To those who might think that wire services, whose content is replacing a lot of laid-off journalists, might be immune to the crisis affecting the news industry, Canadian Press is cutting its staff by 25, or 8%. Though the cooperative doesn’t have to worry about servicing a large debt or reversing the advertising decline, it does have to worry about the decreasing membership dues. Quebecor is the latest mega-publisher to pull out of CP, following Canwest two years ago. Though large newspapers don’t represent as much of CP’s income as they used to, Quebecor is still a huge player and the red balance sheet means they have to reduce staff.
Monthly Archives: April 2009
Longueuil dreams of more metro stations
The City of Longueuil is doing what every transit fan has done at some point in their lives: dream of extending Montreal’s metro lines far beyond their current terminuses into places it may or may not make sense for them to go.
Laval’s Gilles Vaillancourt makes a hobby of this. Even after getting an insanely overpriced extension of the metro into his territory fast-tracked before much-needed extensions into poor dense neighbourhoods in Montreal, he complains that the loop needs to be closed on the orange line with more stations on his territory.
Longueuil’s plan would be to add four metro stations in the Vieux-Longueul area, including a stop at CEGEP Édouard-Montpetit.
Of course, it’s better to have suburban mayors dreaming about metro extensions than strip malls and highways. But maybe there’s something behind the argument that politicians shouldn’t be in control of public transit.
RTL adds service to St. Bruno
The Réseau de transport de Longueuil, which handles public transit in Longueuil and its merged and demerged suburbs, is making a big effort to add service in a new schedule which began on Monday, especially in St. Bruno, which it had served with a handful of bus and collective taxi lines through an agreement with Veolia Transport. The contract (which the RTL points out predates its own existence) expired on Sunday, and the RTL is taking over service directly.
Among the additions, some of which are outlined in the press release:
- 55: One new departure in the afternoon rush hour
- 73: Two new departures in the afternoon rush hour
- 80: Two new departures in the afternoon rush hour
- 98: This route, which had previously only served St. Bruno locally, has been extended to Terminus Longueuil (but only during rush hours). A section on Grand Boulevard has been cut from its route, and will be served instead by the T99 taxi service.
- T-20: Two new departures in the morning rush hour
- T-89: Service extended to Saturday and Sunday rush hours
- Other service improvements have been made on routes 20, 47, 91, 92, 99, 132, 192, T-23, and T-99
- Other changes have been made to schedules on routes 10, 14, 15, 21, 30, 31, 34, 37, 38, 42, 44, 48, 49, 54, 73, 78, 85, 115, 132 and 142
- Two lines, 93 and T94, have been removed from service. They both served St. Bruno and are being replaced with added service to other lines
Bringin’ East Van to the 514
From two expat Vancouverites, Adrian Underhill and my friend Kai Nagata, comes Montreal Postcard, a rhythmical expression of all that is sweet about living in this fine city (though no mention of poutine, bagels or smoked meat Club Super Sexe).
Gazette launches “good news” weekly page
In the wake of non-stop bad news about the state of the Canadian and world economy, and readers who say they’re tired of reading about crime, politics and foreign wars, The Gazette on Tuesday launched a good-news-only page called “You’ll Like This”, which will appear every week.
This idea isn’t new. The Calgary Herald launched a similar project in January with a “Good News” page on its website.
The biggest problem with the idea of “good news” is that there is a reason news is rarely good. Good events are planned, bad events are unplanned and more newsy. “Good news stories” tend to be non-news fluff, particularly human-interest stories. They tend to fall into a few predictable categories:
- Fundraisers, charity and other events
- Miracle survival and other good-because-it-wasn’t-bad stories
- People coming together to work on some volunteer project
- Science news that makes us feel good about ourselves or see hope for the future
- Amazing/funny coincidences and other believe-it-or-not stuff
Editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips tackles the skepticism of us curmudgeonly cynics head-on in a piece introducing the page. He says “…It’s not about highlighting light and fluffy items with no lasting consequence. There’s no reason that substantive, even ‘serious,’ stories can’t focus on the positive.”
The first two articles in this new section include a piece by Peggy Curran on McGill Law Outreach, where law students go to high schools with high drop-out rates and encourage kids to keep working on their education, and another from David Yates on the LaSalle Lions Novice A hockey team, undefeated in 51 games (which probably sucks for every other team in the league).
The paper is also asking readers to send in their good news stories to share with others. No doubt they’ll get a few tear-jerkers.
There’s also an unrelated week-long optimism series from Canwest, which today focuses on health and living longer.
Montreal Geography Trivia No. 31
Where is this path and what is its purpose?
UPDATE: Nobody got it dead on, but Chris was the closest below, correctly placing this path in LaSalle. A few of you also correctly guessed that there is a rail line on the right. Put that together and you get the right answer.
Path to LaSalle train station from Airlie St.
It’s a path that connects Airlie St. to the LaSalle train station on the Montreal-Delson/Candiac commuter train line near the rail bridge to Kahnawake.
LaSalle has the distinction of being the least-used commuter train station on the island by the number of train stops: six every weekday in each direction, or 60 each week. (Compare that with its busiest station, Central Station, which sees 349 departures and arrivals each week, or Lucien L’Allier/Vendôme/Montreal-Ouest, which has 259 trains a week going through that corridor.)
And it shows.
This underpass connects the parking lot with the only usable platform
This parking lot is a not-well-marked gravel lot next to an abandoned building
This used to be a train station but has since been boarded up. The platform, too small for a commuter train, is no longer used.
Though marked as a platform for the commuter train, the western side isn't used because it's too short. Its entrance is boarded up.
The only not-awful-looking entrance to the station is through a park, but it's not obviously a train station entrance.
CBC isn’t afraid to talk about itself
By now just about everyone has heard about the 800 job cuts at the CBC and various other cost-cutting measures being taken. The cuts got quite a bit of attention, both from the media and from politicians. More than similar cuts from CTV, Canwest and others that preceded it.
The main reason is that the CBC is publicly funded. Nobody can do anything about private media cutting jobs, but the government can do something about the CBC’s budget (and, of course, opposition MPs can grandstand and complain about the government without offering any budget-friendly suggestions on what they should be doing differently).
Perhaps the media outlet that best covered the CBC cuts is the CBC itself. In fact, some might argue that CBC News spent a bit too much time talking about its own financial troubles to the detriment of other news stories, though others argue that Radio-Canada hasn’t been quite as vocal as its English counterpart.
Second perhaps only to Canadian Press and certain bloggers, the CBC has been very interested in stories about the media. There’s even a section on its news page devoted to it (though it unfortunately throws in pop culture stories there too).
I would argue that there’s a different culture at the CBC when it coms to newsgathering and transparency. When they said they were laying off 800 people, they put the word “layoffs” right in the headline of the press release. They didn’t talk about “streamlining” or “reductions” or “stop gap measures” that try to obscure the truth. CBC’s president, Hubert Lacroix, became a willing interview subject on just about every news show that would have him, explaining what this decision meant without any marketingese.
The CBC not only tolerates but endorses a blog about the corporation that (while it’s accused by some of toeing the party line) is the most liberal such blog I’ve ever seen, with the freedom to criticize the CBC where such criticism is deserved.
There’s an element of not just legally-mandated transparency but honesty at CBC that I think is sorely lacking at other publications and broadcasters. Bad news sucks, but news consumers are adults and they’ll understand decisions if they’re explained properly and honestly. They’re certainly much more willing to accept such decisions if they feel that they are part of the conversation and their concerns are being heard.
One of the latest decisions to come to light is the cancellation of CBC News: Sunday, which has spawned a Facebook group in protest. Rather than try to pretend it doesn’t exist, the show’s website opened up a forum for viewers to express their feelings about the decision.
I think there are lessons here for private news companies. Those who will survive the media collapse will be those who can connect with their consumers on a human level. It’s much easier to do that when they can trust you. Having a human face, warts and all, is a good way to start.
Livre de visage, là
Facebook has launched a Canadian French site, about a year after it launched a French French site.
The translation was done with the help of Facebook users in Quebec, I guess because Facebook is too cheap to hire a real translator for a week to make sure they get it right. These crowdsourced translations caused problems last time, but I don’t notice any glaring errors so far.
Among the translations:
- “Posts” becomes “publications”
- “More” becomes “d’avantage”
- “Tagged” becomes “identifié”
- “Wall” becomes “babillard”
- “Edit Options” becomes … uhh … “Edit Options” (oops)
Copy!
Thankfully, most of the print media people I know aren’t quite this antiquated. Though some of them come close.
CRTC newspaper ads are useless
CRTC notice of consultation (March 30)
If you’re one of those people who still reads the newspaper, you’ve probably seen ads like this pop up every now and then. Thankfully, even with a recession, various government departments still feel the need to take out ads in the paper as a matter of policy, in the name of transparency.
The advertisement above lets the public know about a public consultation about a request from TVA Group Inc. to amend the broadcasting license of a French-language cable channel.
Except this ad doesn’t say anything useful from a consumer standpoint. It doesn’t say what channel TVA wants to amend the license for, nor does it say what the nature of that amendment is. These would seem to be pretty vital details in a public notice. You don’t have to get into too much detail, but an executive summary couldn’t hurt.
For the record, CRTC-2009-94 is about a request to change the license for Prise 2 to add two programming categories, decrease the amount of time they have to wait before they can air old movies (it’s a “classic” movies channel) and reduce its Canadian content requirement.
That certainly tells me a lot more about what’s going on than what you see in that ad.
The Suburban reports on … The Suburban
I wish I could link to the stories directly, but The Suburban now distributes online in a rather link-unfriendly virtual newspaper format, so I’ll just have to link to the whole of this week’s issue, which includes praise for having picked up an award for Best Local Editorial from the Canadian Community Newspaper Association’s Better Newspaper Competition (there were actually nine winners in that category, three for each size group, but an award is an award, right?) as well as eight awards from the Quebec Community Newspaper Association.
This week’s issue also includes what I can only assume are April Fool’s Day stories about Beryl Wajsman running for mayor and Andrew Carter being appointed to the Canadian Senate.
They may take our lives, but they’ll never take OUR PILLOWS!
Rule No. 1 about outdoor pillow fights: don’t hold them in the rain.
Rule No. 2: There are ways around Rule No. 1.
Despite the annoying showers, the planned Montreal event on World Pillow Fight Day took place as scheduled, with about 30 participants whacking each other over the head with bags of foam (feathered pillows were banned as they create a mess) for about half an hour.
Much of the success came from the quick-thinking of organizers Robin Friedman and Jody McIntyre (the same people behind metro parties, bubble battles and pretty much everything else fun in the city over the past couple of years). They brought along clear plastic bags for people to put their pillows in so they wouldn’t get wet.
Journal Weekly Digest: Bring in the lawyers
We all knew it would happen eventually: the union has officially protested with the government that the Journal de Montréal is using scabs to replace 253 locked-out workers.
Specifically, it is asking for an injunction preventing the Journal from using content derived form the “Agence QMI” news service as well as other Quebecor publications and websites. It’s also asking that freelancers be restricted to providing the same amount of work as they did before the lockout, and not being given more space to replace locked-out columnists (they point specifically to Joseph Facal, who had written once a week but was upgraded to twice a week after the lockout started). And it complains about cartoonist YGreck, who hadn’t appeared in the Journal de Montréal before but has been used since the lockout.
The text of the complaint is available as a PDF on Rue Frontenac.
Exhibit A in the union’s argument is the decision reached in the Journal de Québec case which showed that much of what that paper did during its lockout was exploiting illegal scab labour, including those who worked for other Quebecor divisions, notably the Canoe website. The main difference in the Journal de Montréal case is that 24 Heures and ICI, where it’s taking much of its content from, existed long before the lockout and are legitimate publications. The question will be whether the work some of them are doing is being done primarily for the Journal’s benefit, in which case it would probably be ruled illegal.
Quebecor, of course, denies that they’re breaking any laws, just as they did with the Journal de Québec.
The government won’t step in, but the STIJM (and the FPJQ which supports them in this matter) still hope the case will be expedited.
Meanwhile…
- Rue Frontenac asked Influence Communication to crunch the numbers, and surprise surprise Quebecor newspapers tend to promote Quebecor television shows to the detriment of shows on competing networks Radio-Canada, Télé-Québec and TQS.
- The CSN is accusing the Journal of dumping issues to keep its readership numbers up despite a drop in demand. And there was protest.
- Guy Fournier has joined the Journal as a television columnist, something the union has a big problem with and apparently caused a scene during Christiane Charette’s radio show where he announced the appointment.
- Rue Frontenac has started a wine column and a hockey blog.
- Lots more petty nitpicking of errors, manufactured stories and errors in judgment at the Journal and embarrassing personal issues of its managers. Thankfully this stuff isn’t featured prominently at Rue Frontenac because nobody cares outside of the union.
- Solidarité! TVA employees support their comrades.
- The union thankfully has the communist vote now.
- Richard Martineau got some mean words said to him during a union protest of him personally and complained about it in his column. He also suggests that some comments made by unnamed union people were racist, and wants readers to send him stories of their harrassments by unions.
- Une erreur inexpliquable
And at Le Réveil, Quebecor’s other locked-out newspaper, they’re handing out stickers so people can show they’re boycotting the free weekly paper.
The audacity of gripe
Campaign ad at Crémazie metro
With only seven months to go until the Nov. 1 municipal election, Vision Montreal leader Benoit Labonté has launched his campaign, which includes ads like the one seen above as well as a blog which his duties as Ville-Marie mayor apparently leave him plenty of time to keep updated. (There are also the requisite YouTube, Twitter and Facebook pages)
Labonté, whose public persona is so poor he’s being outpolled by the city’s equivalent of Ralph Nader, has a lot of work to do in those seven months if he’s going to be competitive in this fall’s election – both in his race for mayor and the downticket races for city councillors and borough executives that his party’s future depends on.
His main fault is that nobody knows anything about him or what he’s about, other than his rather public falling out with Mayor Gérald Tremblay. That’s a problem entirely of his doing. When you see interviews or campaign videos, you hear words like “audace” and “espoir” and “intégrité” and whatever. But Tremblay could say the same about himself. There’s no differentiation between the two of them.
It’s not a question of message. The two men simply don’t diverge enough in their opinions. Labonté is big on sustainable development and green policy (for the most part – see below). But so is Tremblay. Labonté wants the private sector to contribute to make this city better. But so does Tremblay.
Labonté’s image problem stems from the simple fact that Tremblay has actually been a pretty good mayor. Sure, he’s had issues with the demerged suburbs, his executive committee performs far too much of the people’s work behind closed doors, the municipal bureaucracy is horribly bloated and the unions all hate his guts. But none of that would change in a Labonté administration.
I tried to look at Vision Montreal’s platform to see what kind of policies they would follow, what kind of bylaws they would pass and what kind of budget they would create that would be different than the current administration. But I couldn’t find one, either on Labonté’s website or on the Vision Montreal one. Even his political “manifesto” doesn’t include any specific ideas in its 2,347 words. The closest thing I could find were a couple of videos posted a year ago, including the one above, which outline some things he’s done as borough mayor. But I’ve already pointed out the flaws in these (to recap: his plastic bag recycling system creates waste where there was none before; his Parco-Don is a gimmick that isn’t bringing in much money; and to add a new one – his commitment to pedestrianization of streets is tainted by his demand to get rid of a reserved bus lane in the Old Port because it interferes with traffic and parking).
UPDATE (April 11): Spacing Montreal has links to show Labonté’s inconsistencies when it comes to his policies.
Labonté needs to figure out what he’s about. Perhaps my view is tainted by the fact that he lied to me the one time I interviewed him, but I don’t think I’m the only one whose first impression of him is of a self-obsessed politician who will pander to whoever is necessary to win an election.
Fortunately, he has seven months to fix that image and present a vision that has more ideas and fewer vague political clichés.
Benoit Labonté's blog has lots of pictures of him
Oh, and since I criticized Tremblay’s party website for having too many photos of him on it, I should probably point out that Labonté’s website has half a dozen photos of him on it too.
There’s no such thing as a flash mob
When I interviewed Newmindspace co-founder Kevin Bracken after Montreal’s first metro party in 2007, the Torontonian told me he hated the term “flash mob“, mainly because it was created in order to make fun of it.
After following various events that have been referred to as flash mobs in the media, it’s hard not to concur, if only because the term has been used to define almost any public gathering of strangers organized online.
Most events of this nature can be split into one of two groups:
- the Improv Everywhere-style stunts in which people who may or may not know each other get together and pull a prank on unsuspecting bystanders in a public place
- public fun activities like metro parties or silent discos or snowball fights (such as the events Newmindspace organizes on a regular basis)
The latter more accurately fits the description, but is hardly worthy of the rather negative term “mob”.
I bring this up because of an event that happened yesterday: a public spectacle at the Berri-UQAM metro station that the public was invited to participate in. It was described as a “flash mob” by its creator, but it was really just a PR stunt.
A PR stunt for cancer prevention, which I’m all for and everything, but a PR stunt nonetheless.
What bugs me most is that this was organized through a “flash mob” Facebook group which was taken over by a marketing company without its members’ permission. I suppose it’s not the end of the world. People can just remove themselves from the group if they don’t like it. And who’s going to oppose a public event for cancer awareness?
But it’s an example of grassroots fun being usurped by corporate interests. Instead of “flash mobs”, they’re now “street marketing” events. Yesterday, it was a yellow-scarfed song for cancer research. Will the next one be shilling for Doritos? Will commuters have to live in fear every day they go to work because they might be forced into some ill-conceived marketing stunt in which they’ve been made the sucker?
We’ll see.
Meanwhile, if you’re looking for non-corporate fun, Montreal’s pillow fight is Saturday at 3pm at Phillips Square.