Monthly Archives: February 2009

| Media

Hey Gazette, have you lost weight?

Narrower front page with extra gutter

Narrower front page with extra gutter

Starting with Tuesday morning’s paper, The Gazette (the newspaper I work for, you’ll recall) has reduced its web width by exactly one inch in an effort to save costs. It may seem silly to think that such a small reduction in the size of each page would result in significant paper (and therefore money) economies, but apparently it does, which is why newspapers like the Globe and Mail have already done so.

The Gazette is reconfiguring its second press for the narrower page size, which means some sections will be printed on narrower pages while others will have larger gutters as the narrower content is centred on the wider page. The changeover is expected to be complete in two weeks.

There are no content changes coming with this new width, as editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips explains in a note to readers. The height of the pages is the same, the number of pages is the same, and what’s on them is the same.

But there are some layout changes. Among them:

  • The width of text columns will narrow, making each article slightly shorter. This also means things like columnist photos will be a bit less wide.
  • More pages will have a five-column layout instead of a six-column one.
  • The gutter between columns shrinks slightly, from one pica to 10 points.
  • Larger elements like headlines and photos will become a bit smaller. Some elements, like the web pointers on section fronts, have been redesigned to use space more efficiently.
  • Fixed elements like comics and puzzles will shrink slightly.
  • Every 17th vowel will be deleted form article text (we’re hoping you don’t notice that one).

One thing that’s not changing is the body type. It’s still 8.7-point Nimrod MT, exactly what it’s been since, like, the dawn of time, or at least as long as I’ve been there.

…

So, is the newspaper crisis solved yet?

| Media, Sports, Web design

CTV Olympics site goes live

ctvolympics.ca

ctvolympics.ca

More than a year before the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics begin, CTV has launched CTVOlympics.ca and RDSolympiques.ca, where it will have coverage of the games in English and French. (This pretty much seals that RDS, not TQS, will be the primary French-language network.)

This is the first time in over a decade that CTV will be the Canadian Olympic broadcaster, and so much has changed since the early 90s (this thing called the Internet, for example).

For its first Olympic website, it does look pretty impressive. That said, I couldn’t get the video player to work (it’s Microsoft Silverlight-based, though I have that installed), and this is what happened when I tried to play with the past medal count widget:

How dare you try to compare more than four countries!

How dare you try to compare more than four countries? Behold our grammatically-incorrect error message!

Fortunately they have a year to sort that kind of stuff out.

| Media

Journal Daily Digest: Cauchon sticks his nose in it

Journal de Montréal picket

The link of the day comes from this morning’s Le Devoir, in which media reporter Paul Cauchon does an analysis of the Journal situation, the freelance columnist problem and the role of unions in media. It’s a bit opinionative (and, since it’s in Le Devoir, that opinion is left-of-centre), but worth a look.

Tout le monde won’t shut up

Patrick Lagacé and Bernard Landry were on Tout le monde en parle last night, and both answered questions about the Journal. Landry recently quit his column (with a lame excuse) and Lagacé had to answer for his boyfriend Richard Martineau, who just won’t quit. Rue Frontenac was watching and has the play-by-play. As does Richard Therrien.

On the other channel (with twice the audience), TVA had the premiere of Star Académie, and Journal workers were picketing outside giving out flyers to audience members. (The Clique du Plateau wonders if Rue Frontenac’s critique of the show would have been as critical if it had appeared in the Journal)

In other news

Meanwhile, a journalist at Transcontinental in Quebec City has gotten her job back after she was fired last year, coincidentally (or not) as she was organizing a union for their community weeklies in the area.

| Slow News Day, Technology

Le Devoir explores Wikipédia

Le Devoir has a whole special today on Wikipedia (I’m not quite sure why). Half of it is subscriber-blocked, but the main story is free. Seems they’ve found some errors in Wikipedia articles about Quebec history.

The article repeats the same tired refrain of the mainstream media: Wikipedia can’t be trusted because we found all these errors.

It ignores the fact that Wikipedia has never said it should be trusted. It doesn’t want to be trusted. It asks people – pleads with them – to check every fact in every article (and correct/cite those that are wrong). It is not designed to be a source of information, it is designed to be a summary of information with clear citations.

And, of course, Wikipedia would never have achieved all this popularity if it wasn’t immensely useful as a resource in the first place.

The problem isn’t Wikipedia, it’s that people have been taught to believe everything they read without question. You could argue that this isn’t a proper way to setup an encyclopedia, and if so you’re welcome to use all the other failed Wikipedia-you-can-trust experiments out there.

UPDATE: More from Martin Lessard.

| Media

Journal Daily Digest: The back and forth continues

STIJM cartoon

STIJM cartoon

The Syndicat des travailleurs de l’information du Journal de Montréal, in response to Quebecor’s response to their response to the lockout, has released a page of frequently asked questions on its Journal du Journal website.

The text makes the union’s case on some of the issues that have been circulating in the media:

  • It finally gives an explanation for the discrepancy in salary figures. As I suspected, the union is using base pay and the employer is using pay including overtime and other perks to reach $88,000. As the union points out, all overtime is approved by the employer, so journalists are making that extra $30,000 because the Journal didn’t want to hire more journalists to make up for a shortfall in staff.
  • It links to a summary of those 233 demands the employer made (PDF), with commentary about what those changes would mean for workers
  • It links to a letter sent to freelance columnists (PDF) just before the lockout was called.
  • It says the union is against Quebecor setting up the Journal website as part of the Canoe network and they want the Journal to have its own unique website
  • It explains the work week (30 hours plus breaks = 32 hours over four days) and says the union is willing to be flexible about that
  • It explains why workers are paid time and a half for vacation (it was the suggestion of the employer in a past contract)

There are also some items that might rub people the wrong way. It suggests that, because most of the workers the Journal wants to lay off in the classified department are female, the move is in some way anti-women. It also skirts around the issue of freelancers, and the fact that the union has done little to protect their interests and is not giving them strike pay.

In other news

| In the news, Montreal, Video

Villanuevas take their message to YouTube

In a video message that was posted on Friday (via No One is Illegal), the family of Fredy Villanueva, who was fatally shot by Montreal police in August, ask why Fredy was killed and why, in the public inquiry that was called to determine the underlying causes of his death, the family (including brother Dany, who was also involved in the altercation) is not being offered the services of a lawyer they’ve been promised.

There are two sides to the shooting of Villanueva: either the police were defending themselves against young men who were reaching for their guns, or police officers panicked and shot at unarmed men when less lethal force was called for. The inquiry probably won’t answer the question, whose truth probably lies somewhere in between.

But why they’re not being given a lawyer, when the police have plenty at their disposal, is a question the government should answer.

A rally is being held Saturday at 1 p.m. at Henri-Bourassa Park (corner of Rolland Blvd. and Pascal St. in Montreal North) in the hope that the two questions will be answered.

| Media

Journal Daily Digest: This is how editing is done

Journal de Montréal picketers

News about the Journal de Montréal is still trickling in, but more slowly than just a few days ago. If this conflict goes on as long as people expect it to, this daily digest could turn into a weekly or even monthly one.

The link of the day is to this story at Rue Frontenac, in which copy editors respond to Pierre-Karl Péladeau’s assertion that their jobs are redundant (because Journal writers always file perfect copy, I guess) by taking part of a story from a Journal manager and re-editing it, showing before and after versions with explanations of the changes.

It sounds similar in idea to this post at Readers Matter (my union’s blog), which points out a problem when you outsource copy editing to a company outside the province.

The rest

  • Journal managing editor George Kalogerakis (funny story: he hired me at the Gazette, but took off for a higher-paying job before I had my first shift) was on CBC Daybreak this week. The audio of the interview is here (in streaming RealAudio format, ugh)
  • Joseph Facal, a regular panelist on Bazzo.tv, was taken to task by fellow panelist Vincent Marissal of La Presse on Thursday for staying with the paper freelance. His reason is the same as the rest: the union does nothing for him, so why should he leave his column for them? Rue Frontenac was there (or, at least, they watched it on TV).
  • Speaking of freelancers, Raymond Gravel writes his final column, in which he says he’s quitting under pressure, not because he wants to. He repeats the argument that the union is doing nothing for him. He says he’s upset that he has to take a side in a conflict that he has nothing to do with.
| Media, Opinion

Proulx despecializes

Steve Proulx, who is the media columnist and blogger at Voir, is changing his focus to be more generalist, and asking people for suggestions on what he should call his new column.

Although I’m sure this is a good move for Proulx, it’s a bit sad for the world of media criticism. The move reminds me of when Antonia Zerbisias got taken off the media criticism beat at the Toronto Star.

Proulx says he’ll still talk about media (and there’s certainly lots to talk about these days), but when you’re not focused on one subject, you lose some detail.

Media criticism is hard in this environment, because to do it properly you need to be employed as a journalist, but most of the companies who employ journalists are part of giant conglomerates that control dozens of media outlets. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone working full-time as a journalist who isn’t employed by Canwest, Quebecor, CBC, CTVglobemedia, Gesca, Transcontinental, Astral, Corus or Rogers.

There are exceptions. The Toronto Star is one, though TorStar owns part of CTVglobemedia. The Suburban is another, and it has Mike Cohen who writes about anglo Quebec media. Voir, which also owns Hour and Ottawa Xpress, allowed Proulx the freedom to write what he wished without running the risk of pissing off his employer.

And then there’s Le Devoir, where Paul Cauchon will write more about Quebec media than you’ll get anywhere else. But one journalist at Canada’s only remaining independent daily newspaper is hardly enough to cover the giant media landscape.

Let’s hope Proulx doesn’t let the media stories pass him by as he’s focusing on his expanded portfolio. Especially those stories about my employer that I can’t write without getting into trouble.

UPDATE: Proulx says he’s still editing Trente magazine, so he definitely can’t ignore media issues there.

| Media

Vien, donc

So apparently a provincial minister is in a bit of a conflict of interest because her partner writes for a community newspaper. The newspaper, La Voix du Sud, responded on its website saying that political stories would be handled by its other journalist.

Yes, it has two journalists.

I don’t remember any major provincial government scoops being broken by La Voix du Sud, so I’m kind of wondering what the big deal is.

| Sports, TV, Video

The horrors of simultaneous substitution

An anonymous commenter pointed me to this video posted on YouTube last fall showing all the problems that happen when an NFL football game is substituted by cable companies:

  • Bad audio quality in HD
  • Bad video quality in HD
  • Canadian network bugs pasted over U.S. network bugs
  • Coming back from Canadian commercials in the middle of a sportscaster’s sentence
  • Coming back from Canadian commercials in the middle of a play
  • Accidentally running a Canadian network promo in the middle of game coverage
  • Covering game information graphics with Canadian network’s pop-up promos
  • Canadian ads pasted on the screen over a flying football
  • Cutting off the end of a game on a U.S. channel to simsub a scheduled program on another Canadian network (usually 60 Minutes, which is constantly delayed by NFL games going long).

Theoretically, CRTC rules don’t allow for any of these (well, the popup ads are debatable). Canadian networks can’t substitute U.S. signals with Canadian ones that are of lesser quality. Cable and satellite providers (they’re the ones who actually “throw the switch” based on schedules provided to them by the Canadian networks) would be in their rights to refuse to substitute the broadcast.

But what happens in reality is that they don’t really care (at least, outside of Super Bowl Sunday), and so errors like these are common. Usually they’re not so bad, either repeating the first few seconds of a program or cutting off the last few seconds of the credits because the stations aren’t in perfect sync. The problems are worse during NFL games because they’re live and their commercial schedules and end times aren’t predictable in advance.

If this kind of thing annoys you, you could try petitioning CTV and Global to get them to stop, but there’s no way they’re just going to give up on free ad money. Instead, you have to focus your efforts on the CRTC and your Member of Parliament to get them to eliminate simultaneous substitution.

| Media, Montreal

End of the road for The Monitor

The final issue of the NDG Monitor went out today. It includes a column from editor Toula Foscolos on the print shutdown, one from Noah Sidel and another from Bram Eisenthal, plus a message from the publisher. Foscolos says many readers accused Transcontinental of not caring about them, which she counters with the fact that the paper has been running with a deficit for years now.

Frankly, I’m surprised they’re keeping the editorial staff and trying to do this online. Transcontinental’s cookie-cutter community websites are awful, and most of the content you find on them links to or is copied from other community newspaper sites.

Though I don’t want to see any local journalists lose their jobs, I can’t help but think that the online Monitor experiment will eventually fail, and those remaining will either have to move to other papers (the Westmount Examiner and West Island Chronicle are also owned by Transcon) or find another career.

Hour also covers the NDG Monitor shutdown, and CTV News had a story about it on today’s newscast, but its website won’t let me link to a specific video, so you’ll have to find it yourself.