Monthly Archives: April 2017

April 26, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Canada less free, no more Montreal Billboard, Rogers buys Vancouver AM station

News about news

Reporters Without Borders has come out with its latest ranking of press freedom, and Canada has dropped four spots to come in at 22nd. The group cites police surveillance of journalists, particularly in Quebec, as a reason for the drop.
RTDNA Canada, the association of radio, television and digital media, handed out regional awards for the Central Region (Ontario and Quebec) and B.C. CBC Montreal won seven awards, and CBC Quebec City won three more. I don’t tend to put much stock in the regional awards because of the low number of entries and high number of awards. Case in point: CFJC-TV Kamloops won the B.C. regional award for best TV newscast in a small market, mainly because it was the only entry in that category. (I was on the judging panel.) The organization also announced a bunch of lifetime achievement awards, to Terry Milewski and Charles Adler nationally, and three people regionally including CTV Montreal’s Mutsumi Takahashi. Oh, and Stuart McLean is being given a posthumous President’s Award.
The National Post has won an appeal of a libel suit brought on by climate scientist Andrew Weaver. The appellate judges say the trial judge should not have read the several pieces written about Weaver together and based the decision on them, but rather should have considered them individually.
Radio-Canada is suing the Quebec government for making it harder for journalists to search the province’s business registry by name.
The news director at TVA in Trois-Rivières has been suspended after being charged with Internet luring of minors.

At the CRTC

Chairman Jean-Pierre Blais isn’t afraid to call out hypocrisy from Bell and other telcos.
Missed this from earlier in the month: A letter from the commission clarifies that 4K channels owned by vertically integrated companies have the same requirements as HD ones in terms of being available to competitors at the same time they launch. Telus complained because they couldn’t reach an agreement to launch Sportsnet 4K. Telus can now add the channel and the two can go to arbitration later if they can’t reach an agreement on price.
Another CRTC letter finds that Sirius XM Canada was far short on its required contributions to Canadian content development, mainly because it donated money to ineligible programs. A $70,000 payment to POP Montreal, for example, was deemed too self-serving.

TV

NHL second-round TV broadcast schedules and NBC/Sportsnet play-by-play teams pic.twitter.com/pBAJxXOmuC

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 25, 2017

The NHL playoffs begin their second round tonight, with only two Canadian teams remaining. Oilers fans without a subscription to Sportsnet are still getting screwed. But at least the Ottawa games are on CBC now. With the Canadiens out of the playoffs, TVA Sports won’t be getting audiences of 1.5 million anymore.
Speaking of sports ratings, NBA games saw theirs drop this year.
MAtv has pulled the plug on Montreal Billboard, a series that talks to people from non-profit community organizations. Host Kim Sullivan still has her job at Global, and now so too does Dan Spector, whose contract at MAtv came to an end and will now be a videojournalist at Global Montreal. It’s expected MAtv will find other projects for the English community, including those proposed by the community.
Bell Media is starting something called The Launch, which will be a six-part music competition series focused on creating hit songs rather than singers. It’s an original format that Bell hopes to sell worldwide. Insight Productions, Bell’s go-to company for such reality TV (Canadian Idol, Juno Awards, Amazing Race Canada) will produce the series this fall for airing in 2018.
The Writers Guild of Canada handed out awards for screenwriting.
Like Sportsnet, TSN is so hungry for curling it’s creating new competitions.
Bell put its estimated loss of Super Bowl ad revenue because of the CRTC decision on simultaneous substitution at $11 million this year.
History is working on a new documentary series about Canada’s cannabis industry. Bud Dynasty will have seven half-hour episodes.
FX Canada screwed up on airing the season premiere of Fargo last week, forcing a do-over two days later. Apparently it lost the last 15 minutes or so.
Radio-Canada says it will launch Panora.tv, an online marketplace for public broadcasting content, this fall.

Radio

CBC is launching its radio station in London, Ont., in June. The station, CBCL-FM 93.5, will have a local morning show, and will be home to a regional afternoon show that also covers Windsor. The CBC also says it will be a digital-first operation, with digital news platforms being given priority.
Rogers, which last month acquired exclusive radio rights to Vancouver Canucks games, has found a solution to the problem of where to put them, and it won’t be on its News 1130 talk station. Instead, it’s buying CISL 650 AM from Newcap and will turn it into its third Sportsnet radio station this fall. CISL, which has an easy listening format, was an Astral Media station that Bell sold when it acquired Astral so it could keep its two all-sports stations in the market. The selling price was not disclosed, but we’ll probably learn it the next time Newcap reports financial results. Newcap bought CISL and two (much more profitable) FM stations from Bell for $112 million in 2013. The Vancouver Sportsnet station would be the third for Rogers after Toronto and Calgary, and would make Vancouver the only market with three sports stations. Meanwhile at Bell, which has lost a major rights deal and has a new competitor, they might be thinking of converting that second TSN Radio station into something else.
Julie Snyder, who was a big star at TVA when she was in a relationship with its owner and isn’t now that they’re separated, has taken a job at Radio-Canada, though it’s in radio, not television. And she’ll be doing it from the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.
U.S. radio giant iHeartRadio might not survive another year because of its crushing debt load. If it goes under, it’s unclear what that might mean for Bell Media, which uses the iHeart brand and platform for its radio stations in Canada.

Print

Transcontinental is cutting another 20 jobs at its community newspapers in Quebec, just as they’re looking to sell them.
Talks with unionized workers at the Ottawa Citizen have failed to reach an agreement, so the two sides are going to conciliation.
Workers at Postmedia papers in Vancouver have approved a new deal with the company that will save 21 jobs by having everyone earn a bit less.

Online

Nominees for the Digital Publishing Awards have been announced. The Globe and Mail and CBC have several nominations, and GlobalNews.ca, Vice and BuzzFeed also got some noms. Winners are announced June 1.
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales is launching a website to combat “fake news” with professional journalists and some wiki-like crowdsourcing. News stories about this announcement don’t mention that there’s already Wikinews, though there are no professional journalists there.
The Huffington Post is now just HuffPost. And is making a big deal out of that. Meanwhile, the HuffPost has invited student journalists who got their principal fired to be their guests at the White House Correspondents Dinner, which will be low on Hollywood stars this year (and also minus one president).
About.com is being shut down, replaced with a series of niche verticals.

News about people

Well folks, as you can tell by my new Twitter handle, I was also among the cuts today at ESPN.

— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) April 26, 2017

ESPN is laying off 100 people, according to reports. The list includes Canadians Pierre LeBrun and Scott Burnside, though LeBrun will still be seen on TSN and RDS. There are also other cuts at the sports broadcaster, which has to balance its books as rights fees increase and subscribers decrease.
In case you haven’t already heard, Bill O’Reilly is not coming back to Fox News. He joins Megyn Kelly, Gretchen Carlson and Greta van Susteren as Fox News stars who have left the network recently.
When you have two people in on-air jobs at TVA both named Félix Séguin, it’s inevitable they get confused. Which is what happened on FM93 when the hockey Séguin was put on air to talk about a scoop by the news Séguin. He said the confusion happens a lot.
Tommy Schnurmacher will be a regular on the CHOM morning show on Thursdays at 7:10.

Obituaries

Jobs

Reporter, The Canadian Press in Toronto
Journalist, L’actualité (deadline: April 28)
Journalists, Journal de Montréal (deadline: May 2)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 2: CBC Quebec public consultation
May 2: Benefit dinner for freedom of the press, organized by the FPJQ
May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

April 20, 2017 | Technology

CRTC: Videotron’s Unlimited Music program is illegal

In a big step toward the principle of net neutrality, the CRTC today established policies about differential pricing of Internet data (both wireless and wired) and ruled that a Videotron promotion that offers free streaming of music from selected music streaming services is against the rules.

The Videotron promotion in question is called Unlimited Music, which it debuted in August 2015. And the way it worked was it reached agreements with several music providers like Spotify and Google Play and Apple Music and exempted that data from its data caps for premium data plans. People with those higher-end plans could stream as much music as they wanted and never worry about busting their data caps.

But even though just about anyone was invited to join the program, it wasn’t automatic. And radio stations were not invited to join in.

It took minutes for net neutrality advocates to say this was wrong. I literally came out of the press conference announcing it and was on the phone with the head of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre who immediately said it was against the rules. But it took a year and a half for the CRTC process to unfold to declare it so.

Videotron said at the time it believed that because it wasn’t giving undue preference to its own music service, that the program was legal. It was mistaken.

The CRTC’s decision not only makes Unlimited Music illegal, but any plan from any provider that treats data differently depending on where it’s going or what kind of data it is. So a plan that offered no data but free access to Facebook, or a plan that didn’t count email downloads toward the data cap, those are now illegal.

There are some exceptions. One is for administrative functions. If you’re checking with your provider how much data you’ve used up on your plan, that could be exempted from data charges. Another is for “content-agnostic” stuff, like charging different rates depending on different times of day. So long as everything on the Internet gets treated the same, it’s OK.

The commission also leaves the door open to other exceptions opening up, and providers applying for pre-approval of new ideas. CRTC staff tell me such applications would go through the usual application process.

Otherwise, the commission will use guidelines established in its policy to evaluate (after the fact, following complaints) whether a service or program is compliant. These include whether the pricing is offered only on certain data plans, whether any money exchanges hands with third parties, how exclusive the offer is for certain services or subscribers, and “impact on Internet openness and innovation.”

Under the CRTC’s analysis, Unlimited Music did not meet the criteria of agnostic treatment of data, lack of exclusivity, and lack of negative impact on Internet openness and innovation. And there were no exceptional circumstances to warrant an exception to the rules.

So Videotron has until July 19 to bring Unlimited Music into compliance with the rules. But there’s likely no way to do so, so expect it to be withdrawn.

To be clear, this decision relates to data pricing only. Promotions like Rogers offering free Spotify subscriptions to certain users are still legal. But Rogers must treat the data from Spotify like any other Internet data. It can’t exempt that data from its data caps. (And it doesn’t.)

UPDATE: Videotron says it’s disappointed in the decision, and will analyze it in the coming days to figure out how to respond. In the meantime, the Unlimited Music offer remains in effect until further notice, and it promises to keep subscribers up to date.

April 19, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Canadian Film Day, Junos go back to CBC, saving jobs in Vancouver

News about news

Suzanne Legault, Canada’s information commissioner, talks to Maclean’s about how disappointed she is that the government is not making more of an effort to improve access to information.
The Canadian Journalism Foundation and CBC have awarded their indigenous journalism fellowships for this year. Julian Brave NoiseCat of B.C. and Lenard Monkman of Manitoba will get $3,000 plus per diems and travel expenses to report on events for possible broadcast by CBC News.

At the CRTC

Francophone community station CHOD-FM 92.1 proposes synchronized retransmitter on same frequency near Hwy 417 (green/blue pattern) #CRTC pic.twitter.com/3a9177XbrU

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 18, 2017

CHOD-FM, a French-language community radio station serving eastern Ontario, needs to improve its signal, so it has applied to the CRTC for a second transmitter. The second transmitter would use the same frequency (92.1 MHz) and would be located in Dunvegan, along the 417 about halfway between Ottawa and Vaudreuil. Having a synchronized transmitter on the same frequency is hard, especially for a low-budget community station. People between the transmitters will hear a lot of interference if it’s not done perfectly. CHAI-FM 101.9 in Châteauguay tried it with a retransmitter in Candiac, but abandoned that plan and replaced its two-transmitter system with a single transmitter. In a few years we could see CHOD-FM do the same.
The CRTC has released its three-year plan. Not much new here, though it finally expects to do its review of French-language music quotas on radio in 2017-18.
The commission’s decision on differential pricing and zero-rating, a process prompted by a complain about Videotron making access to online music services exempt from data charges and data caps, will be delivered Thursday at 4pm.

TV

CBC is holding online discussions, moderated by Daybreak host Mike Finnerty — in a suit! — as part of its response to criticism of the Canada: The Story of Us history documentary series that has been criticized for lack of inclusion or misrepresentation of French Canadians, westerners, Atlantic Canadians, indigenous peoples and just about everyone else. It’s bilingual (the version with French translation is here) though for this episode at least most of the discussion is in English. They’ll be back for another discussion next week.
Today is National Canadian Film Day:
- Bell Media is celebrating by airing a bunch of Canadian movies on its pay TV movie channels TMN, TMN Encore, Super Écran and Cinépop. Which sounds great, but it’s 25 movies spread across 11 channels (they’re actually airing more than is listed there). Other movies these channels are showing today include Furious 7, Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, The Free State of Jones, Mistress America, Suicide Squad, The Devil at Four O’Clock, War Dogs, Mortdecai, The 33, Madonna: Rebel Heart Tour, Be Cool, Letters from Iwo Jima and I Love My Sister’s Big Tits 6. None of these are Canadian.
- CBC is also celebrating, by putting some films online for free streaming. Radio-Canada will be airing the movie Sarah préfère la course at 2pm.
- Other movies screening on TV include Lesser Blessed on APTN, Strange Brew, Monsieur Lazhar and Trailer Park Boys on Hollywood Suite, Laurence Anyways on OUTtv, The Rocket on Sportsnet One, Love Under the Stars on Super Channel, The Stone Angel on Vision TV, and Porky’s on Sundance channel
The Juno Awards, after 16 years on CTV, are moving back to CBC for at least six more years. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences notes that CBC has promised more content around the Junos year-round.
Historia, which has apparently learned that Montreal Canadiens history is the best way to drive viewership these days, has another documentary coming out, this one about the team’s 1970s dynasty. Starts April 26.
Discovery has a documentary on the Fort MacMurray wildfire airing April 30.
The NHL playoffs continue, taking over CBC six nights a week (they’re keeping Sundays for Anne and The Story of Us). We’re getting some ratings numbers announced. Canadiens Game 1 had 1.165 million viewers on TVA Sports and 1.324 million on CBC, 219,000 of whom were Quebec francophones. On Sunday, TVA Sports had 1,560,000 for the Canadiens, justifying their move of La Voix to Monday, where it got 2,011,000 viewers.
As part of its NHL playoff coverage, NBC is making a thing about having Pierre McGuire in a different city each night. On Thursday, he’ll be at the Bell Centre covering Game 5 of Rangers-Canadiens, though because the game is on USA Network in the States, most Canadians won’t be able to catch him. (TSN’s Chris Cuthbert will be calling the game there, while Paul Romanuk and Garry Galley continue calling it for CBC/Sportsnet.)
A couple of Mohawk girls started a podcast about Mohawk Girls and how the fictional reality of the TV series compares to actual reality on the reserve.

Print

The union representing staff at Postmedia’s Vancouver papers has reached a tentative agreement with the company to save 21 of the 54 jobs cut recently. The deal would see most employees work only four days every other week. Union members will vote on the deal today.
The Boston Globe is reorganizing its staff as newspapers have tended to do these days. They’ll be broken down into teams, some covering breaking news, others on beats and investigations, and a dedicated print team.
The New York Times is changing the way it does placelines because readers don’t understand what they mean. (The fact that many news organizations use fake placelines when covering a story from a distance doesn’t help.) Instead of putting, say, “BEIRUT —” at the beginning of a story, the location of the journalist will go in the byline, as “by Steve Faguy in Beirut”. Purists might scoff at this change, but remember that the NYT refers to these as “datelines” because back in the day when stories would take more than a day to travel around the world, these lines also contained the date a story was written.

Online

One of the things I really like about how the CBC approaches digital video is its embrace of YouTube, not just for posting promos and extras, but full programs to ensure they get as wide an audience as possible. Here, a short 14-minute documentary on a Mohawk school in Kahnawake and the adults working hard to keep it going.
Montreal-based WatchMojo.com has started a new web video series called The Lineup, which is a kind of fantasy hockey game show, hosted by Adam Reid.
Alex Jones’s lawyer says he’s a “performance artist”. Which I’m sure comes as great comfort to Sandy Hook parents who have been harassed by his supporters because he says the murder of dozens of children was faked by the government.

News about people

Mutsumi Takahashi (CTV Montreal news anchor, for the 12 people here who don’t know who she is) is getting a lifetime achievement award from the RTDNA.
Former Telus CEO Joe Natale is CEO of Rogers as of today. Rogers reached a deal with Telus to get him out of his non-compete agreement early.
Lyne Robitaille, who is responsible for newspapers and books at Quebecor Media, will add TVA Publications’ magazine portfolio to her responsibilities.
Patrick Bégin has been named news director for Cogeco Nouvelles.
Toronto Sun entertainment columnist Jim Slotek is a bit critical of his bosses in his farewell column.
Bernard Brault, sports photographer for La Presse, has an exhibition of his work at Lozeau until May 16.
CTV’s Geneviève Beauchemin ran the Boston Marathon.
Chris Mota, who has been doing public relations at Concordia University for 23 years, is retiring. She’s been the university’s voice through some pretty tough times, having to deal not only with professional journalists but also those pesky student ones (including myself 15 years ago).

Good reads

Jobs

Reporter, The Canadian Press in Toronto
Internship (paid), Huffington Post Québec
Business reporter, Montreal Gazette (deadline: April 21)
Political producer in Ottawa, National Post (deadline: April 24)
Canada Media Fund board member (deadline: April 25)
Journalists, Journal de Montréal (deadline: May 2)
Journalist at CJSO-FM in Sorel-Tracy (deadline: May 12)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

May 2: CBC Quebec public consultation
May 2: Benefit dinner for freedom of the press, organized by the FPJQ
May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

April 18, 2017 | Media

Who wants to buy Transcontinental’s community newspapers in Quebec?

As was rumoured last week when it sold its Atlantic Canadian newspaper portfolio to the owners of the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Transcontinental announced this morning that it has put its remaining newspapers, including Métro in Montreal, up for sale. This includes 93 publications, almost all of which are community newspapers in Quebec (there’s also the Seaway News in Cornwall, Ont.). And Transcontinental has grouped them into 27 groups, mainly by region.

The magazine Les Affaires and things like Publisac are not part of the sale process.

No buyer has been announced, and the process should “span several months.” Transcontinental will remain in charge of the newspapers during the process, and “will also continue to be the publisher of newspapers that may remain unsold.”

It’s unusual to announce a sale without a buyer lined up already. But there are also no obvious buyers for a collection of newspapers like this. Nevertheless, let’s go through the possibilities.

Quebecor

Many of these newspapers used to be owned by Quebecor, until they were sold en masse to Transcontinental in a deal first announced more than three years ago. (That deal also evaluated the newspapers at roughly $1 million apiece on average.) So buying them back, even at a discount, would be a big step back for this company that has shed assets to focus on its core properties Videotron and TVA.

On the other hand, Quebecor is going back to the past a bit, bringing Pierre Karl Péladeau back as CEO. If he wasn’t crazy about the sale of the newspapers in the first place (PKP stepped down a few months before it was announced), he could bring them back.

Buying the newspapers would let Quebecor re-establish a Quebec-wide source of local news, which would feed not only those local papers but also the Journal de Montréal/Québec and TVA.

But with Videotron spending a lot of money on building its wireless network and upgrading its cable network, TVA still trying to pull TVA Sports into the black, and the company prioritizing buying back the stake in it held by the Caisse de dépôt, there isn’t much extra cash lying around.

Groupe Capitales Médias

The owner of the half-dozen newspapers that used to be part of the Gesca chain (except La Presse) has regional news coverage as its core mission, so this purchase would make sense in that way.

Unfortunately we know little about GCM’s finances because it’s privately owned and Martin Cauchon still hasn’t been very forthcoming about where he got the money to buy the papers in the first place.

There’s also the fact that this purchase would further drive down competition, though the Postmedia/Sun Media deal effectively established that the Competition Bureau doesn’t care about that anymore.

Torstar

There are several community newspaper publishers in English Canada. Among them, Torstar would seem the most likely candidate to make a bid here. Postmedia doesn’t exactly have a lot of extra money lying around, Black Press and Glacier Media operate only in western Canada and the new Saltwire Network is too new to think about expanding right away (and if it was interested, it might have already bought them).

Torstar co-owns the other Metro newspapers in Canada, so it makes sense to buy Métro Montreal, perhaps separately from the others. And it had an interest in buying the Canwest chain until it lost out to Postmedia in the bidding. Its financial situation isn’t nearly as precarious as Postmedia’s.

But language is a big barrier for Torstar and the others. You can’t share articles or editors or page layouts when you’re working in a different language, and none of their current assets operate in French. There wouldn’t be that much efficiency in sharing resources.

XPND Capital

Alexandre Taillefer has made it a thing to try to rescue industries in need of innovation. He launched Téo Taxi to help the taxi industry compete against Uber. He bought Voir, and when Rogers decided to offload its Quebec publications he bought L’Actualité as well.

He definitely has the money, but does he think he can turn a profit on community newspapers?

Various local owners

An interview Transcontinental president François Olivier did with Presse Canadienne suggests this is the company’s actual vision, to sell off “at least half” of the publications to local owners who would be responsible for editorial and marketing, and would keep Transcontinental as their printer. Olivier also says that the newspapers are profitable, though that’s a difficult thing to measure on an individual basis when so much of newspaper operation is centralized.

There have been a few side deals where papers have been sold to entrepreneurs in their communities interested in buying. Others could be found to take over many of the remaining newspapers, but it’s almost impossible to find buyers for all 93. So going this route might mean many of them eventually get shut down, despite Transcontinental’s promise. (Olivier repeats in his interview that this won’t happen because the papers are profitable.) It would also mean breaking up the network, which relies a lot on centralized resources like editing, pagination and administration.

Rogers, Bell or some other rich media company that doesn’t own newspapers

Anything is possible, but why would they?

Someone rich who’s new to the media industry

Anyone who works at a struggling newspaper company fantasizes about a rich benefactor who buys the paper, doesn’t care about wasted money and doesn’t impose any editorial views. Unfortunately very few people like this exist. But there could be someone who decides to jump in and try to save the industry. We saw it with Cauchon’s purchase of the GCM papers, and with Taillefer’s purchase of Voir and L’Actualité.

It could even be someone, or a group of people, within Transcontinental itself that decide to start a new business. Some of them have decades of experience with community newspapers and could decide to become entrepreneurs.

No one

Finally, there’s the possibility that Transcontinental doesn’t find any takers for the majority of its collection. If they’re making money, it could decide to cancel the sale process and keep them. If they’re not, it could be the beginning of the end. They could remain running for a bit longer, but eventually the company would throw in the towel, and when it does there won’t be another sale offer, everything will just be shut down.

You

Got about $100 million lying around? How about $75 million? Or maybe just a few million for a few papers in your region? If so, contact Allison Dent (dent.allison@rcgt.com) or Arnaud Vital (vital.arnaud@rcgt.com).

We’ll see which of these options comes true in the coming months.

Newspapers for sale

Abitibi-Témiscamingue
- Le Citoyen Rouyn-Noranda
- Le Citoyen de la Vallée-de-l’Or
- L’Écho Abitibien
- La Frontière
Chambly
- Journal de Chambly
Chaudière-Appalaches – (Portfolio 1)
- Le Peuple Lévis
- Le Peuple Lotbinière
Chaudière-Appalaches – (Portfolio 2)
- Beauce Média
- L’Éclaireur Progrès
- Hebdo Régional
- La Voix du Sud
Cornwall (Ontario)
- Seaway News
Drummondville
- L’Express (Wednesday/Sunday)
Estrie
- Le Progrès de Coaticook
- Le Reflet du Lac
Gaspésie
- L’Avantage Gaspésien
- L’Avant-Poste
- L’Écho de la Baie
- Le Havre
- Le Pharillon
- Vision Terre et Forêt
Granby/Cowansville
- L’Avenir et des Rivières
- Granby Express
- Journal Le Guide
Lanaudière
- L’Action D’Autray
- L’Action (Wednesday/weekend)
- L’Express Montcalm
Laurentides – (Portfolio 1)
- Journal Le Nord
- Le Mirabel
Laurentides – (Portfolio 2)
- L’Information du Nord Mont-Tremblant
- L’Information du Nord Sainte-Agathe
- L’Information du Nord Vallée de la Rouge
Laval
- Courrier Laval
Longueuil
- Brossard Éclair
- Le Courrier du Sud
- L’Information d’Affaires Rive-Sud
- Le Reflet
Mauricie
- Le Courrier Sud
- L’Écho de la Tuque
- L’Écho de Maskinongé
- L’Hebdo du Saint-Maurice
- L’Hebdo Journal
Montreal (Portfolio 1)
- Ambiance/Rendez Vous
- L’Avenir de l’Est
- Cités Nouvelles
- Courrier Ahuntsic
- Courrier Bordeaux-Cartierville
- Corriere Italiano
- L’Express d’Outremont
- L’Express Mont-Royal
- Le Flambeau Mercier-Anjou
- Le Guide Montréal-Nord
- Le Magazine de l’Île-des-Sœurs
- L’Informateur de Rivière-des-Prairies
- Journal de Rosemont
- Messager Lachine & Dorval
- Le Messager LaSalle
- Le Messager Verdun
- Nouvelles Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
- Les Nouvelles Saint-Laurent News
- Le Plateau
- Progrès Saint-Léonard
- Villeray?Parc-Ex Petite Patrie
- La Voix Pop
Montreal (Portfolio 2)
- Métro Montreal
Outaouais
- Le Bulletin
- La Petite-Nation
- La Revue
Quebec City
- L’Actuel
- L’Appel
- L’Autre Voix
- Beauport Express
- Charlesbourg Express
- Le Jacques-Cartier
- Journal Habitation
- Le Québec Express
- Québec Hebdo (website only)
Repentigny
- Hebdo Rive-Nord
Rimouski
- L’Avantage votre journal
Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean
- Le Courrier de Saguenay
- L’Étoile du Lac
- Le Lac-St-Jean
- Les Nouvelles Hebdo
Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu
- Le Canada Français
- Le Richelieu
Sorel
- Les 2 Rives
Thetford Mines
- Courrier Frontenac
Valleyfield
- Coup d’œil
- Le Journal Saint-François
- Le Soleil de Châteauguay
Victoriaville and Plessisville
- L’Avenir de l’Érable
- La Nouvelle-Union (Wednesday/Sunday)

April 14, 2017 | Radio

Bell Media radio rehires The Beat’s program director

Since 92.5 FM in Montreal became The Beat in 2011, the station has made much of its staff lineup by poaching personalities from direct competitor Virgin Radio. Cat Spencer, Vinny Barrucco and Nat Lauzon were hired directly from Virgin, and Nikki Balch and Rob Kemp also previously worked at 1717 René-Lévesque Blvd. (for Virgin and CHOM, respectively).

With The Beat’s ratings being solidly ahead of Virgin for what seems to be a sustainable period, it seemed it was only a matter of time before Bell Media hit back.

Martin Tremblay (via Facebook)

This week we learned that it has poached from the top, hiring Martin Tremblay to lead the Énergie, Rouge FM and Virgin Radio Montreal stations. Tremblay was hired as interim program director at The Beat a year ago. Before that, he spent six years in what is basically the same job he’s now going back to, leading the Montreal French music stations and Virgin at Astral and then Bell Media.

His CV also includes plenty of work for radio stations as part of his consulting company Oumf! Communications. They include:

Helping RNC Media create a Rythme FM affiliate in Gatineau, which lasted two and a half years until RNC decided to rebrand it as WOW FM.
Helping Attraction Radio turn CKRS-FM in Saguenay into another Rythme FM affiliate.
Helping RNC Media turn CHOA-FM in Abitibi into yet another Rythme FM affiliate.
Helping RNC transforming its struggling CKLX-FM into 91.9 Sports in Montreal, and later turning Capitale Rock 96.5 in Gatineau into a partial affiliate of it. While 91.9 Sports is going strong and RNC finally seems happy with that format, the Gatineau station has dropped sports programming and is now Pop 96.5.
Launching Groupe Puissance Média, an ad sales group that works with both RNC Media and Cogeco Media TV and radio outlets in the Outaouais region.
Work for Rogers’s Kiss 105.3 in Ottawa.

Tremblay starts his new job Aug. 7. Like the on-air personalities who made the jump, he’s bound by the terms of a non-compete clause in his contract that prevents him from working for Bell Media right away. “So enjoying my free time,” he tells me.

I asked Bell Media how this affects existing management at these stations. Mark Bergman is the current program director at VIrgin Radio. Will his role change?

“We have no comments to make at this time,” was the response from Bell Media communications director Simon Céré. I also asked Bergman and Martin Spalding, who heads local TV and radio in Quebec, for comment, and will update this if I hear back.

Chris Bury takes over PD role at CHOM

Chris Bury, program director of CJAD, TSN 690 and now CHOM 97.7

Meanwhile, the other three radio stations at Bell Media in Montreal will all come under the control of Chris Bury, currently the PD for CJAD and TSN 690.

“As CHOM’s Assistant Program Director and Music Director, Picard will work directly with Chris,” notes a memo to staff.

Bury’s expanded duties means that more will be delegated to CJAD/TSN 690 Assistant Program Director Mathew Wood, who takes on a larger role at TSN.

“Mathew will now handle day-to-day responsibilities at TSN 690 and Picard will continue to do that for CHOM,” Bury explains to me by email. “I’ll be involved in brainstorming, strategy, long-term planning, major decisions etc.”

I asked Bury if we should expect any changes at CHOM with this announcement. “It’s too early to get specific but, for me, the general goal is always the same: produce the most compelling content possible — as consistently as you can,” he responded. “That can mean introducing new segments or features or executing the ones we have a little more effectively.”

“I’ll add that… It’s an honour to be working on CHOM, in any way. The station carries a powerful legacy in Montreal. And the team at CHOM are as passionate about their station as anyone else. I’m excited to get going and to help however I can. And, although I do have some music programming experience, there will certainly be a learning curve. It’ll be a fun challenge.”

These management changes took effect immediately when they were announced to staff earlier this week. CHOM has been without a program director since the death of André Lallier in 2015.

Meanwhile, at The Beat, there are decisions to make. The station is led by general manager Luc Tremblay, who was also hired as head of digital strategy at Cogeco Media last June.

April 13, 2017 | Media

Transcontinental/Chronicle Herald sale continues regional monopolization of newspapers

The Halifax Chronicle Herald surprised me this morning by announcing it is purchasing almost all of Transcontinental’s print assets in Atlantic Canada, including 27 newspapers, one online-only news outlet, and four of Transcon’s six printing plants. (This despite the fact that the paper is 15 months into a general strike.)

Included in the sale are newspapers like the St. John’s Telegram and Charlottetown Guardian. The sale takes effect immediately, Transcontinental said. No word on purchase price, but we’ll probably learn that at Transcontinental’s next financial report to shareholders.

This sale follows several recent region-wide newspaper selloffs, including Quebecor selling 74 community papers in Quebec to Transcontinental, Transcontinental selling its 13 Saskatchewan newspapers to Star News Publishing, Transcontinental buying all of Rogers’s business-to-business magazines, Gesca selling all its newspapers except La Presse, and swaps of newspapers between Black Press and Glacier Media in B.C. (Not to mention the whole Postmedia/Sun Media thing.)

The result of most of these transactions is that the country is being divided up regionally, and community newspapers are avoiding competition so much that their owners are swapping assets to stay away from each other’s markets.

After the Transcon/Chronicle Herald deal, the new owners (who have incorporated as Saltwire Network) made it clear they have no plans to expand into New Brunswick (beyond the purchased Sackville Tribune Post, which is on the Nova Scotia border) to avoid competing with the Irving-owned Brunswick News. The Transcontinental-Quebecor deal ended the companies’ competition in Quebec, which had heated up a few years earlier when Quebecor decided to launch some new publications on Transcontinental territory.

A look at which groups own more than a nominal number of newspapers in each province shows how fragmented it has become (numbers are based on a quick count and may not be exact):

British Columbia: Black Press (77), Glacier Media (25)
Alberta: Postmedia (36), Glacier Media (17), Black Press (12)
Saskatchewan: Glacier Media (15)
Manitoba: Glacier Media (9), Postmedia (9), FP Newspapers (9)
Ontario: Torstar (115), Postmedia (61)
Quebec: Transcontinental (100)
New Brunswick: Brunswick News (24)
Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island/Newfoundland and Labrador: Saltwire Network (34)

Besides Alberta and Manitoba, no province has more than two major community newspaper publishers (as measured by number of titles). But just as importantly, no publisher operates substantial operations in more than four provinces.

As a result of the latest sale, Transcontinental will drop to being a Quebec-only newspaper publisher (except for papers in Cornwall, Ont., and its partnership in the Halifax Metro free daily).

The transactions make sense from a business perspective, and as much as we can complain about lack of competition, the truth is that healthy competition in community newspapers just isn’t possible as the industry continues its slow death march.

We may see further consolidation (particularly in western provinces) in the future, and if the situation doesn’t improve, major shutdowns. And if one of these companies goes under and is forced to shut down completely, it could leave an entire province without community media.

April 12, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Pulitzers, lawsuit settlements, NHL playoffs, Aislin’s 50th

Now that it looks like it’s finally dying down, here’s who’s written about that Andrew Potter Maclean’s piece and McGill’s reaction to it, in alphabetical order (not including letters to the editor or social media posts):

Paul Adams, iPolitics
Jérémie Bédard-Wien, Ricochet
Frédéric Bérard, Métro
Denise Bombardier, Journal de Montréal
Ann Brocklehurst
Michael Byers, Globe and Mail
Lucinda Chodan, Montreal Gazette
Colby Cosh, National Post
Andrew Coyne, National Post
Dan Delmar, Montreal Gazette
Raymond J. de Souza, National Post
Bernard Drainville, 98.5fm
Sophie Durocher, Journal de Montréal
Sophie Durocher again, Journal de Montréal
Joseph Facal, Journal de Montréal
Michael Friscolanti, Maclean’s
Lysiane Gagnon, La Presse
Jamie Gilcig, Cornwall Free News
Scott Gilmore, Maclean’s
Matt Gurney, The Walrus
Graeme Hamilton, National Post
Allison Hanes, Montreal Gazette
Trevor Hanna, Ricochet
Michael Harris, iPolitics
Joseph Heath, In Due Course
Chantal Hébert, Toronto Star
Barbara Kay, National Post
Jonathan Kay, The Walrus
Philippe Labrecque, Huffington Post Québec
Patrick Lagacé, La Presse
Patrick Lagacé in English, Globe and Mail
Josée Legault, Journal de Montréal
Josée Legault again, Journal de Montréal
Peter Loewen, National Post
Emmett Macfarlane, Maclean’s
Don Macpherson, Montreal Gazette
Candice Malcolm, Toronto Sun
Mylène Moisan, La Presse
Éric Montpetit, Globe and Mail
Brian Myles, Le Devoir
Michèle Ouimet, La Presse
Natalie Pendergast, Journal Pioneer
Nathalie Petrowski, La Presse
Joseph Quesnel, Local XPress
Lise Ravary, Journal de Montréal
Sandrine Ricci, Ricochet
Chris Selley, National Post
Michel Seymour, Huffington Post Québec
Evan Solomon, Maclean’s
Michael Taube, Troy Media
William Watson, National Post
Daniel Weinstock, In Due Course
Ira Wells, Literary Review of Canada
Margaret Wente, Globe and Mail
Suzanne Wexler, Huffington Post
Peter Wheeland, Cult MTL
Barry Wilson, CTV Montreal

Plus:

three professors in Maclean’s
a discussion on CBC’s The Current
Podcast discussions at Canadaland, Ricochet
Editorials: Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Maclean’s, Winnipeg Free Press, The Senior Times
Fact-checks: Le Soleil, La Presse, Maclean’s

News about news

Fact-creation in 2017. According to my sources, 84 percent of all the statistics you've ever seen on the war in Syria were created this way. pic.twitter.com/m1yscTa1q6

— Aron Lund (@aronlund) April 10, 2017

Pulitzer Prize winners were announced on Monday. Winners include David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post for coverage of Donald Trump’s charitable donations, and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.
A bill that passed through Canada’s Senate seeks to better protect the identity of journalists’ sources in court. Bill S-231 makes amendments to evidence law and seems fairly reasonable. One issue, though, is that it defines what a “journalist” is, and that definition is limited to “a person whose main occupation is to contribute directly, either regularly or occasionally, for consideration, to the collection, writing or production of information for dissemination by the media, or anyone who assists such a person.” It also protects people who were journalists when information is given but are no longer journalists. But what about freelancers? And what is “information for dissemination by the media” anyway? Does a PR person qualify? The problem of defining journalists is a complicated one.
The Chamberland Commission into police spying on journalists continues. Among the revelations this week is that police would sometimes request “tower dumps” which would note every phone connected to a cell tower at a given time.
J-Source on the Toronto Star’s fight against a police attempt to seize video.
CBC freelancers got a raise no April 1.
The Daily Mail apologized to Melania Trump and agreed to pay her money (believed to be in the low millions) for casually suggesting she may have been a prostitute.
Rolling Stone has reached a settlement with a University of Virginia administrator over its campus rape story.
Nominations for the Grands prix du journalisme indépendant, awards for Quebec freelance journalists, were announced. They include articles published in Le Devoir, L’actualité and Ricochet. Winners will be announced May 4.

At the CRTC

As mandated by the CRTC once every two years, CBC Quebec is holding a public consultation with the anglophone community on May 2 in Montreal. Attendance is free and open, but you’re asked to RSVP.
First notice of hearing in a while. The applications:
1. A low-power Native FM station in Potlotek First Nation in St. Peter’s, N.S.
2. Converting a 5W developmental community FM station in Val-des-Lacs (106.5 FM, near Mont Tremblant) to a low-power community station.
3. A new French-language community radio station in Ottawa-Gatineau at 1350 AM. This station would use the same frequency, site and signal as the former Radio ~~Centre-Ville~~ Ville-Marie (CIRA-5) retransmitter there (1000W daytime, 180W nighttime).
4. Dufferin Communications (Evanov Radio) acquiring Christian music station CFWC-FM Brantford, Ont., from Sound of Faith Broadcasting, for $440,000.
5. Dufferin converting ethnic station CKJS Winnipeg (810 AM) from AM to FM (92.5 MHz, 35,000W). In its application, the company reveals sister station CFJL-FM (Hot 100.5) has lost $700,000 in four years.
6. A corporate re-organization at Blackgold Broadcasting

TV

Announced NHL play-by-play teams per network for the first round of the playoffs. pic.twitter.com/quVIiRwVfc

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 10, 2017

(Note that NBC staff here is for Game 1 of each series only.)

The NHL playoffs begin today. Sportsnet has managed to make sure the Canadiens and Maple Leafs don’t play any games on the same day, so both can get airtime on CBC. (Sunday is an exception, since CBC is keeping that night to itself for its Story of Us series.) Calgary gets priority for the late game. So the Senators and Oilers are largely stuck on Sportsnet. Sportsnet’s schedule for games 1-4 of each series is here. Also, Rogers revealed during a conference call that it has extended its Hockey Night in Canada agreement with CBC for a fifth season.
TVA Sports 3 has returned for another NHL playoff season. (Channel 199/799 on Videotron.) It will carry extra games that conflict with those already on the first two channels, and be basically dead otherwise. First games are Columbus vs. Pittsburgh and San Jose vs. Edmonton tonight.
The Canadiens’ playoff series is so big for TVA that it’s moving the next episode of La Voix to Monday night.
For American viewers, a bit of a treat this time: Viewers in markets where the local team is in the playoffs will get to choose between the local regional feed and the NBC national one. (Except Boston and ~~Philadelphia~~ Pittsburgh.) Unlike in Canada, in the U.S. a team’s regional broadcaster gets to produce games in the first round of the playoffs as well.
Radio-Canada has announced a new TV series set in New Brunswick, called Le siège. (Hugo Dumas has some details.) After burying the very good series Le clan on Saturday nights, let’s hope this series gets a bit more love from the broadcaster.
CBC has apologized for some of the issues brought up about its historical series The Story of Us. Unfortunately it’s too late to do anything about it.
Space has announced premiere dates for original sci-fi series Dark Matter (June 9) and Killjoys (June 30).
Hasan Minhaj of the Daily Show will be the featured performer at the White House Correspondents dinner, though President Donald Trump has already said he won’t be there.

Radio

Jian Ghomeshi is back. With a podcast. It’s very pretentious, and you can imagine how people feel about it.

Print

Quebec’s regional newspapers are taking their battle to save themselves financially to the public with a new campaign. At least I assume it’s the newspapers. The website doesn’t make clear who’s behind the campaign. They want the Quebec government to abandon plans to allow municipalities to issue public notices online instead of in local papers, and reduce burdens such as recycling taxes.
Aislin’s 50-year retrospective exhibit has opened at the McCord museum. Terry Mosher has been doing the media rounds promoting it, including interviews with or stories in La Presse, Le Devoir, The Globe and Mail, Global News, Breakfast Television, CHOM, The Suburban, the Montreal Times, HuffPost Quebec, pieuvre.ca, and of course the Montreal Gazette.
L’Express in Drummondville, the community weekly, got a visit from the bomb squad when a package with the word “EXPLOSIF” was found outside their door. It turned out not to be explosive, but the police took no chances, and a photographer’s equipment was one of the victims. An arrest has been made.
Nathalie Collard explores the people who despite everything gamble on starting new magazines, as the magazine Nouveau Projet (which, I admit, I didn’t think would last) celebrates its fifth anniversary.
Canadaland takes issue with Liberal MP Seamus O’Regan’s involvement in a committee that’s supposed to ensure that The Walrus remains educational.
La Presse+ is using the fading-text technique on some of its stories online to get more people to use its iPad app. You can (probably) see an example here.
Transcontinental has sold L’Oeil régional, the community weekly in Beloeil, to DBC Communications, which owns papers in St-Hyacinthe and elsewhere.
Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey was interviewed by BNN. He doesn’t like being compared to Bombardier.
Postmedia has met its 20% salary reduction target, but more cuts will be needed, though it’s unclear if those will also come from job cuts.
Paul Adams at iPolitics imagines the future of Postmedia. It’s … not good.

Online

Quebecor Media is reorganizing its digital content teams, and laying off six people, mainly at Canoë, according to Le Devoir.
PRWeek is feeling a bit awkward about the Communicator of the Year award it gave to United Airlines’s CEO.
Canada Media Fund’s latest funding decisions for web series. They include another season of Têtes à claques (remember them?) and a second season of Space Riders: Division Earth. (If you haven’t seen Season 1, it’s here.)
OpenCorporates, which catalogs public information on companies as collected by governments, is suing Quebec for trying to restrict access to its database.

Movies

Bravo FACT has announced its latest funding recipients for short films. They include a film produced by actress Tatiana Maslany, and one written and directed by Kahnawake native Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs.

News about people

The @davidakin career recap update:
Post 1998-2001
Globe/CTV 2001-05
CTV 2005-08
Post 2008-10
Sun 2010-16
Post 2016-17
Global 2017-

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) April 7, 2017

Two high-profile hires at Global News: Vassy Kapelos is now the permanent host of political talk show The West Block after taking over from Tom Clark in January. And David Akin, who has a resume of political reporting for just about every major private media now, will be the new chief political correspondent.
Former Quebecor CEO Pierre Dion is being paid $7.2 million in severance to make way for Pierre Karl Péladeau’s return.
After 20 years at CTV Vancouver, Coleen Christie is joining Global’s BC1.
The National Post has hired Maura Forrest of Yukon News and Lauren Heuser of The Walrus.
Radio-Canada’s Michel Rochon is retiring.
Régys Caron, journalist with the Journal de Québec, is retiring. He was recognized at the National Assembly along with fellow retiree Michel Hébert.
Guy Amyot, secretary general of the Quebec Press Council, is leaving for an unspecified other job. Oh wait, he’s joining the PQ.
Arlene Dickinson is coming back for Season 12 of Dragon’s Den on CBC.
Bill O’Reilly’s show is facing an exodus of advertisers amid sexual harassment claims. So he’s going on vacation. Pre-planned, he says.

Good reads

What it's like being a reporter, summarized in five lines https://t.co/fuG7SaJut4 pic.twitter.com/2PXAhp937x

— “Mark Berman” (@markberman) April 10, 2017

The New York Times on how to write a headline. Though it doesn’t really teach how to write in that almost Yoda-like New York Times headline style
Washington Post profile of media journalist and CNN host Brian Stelter

CRTC radio licence renewal applications: Radio Ville-Marie has several compliance issues

There was a dump of licence renewal applications posted online March 1, March 6 and March 30 for radio stations. Most were found to be compliant with their licence conditions, while some had issues. Here are stations up for renewal in Montreal and surrounding markets. For those still open for comment, you can find their applications here.

CIRA-FM 91.3 Montreal (Radio Ville-Marie) plus retransmitters in Trois-Rivières, Victoriaville and Rimouski: Several compliance issues — Financial statements using the calendar year instead of the broadcast year, financial statements reported late, annual report missing (blamed on a move and the absence of their director of finance), noisy recordings (which the station blamed on a power failure and faulty equipment), failure to properly categorize songs (which they say they actually did), failure to respond to requests for information (lost in the shuffle of other demands, they say),

One other thing they’re accused of is being “alarmist” in fundraising requests. According to CRTC policy, it is considered unethical for solicitation announcements to be unduly coercive or to suggest that a show or station would disappear from the air if enough money wasn’t received. Radio Ville-Marie (like just about every non-profit on the planet) did exactly that, saying on air that “without your financial support, we can’t continue our mission”, which sounds accurate but is apparently against the rules.

For most of the compliance issues, the station gave identical answers on how they would be solved: the creation of a committee to ensure compliance. Asked about the possibility of a short-term licence renewal or other sanctions, the station downplayed the problems as “administrative” and not affecting programming or their mission. This is the kind of statement that will likely irk people at the commission.

CKIN-FM 106.3 Montreal: Despite the station’s troubled compliance history, and controversy about its very Arabic-centric programming schedule, the commission found only one issue in reviewing compliance for its first renewal under new owner Neeti P. Ray: A programming log failed to list the start times of each song broadcast. But even then, Ray notes that the regulations don’t require listing start times, but merely listing the songs played in order. Nevertheless, Ray responded with a revised list that included exact start times for each song played on air. The commission appears satisfied with this response and believes the station is in compliance with its licence conditions.

CKLX-FM 91.9 Montreal: No apparent compliance issues. RNC Media notes it appears to have found a winning formula with an all-sports format.

CJRS 1650 AM Montreal: Radio Shalom failed to install an alerting system by the March 31, 2015 deadline, but instead only installed it in September 2016. The station’s owner blamed a lack of funds. Similarly, there was an issue with payments to Musicaction in 2014, which the owner said were solved.

CJSO-FM 101.7 Sorel-Tracy: After two straight short-term licence renewals because of failure to meet licence conditions, the station is once again in apparent non-compliance at renewal time. The CRTC’s main issues are the lack of a public alerting system and incomplete records of music broadcast, which means classification issues that put them in non-compliance with Canadian and French-language music quotas. The station’s replies were brief, noting that the new owner took control 12 days before the deadline to install the public alerting system (“I had other priorities”) and there was confusion on how some songs should be classified in terms of popular versus specialty.

CFOU-FM 89.1 Trois-Rivières: The UQTR campus station failed to provide financial reports for the years 2012-2013, 2013-2014 and 2014-2015, because the financial reports they filed correspond to their fiscal year instead of the CRTC-mandated broadcast year of Sept. 1 to Aug. 31.

CITE-FM-1 102.7 Sherbrooke plus retransmitter CITE-FM-2 94.5: No apparent compliance issues.

CFAK-FM 88.3 Sherbrooke: No apparent compliance issues for the Sherbrooke campus station.

CHXX-FM 100.9 Donnacona (Quebec City) and retransmitter CHXX-FM-1 105.5 Ste-Croix-De-Lotbinière: Radio X2 failed to comply with its 65% francophone music quota, reaching only 63.5% during a sampled week in February. It blames this on certain songs it believed were French but were actually more than 50% English. This would be its second straight non-compliance finding. The commission suggested it may impose additional contributions to Canadian content development funds (a de facto fine) as a result of non-compliance. The station also says it wants to once again rid itself of conditions of licence requiring it to maintain a presence in Donnacona, but it looks like that request will be treated separately.

CITF-FM 107.5 Quebec City: No apparent compliance issues. But ADISQ wrote in to demand access to reports Bell Media promised to file when it acquired Astral Media on its program to promote independent artists.

CJLL-FM 97.9 Ottawa: No apparent compliance issues for this ethnic station.

April 5, 2017 | Media

Media News Digest: Bad week for CBC, Russell Peters, Pepsi and the Surrey Leader

News about news

The Chamberland commission looking at the protection of journalistic sources in Quebec has begun public hearings. Coverage by La Presse and Le Devoir, notably.
Some Kansas high school students investigated their new principal … by googling where she got her degree and discovering that university doesn’t exist. The principal resigned as a result, prompting a slew of feel-good coverage in national media.
A Mexican newspaper has simply shut down, judging conditions for journalists too dangerous to continue.
Radio-Canada’s Isabelle Richer had to eat some crow on Wednesday, apologizing for getting dramatically wrong a story about SQ leaders being away from their posts at the height of the Highway 13 snowstorm debacle. CBC/Radio-Canada has retracted the story, and Richer apologized on air, but the original Radio-Canada story had not been edited as of 2:30pm Wednesday and I could find no mention on Radio-Canada’s website of the retraction.

At the CRTC

The CRTC is seeking comments on an application by Rogers to acquire Tillsonburg Broadcasting, owner of CJDL-FM and CKOT-FM in Tillsonburg, Ont. (southeast of London) for $4 million. The sale was announced in September.

TV

After turning Super Channel 4 into an e-sports channel, Allarco is turning Super Channel 3 into a retro movie channel, apparently similar to what you’d find on TMN Encore or Movietime. Aside from having even less space for premium programming, it seems even less justification for spending $10 or $15 a month to get Super Channel. The company remains under creditor protection.
The Juno Awards broadcast caused some trouble for co-host Russell Peters, whose sexist comments about Mélanie Joly and young women in the crowd didn’t impress the politically correct.
Meanwhile, CBC also got in trouble for Sunday night broadcasts. Its series The Story of Us is being criticized for being too anglo-centric. An op-ed by Quebec professors lays out the major issues in its first episode.
CBC has greenlit a new drama series from the creators of Murdoch Mysteries. This one is set in 1920s Toronto, starring a private detective played by Lauren Lee Smith.
This Hour Has 22 Minutes has been renewed for yet another season
Comedy Central has finally found a replacement for The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore: Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper will host.
Videotron has added FXX Canada to its lineup, on Channel 821 in HD. It and FX Canada are on free preview until June 1.

Radio

Cuts at Bell Media’s 89X Windsor, which closed its Detroit office

Print

The Surrey Leader is no more. The 87-year-old Black Press newspaper in B.C. published a farewell issue on March 31. It’s being merged with Surrey Now into the Surrey Now News Leader.
The Globe and Mail wants editors to be a bit more aggressive after the Leah McLaren column fiasco
The Tyee on the layoffs at the Vancouver Sun and Province, owned by my employer Postmedia
La Presse shut down a bunch of blogs, so the Journal de Montréal/Québec was only too happy to write about it.

Movies

Nominees for the Gala Québec Cinéma were announced. The awards, which have a new name (Iris, replacing Jutra), a new trophy, new hosts, a new time during the season (pushed back to June to avoid competing with hit programs) and a new lesser-awards gala, will be given out June 1 and 4.

Online

Ed The Sock helped announce some new network called FU Network, which is being billed as the spiritual successor to MuchMusic. It looks like it will be a streaming channel (maybe just a YouTube channel?) and Ed The Sock’s live show (see an example here) will be part of it, but other shows are also planned, depending how much money they can raise. (UPDATE: The YouTube video has been pulled, apparently because Bell Media is using its legal muscle to put a stop to this use of the MuchMusic brand.)
A video by Pepsi featuring Kendall Jenner was removed from YouTube and apologized for after people reacted very negatively to its message that a celebrity with a can of pepsi is all that’s needed to end police violence. This piece breaks down all the things wrong with it.

News about people

Jennifer Allen, traffic reporter for CBC’s Daybreak, is moving to Toronto for a similar job there as Monique Lacombe returned this week from a maternity leave.
Gordon Fisher, president of the National Post and the Pacific Newspaper Group (Vancouver Sun/Province), is leaving Postmedia.
Robert Plouffe is joining the Journal de Québec’s increasingly beefed up Quebec parliamentary bureau
Chris Wilson-Smith is leaving as foreign editor for the Globe and Mail

Obituaries

Neil Macrae, Vancouver radio personality

Jobs

Digital content editor, CTV News (deadline: April 6)
Two reporters for Report on Business (Globe and Mail)
Foreign editor, Globe and Mail
Journalists, Journal de Montréal (deadline: May 2)
La Presse diversity bursaries and internships (deadline: June 9)

Upcoming events

April 8: Montreal Media Celebrity Hockey Marathon, Pierrefonds (CBC will be there)
May 20: Canadaland in Montreal

April 1, 2017 | Media, Opinion

You have a responsibility to help stop fake news: 12 things you should be doing

Happy April Fool’s Day, everybody.

We’re two months into the administration of President Donald J. Trump, and already it’s clear that the president and his chief spokesperson have no qualms about uttering bald-faced lies on easily verifiable things to satisfy their perverted need for political victory on petty issues.

The so-called mainstream media is waking up to this and calling out the government on its falsehoods. But that hasn’t stopped or even slowed down the proliferation of incorrect information through mainstream, alternative and social media.

And it’s not just Trump supporters pushing fake news. This hyper-partisan mistaken belief that you’re right and it’s the other side that’s trying to manipulate you is the main driver of this phenomenon, and it’s the first thing that needs to stop.

Living in Quebec, my social network skews left. But more importantly my social network also skews toward journalists. And it’s upsetting when people who consider themselves critical thinkers pass along poorly sourced garbage just because it agrees with their world view and sounds like it could probably be true. Often it’s things that don’t really matter — inspirational quotes falsely attributed to famous historical figures, too-good-to-be-true news stories about stupid people or that feature an ironic twist, or wildly exaggerated stories of government incompetence or corporate evil. But often it’s things that, if enough people believed them, could lead to society making poor decisions.

It’s not up to the media to fix this. Journalists have already lost the war of credibility to the hyper-partisans. And much of the way people get news bypasses journalists anyway. You’re the ones shaping the opinions of your friends through social media, which is now how more and more people get their news.

If fake news is going to be brought under control, if facts are going to matter again, it’s up to you to do something about it.

Here are some of those things you can do:

1. Fact check social media and your friends, especially those you agree with

It’s easy to call out fake news and point out inconsistencies when it’s your political opponent making the claims. But people live in ideological bubbles these days, and have taught themselves to dismiss all criticism of those they disagree with. It’s up to each side to call out their friends when false information is being spread, even if they may agree with the conclusion those made-up facts might lead to. You might agree that Donald Trump is not going to advance LGBT rights as much as Hillary Clinton would, but the LGBT page being “deleted” from the White House website doesn’t mean anything more than the State of the Union page being deleted. It’s a new administration, and it gets a new website, which it hasn’t put much on yet. That’s all.

If you’re sharing stories about the White House Photoshopping Donald Trump’s hands, or Trump being remote diagnosed with a mental illness, or any of these stories, you need to understand that you’re part of the problem. Fake news isn’t just an alt-right thing, it’s a problem facing the political left as well.

If you see some viral unsourced story, do a Google search. You’ll probably find a page about it on Snopes.com, or another fact-check somewhere else. If you discover that it’s fake or misleading, reply with a link to it.

2. Share original sources

It’s frustrating to see how often videos are stolen on Facebook, downloaded and reposted with some stupid caption to a “viral” page designed to profit off other people’s work. The original creator gets no revenue and not even credit or recognition for what they created. But because we’re too lazy to find out where the video comes from, we just like and share.

This has implications for fake news. The number of sources out there has exploded, and the rush to compete for clicks has meant many of those sources copying, citing or “aggregating” others’ reporting in order to steal away traffic. It’s not unusual to find a news article online about an interesting story that cites another source, which in turn cites another source, which in turn cites another. It can take several minutes to find out whoever originally reported something, and learn that through this game of broken telephone, facts have been exaggerated, assumed or selectively chosen to make a story more sensational than it is.

Instead of sharing the churned-out sensationalizing of a possibly misinterpreted fact from a news story, share the original news story. Give credit (and ad revenue) to the person who did the actual journalism, and who has a real interest in getting the facts right.

3. Ask questions

Sometimes, the most important question you can ask as a journalist is “how do you know that?” If someone says something that sounds like an outrageous fact, ask for their sources. Often you’ll get a vague answer about reading something online. Often it’ll be “Facebook”. We mock Trump for repeating stuff he heard from partisans on Facebook, but many of us are just as guilty as he is.

If you’re getting your news from your friends, you should be critical of them. If you read something that makes assumptions, ask about those assumptions. If there seems to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for something outrageous, ask if that was considered and why it was dismissed.

4. Learn before speaking

It’s infuriating when your read comments on Facebook posts that make it clear the person has not read the story being linked to. Don’t be that person. Don’t assume you know what a story is because you read the headline. If you don’t have time to read it, don’t comment.

Similarly, don’t pretend to be an expert on something you know nothing about. If you want to opine about something, read up on it first from an objective source, or preferably multiple sources, and cite those sources so people can check your facts.

5. Care when you get stuff wrong

If you share a story and someone responds with a Snopes.com or other link proving it’s false, don’t reply with “I don’t care” or “it doesn’t matter” or “but that’s not the point” or “lol whatever”. Apologize and delete it. It’s not okay just because it sounds like it could probably be true, or because it makes you feel good to believe comforting lies about your political opponent, or because you’re sure similar things have happened that are true, or because it’s an interesting fictional story.

6. Resist the urge to dismiss a big story because of a minor issue

Journalism should be all true. Not mostly true, not truthy, but true. Errors, no matter how minor, should be corrected. But a minor error does not make a story false. Don’t think that nitpicking is a proper way to discredit something you disagree with.

7. Stop listening to hyper-partisans driven by hate

There are those in every political camp who cater to the “red meat” base, those who are loyal beyond question, who care more about winning than they do about advancing society in any way. These people never admit they’re wrong, they never consider the other side of the argument, they always exaggerate arguments in their favour and ignore those that work against them. Stop being an audience for these people.

If someone is sharing news from a partisan source like “The Other 99%” or “Occupy Democrats” or The Rebel, be very skeptical. Check what other news sources not driven by agendas are reporting about it, or even what their political opponents say. Read original source material whenever possible. And consider sharing less biased sources that offer up the facts and let their audience draw their own conclusions.

If you get your information from a source that never corrects its errors, stop using that source.

8. Stop dehumanizing political opponents

Your hate for Donald Trump is driven mainly by his sexism and misogyny? Then why are you making degrading sexist comments about Melania Trump? You don’t like him because he’s vulgar? Then why are you using vulgar terms to describe him? You don’t like him because he’s superficial and rates women by their appearance? Then why are you making fun of his skin and hair?

Donald Trump is a grown man with lots of privilege and is now the most powerful person in the world (insert Vladimir Putin joke here). You don’t have to go easy on him. But if you’re going to criticize him, do it on issues that matter. The same goes for anyone you disagree with.

There are very few people in the world who are pure evil. Most people who do bad things believe they’re doing good. But there are far too many people who have let hate and frustration drive them, who believe the ends justify the means, who ignore that the person they disagree with is a human being with emotions and life experiences and morals.

Forgetting that people are human leads to the belief in a lot of insane stories. Be skeptical of any story that would require someone or a group of people to be pure evil for it to be true.

9. Don’t trust your memory

Remember that woman who won millions of dollars in a lawsuit against McDonald’s because she spilled coffee in her lap while driving? Yeah, that didn’t happen that way. Remember that 90s movie where Sinbad plays a genie? Didn’t exist.

Memory is unreliable, especially about things that happened long ago. Conventional wisdom about past events, or even current ones, is often wrong or exaggerated by people pushing agendas. Facts are often remembered based on what emotional impact they had, and this can skew people’s impressions of what really happened. Check your facts.

10. Don’t get emotional

Someone disagreed with you on Twitter? Block them! Someone dislikes political correctness on Facebook? Unfriend them! Someone questions the factual basis for something you said or wrote? Mercilessly mock and insult them!

Or you could not. Try breaking your bubble instead of reinforcing it. Read stories that make you uncomfortable. Listen to opinions that are different from yours. Open your mind to the idea that you, and the people you generally agree with, might be wrong about something. Don’t feed the trolls with your hate. Don’t make yourself feel better by bringing your opponents down.

Michelle Obama said “When they go low, we go high.” Consider actually following that advice rather than repeating it as a way of belittling your opponents.

11. Be the better person

Changes in the balance of power in politics usually result in dramatic reversals of position in terms of what’s acceptable behaviour. Questioning or disrespecting a sitting president is only unacceptable when it’s your guy in the office. Filibusters are obstructionist when it’s your policies they’re blocking, but a necessary check on abuse of power when it’s the other guy’s. Refusal to accept election results is shameful when they lose, but a moral duty when we do.

Two wrongs don’t make a right. And “they started it” is the argument of a five-year-old. Show by example that you’re better than that.

The ends justify the means is never an acceptable reason for spreading lies.

Even the most partisan hardliner will use facts from mainstream media, even if they don’t agree with their conclusions.

12. Stop treating “mainstream media” as if it’s a monolith with an agenda

There are legitimate criticisms to be made about newspapers, television stations, radio stations and online media, whether they’re corporately owned or independent. There are legitimate criticisms of individual columnists or journalists. There are real biases to point out across the industry (the bias that causes interesting outliers to get much more attention than the boring majority, for example).

But when you start dismissing the “mainstream media” as garbage because of a few stories you didn’t like, or when you call a newspaper “fake news” because you disagreed with a columnist, you’re part of the problem. So-called “mainstream media” is more likely to be professional, more likely to have a reputation to uphold, more likely to be accountable.

And when the president of the United States watches Fox News and his administration gives Breitbart preferential treatment in press briefings, well congratulations you’re mainstream now.

I’m not asking you to bite your tongue and avoid criticism. But rather, be specific. If you think a story is one-sided, call it out. If you think a journalist is biased, call that out (but expect to be asked to produce a lot of supporting material). And stop throwing “fake news” at things unless you’re sure that what their producing is something they know is wrong.

It won’t be easy, but together we can help fight back the wave of misinformation. If we can keep our hypocrisies at bay, and value knowledge over anger, we might begin to make some headway.