News about news

• Winners of the Pulitzer Prize have been announced. Among them are stories on the #MeToo movement, the Roy Moore U.S. Senate scandal, Russian interference in the U.S. election, and Kendrick Lamar. They also include this story by the Cincinnati Enquirer, which mobilized dozens of journalists to cover one week of the heroin epidemic in the area.
• Families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn., are suing InfoWars’s Alex Jones for repeatedly saying they don’t exist.
• CBC Montreal is publishing stories out of a collaboration with Concordia journalism students on Montrealers’ relationships with food.
• CBC published a news story about Kirushna Kumar Kanagaratnam, the eighth victim of Toronto alleged serial killer Bruce McArthur, translated into Tamil.
• Someone not only stole Bruce MacKinnon’s editorial cartoon about the Humboldt bus crash to sell on T-shirts, but didn’t do so as a fundraiser. The Australian website the shirts were being sold through is now donating proceeds to charity.
• The RCMP says it needs another 80 years to work on an access to information request
• SABEW Canada (Society of Business Editors and Writers) has announced its Best in Business journalism awards. Among the winners are the Globe’s telecom reporter Christine Dobby.
• Canadaland got a copy of a Toronto Sun internal memo offering editorial guidance on how to cover the Ontario provincial election. The memo says the paper is “advocating for change”. (The Toronto Sun’s parent company is the same as my employer’s). The union is not pleased.
• TVA has set Sept. 20, 8pm as the date and time for its Quebec provincial leaders’ debate. The election is Oct. 1. The two-hour debate will feature the four leaders of parties with seats in the National Assembly.

Ethical reviews

• Canadian Broadcast Standards Council: An episode of Star Trek Discovery that contained vulgar language and gory scenes should not have aired before 9pm.
• CBC ombudsman: Episode of Interrupt This Program about Poland should have made clearer to viewers that it was a point-of-view documentary.
• Another CBC ombudsman review of someone complaining about bias in discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

TV

• Allarco, owner of Super Channel, has emerged from creditor protection. It’s celebrating by rebranding its remaining numbered channels.
• BNN’s rebrand to BNN Bloomberg takes place April 30 and the channel will be on free preview for two months and promises 22 hours a day of live programming on weekdays (11 hours of which will be Canadian, including an hour with Amanda Lang that will be broadcast on international Bloomberg channels). They’re also launching a radio station (see below).
• Despite not having a specific quota to meet, Netflix is looking for creators in Quebec to give them content.
• Richard Therrien compiles a list of Quebec TV series’ renewal status.
• The Globe and Mail looks at ratings for CBC’s The National.
• MSNBC has dropped its news ticker. The scrolling headline tickers generally made their appearance on all-news networks after Sept. 11, 2001.
• Bell’s Gusto has a new original series starring Masterchef Canada judge Michael Bonacini. Gusto has also picked up the rights to a Nigella Lawson series.
• Bell’s Z télé has a new series this fall that follows staff at the Pinel psychiatric institute.
• Vrak has a new series that involves going through people’s cellphones.
• Bravo is on free preview as of April 24, just in time for the new season of The Handmaid’s Tale and new original series Carter, starring Jerry O’Connell as a Canadian who makes it big in Hollywood but returns home after a meltdown.
• Netflix has commissioned an SCTV reunion special directed by Martin Scorsese.
• Comcast is adding Netflix to its cable package options.
• AT&T is going to launch a $15 a month skinny basic cable package with no sports channels for its wireless service customers.
• AdWeek explores how local television stations in the U.S. are experimenting with over-the-top delivery of video content.

Radio

• Roundhouse Radio, a Vancouver talk station that tried to bring a new alternative for serious talk radio to that market, has run out of money and will shut down at the end of the month unless a saviour steps forward.
• Speaking of Vancouver Radio, Bell is taking CFTE 1410 AM, its second TSN Radio station in the market, and reformatting it as Canada’s first business news radio station, BNN Bloomberg Radio, starting April 30. Having a second TSN station in the market was made less necessary when rights to Vancouver Canucks games were lost to the new Sportsnet station.
• FYI Music News talks to Mike Bendixen, program director at Toronto’s NewsTalk 1010. Their discussion touches on his brief experience in Montreal, when he was PD at CJAD. He notes matter-of-factly the differences in management style (translation: losing of soul) between Standard Broadcasting, Astral Media and Bell Media.
• TSN 1150 (CKOC) in Hamilton is expanding its coverage of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats with two new shows.

Print

• Vividata has released (to its members) newspaper and magazine readership data. Quebecor’s press release is here.

Online

• As if Facebook doesn’t have enough problems, the Journal de Montréal reports that ingenious defence lawyers are using Facebook’s People You May Know feature to identify jurors.
• ABC News is taking over FiveThirtyEight.com from ESPN. Both ESPN and ABC are owned by Disney.
• La Presse+ marked its fifth anniversary this week.

News about people

• Sarah Bartok, formerly of The Beat in Montreal, has been let go from her position at 93.5 The Move in Toronto as part of a shakeup there that also swept out Stacey Thompson. Program Director Scot Turner is also leaving, though he says it’s his decision.
• Chantal Desjardins is filling in as co-host on Breakfast Television Montreal this month.
• Le Devoir columnist Francine Pelletier was the recipient of an award by the Public Policy Forum.
• Bob Cole isn’t happy that Sportsnet had no use for him during the NHL playoffs.
• CHEX News anchor Graham Hart is retiring after 45 years.
• George Lagogianes has been named co-host of CP24 Breakfast and host of CP24 Live at Noon.
• Beatrice Britneff (formerly of iPolitics) and Chris Whan (formerly of Nepean Barrhaven News) have been added to Global News’s new Ottawa city bureau, covering local news outside Parliament Hill for the first time.
• Deb Matejicka (formerly of The Weather Network) is joining Global Calgary as a community reporter.
• James Marcus has been fired as editor of Harper’s, and says it was because of a controversial cover story that he disagreed with. The magazine denies this.

Obituaries

• Carl Kasell, NPR newscaster and announcer/scorekeeper for Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me
• Art Bell, former host of Coast to Coast AM

Good reads

• The inside story of Inside Sports magazine
• Where New Yorkers think “upstate” starts

Jobs

• J-Source/CWA Canada reporting fellowship (deadline: April 20)
• Desk editor, La Presse (deadline: April 27)
• Diversity bursary, La Presse (deadline: May 3)