News about news

• CBC has a new website, CBC Kids News, that features news stories by and for children.
• (English) Canada’s five main freelance writing associations are joining forces in a campaign to get people to say no to bad contracts. So far the initiative is mainly about educating freelancers, and proposes little that takes advantage of their numbers.
• Politico Pro Canada, which publishes news about the Canada-U.S. political relationship, is now live. It’s run by Alex Panetta, former Washington correspondent for the Canadian Press.
• AB Today, a subscription newsletter covering Alberta politics, is launching. It’s from Allison Smith, the publisher of Queen’s Park Today and BC Today.
• A defamation lawsuit against Alain Gravel has been dismissed. The suit, related to an Enquête story from five years ago, wanted damages after Gravel said businessman Lee Lalli had ties to the mafia. The judge found that, actually, he did have ties to the mafia.
• Six Montreal English-language media organizations teamed up on Monday to fact-check the first televised English leaders’ debate. The resulting story was published to all their websites.
• Le Devoir is getting $500,000 from Air Transat over five years to support its international journalism. The money, which the paper says comes with no quid pro quo, will support travel and accommodation costs, while Le Devoir takes care of salaries.
• The Houston Chronicle is investigating whether one of its journalists, Mike Ward, fabricated sources for stories. Ward has resigned from the paper.
• Ottawa police did an oopsie and emailed an investigation report to a bunch of journalists, and is now desperately trying to get them to not use it.
• 20 newsrooms in Texas got together to buy the state’s voter registration database and voting history data for $3,600.

News about unions

(Because we have enough of that to warrant its own section)

• There’s a deal in principle at CBC/Radio-Canada with its SCRC union, which represents workers in the province of Quebec and Moncton. The deal will be presented to members (which include CBC Montreal employees) on Saturday.
• TVA workers have rejected a “final offer” contract from the employer by a close vote of 51.4%. They have threatened to strike on Sept. 22, but the union says it is focused on trying to hammer out a new deal before then. Meanwhile, they’re trying to pressure politicians to refuse interviews and freelancers to boycott the network if they do go out, and on potential replacement workers to refuse to become de facto scabs.
• The Ottawa Newspaper Guild, which represents unionized workers at the Ottawa Citizen and Ottawa Sun, has voted narrowly in favour of accepting a final contract offer from employer Postmedia, which had threatened to lock the employees out if it wasn’t accepted. Such a lockout would have also triggered a strike at the Montreal Gazette. The Gazette union (of which I’m a member) is still in a lockout/strike position, and the union is saying it won’t roll over as easily as Ottawa did.

At the CRTC

• The commission has approved a transmitter site change for the Sortir FM tourist radio stations in Quebec City: CKJF-FM and CJNG-FM.
• Low-power community TV station CFTV-DT Leamington, Ont., has also gotten approval to relocate its transmitter.
• Italian TV channel La7 Italia has been approved for distribution in Canada, at the request of Ethnic Channels Group.

Ethical reviews and apologies

• No, the Téléjournal Ontario did not censor the word “black” from an interview with a guy talking about black flies.
• No, CBC News is not being controlled by the “pro-Israel lobby“.
• CBC News using different words to describe what American and Russian governments want is not biased when taken in context.
• A Téléjournal report about an acquittal should have refrained from describing it as a “crime that will remain unpunished.”
• National Newsmedia Council: A Margaret Wente column in the Globe and Mail about the minimum basic income did not endorse white supremacy by saying the Charles Murray book The Bell Curve was “wrongly maligned”. The 1994 book discussed a link between race and intelligence, but Wente didn’t specify how the book was wrongly maligned.
• The New York Times has apologized after an article criticizing the U.S. State Department’s purchase of curtains focused too much on ambassador Nikki Haley. The decision was made under the previous administration.

TV

• To celebrate its 25th anniversary, Conan O’Brien has uploaded the first episode of Late Night with Conan O’Brien to YouTube. It starts with him making fun of the pressure he was under replacing David Letterman.
• Videotron Montreal community channel MAtv has three new English series on its schedule this fall: 514 Undiscovered, which follows “obscure communities” (co-hosted by CityNews’s Giordano Cescutti); ART Impact, hosted by Anne Janody; and My Curious City, an English version of a similar French show that is a collaborative effort of the station’s volunteers.
• CTV Atlantic is doing a New Brunswick leaders roundtable discussion on Thursday, in advance of Monday’s election day.
• V had a relaunch party last week. I wrote about it for Cartt.ca subscribers, but besides a bunch of new programming and an orange logo, there’s not as much new as has been hyped.
• Remaining NHL broadcast schedules are out: Canadiens, Senators, Jets and Leafs (split between TSN and Sportsnet).
• TSN and Sportsnet have also announced their Toronto Raptors schedule. Each gets 41 games on TV and 41 on radio (not the same ones).
• CBC is calling its new paid subscription streaming service Gem. It costs $5 a month and features mostly Canadian content, but not exclusively from CBC. It’s similar to the Tou.Tv offering in French.
• Global TV has greenlit a new original one-hour medical drama with the working title Nurses. The 10-episode series is produced by eOne and run by Adam Pettle, who was also behind Saving Hope.
• Global BC is launching a new weekly civic politics series called Focus BC.
• CTV’s Jann Arden sitcom has begun production.
• CTV has announced casting for the second season of music competition show The Launch. Marie-Mai Bouchard, the Quebec music star, is joining as a permanent mentor, which will introduce her to an English Canadian audience. New mentors also include Ryan Tedder, Sarah McLachlan, and Arkells’ Max Kerman. And eTalk’s Liz Trinnear will fill a new hosting role on the show, replacing the disembodied voiceover narration of Andrea Collins in Season 1. They start shooting scenes with audiences next week.
• Quebec’s TV industry handed out its prestigious Gémeaux awards on Sunday.
• TV ad revenue for Canadiens games is down significantly because, you know, the team sucked last season.
• YouTube Premium is launching new series in French. And it presented originals in Germany as well.
• British broadcasters BBC, ITV and Sky have committed to doubling the number of people with disabilities working in TV by 2020.
• An Inside Edition crew was filming a sting operation exposing smash-and-grab theft of items in vehicles and their sting car was broken into. They successfully retrieved the items, but meanwhile their own car was also broken into.
• The Golden Globes will remain on NBC for the next eight years.
• NBC-owned stations have picked up a Kelly Clarkson daytime talk show.
• Blue’s Clues is back, with actor Joshua Dela Cruz playing the new human and a slight title change, becoming “Blue’s Clues & You“. A new 20-episode season begins shooting in Toronto.

Radio

Premier matin pour Elsie Miclisse à la barre de Point du jour! Soyez des nôtres de 6h à 9h! pic.twitter.com/GdNKoIAkMU

— Point du jour (@pointdujoursask) September 12, 2018

• Canadian music star Serena Ryder will host a new weekend two-hour show on Rogers’s CHFI in Toronto, which will be syndicated on 12 other Rogers music stations.
• Corus is giving the reins of the morning show on Toronto’s 102.1 The Edge to a brother-and-sister team, Ruby and Alex Carr. Corus says this is the first brother-and-sister duo on Canadian FM morning radio.
• Corus’s new podcast network has signed an independent, Jordan Bonaparte’s Nighttime. The documentary series will also air on Global News Radio AM stations in October.
• BuzzFeed is pulling out of podcasts to focus more on video projects.
• Global News Radio will host a Toronto mayoral debate on Sept. 25. It will be livestreamed as well, with highlights on TV later that evening.

Print

Yesterday @thebrandonsun laid off the deskers, the people who lay out the paper each day. They’re moving the jobs to Winnipeg like the printing a few years back. The deskers work tirelessly against deadline nightly with little recognition. Losing them is a huge blow. #bdnmb

— Tim Smith (@othertimsmith) September 11, 2018

• The Suburban has rebranded its Laval edition as Urban Laval, and a note from the editor promises more local coverage, particularly in local arts and culture.
• Time magazine has been sold to a billionaire for $190 million, the latest prestigious publication to be sold to a rich private interest.
• The editor of the New York Review of Books has left the magazine after it published an essay by Jian Ghomeshi. He says he felt forced to resign.
• French magazine Closer has lost an appeal over fines it got for publishing topless photos of Kate Middleton.
• Playboy is going from six to four issues a year.

Online

• The Supreme Court has ruled that internet providers can charge a reasonable fee to copyright holders for helping in searching for pirates who are downloading and sharing content illegally. The decision, Rogers vs. Voltage Pictures, says the exact amount will be determined at a later hearing.
• Gawker is coming back next year.

Telecom

• Quebecor is starting a new discount wireless service brand called Fizz. Like other flanker brands (Fido, Koodo, Lucky), it hides its related company.

News about people

• Global News has given the additional title of Assistant News Director to Global Montreal anchor Jamie Orchard. She remains the lead anchor, and will continue to work under news director Karen Macdonald. Lisa Fiset is the station’s managing editor.
• Isabelle Richer has given up the co-host job at Enquête so she can focus on an expanded role as justice analyst on Radio-Canada’s news platforms.
• Robyn Flynn is launching a blog and podcast for her coverage of the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and Montreal Canadiennes.
• Cora MacDonald, who was hired at Citytv and then Global as a news reporter, has left journalism to take a PR job at nonprofit Moisson Montréal.
• The Globe and Mail’s Justin Giovannetti is leaving Queen’s Park and going back to Alberta to become its new correspondent in Calgary.
• Charles Côté and Éric-Pierre Champagne, president and VP of the union of workers at La Presse, are both coincidentally leaving their jobs. The union will continue without a leader for the time being.
• Jennifer Valentyne of Corus’s Q107 Toronto is the permanent co-host of the Parenting Show on sister station Global News Radio 640.
• Nick Dixon has moved from CP24 to become the new weekend co-anchor at CTV Toronto.
• Haley Lewis is a new Indigenous reporter at Huffington Post Canada.
• Arshy Mann is the new host of the Canadaland Commons podcast.
• Richard Southern at Toronto’s 680 News is moving from business to provincial politics.
• Former Canadiens coach Michel Therrien is returning to RDS, contributing regularly to Hockey 360 and l’Antichambre.
• Clive Jackson, former assignment editor for Global BC, is getting a lifetime achievement award from B.C.’s Jack Webster Foundation.
• Vanessa Case, formerly of Blue Ant Media, has been named Senior Vice-President Studio Canada for Vice.
• Julie Chen has left CBS’s The Talk, citing family reasons. And for once that’s believable because her husband is Les Moonves.
• 60 Minutes boss Jeff Fager has left the company after having “violated company policy”

News about companies

• Torstar is buying iPolitics. A price for the acquisition hasn’t been announced.
• U.S. radio giant iHeartMedia is buying podcasting company Stuff Media for $55 million.
• Bell Media in Montreal is holding an open house on Sept. 24 for university graduates interested in working for them.
• Andrew Willis in the Globe and Mail notes that the difficulties that Corus, Rogers and DHX have in offloading their media assets could be counterproductive by preventing them from accessing cash they would need to innovate.

Obituaries

• Bill Gable, radio announcer

Jobs

• Journalist, Acadie Nouvelle in Edmunston/Caraquet (deadline: Sept. 21)
• Station manager, CJLO at Concordia University (deadline: Sept. 21)
• Broadcast journalist, VOCM in St. John’s (deadline: Sept. 21)
• Reporter/writer, CTV News Toronto (one-year contract; deadline: Sept. 23)
• Afternoon News Anchor/Reporter, The River/More FM in Niagara Falls/Fort Erie (deadline: Sept. 24)
• Evening anchor/reporter, Bell Media Toronto (deadline: Sept. 24)
• Street team ambassador, The Beat 92.5 in Montreal (deadline: Sept. 28)
• Journalist, myFM in Orangeville & Milton, Ont. (deadline: Sept. 28)
• Anchor/reporter, CP24 Toronto (one-year contract; deadline: Sept. 30)
• Reporter/editor, paNOW.com in Prince Albert, Sask. (deadline: Sept. 30)
• Anchor/reporter, 620 CKRM in Regina (deadline: Oct. 5)
• Video journalist, CityNews Montreal
• News anchor, Zoomer Radio/Classical FM in Toronto
• Staff writer, Vice.com in Toronto
• Reporter, Pattison Broadcast Group in Prince Albert, Sask.