important points.
One thing is for sure, this won’t be solved over the weekend. So go ahead and cancel your subscriptions.
How this affects The Gazette
My coworkers are obviously paying a lot of attention to this development, both out of general curiosity and because we are set to vote on a management proposal for a new contract on Sunday. Hints of an impending lockout are spreading via rumour, but there’s no way to tell if this is a serious threat or not until after the vote.
The union executive is strongly encouraging employees to vote against the contract offer, as it affords little protection against the outsourcing of jobs to nonunionized Canwest employees.
If you’ve never seen Red Bull’s Crashed Ice event, you need an immediate injection of testosterone. Every year, “competitors” in this event gather in Quebec City to “skate” down a 550-metre track whose grade is better suited for tobogganing than anything one would do on skates. (It’s a 56-metre vertical drop, according to this PDF press release).
The point is not important, I guess it’s a race of some sort. The fun is watching everyone crash as the tumble down the ice. And this year, for the first time, they’re opening it up to women.
Of course, because it’s harmless fun, there’s gotta be someone out there to spoil it. The Mouvement Montréal Français, apparently confused because this event is in Quebec City, is demanding that Red Bull give it a proper French name. The government, desperate to appease francophone activists, has passed on the request with official backing, though they’re stopping short of asking Red Bull to change its own name.
I think it’s a bit insulting to have an event like this in Quebec City with an English name. I’m sure Red Bull’s marketing people could come up with a bilingual one or a clever French name that would solve this situation easily. (They’ve already done it for Italy’s Toro Rosso F1 team) But this should be a result of grassroots pressure, not government fiat.
Either way, let’s not let the political discussion ruin the fun.
Crashed Ice is being broadcast live at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday in French on TVA and in English on TSN HD.
Apparently a giant snowball fight is being organized on Facebook to take place starting at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Participants are encouraged to build snow forts a day earlier, and to abide by various rules of fair play (adults only, no ice, no ink, no shots to the face)
