News about news

• Tom Petty died, then undied, then died again within 24 hours. The confusion began when CBS News reported Petty’s death, citing the Los Angeles Police Department. The LAPD later apologized for “inadvertently” presenting false information to journalists. Petty had suffered a heart attack, but was technically still alive. The error prompted the usual holier-than-thou handwringing scolding journalists to get it right (without of course setting any standard for when you consider something “right”). The lesson to take out of this, once again, is that even official sources can be wrong.
• The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council has come out with decisions against Global News BC and CTV News Vancouver over their decisions to air video of a stabbing at a school in Abbotsford, B.C. Though both broadcasters were aware of the sensitivity of the video, issued warnings about their broadcast (though Global failed to do so in one instance) and even blurred parts of it, the CBSC found that “the video, even in its edited form, did not contribute to the story and therefore showed inappropriate editorial judgment on the part of the broadcaster” on top of being disrespectful to a young victim. Both were required to issue on-air apologies.
• In a decision that is for some reason undated, the National Newsmedia Council has dismissed a complaint against the National Post that accused it of stealing a Blacklock’s Reporter story without credit. The council found that both organizations reported the same story independently, with the Post publishing a day after Blacklock’s.
• TVA has suspended Luc Lavoie after he made a joke on LCN about hunting separatists with guns.
• The Assemblée francophone de l’Ontario has made propositions to protect francophone media in the province, among them requiring the provincial government to devote 5% of ad spending to francophone media.
• The heads of francophone media outlets in Quebec gathered for a panel discussion about the future of media. Le Devoir summarizes how it went.

At the CBC

• The ceremonial shovels hit the ground at the Maison Radio-Canada. The new building, at René-Lévesque Blvd. and Papineau Ave., will be the new Montreal home for the broadcaster, which will move out of the giant tower. Much of the land, being used as a parking lot, will be turned over to development.
• CBC has announced its TV broadcast team for the Pyeongchang Olympics. It includes Alex Despatie, who was on the French team for the Rio Olympics.
• CBC, of course, wrote a story about its retiring mailbots.
• Radio-Canada has launched MUSE, a 24/7 audio streaming service of classical music. Several hosts are on board including singer Marc Hervieux. You can listen to it online or through the app.

At the CRTC

• Unifor has filed its complaint alleging that OMNI is violating its licence by subcontracting the production of its Cantonese and Mandarin newscasts.
• The government has released the mandate letter for new CRTC chair Ian Scott.

TV

• Global Montreal is once again using its weekly magazine Focus Montreal to host political candidates’ debates:
  • Oct. 1: CDN-NDG borough mayor and Côte-St-Luc mayor
  • Oct. 7-8: Beaconsfield mayor and Vaudreuil-Dorion mayor
  • Later: Westmount, Pointe-Claire and Pierrefonds-Roxboro mayors
• My annual Canadiens TV schedule and accompanying explanatory article was published in Tuesday’s Gazette. There’s also an updated story about how to access games from outside the Canadiens’ broadcast region, and I did a Q&A with readers on Hockey Inside/Out.
• DHX Media, which owns Family Channel, could consider a sale, Bloomberg reports.
• Bell Media says the premiere of Star Trek Discovery set a new record for viewership on Space: 1.17 million watched the first episode (2.2 million if you include the CTV simulcast) and 1.2 million watched the second. It’s the most-watched series episode on Canadian specialty ever, says Bell. It also says the series set a record on Crave TV, but doesn’t give any numbers.
• AddikTV is launching a new original documentary series talking to big-time police detectives about their biggest cases.
• TVA has announced the new coaches for the next season of La Voix. Only Éric Lapointe returns from last season. He’ll be joined by Alex Nevsky (who was a coach on La Voix Junior), Garou, a coach at France’s version of the show, and Lara Fabian. Marc Dupré notably had been a coach on every season until now.
• There’s a Bachelor Canada fantasy draft today.
• Australian private TV networks are battling with their country’s regulators to ease quotas on original Australian content.

Print

• The National Post newsroom has voted to form a union. … Or maybe it didn’t. The vote was close — 31 out of 59 — so a hearing will be held on Oct. 11 to determine whether some contested uncounted ballots should be included. The union argues that those people are ineligible, mainly because they’re managers.
• Meanwhile, newsroom employees at the Los Angeles Times are also trying to form a union.
• More than two years after Groupe Capitales Médias bought La Presse’s sister newspapers from it, those papers’ websites have finally freed themselves from the lapresse.ca domain. Le Soleil, Le Droit, La Tribune, Le Quotidien, Le Nouvelliste and La Voix de l’Est all have new websites on their own domains, and those websites have simple, responsive designs. GCM President Claude Gagnon explains. The group has also started its own national sales team, instead of having La Presse sell those ads for them.
• GCM has also reached agreements with its unions representing La Tribune and La Voix de l’Est in the townships.
• CBC has a story about Torstar’s Metroland Media trying to screw some 10-year-olds out of distribution pay. The group paid after their mom complained on Facebook, but we should be asking some serious questions about how it’s okay to pay $2.50 an hour to children for work.
• The Wall Street Journal is dropping its Asian and European editions.

Online

• Charles Lapointe, cofounder of MTLBlog and Narcity Media, did an interview explaining his company’s history and future. He said they want to get into travel, maybe with pop-up shops, they’re launching an app soon, and they want to try again to launch in the U.S. after an aborted attempt in Boston. The interview didn’t get into some of the more controversial aspects of the website, but Lapointe does tackle the criticism of clickbait: “Lists, man. Honestly, like, we always wanted to create content that people engaged with. And every single article we created, we created it with the thinking behind it that we wanted people to share it. So not just read the article and acknowledge it. We wanted them to love the article so much that they would share it with their friends, so that was always our focus. So for us it’s like when that’s your focus, it really gets you to think like you won’t create pieces of content that you know won’t get a lot of shares. … I think it’s also the performance standpoint that you need to think about. Some people didn’t like that also, they thought that we spammed everyone’s news feeds with clickbait titles, but, like, no, honestly, it’s, we knew what type of titles people would click on and we wanted people to click on the articles and share them. And at the end of the day if people hated it we wouldn’t be one of the biggest sites in Montreal. So yeah, I think honestly it’s just creating content with performance in mind. And I think media companies are starting to understand that.”
• Google is giving content publishers with paywalls a bit more flexibility in how many articles they offer for free through search results, replacing their previous “first click free” policy.
• A study shows that more than half of Quebec households have pay streaming subscriptions, with Netflix by far the most popular.

Telecommunications

• MTS is unsurprisingly hiking its rates mere months after being acquired by Bell.

News about people

Welcome to the world Avery Ray! Congrats @DSoltendieck and Ashley on your beautiful baby girl ? best wishes from CTV PR. pic.twitter.com/wYjoGbnxRR

— CTV PR (@CTV_PR) October 3, 2017

• It’s a girl for eTalk’s Devon Soltendieck.
• Jim Duff, former radio personality and newspaper columnist, is running for Hudson city council.
• Martin Pouliot, host at Quebec City’s BLVD 102.1, has been fired after he was arrested for driving under the influence, after police say he was involved in a collision that severely injured a woman. He’s out on bail and has had a curfew applied.
• Patricia Pleszczynska, head of radio and Montreal at Radio-Canada, is retiring.
• Mike Cohen talks with CJAD’s Andrew Carter about his battles with depression.
• Benoît Dutrizac gave an interview to Éric Salvail (among others) about his sudden firing by 98.5FM this summer. Though he said it was silly that he has to answer for the decisions of others, he said he didn’t get along with the new bosses at Cogeco.
• RDS analyst Marc Denis is going to be a regular on the TSN 690 morning show through the hockey season.
• Silvet Ali is now CBC Montreal’s weekend assignment editor.
• Tom Henheffer, executive director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, is leaving his post to become Director of News and Digital at Vice Canada.
• Andrew Bates is joining the New Brunswick Telegraph Journal as a content editor. Previously he was at the Toronto Star.
• Toronto Star Washington reporter Daniel Dale has been blocked on Twitter by Donald Trump, which the Star considers worthy of a news story.

Obituaries

• Hugh Hefner, creator of Playboy magazine
• Si Newhouse, chairman emeritus of Condé Nast
• Dave Strader, Dallas Stars hockey broadcaster
• Raymond Lebrun, Radio-Canada sports broadcaster

Jobs

• Editorial assistant, CBC’s The National (deadline: Oct. 4)
• Analyst, Quebec Press Council (deadline: Oct. 5)
• Managing Editor, Nunatsiaq News (deadline: Oct. 13)
• CBC/QWF writer in residence (deadline: Oct. 15)
• Pupitreur surnuméraire, La Presse
• Tenure-track assistant professor in visual journalism and data negotiation at Concordia University (deadline: Oct. 20)
• Journaliste-pupitreur, Métro (deadline: Oct. 22)
• Summer intern, Globe and Mail (deadline: Oct. 27)
• Colour commentator for Montreal Canadiennes CWHL home games

Upcoming events

• FPJQ conference, Nov. 17-19 in Sherbrooke