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
- 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
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)
RIP Neil Macrae. Used to listen to him do sports broadcasting on the radio in Vancouver during the 80’s and 90’s. Lively and entertaining. Enjoyed his wit as well as his sometimes biting commentary.
So she acknowledged her story was fake news?
No. Fake news is intentionally fabricated information posted to websites designed to look like professional news outlets in order to generate clicks. Richer just got the story wrong and apologized for it.
Apologies and corrections are a good way to distinguish reliable news outlets from unreliable ones.
Alright, let’s go back to 2003 when the NY Times was pounding out one editorial after another extolling the virtues of going to war in Iraq. Their argument was a cut & paste of the Bush administration’s view that it was necessary because Saddam had them aluminum tubes and yellowcakes.
Of course, Saddam never had any such weaponry. No retraction was ever given.
Therefore, the so-called newspaper of record was publishing fake news.
Again, you are either intentionally misrepresenting what fake news means, or you have a different definition than the people who coined the term.
OK let’s go to present day and check out the coverage of Trump blasting Syria. You can be sure today’s bomb drop will be covered in the same way.
Jeremy Scahill does the best job of tearing apart the one-dimensional coverage from all outlets. Only one opinion is tolerated.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOfLx1nSLfQ
You see why they’re all being blasted as fake news? How can all these sources have the identical editorial line? This is why they aren’t taken seriously anymore.