NYT reporter who broke Trump campaign/Russia story is same reporter who broke Clinton email server story. That's called a free & fair press. pic.twitter.com/OPzWQowKSF

— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 15, 2017

News about news

• He’s baaaaack! Pierre Karl Péladeau is once again president and CEO of Quebecor. Pierre Dion gets demoted to chairman of the board of Quebecor Media.
• The federal government has released a report from Ipsos about consultations on the future of media. The 55-page document has a lot of vague statements about the need to review mandates and rules and funding models, and is pretty light on concrete proposals.
• 98.5fm interviewed press gallery president Louis Lacroix and The Suburban editor Beryl Wajsman about the lack of anglophone journalists in Quebec City, after learning of the departure of the Montreal Gazette’s Caroline Plante. (The Gazette has not announced what is happening with its Quebec City bureau.) After the previous departure of reporters for CJAD, the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Press, the only other full-time journalists in the provincial capital for anglo media are the three TV reporters and their cameramen.
• A guy whose newspaper has a similar name as a fake media outlet invented to promote a movie had to pay the price for the confusion.
• The Globe and Mail has poll results showing Canadians are worried about fake news.

At the CRTC

• The federal government has extended until March 6 the deadline to apply for four CRTC commissioner positions, including chairman.
• RIDE TV, a specialty channel all about horses, has been approved for distribution in Canada. Telus applied for the authorization.
• The commission has formally revoked the licence of CJBN-TV Kenora, Ont., after Shaw decided not to renew the tiny-market station’s licence. The station, which wasn’t part of the Global TV network, shut down on Jan. 27. Its local programming continues on the local Shaw community TV channel.
• Radio station CKRW (The Rush) in Whitehorse has applied to the CRTC to temporarily switch its main transmitter from a 50-year-old 1,000-watt AM transmitter to its FM retransmitter, after getting an engineering report that the AM antenna has degraded to the point where it is no longer safe. The temporary switch will be followed by another application to do the same thing on a permanent basis. CKRW also has seven other transmitters in Yukon and one in the Northwest Territories.
• Former CRTC Quebec commissioner Suzanne Lamarre has joined law firm Therrien Couture, where she will work at its St-Hyacinthe office.

TV

Good Morning Ottawa! @HenryBurris and @liannelaing sitting in the host chairs. pic.twitter.com/vxBxdtTDGB

— CTVMorningLiveOttawa (@CTVOttMornLive) February 21, 2017

• After its proposal to shut down all but one of its remaining over-the-air transmitters generated a lot of opposition (including 85 interventions for the CRTC application), TVO has decided to reverse its position and keep them running.
• Alexandre Despatie isn’t the only former athlete to get a job hosting morning TV. Former Ottawa Redblacks quarterback Henry Burris has joined CTV Morning Live in Ottawa. His first show was Tuesday, and you can watch it here. He’ll also be a contributor to Bell Media’s talk radio stations in Ottawa.
• Rogers has become the first company to decide to drastically cut community television programming to redirect funding to local TV stations, as the CRTC’s new policy has allowed large vertically integrated media companies to do. 10 people have been laid off at Rogers TV in Toronto.
• TSN and RDS have extended their rights agreement with NASCAR for an undisclosed number of years.
• CBC has ordered a Canadian version of the Great British Bake Off.
• Super Channel will turn one of its four feeds into a 24/7 e-sports channel.
• Bell’s acquisition of Manitoba’s MTS, which includes its telecom and TV distribution services, got approval from the federal government and is expected to close March 17. In addition to selling some customers to Telus, it has also reached a deal with Xplornet, which allows Manitoba to keep a fourth mobile services player.
• HGTV announced its returning Canadian original series this spring.
• Pierre-Yves Lord has been named the new co-host of Deux hommes en or. He replaces Jean-Philippe Wauthier as Patrick Lagacé’s partner on the Télé-Québec Friday night talk show.
• Sportsnet notes that the Feb. 4 Canadian Women’s Hockey League game between Montreal and Toronto had 136,400 viewers, making it the most-watched CWHL game ever.
• Global says the Feb. 11 episode of Saturday Night Live had the best rating since 2004, with 1.7 million viewers.
• A story in The Athletic notes that TSN and Sportsnet have different policies about letting on-air talent engage in political commentary (paywalled).

Radio

• The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says it’s okay with André Arthur of BLVD 102.1 in Quebec City voicing his own ads.
• CBC Montreal’s Daybreak and host Mike Finnerty got some national exposure on Tuesday after Conservative MP Tony Clement hung up on him during an interview.
• CJAD’s Dr. Laurie Betito got involved in helping PornHub with sex education.

Print

Every NYT front page since 1852 pic.twitter.com/ODtqJe18u8

— Josh Begley (@joshbegley) February 20, 2017

• Le Quotidien in Saguenay will no longer publish a Sunday paper as of April.
• The Montreal Gazette has reversed a decision to eliminate its sports scoreboard page after an outcry from readers. Daily statistics returned in a half-page format.
• Quebec newspaper publishers are trying to fight a new bill that would reduce demand for newspaper advertising by changing the requirement for public notices to be published in local newspapers.
• The St. John’s Telegram apologized after a front-page headline (“Too drunk to remember”) drew complaints that it blamed the victim in an alleged sexual assault.

Online

• Canadaland is doing a tour to promote its new book. In Montreal on May 20.

News about people

• The Montreal Gazette lost half its photo staff to layoffs and buyouts. Gone are John Kenney, Marie-France Coallier, Phil Carpenter and Dario Ayala.
• Former Postmedia columnist Michael Den Tandt has taken a new job as communications advisor for the Trudeau government.
• Jim Slotek took a buyout from the Toronto Sun
• Kady O’Malley has left the Ottawa Citizen
• Geneviève Pettersen has ended her column at Châtelaine, deciding she’s tired of formulating opinions
• Conrad Black has dropped a defamation suit against writer Bruce Livesey

Good reads

• Wired on the digital transformation of the New York Times

Obituaries

• Stuart McLean, CBC Radio host. Too many obituaries to link to them all, from the Globe and Mail to CBC itself and even the New York Times. Tributes from Jonathan Goldstein, Shelagh Rogers, Montreal Gazette’s Celine Cooper, and Vinyl Café fans.
• Steve Buttry, American journalist and editor
• Ben Tierney, Southam News foreign correspondent

Jobs

• Parliamentary correspondent in Quebec City, Le Devoir (deadline: Feb. 23)
• Transportation reporter, Financial Post (deadline: Feb. 24)
• CJF Globe and Mail internship (deadline: Feb. 24)
• Journalist, 24 Heures (deadline: March 6)
• Fact-checking journalist, Métro (deadline: March 7)
• Copy editor, Les Affaires (deadline: March 16)
• Tenure track professor in data journalism at Concordia University (deadline: March 24)

Upcoming events

• Feb. 25: Day of action to protect press freedom
• March 24-26: Radio-Canada hackathon
• May 20: Canadaland in Montreal