Monthly Archives: December 2009

The CBC-Post monster is getting bigger

Hey, remember when the CBC and National Post signed that content-sharing agreement and everyone was like “dude, WTF?”

Well, it looks like they’re extending it to include coverage of the Vancouver Olympics (press release, press release on NP site), producing a “co-branded” website for coverage.

The CBC used to be king for Olympics coverage, but then it lost the rights to CTV, so it will for the first time since 1994 be covering an Olympics it doesn’t have rights to. And considering how television rights crippled CTV so much it had to show still images instead of video, expect CBC to face similar obstacles in February.

Similarly, the Post’s competitor the Globe and Mail is the official national newspaper of the Games. That won’t mean exclusive rights and it’s not clear if there are any editorial implications of this designation, but it puts the Post one step behind, at least psychologically.

But … the CBC and National Post hate each other.

Or, at least, that’s what they want us to think.

Anyone else think this is like the second season of a bad sitcom where the two main characters’ anger toward each other boils over and they explode in a torrent of rage that’s suddenly interrupted when they spontaneously get aroused and start passionately sucking face, leading to a long night of hot sex?

Are the CBC and National Post … getting it on? Is this Olympics website their illegitimate love child?

If so, when’s the hangover and walk of shame?

Last chance to apply for a Gazette internship

This desk could be yours!

This desk could be yours!

Friday is the deadline to apply for a Gazette 2010 summer internship. The internship, which is how I got started there, runs from May to September and is paid at a respectable rate, 80% of the starting salary for the position. The number of positions changes from year to year, but usually involves four reporters, a copy editor and an online editor.

The Concordia journalism department has a copy of the letter (PDF) sent to schools asking for applications.

Among the requirements:

  • Currently enrolled in a university-level program
  • Fully bilingual (being able to read, speak and understand French is essential for a working journalist in Quebec)
  • Have a driver’s license

The ability to write is also considered an asset (but then, they hired me, so their standards are flexible).

Concordia Journalism has a list of other internships, though some of the deadlines have already passed. J-Source also has a list of internships, though some of the links and information is out of date.

TVA helicopter crash-lands

LCN brings in the big guns - Pierre Bruneau - to anchor a crash special.

LCN brings in the big guns - Pierre Bruneau - to anchor a crash special.

This morning, the TVA helicopter crash-landed near the Bonaventure expressway downtown for reasons still unknown. The pilot, Antoine Léger, and journalist Réjean Léveillé are injured but their lives are not in danger. (Which is good news, because the last thing we need is another news helicopter-related fatality.)

UPDATE: More from La Presse.

Helicopter crashes are right up LCN’s alley, but since this was their helicopter (which ironically meant they couldn’t send a helicopter out to film it), this story took on a whole new importance. Pierre Bruneau hosted a one-hour special at 9am – pre-empting Claude Poirier – whose only news story was this crash-landing. It’s also leading every newscast with helicopter stories (as of 3pm, 10 minutes at the top of the hour and 5 minutes at the half-hour mark).

It’s a fact of life that the media love reporting on themselves. Whether it’s a meaningless award they’ve won, a news anchor’s retirement, or a labour disruption at a competing news outlet, these stories get more attention than they would if they related to non-media. A few hundred jobs are lost at a factory and it’s a business brief. A few dozen at a newspaper or TV station and it’s a big story.

I’m just as guilty there – this blog is all about local media.

So is LCN going overboard here just because it’s a TVA helicopter? Or is this just an understandable outpouring of support from a network that put family above the news?

Yes, he was a sexual predator

Nicolas Stone, a man I interviewed in 2007 about his opposition (for the sake of his children’s safety) to an extension of Cavendish Blvd. into Cartierville, has pled guilty to 71 charges of sexual assault, illegal sexual contact and child pornography. He has admitted to using the Internet to lure girls from 12 to 15 into acts from taking naked pictures of themselves to having actual sex with him.

A date for sentencing will be set on Feb. 8.

I was welcomed into this man’s home, and he looked entirely normal to me. Just goes to show…

FPJQ conference video: behold the elegance

Projet J has uploaded two videos shot at the conference of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec held last month. The first video (above) asks the members present about the future of journalism, and has brief interviews with culture minister Christine St-Pierre and Dominique Payette, who will be doing a study into the status of media in Quebec.

The second video (below) focuses on the contested election for FPJQ president, eventually won by Le Devoir’s Brian Myles.

Perhaps I’m missing the big picture here, but the sight of journalists wining and dining at a fancy dinner while complaining about how poor they are doesn’t quite jive with me.

Neither does the B52s soundtrack.

Letter from Journal de Montréal pisses off locked-out workers

There was a bit of a ruckus overnight in Mirabel.

The Journal de Montréal management, in response to the union’s call for new negotiations to end the almost year-long lockout, laid out the “reality” of the situation and reiterated the demands made before the lockout began. Both the union and the employer accuse the other of backtracking on deals made during negotiations last year.

After receiving letters yesterday of management’s presentation to the union negotiating committee on Friday (the text of which is reproduced below), Journal workers went to the Mirabel printing plant where the Journal is printed and picketed outside, delaying delivery of the paper (and, as “collateral damage”, Le Devoir as well, as it’s now printed there). Press release and stories from Rue Frontenac, Journal de Québec, CBC, Radio-Canada and Presse Canadienne.

The Journal condemned the “illegal” manifestation in a statement.

UPDATE (Dec. 16): La Presse has more on the situation in a day-after story.

Continue reading

STL is cool with the technostuff

The Société de transport de Laval is using Google Maps to show detours of its bus routes. It has eight so far, including this latest one for the 144 bus. Not only does doing something like this look cool, but it opens up data that can be exported to other sources.

The STL is also using Twitter to notify users of transit alerts.

But these videos? Just give us the transcript, thanks.

The special section

Le Devoir’s Stéphane Baillargeon laments the lack of prominence given to reporting about poverty in the media these days, even through a serious recession.

The reason, of course, is simple: poverty doesn’t pay.

It’s one of those unfortunate realities of the media that, no matter how many barriers you put up between editorial and advertising, there will always be pressure for the latter to affect the former, and a tendency for that wall to slowly crumble.

One prime example of this (and it’s not a recent development) is so-called “special sections”. Long ago, some newspaper advertising department genius discovered that you’re more likely to attract advertising if the editorial content appeals to the advertiser.

Because automotive companies have among the largest advertising budgets, special sections related to cars are among the most prevalent. In fact, most newspapers have multiple automotive sections every week, even now despite their shrinking sizes. Other attractive topics include sports, employment, real estate, investing, travel, health, home electronics and fashion.

In some cases, the idea of editorial freedom is chucked out the window completely and the section designated “advertorial” (or the more nuanced “special advertising section” or other euphemisms for such). In others, that wall between editorial and advertising is maintained, and the advertisers have no say in the content, except, of course, that it be on a certain topic.

And that’s the problem, because not all topics have big-money advertisers willing to bankroll newspaper sections. Books sections are disappearing from newspapers because book publishers don’t have large advertising budgets. Poverty doesn’t have a financial backer, which is why you never see special sections about it. Homeless shelters don’t have large advertising budgets (that won’t change no matter how many people subscribe to this blog), and neither do so many issues that don’t involve people buying expensive things. Forget reporting on international issues, human relationships, political corruption, the food industry, philosophy, science or other matters that don’t involve excess consumption. Instead, they all have to share space in the cramped, overworked general news section, along with the political horse-race stories and cop briefs.

The environment is a bit of an exception to this. A lot of advertisers are pushing green initiatives, either because they think they’ll make money off of it or just because they’re trying to drum up some good cred. But otherwise, money is a more important factor than importance. That’s why there’s no special section on science but two on RRSPs and one on golf.

The problem is only getting worse as newspapers cut back. Choosing between a books section that loses a lot of money and an automotive section that pays for itself, newspapers will keep the latter.

Contrast the special sections in commercial newspapers with the special sections in student newspapers and the differences show clearly. The student paper I worked for had special sections on gender, sexuality, disability, poverty, and all sorts of other topics that don’t usually get special attention in the mainstream media.

Mainstream media, that is, except Le Devoir. That’s why it’s so small. It could make a lot of money filling its pages with advertiser-friendly fluff, but it has chosen to build a stronger wall to protect its editorial side. Either that, or it’s just being particularly hoity-toity about the type of content it produces.

Gazette launches news widget

Gazette widget for Mac Dashboard in its default configuration

Gazette widget for Mac Dashboard in its default configuration

Gazette Mac Dashboard widget settings page

Gazette Mac Dashboard widget settings page

Today, The Gazette is launching a real 21st-century widget. I’ve tried it and am prepared to endorse it as “cool.” Not to mention convenient and helpful.

Those are the words of my boss, Gazette Publisher and Editor-in-Chief Alan Allnutt, welcoming the new Gazette widget for PC and Mac. And you know if he finds it cool, then …

It’s essentially a branded, customized RSS widget similar to what Cyberpresse launched a year ago. It just launched, so the features are very light – all you can do is choose which categories you want and then select between 1 and 4 headlines for each.

I’ll leave the reviews to people not currently employed by the paper: would you use this regularly?

Montreal Geography Trivia No. 64

Montreal Geography Trivia No. 64

What is this a picture of?

UPDATE: Just about everyone guessed correctly that these are decomposing railway ties, but Frank was the first to properly guess that these are decomposing tramway ties, uncovered because of excavation work.

Exposed tramway rail and ties on Sherbrooke St. W. near Loyola, taken in September 2006.

Exposed tramway rail and ties on Sherbrooke St. W. near Loyola, taken in September 2006.

The city is littered with tramway rails that were merely paved over after the network was dismantled. Some are later exposed through potholes, others because of excavation work, and are slowly being removed. But much of the vast network still remains, just inches below the surface of the street.

The entirely unbiased history of the Journal de Québec lockout

The Syndicat Canadien de la fonction public publique (Canadian Union of Public Employees) has put together a 23-minute video (in French and with English subtitles) about the 15-month lockout of editorial employees (and subsequent strike by press workers) at the Journal de Québec in 2007 and 2008.

As you can imagine, being a union-produced video, it’s hardly detached from the situation and presents a somewhat distorted view. There are no interviews with Quebecor or Journal management (who knows if the SCFP even tried). Talk of the deal that was eventually reached talks of it being a huge victory for the workers, while in reality it was more of a reasonable compromise between the two sides’ demands.

Even though the labour disruption ended in the summer of 2008, the saga is far from over. The union is appealing a court decision that nullified a labour board ruling that the Journal used scabs as subcontractors during the lockout. There’s also a fight over Quebecor Media wanting to add additional Journal de Québec journalists to the National Assembly to make up for the Journal de Montréal journalists currently being locked out.

Looking back at the conflict also serves as a comparison with the current situation at the Journal de Montréal (and Le Réveil, whose 26 locked-out workers want to go back to the table). The chasm between workers and employer in Montreal is even larger than it was in Quebec, although many of the issues are the same.

But the union, and the documentary, are right about one big thing: The MédiaMatinQuébec experiment changed the face of labour disruptions involving journalists, and is serving as a template. The template couldn’t be entirely replicated by the STIJM in Montreal (Montreal already has two free newspapers – one owned by Quebecor – and the territory is larger than Quebec City), but the Rue Frontenac website might not have happened were it not for MMQ.

Unfortunately for the union members, Quebecor also learned from the Journal de Québec lockout. It learned how to get around anti-scab laws, and made sure its Agence QMI was setup so it could take news from other sources and reproduce them in the Journal de Montréal.

If the Journal de Montréal workers end up with a deal similar to what the Journal de Québec workers got, that will probably also be hailed as a huge victory for the union. But who knows how long it will be until that happens. Both Quebecor and the STIJM are prepared for the long haul.

Le Trente also has some discussion about the SCFP’s video.

Le reste du Canada

This post discusses language politics. Enter at your own risk.

This post discusses language politics. Enter at your own risk.

To me, it sounded like the kind of story that would tickle the news whiskers of Quebec’s francophone media: the government of Quebec publishing a document entirely in English and sending it to a francophone.

Except there was one problem: the francophone didn’t live in Quebec. He lived in Ontario.

When Radio-Canada’s Ottawa bureau came out with the news that Tourisme Québec had sent unilingual anglophone marketing material to surrounding regions, and that this happened to include some franco-Ontarians, it caused a stir … among anglophone media in Montreal. CBC Montreal picked up the story, and The Gazette ran an editorial denouncing the decision.

In the French media, the reaction was minimal. An entry on Chantal Hébert’s blog, a by-the-way mention by Pierre Jury at Le Droit (the French-language paper in Ottawa). Its biggest exposure probably came from a post by Patrick Lagacé, though even then it only received a handful of comments.

Despite RadCan’s use of the term “choquante”, the scandal is fairly minor. The brochure in question was meant for audiences in New England and Ontario, and Tourisme Québec is right that most of that audience is anglophone. The diminishing budget of Quebec’s tourism agency means that they can’t please everyone.

But, as the Gazette editorial says, it fits in with this idea that hard-line language zealots in Quebec care only about the status of French on one side of the Outaouais. Even though the rest of Canada is where French is most at risk, there’s little outrage when stuff like this happens. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps it’s because language extremists are also militant separatists, and what happens outside Quebec’s borders is of no concern to them. When sovereignty finally comes, the border will protect les Québécois, and on s’en crisse du reste.

Or perhaps Quebec anglophones like me are overcompensating for their guilt about fighting for anglo rights by pretending to care about other linguistic minorities.

Are the English media paying too much attention to this story, or are the French media paying too little?

Young writers on old writers

Alan Hustak

Alan Hustak. He doesn't always wear a top hat.

Two articles were posted on a bulletin board at work recently, one from each of Concordia’s two student newspapers, and both profiling old people veteran Gazette journalists.

The Link talks to Alan Hustak, who until March was a reporter for the city section whose specialty was obituaries. The article says he “retired”, though the true nature of Hustak’s sudden departure from the newspaper remains a mystery even to his colleagues.

The article discusses the state of newspaper obituaries today, which are sadly lacking, at least in quantity. Most newspapers block off whole pages for paid obituaries, and the space that’s left unfilled by paid notices is given to editorial to fill with narrative obituaries. But because there is more space available than fascinating obituaries to fill it – even in this world of super-tight editorial space – newspapers tend to scrape the bottom of the barrel, taking obits from the New York Times, Washington Post or Los Angeles Times about obscure scientists and artists whose claims to fame are arguable at best.

Since leaving The Gazette, Hustak has been writing for The Métropolitain (you can read his obituary for Len Dobbin) as well as putting together obits for the Globe and Mail (like this one for former VIA Rail chairman Lawrence Hannigan).

Generations apart

Next to the Link article on Hustak was this one from The Concordian, about Red Fisher. Little you don’t already know about Fisher from other writings on the topic, though he talks a bit about how players don’t make good quotes anymore (those that do are quickly punished for it) and how the media is too concerned with sports stars’ personal lives (one can imagine Fisher’s thoughts on the whole Tiger Woods saga).

He also says younger journalists should get off his lawn be careful about too much reliance on the Internet, and all the false information spread that way (by the way, did you hear about the latest rumour with Carey Price, Maxim Lapierre and Vincent Lecavalier?).

The most interesting part of the article, to me, is a mistake in it, that unintentionally explains so well the generational gap in play here:

The first woman he ever saw in a team’s dressing room was The New York Times’ first female sports reporter, Robin Herman, in the 1970’s. After an All-Star game at the Pepsi Forum that night, Fisher recalled, Herman and another female journalist from a French radio station boldly decided they were going down to the team’s dressing room.

I’m pretty sure Red Fisher has never seen an All-Star game from the Pepsi Forum.