Category Archives: Media

July 19, 2019 | Media, Opinion

Loopholes in the written journalism bailout panel report

It’s called the Journalism and Written Media Independent Panel of Experts. Eight people proposed by organizations (two of them unions) hand-picked by the federal government, who were supposed to set the criteria for how to determine what are “Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations” that would be eligible for a tax credit on labour and another one on news subscriptions, part of a $595-million bailout package over five years.

This week, the panel submitted its report to the government. It sets some criteria for how to judge whether an organization is doing real journalism (or real enough to deserve a tax credit), but it also leaves me with a lot of questions. The headline to the report is that the panel thinks the funding is insufficient and is calling on a lot more to be added to the budget (this is not something it was asked to look at in its mandate). It also demands the government greatly increase its ad spend on newspapers and newspapers’ websites, and change the Copyright Act to force digital giants (presumably Google) to compensate news organizations, more things it was not asked to comment on.

As someone who enjoys finding loopholes in rules, I’d like to go through the report and point out some of them.

Preamble: Journalists aren’t accredited

It might surprise a lot of non-journalists to hear this, but there is no central authority that decides who is and is not a journalist. There are organizations, like the Parliamentary Press Gallery or the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec that set criteria and will authenticate journalists in some way, but there are many professional journalists that are part of neither, whose only credentials are given by their employer and have no legal powers attached to them.

This is by design. In Canada, anyone can be a journalist. The profession is not regulated, and allowing the government to decide who can and cannot practice it would be a Very Bad Idea.

So when we talk about giving money to journalism, we have to define what that is. Hence the panel, set up for the sole purpose of laying down some criteria, which would be applied by others. It’s not an easy job, and any rules you set only lead to more problems, as we’ll see below.

Let the CRA decide, or maybe journalism professors

In the interests of moving quickly, we have recommended that the tax credits be implemented and administered directly by the Canada Revenue Agency. We have recommended that the Government appoint an advisory body, with members drawn from the faculty of post-secondary journalism schools across Canada, to assist the Minister of National Revenue with this program.

The panel proposes that rather than a new government bureaucracy, the Canada Revenue Agency itself make calls on whether an organization should qualify for a tax credit. This is a good idea. The CRA is independent of partisan interests, and staffed by accountants who can be trusted, at least more than a politically-appointed body, to apply the criteria objectively.

But then, if the CRA is unsure (and I would be pretty unsure about a lot of organizations here), it can turn to an “advisory body” made up exclusively of journalism professors. The panel makes the assumption that such professors would be similarly objective (perhaps even more so). I’m not sure why. University professors have a reputation of being more left-wing, and that might not sit well with more conservative media outlets.

“It has published at least 10 editions in the last 12 months”

This makes sense for print media, and for edition-based outlets like La Presse+. But what does “edition” mean in terms of a website? How many “editions” has this blog put out? Or CBC.ca? Or the National Observer? Or iPolitics? These organizations wouldn’t be eligible anyway for other reasons, but this line alone seems to betray the fact that this isn’t about saving journalism as a whole or written journalism, it’s about saving newspapers and former newspapers.

“…in the case of web sites that offers video and audio files, at least 60% of the content is written.”

This makes sense until you ask yourself the obvious question: How do you quantify audiovisual content in a way that can compare to written content? Is it by file size? That’s unfair because video is so much larger. Is it by time spent consuming it? Then you’d have to establish some average reading speed. Or maybe one story = one video or podcast, regardless of length of either?

Even if we could establish some proper criteria for this, it encourages a gaming of the system, by finding a cheap source of written content and/or artificially restricting the amount of multimedia content.

“Journalistic processes”

To determine what qualifies as “original written news content,” a phrase used in the legislation for both the labour tax credit and the digital subscription tax credit, the committee provides these “processes and principles”:

Journalistic processes and principles include:

a commitment to researching and verifying information before publication;

a consistent practice of providing rebuttal opportunity for those being criticized and presenting alternate perspectives, interpretations and analyses;

an honest representation of sources;

a practice or correcting errors.

These sound great (well, except for that unfortunate typo in the sentence about correcting errors). And most serious news organizations follow these principles. Most of the time. But how do you enforce this? Leave it to the CRA to determine whether enough errors were corrected by a publication, or whether enough research and verification was done on enough stories? There is no central body regulating written media, and even if you made membership in an organization like the National Newsmedia Council a condition for getting the tax credit (and it’s not), such bodies act only on complaints and have no real power.

Content mix

Content not considered as editorial content: advertisements, listings, catalogues, directories, guides, financial reports, schedules, calendars, timetables, comic books, cartoons, puzzles, games and horoscopes. Advertisements include promotional content, sponsored content, branded content (any content where a third party, advertising client or business partner, participates in the development of the concept or directs or gives final approval to a large portion of the content) as well as stories produced primarily for industrial, corporate or institutional purposes.

This is interesting, and at first glance it would seem to mean that publications that have large amounts of listings, ads or cartoons wouldn’t qualify. But the point of this paragraph is actually to exclude all this content from the calculation of how much editorial content is original to the publication, and seems specifically designed to tilt the scale in favour of newspapers and other publications that have a lot of advertisements and other non-news content.

The original news content (or original editorial content) is the content for which research, writing, editing and formatting are conducted by and for the organization. This original content should represent more than 50% of the publication’s editorial content, over the course of the year. The rewriting, translation, reproduction or aggregation of news from external sources (including articles from news agencies or any other publication) is not considered original news content. The publication of this type of content must not represent the principal activity of the journalistic organization, in order for it to be eligible.

There’s a lot to unpack here:

What is “the organization”? A lot of newspapers are part of chains. Does the organization mean the individual newspaper or the chain?
Does “editing and formatting” mean that newspapers that outsource things like page layout would be ineligible?
If a publication is more than 50% wire content, it would not be eligible. But how is this counted? By number of stories? By number of words published? How do you calculate that for a website that might have automated feeds of wire stories?
The paragraph makes “rewriting” and “aggregation” of news not count towards the quota. But how strict are these definitions? If a newspaper matches a story from a competitor with one of its own, or a column summarizes something reported elsewhere, does this not count as original content?

Democratic institutions

To be considered as an eligible QCJO, the publication must regularly cover democratic institutions and processes.

Democratic institutions include legislatives bodies, municipal councils, courts of justice, school boards, etc.

Democratic processes has a broader scope, and includes all issues of public interest that may come before government or any other public decision body.

Another clause that nudges us toward traditional newspapers and away from specialized media, this one requires eligible organizations to “regularly cover” (another undefined term) legislatures, courts or school boards (or other unspecified “etc.”). This might seem obvious, but we live in a world where many legislatures aren’t covered by journalists full-time. There are lots of journalists at Parliament Hill or Queen’s Park or the National Assembly, but in smaller provinces like Saskatchewan, New Brunswick or PEI, you can fit their full-time press galleries in the back of a van. It’s not a given that all traditional media would meet this criterion, and the vague way it’s described would mean more work for the CRA.

General interest

Furthermore, the publication must be focused on matters of general interest. It means that:

it is aimed at a general audience (lay persons) rather than specialists of a specific field,

it offers a diversity of content, including at least 3 among the following 9 areas: local news; national news; international news; social issues (such as health, education, faith and ethics); business and economy; sports; culture; science and technology; environment.

This brings up an important question: Why is this aid only for general interest newspapers? Is it just assumed that more specialized media are bankrolled indirectly by the industries they cover? One consequence of this is that it artificially tips the scale toward general interest media, and will discourage such media from becoming more specialized, even if that might be in their economic, readers’ and even society’s best interest. (This is a problem with the legislation, mind you, not the panel’s work.)

No freelancers

The expression “regularly employs” refers to the employment of journalists at regular intervals, either fulltime or part-time, even if their position is temporarily unoccupied.

This sentence, which gives context to an element of the legislation requiring at least two journalists, makes it clear that freelancers don’t count. That would exclude many media who rely mainly on freelancers. Not necessarily a bad thing, but worth noting.

Who is a journalist?

The term “journalists” should be understood in the broad sense given to it by media companies and professional associations of journalists, which includes all newsroom employees who exercise journalistic judgement in selecting, planning, assigning and producing news content, including research and collection of facts, data analysis, writing and copy editing, fact-checking, illustration, photography and videography, graphic presentation and adaptation of news content to digital formats.

This is a broad definition of journalist, but not overly so. It includes editors, managers, assignment editors, researchers, photojournalists and illustrators. But it doesn’t include people in administrative tasks or who work in non-editorial departments. It’s not clear how people who have multiple tasks will be counted. Do journalistic activities have to represent the majority of work for them to qualify as journalists? (The labour tax credit says it should be 75%, but it’s unclear if this same quota would apply to an organization that wants a digital news subscription tax credit.)

Ineligible organizations

publications whose editorial content is primarily reproduced or repeated from current or previous issues of the same or other publications;

This clause would seem to exclude publications that primarily reproduce content from other publications. That could cause a problem for organizations like Postmedia (my employer) and Quebecor, whose newspapers share a lot of content. Postmedia broadsheets, the Sun tabloids and the Journal de Montréal and Journal de Québec share not only content, but entire pages between them for non-local news and features. Would they have to limit shared content to under 50%? It depends how this is interpreted.

publications with editorial content that is more than 50% of the following, singly or in combination: listings, catalogues, directories, guides, financial reports, schedules, calendars, timetables, comic books, cartoons, puzzles, games and horoscopes;

Wait, hold on. Above, they said “listings, catalogues, directories, guides, financial reports, schedules, calendars, timetables, comic books, cartoons, puzzles, games and horoscopes” are “not considered editorial content.” If they’re not editorial content, how can they possibly make up more than 50% of editorial content?

If we use this definition that apparently includes these things as editorial content, then this might cause trouble. A newspaper with a cartoon page, a puzzles page, a movie listings page, a TV listings page would have that all count against their editorial content (counted how exactly?) and on a slow news day might push it over the top.

Also note how the word “advertisements” is missing from this list, which is otherwise identical to the definition of “not considered editorial content” earlier in the report. That makes sense, but it also underscores the fact that nothing in this set of criteria sets any limit on the amount of advertising in a publication.

pamphlets and other publications whose editorial content consists mainly of opinion texts;

This might cause problems for publications that rely heavily on columnists.

Publication used for the diffusion of hate content;

This sounds good. It also sounds like something lots of activists will pounce on to argue publications they don’t like should have their tax credits revoked. But why are “hate content” publications allowed in the first place?

loose-leaf publications.

I don’t know why this is here. I can’t think of a publication that might otherwise be eligible that requires this clarification, or a reason why a publication that would otherwise be eligible should be disqualified because it’s distributed in loose-leaf form.

Experts must agree with us

The qualifications for panel members should include that they:

support the package of tax credits to help written news outlets covering general interest news

I mean, I guess it would be odd if a panel member opposed the thing they’re here to judge, but it feels weird to require an independent expert to support a political policy. If they express criticism of a tax credit, do they get booted off the panel?

Actually, maybe freelancers

Later, in its list of additional recommendations, the panel says:

Allowing small publications, which have served established audiences for more than 10 years but do not have two regular employees for the last 12 months, to be able to count freelancers and independent contractors among journalists who regularly contribute to the creation of original content in order to allow them to be considered Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations. This would include individuals who work as reporters, editors, page designers, photographers and columnists on a regular basis.

It’s unclear why freelancers shouldn’t count in general but should be allowed to count for small publications with fewer than two employed journalists. Allowing this exception essentially eliminates the entire point for setting that two-employed-journalist minimum in the first place.

Make Google pay

Reform the taxation system so that media companies that benefit from the use of Canadian content contribute to its creation. This includes social media, search platforms and internet providers. This can be done by creating a dedicated fund and redirecting levies paid by these entities to support Canadian news outlets.

I won’t go into all the out-of-mandate recommendations from the panel, which mostly translate into “more $$ plz”, but this one is pretty significant, requiring search engines and even internet providers to pay taxes to support Canadian news outlets. News organizations have repeatedly said Google and Facebook need to help them financially because they’re taking their content. Meanwhile those same organizations devote lots of time and resources to get their content as prominent as possible on Google and Facebook.

Amend the Copyright Act so that originating news outlets are properly compensated for the creation of copyrighted news material that is duplicated across digital platforms.

This isn’t explained, and it’s unclear what it means. Is it referring to when Google excerpts the content of pages in search results, or is it talking about the wholesale copying and pasting of entire stories on sketchy websites?

Transparency

A list of companies that have successfully filed for status as Qualified Canadian Journalism Organizations be publicly available.

Good. Taxpayer money should be doled out transparently. Though it’s unclear if the CRA itself would publish this list or some other organization. And it’s unclear why companies that unsuccessfully apply shouldn’t also be publicly available.

Executive compensation

Given that the initiatives outlined in the budget legislation aim to support the creation of news content and coverage of democratic institutions, and that certain companies have eliminated jobs in their newsrooms at the same time as giving executive officers excessive compensation, this Panel strongly urges the Government to require qualifying organizations to recognize that they have an obligation to use publicly funded benefits for the intended purpose of investing in news operations by not awarding excessive compensation to executives at the same time as they receive assistance from the program.

Certain news organizations have been accused of spending too much on executive compensation while seeking a bailout. So some people have suggested this paragraph is aimed at a particular person or type of people.

Let Le Devoir in

The panel specifically recommends that the legislation that allows non-profit news organizations to get charitable status be amended so that organizations that support non-profit news organizations can also be charities. Le Devoir is supported by such an organization, and under the current law (which was drafted more to support La Presse) it wouldn’t be able to issue charitable tax receipts. This seems like a no-brainer, provided the assistance organization otherwise meets the definition of a charity and the news organization itself would otherwise be eligible.

Le Devoir reacted to the report with outrage, as if the report itself was the problem, rather than simply confirming what’s in the legislation and seeking changes on Le Devoir’s behalf. Quebecor, meanwhile, says the report shows the Liberals are in bed with La Presse, but doesn’t point to any specific part of the report or the law that unduly favours its competitor.

An improvised report with big consequences

This panel had only a month to come up with its recommendations, and had to work under the rules set by legislation they did not draft, so I don’t want to criticize them too much. But this report underscores the fact that defining what is and is not journalism is very hard, and not at all easy. Even though we know which kinds of media will likely get the most help (daily newspapers, news magazines plus La Presse), there’s a lot of play around the margins.

What’s more important, though, is that once the government sets some official standard for what constitutes a journalist or journalistic organization, that standard can be referenced or copied elsewhere, creating a slippery slope. Certain privileges meant for any journalist could be restricted to those who meet these criteria and are deemed eligible for the tax credit. Other privileges could be created that give officially accredited journalists more rights than the rest of us. And we need to think hard about the consequences of that.

Tax credits for journalism might be a good idea. But these tax credits support a very specific type of journalism to the detriment of others, and the criteria proposed here just add to the problems.

July 11, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: De Adder axed, CRTC gets Indigenous commissioner, Mark Bergman joins The Beat

News about news

By now you’ve probably heard the Michael De Adder story, about the cartoonist who was dropped from the Brunswick News papers after he posted an anti-Trump cartoon on Twitter. The company denies that he was fired for a Trump cartoon that they say he never offered to them. Brunswick instead says the decision was made long before that cartoon was published, and they decided to replace De Adder with another cartoonist. That cartoonist, Greg Perry, has decided not to take the gig after being bombarded with angry comments online. The stories of the two sides don’t contradict on the basic facts, so I’m inclined to believe them. De Adder says Brunswick tended to avoid cartoons critical of Trump, of the Irving empire and of the premier of New Brunswick, Blaine Higgs, a former Irving Oil executive.
Vice News reporter Ben Makuch has lost his final attempt to prevent disclosure of information to the RCMP related to an Islamic State fighter he interviewed. Makuch, who lost his case to the Supreme Court over rights as a journalist, tried to argue that the suspect is dead and the warrant is moot, but the court found there was insufficient proof of that death. Makuch says this is likely the end and he will have to turn over his chat logs.
Meanwhile in Australia, federal police got airline Qantas to hand over travel history of an Australian Broadcasting Corp. journalist who published information illegally leaked by a government official.
Statistics are not encouraging for the news industry, with an estimate showing the worst year of layoffs since 2009, and newsroom employment dropping 25% in the past 10 years.
Le Devoir explains why it chose not to publish images of the crucifix being removed from the Blue Room of the National Assembly: Journalists were not invited to witness the event, and so the legislature filmed and shot the event itself, providing those images to the media. Le Devoir argues this sets a bad precedent of the government choosing what images of the legislature it allows the media to see. The Canadian Press refused to distribute the handout photos for the same reason.
University of Ottawa student newspaper The Fulcrum had its website hacked and thousands of articles deleted by someone who doesn’t like them. Thanks to backups (keep backups, people!) the site has been restored.
The latest Cahiers du journalisme is out, from the universities of Ottawa and Laval. It’s mostly think pieces, but this piece provides a good summary of the state of regional newspapers in Quebec, looking at the Quebecor-Transcontinental war, Gesca’s sale of its other dailies, and Transcontinental’s sales of community papers and Métro.
While everyone’s focused on the news bailout (which by the way explicitly excludes freelancers), Canadaland points out that many large newspaper organizations already get millions of dollars through what are essentially bulk subscriptions.
Kathy English writes about the Toronto Star’s Mirrored in Media project to get women and people of colour more represented in news stories as sources.
The Columbia Journalism Review is being criticized for describing beat reporters covering specific other news organizations as “public editors.” The four in question, covering the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC, work for CJR and have no affiliation or special access to the news organizations they’re covering. They are in no way ombudspeople for those organizations.
A Yahoo News investigation shows that the Seth Rich conspiracy theory — that the Democratic campaign staffer was murdered by Hillary Clinton’s henchmen for leaking emails — was propagated by Russian intelligence.
The Jeffrey Epstein case in the U.S. has prompted a lot of praise for Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald journalist whose reporting on him led to the charges he currently faces. Her articles can be found here.
Heather Mills, ex-wife of Paul McCartney, and her sister have received a “substantial” settlement from News Corp. as a result of the British phone hacking scandal.
The Canadian and U.K. governments are giving $4 million to a new global media defence fund.

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June 28, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: The fake community paper, Tremonti’s goodbye, Globe and Mail buyouts

News about news

Twitter is good for a lot of things. Today it’s good for the many ways @Steverukavina’s autocorrect is messing up “Jolin-Barrette" pic.twitter.com/C7w9noZNc8

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) June 27, 2019

There will not be criminal charges filed against Journal de Montréal journalist Michaël Nguyen, whose laptop was seized in 2016 after he broke a story about a judge losing her shit in a parking garage. He was accused of illegally accessing confidential documents when he accessed surveillance video of the incident through a Google search.
The Hudson’s Bay Company, a publicly traded company, barred journalists from its recent annual shareholders’ meeting, an unusual move that did not sit well with journalists and potentially some minority shareholders.
A bilingual community newspaper, called Community Digest/Nouvelles Communautaires, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in government money through subsidies and advertising, but its editions are filled with articles blatantly plagiarized from other news organizations. A TFO investigation found that even some of the ads that appear in the paper were put in there without authorization, and circulation figures appear sketchy as well.

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June 19, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: Journalism bailout panel, Raptors set ratings records, Le Devoir’s Garnotte retires

News about news

Victory pic.twitter.com/Vftsp6or67

— Steve Faguy (@fagstein) June 14, 2019

The eight groups that have been asked to name experts to a panel to determine eligibility criteria for the federal government’s journalism bailout have selected their representatives:
- Canadian Association of Journalists: Esther Enkin, former CBC ombudsman
- News Media Canada: Bob Cox, chairperson of NMC and publisher of the Winnipeg Free Press
- Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec: Pierre Sormany, journalism professor, formerly of Le Soleil, Radio-Canada and magazines including Québec-science and Vélo Mag.
- Quebec Community Newspaper Association: Brenda O’Farrell, director of QCNA and editor-in-chief of Rabble.ca
- National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada: Thomas Saras, CEO
- Association de presse francophone: Pierre-Paul Noreau, publisher of Le Droit
- Unifor: Brad Honywill, retired journalist and union representative
- Fédération nationale des communications: Pascale St-Onge, president
The New Brunswick Telegraph Journal has won the Michener Award for public service journalism, for an investigation into deficiencies in the province’s ambulance service.
The Canadian Association of Journalists says it supports the recommendations of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls as they related to journalism.
The Reuters Institute has released its Digital News Report for 2019. The report shows that very few people are paying for news online, and most of those that are pay only one or two publications. Highlights of findings from Canada show that only 9% said they paid for any form of digital news in the past year.
Simon Houpt throws some cold water on a report that most Canadians fall for fake news.
Quebec’s ombudsman has denounced the firing of an agronomist in the agriculture department after he blew the whistle about conflicts of interest related to a report on pesticide use. The report has resulted in the resignation of the deputy minister, but the minister (who said he approved the firing himself, then said he didn’t) is still in his job.
John Kennedy’s Pop Goes the News website has some accusations of plagiarism against the website FYI Music News.
The City of Montreal is changing its public notice rules so that it no longer has to publish them in newspapers. That will save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars, but also cost print media (like my employer the Montreal Gazette) lots of money. The FPJQ has condemned the decision because of its effect on newspapers (though, notably, not its effect on its intended purpose, because few people pay attention to those print public notices).
J-Source explores the implications of CTV News’s move toward videojournalists at its local newsrooms.
La Presse has started a morning newsletter called La Matinale.
The Canadian Journalism Foundation has presented its annual awards, as well as its William Southam fellowships.
The Canadian Press discovered recently that CSIS destroyed a secret file on Pierre Elliott Trudeau in 1989, concluding it did not meet the criteria for being kept. Historians are upset at this loss of a potentially historic document.
Russian journalist Ivan Golunov has been released after a public outcry, including several competing newspapers running identical front pages in support of him. His arrest on drug-dealing charges was seen as trumped up to punish him for reporting that embarrassed the government.
Police have arrested a man in the death of Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee.

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June 15, 2019 | Radio

Longueuil’s FM 103,3 activates new transmitter with HD Radio

Former (pink) and new (black) transmitter locations and signal patterns for CHAA-FM 103,3

Montrealers equipped with HD Radios picked up a new signal this week, as 103.3 FM activated its new transmitter on Mount Royal and began testing.

The station, CHAA-FM, which serves Longueuil and south shore communities, was forced to move off of its previous transmitter location atop the Olympic Tower, and so applied for and was approved permission to move the transmitter to the CBC’s Mount Royal Antenna, which houses most of Montreal’s FM radio stations.

The new transmitter, which is both higher (284m vs 192m) and stronger (1.7kW vs 1.4kW max ERP), should improve the reception for most listeners.

The move, expected to cost around $200,000, was financed in part by a grant from the Quebec culture ministry last summer.

Éric Tetreault, general manager of FM 103,3, tells me the testing period began on June 11, and will continue for 20 days (so until the end of the month).

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June 12, 2019 | TV

Highlights from the Canadian TV 2019-20 upfronts

Last week, Bell Media was the last of the major English-language broadcasters to present their fall schedules to the public and advertisers. The big sells are the new (mostly American) series they’re adding to their primetime schedules. I haven’t seen any of them, so let’s instead focus on everything else that was announced and that I find interesting:

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June 7, 2019 | Radio

Montreal and Quebec radio ratings: Virgin 95.9 falls to fifth place

Numeris has released its quarterly top-line ratings report for metered markets including Montreal.

Someone’s gonna need to explain to me what happened to Virgin Radio.

You can say The Beat took away its stars (Cat Spencer, Nat Lauzon, the since-departed Vinny Barrucco), or that Virgin failed to connect with listeners with too much Ryan Seacrest. You can lay the blame entirely at the feet of program director Mark Bergman (who recently left his job there), or blame the pencil-pushing cost-cutters at Bell Media who care more about profits than ratings. Or maybe there’s something about the music, the main reason people listen to music stations in the first place, that was driving people away.

But either way, something happened in the past few years that has created a huge gap between Virgin and main competitor The Beat. In the summer of 2012, Virgin 96 (as it was called then) had a 20.9% share, almost five points above the recently launched Beat. Now, for the second straight quarter, it’s in the single digits. Its 9.4% share is exactly half of The Beat’s 18.8%.

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June 6, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: Prime Video Channels, TVA cuts 68 jobs, Bell launches Pure Country

News about news

The Canadian Association of Journalists has agreed to participate in the federal government’s panel to determine eligibility criteria for its media bailout money, after the government agreed not to require members sign confidentiality agreements. The CAJ has appointed former CBC ombudsman Esther Enkin as its representative on the panel. The CAJ says it will continue to push for increased transparency for this program, including full disclosure of recipients.
A man has pleaded guilty to inciting violence against a journalist from L’Actualité. He suggested people attack her after she fact-checked a claim he made about an incident involving Faith Goldy.
Quebec’s press gallery has filed a formal complaint against the government for choosing to hold committee hearings into the controversial proposed legislation on religious symbols in a room that has limited resources for media, even though two new rooms have just opened in a new $60-million extension to the parliament buildings. The government appears to be scheduling the hearings here intentionally to make it difficult for the media to report on them.
Radio-Canada has launched a disinformation desk, with Jeff Yates and Bouchra Ouratik. Their first story looks at the genesis of one of Quebec’s most popular fake news stories, about Dorval’s mayor keeping pork in schools.
Australian Federal Police raided the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after ABC News reported on leaked documents about unlawful killings and misconduct in Afghanistan by Australian forces. Naturally the raid has been condemned internationally as an attack on freedom of the press.
A conservative student group at Rutgers University succeeded in convincing enough students to vote against renewing funding for the university’s student newspaper, in retaliation for the paper exposing that the group used language from a white supremacist group in its recruitment material.
Facebook is giving $2.5 million to 11 organizations as part of its “local news accelerator” program. Or, rather, it will spend $2.5 million bringing in experts to tell those organizations what to do. The participating media outlets are:
- Brunswick News
- Daily Hive
- Winnipeg Free Press
- Glacier Media
- Le Soleil
- London Free Press
- Northern News Services
- The Discourse
- The Tyee
- Vancouver Observer
- Village Media
Canadian Community Newspaper Award winners have been announced.
Winners of the Digital Publishing Awards and National Magazine Awards have been announced.

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May 26, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: The journalism panel, Journal de Mourréal loses in court, V kills MusiquePlus brand

News about news

The Canadian government has selected eight organizations to choose a panel that will decide the criteria for news organizations to meet to be eligible for part of its $595-million subsidy: News Media Canada (the newspaper association/lobbying group), the Association de la presse francophone (representing francophone media outside Quebec), the Quebec Community Newspaper Association (representing anglophone media inside Quebec), the National Ethnic Press and Media Council of Canada, the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec, Unifor and the Fédération nationale des communications (the last two being unions representing journalists). Links are to their statements on the matter. Some of those statements are telling: The FPJQ said it was only told Tuesday that it was part of this group. The CAJ says it’s not sure if it will participate. QCNA says it already wants to expand eligibility criteria beyond what the government announced. Unions, naturally, are focused mainly on jobs.
The Supreme Court of Canada heard arguments in a case of a former Quebec cabinet minister trying to get Radio-Canada journalist Marie-Maude Denis to reveal her sources. The decision will set precedent for the limits of journalistic protections.
The Journal de Mourréal, a fake news, parody or satire website depending on your interpretation, lost its court battle against its near-namesake, who convinced a judge it was using the Journal de Montréal’s brand and was profiting off being confusingly similar. The website must change its name and pay $23,500 to Quebecor.
A lawsuit launched by Quebecor columnist Richard Martineau against news website Ricochet has been settled out of court. Ricochet claims total victory, in that they paid nothing and did not apologize or pull the satirical obituary they wrote about him. Martineau said he wanted to avoid a circus and compared himself to a sexual assault victim.
Postmedia has reached a deal in principle with journalism startup The Logic that will see some of The Logic’s stories in Postmedia publications and the two groups partner on “content licensing, marketing projects and events.” Postmedia will take an unspecified minority stake in The Logic, which was started last year by David Skok, formerly of the Toronto Star. The Logic, which covers the “innovation economy,” explains the deal to its subscribers here.
Postmedia (my employer) has registered a lobbyist in Alberta to try to get the company involved in some way with the new Alberta government’s “energy war room”.
An anti-Muslim “pundit” named Kevin J. Johnston was ordered to pay $2.5 million in damages in a libel case brought on by Mohamad Fakih of Paramount Fine Foods. Johnston didn’t hire a lawyer, his defence was poor and his statements so egregious that it warranted one of the largest defamation judgments in Canadian history.
The Canadian Press newsroom in Toronto held a retirement party for a reporter’s guide dog.
The U.S. government is charging Julian Assange of Wikileaks with revealing government secrets under the Espionage Act. This is chilling for journalists, who could in theory face similar charges for publishing leaked classified information.
A CNN Greece journalist’s car was destroyed by a homemade fire bomb. The Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the attack.

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May 23, 2019 | TV

CRTC renews OMNI for three years, rejects 6½ other proposals to replace it

The CRTC has reached a decision on what will replace OMNI. And it’s OMNI.

In a decision released Thursday, accompanied by a press release, the commission found that “Rogers’ proposed service, along with its associated commitments, best meets the needs and interests of Canada’s diverse population and the criteria established by the Commission, and is the most likely to ensure an exceptional contribution to the fulfillment of the objectives of the (Broadcasting) Act.”

The commission will therefore renew OMNI’s licence, but with “no expectation of renewal” beyond that, and only for three years, until 2023, when the mandatory distribution status of OMNI and other services with that status like CPAC, APTN and AMI, will be reviewed at the same time.

In its application, Rogers proposed that the new OMNI would have half-hour daily national newscasts in six languages: Spanish, Tagalog, Arabic, Punjabi, Mandarin and Cantonese, and local newscasts (for Toronto, Alberta and Vancouver) in Punjabi and Mandarin. Rogers told me it also planned to replace the current national Italian newscast, produced out of Montreal, with regional ones in Montreal and Toronto. The licence doesn’t specify the languages of programming, leaving that decision up to Rogers.

OMNI, which has TV stations in Toronto (two), Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, is broken up into four regions: B.C., Prairies, East (Ontario and Atlantic Canada) and Quebec. The Quebec feed is administered by ICI (CFHD-DT), an independent ethnic TV station in Montreal that was born out of Rogers’ conversion of CJNT into City Montreal. Though Rogers doesn’t directly control ICI, the two are closely connected.

Most of the other applicants didn’t propose regional feeds, over-the-air transmitters or local programming.

The commission has set the mandatory wholesale fee for the new OMNI, which begins Sept. 1, 2020, at $0.19 per month, up from its current $0.12 per month (but still less than some other applicants had proposed.) Rogers had requested a rate that started at $0.19 but ramped up to $0.21, but the CRTC found that $0.19 was sufficient. The decision states that the choice of OMNI was in part because of the proposed wholesale rate and the “balance” of that versus the programming commitments made.

OMNI’s commitments will be higher than they currently are, and higher than originally proposed as well:

Canadian programming expenditures: 60% of gross revenues (up from 50% originally proposed and 40% currently)
Canadian content on the schedule: 70% of the broadcast day (6am to midnight) and 70% from 6pm to midnight (up from 55% currently)
Programs of National Interest (scripted drama/comedy, documentary, award shows): 5% of revenues (up from 2.5% currently), all of which must go to independent production companies
Independent productions: 12 hours a week on each of the B.C., Prairies and Eastern feeds (including 2 hours produced from each of Manitoba/Saskatchewan and Atlantic Canada), and 14 hours a week of local original independent productions on ICI.
100% ethnic programming (up from 80% proposed and currently) on the Rogers-controlled feeds, and 90% on ICI.
80% third-language programming (up from 50% proposed and currently) on the Rogers feeds, and 60% on ICI.
Programming for 20 different ethnic groups and 20 different languages a month (same as currently; 18 and 15 respectively on ICI), with a limit of 16% for any one foreign language.
Six hours a week of original local newscasts in Vancouver, Calgary/Edmonton and Toronto (an improvement off local current affairs show obligations).
Six daily first-run national half-hour newscasts, seven days a week, in six different languages (up from four languages currently).
At least 40% of gross revenues spent on news.
Provide for ICI: 3 hours of original, local, ethnic programming in French each week and 1.5 hours of original, local, French-language programming and 30 minutes of local original English-language programming each week.

The licence also requires Rogers to:

Limit U.S. programming to 10% of the schedule each month
Maintain advisory councils for each regional feed, and require they approve the programming schedules and independent producers
Spend $60,000 a year on “scholarship initiatives that support ethnic and third-language post-secondary students majoring in journalism,” as chosen by the advisory councils
Maintain operation of the five over-the-air OMNI stations throughout the licence period
Solicit local advertising only in markets where OMNI over-the-air stations operate
Derive no profit from OMNI, and reinvest any surplus back into OMNI

Rogers will have until Sept. 1, 2020, to put those increased commitments into place. Until then, the existing licence still applies.

Shockingly, the CRTC’s decision includes absolutely zero analysis of the seven other applications to replace OMNI with a different service. It merely states that it had to choose one and OMNI was the best one. Did the commission feel the Ethnic Channels Group’s idea of multiple audio feeds in different languages was feasible? Was it impressed by the ambitious goals set by Amber Broadcasting? Did it think the application from Montreal-based non-profit ICTV was realistic? We have no idea. The other applicants are only mentioned once, in a listing of the applications at the beginning of the decision.

With the increase in the wholesale rate, here’s how much of your monthly TV bill will go to mandatory services, starting in September 2020:

English-language markets:

APTN: $0.35
AMI-audio: $0.04
AMI-tv: $0.20
CPAC: $0.13
OMNI Regional: $0.19
RDI: $0.10
TV5/Unis: $0.24
The Weather Network/MétéoMédia: $0.22
Vues et Voix (formerly Canal M): $0.04
TOTAL: $1.51

French-language markets:

APTN: $0.35
AMI-audio: $0.04
AMI-télé: $0.28
CPAC: $0.13
CBC News Network: $0.15
OMNI Regional: $0.19
TV5/Unis: $0.28
The Weather Network/MétéoMédia: $0.22
Vues et Voix (formerly Canal M): $0.04
TOTAL: $1.68

Meanwhile, the CRTC has administratively renewed the licence for ICI until 2020, which will simplify things as far as new conditions of licence related to its agreement with OMNI.

UPDATE: Rogers has issued a statement saying it is happy with the decision and will announce more specific plans “in the coming months.”

May 13, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: Reuters journalists freed, Leslie Roberts to CTV, and so. many. awards.

News about news

Two Reuters journalists have been released after being detained for more than a year in Myanmar.
La Presse has updated its public donations website with some statistics from the first three months of the program: they’ve raised $1.7 million, which works out to an average of $40.47 for 42,000 contributors. Presumably the enthusiasm for donations was stronger right off the bat, and many of those are either one-time donations or larger than they will be in the future, but if that pace holds, it would put them well ahead of their goal of raising $5 million a year through voluntary donations.
Former CTV Montreal reporter turned Concordia professor Aphrodite Salas took a group of students to Gull Bay First Nation in Northern Ontario to do a short documentary about a solar power project being set up there, and the history of the community that led to Ontario’s government setting up the project as a sort of apology. The documentary was posted to a special section on CTV Montreal’s website. Bill Brownstein writes about the project in a Gazette story and Salas appeared on CTV News to discuss it as well.
Cult MTL has released the results of its annual readers’ poll. Here are the results in the media category.
The Toronto Star is offering free digital subscriptions until Oct. 31 to post-secondary students and faculty. They only need a school email account to register. Meanwhile the paper says digital subscriptions are up 50%, but that’s not enough to counteract the plummeting print ad sales revenue.
The Toronto Star is also “enhancing” the labels on its online articles to better explain to readers the different types of journalism.
The owners of the New Orleans Times-Picayune put on a master class on how not to fire an entire newspaper. It’s being shut down in favour of its younger rival, also owned by the same company.

Continue reading →

May 9, 2019 | TV

CTV News tells reporters they will have to do their own camera and editing work

Updated with comment from Bell Media and Unifor.

Staff at CTV News departments across the country were called into mandatory meetings on Thursday, and told that they’ll have to tighten their belts a bit more.

I don’t have specifics or numbers (see below), but the headline is that journalists will be transformed into “videojournalists” who do not only their own reporting but also their own camerawork, editing and even writing for the web.

As a result, editors and cameramen will be offered buyout packages or laid off. Layoff notices have been issued in Montreal and Toronto, I’m told, but not everywhere. In Montreal, 15 jobs are being cut and an unspecified number of online jobs added.

CTV bills this as them “innovating” because they’re “expanding our digital news presence” and points out that they are also adding new jobs.

This is a significant project that will require enhanced training as well as job reclassifications for some members of the news team. While we will be creating a substantial number of new digital news positions, some traditional roles may be impacted by the changes. We cannot yet offer a specific number of how many, if any, departures may result.

There is some confusion about changes in our Montreal team. As part of the digital news expansion, we were required to notify Unifor that 15 existing union job classifications in Montreal would be eliminated. However, a similar number of new positions will be filled to support the enhanced digital focus of the newsroom.

CTV News already employs some videojournalists (there are four at CTV Montreal), and they’re used at other networks as well, notably Citytv, which relies almost exclusively on them. Reporters shooting their own stories is more feasible with today’s equipment (some newsrooms are experimenting with reporting using iPhones), and obviously saves on human resources. But more time spent on the technical elements of producing stories means less time on the journalism behind it.

Plus, while younger journalists who are trained on shooting and editing out of school will easily adapt to the new reality, training more veteran journalists will be more difficult, and some might choose to simply retire early or find new jobs.

Because of various union rules, these layoff notices may spark a process of bumping, where less senior workers in jobs not affected by the layoffs get replaced by those being laid off (if those workers prove they can do the job they’re bumping into). So younger workers in these newsrooms will be feeling very nervous over the coming weeks.

And while CTV’s statement suggests it will save jobs, the reality is that the people affected will have to apply for them and be accepted for them. That’s not a given.

Unifor, which represents unionized workers at CTV, issued a statement:

“Today’s announcement from CTV of its shift to ‘digital-first’ airing of local news stories on the Internet was inevitable,” said Unifor National President Jerry Dias. “Retooling local news for digital is necessary and, hopefully, a successful business plan because local TV is being starved for advertising revenues and anything that brings in a bigger audience and more ad revenue is welcome.”

The stations affected by restructuring include the CTV1 stations in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec. Bell has told journalists and field technicians to expect a mix of retraining, layoffs, and new “digital” jobs, with a net reduction of staffing.

Dias cautioned Bell Media of its responsibility to guide news staff through the technological changes in job responsibilities, as it is expected that some journalists and field staff will need to acquire new digital skills.

“We are going to ensure no media worker is left behind,” said Dias. “Bell knows us pretty well and they know we mean it.”

Dias is also urging the federal government to accelerate its four-year long review of Canadian broadcasting in the Internet environment, scheduled to continue into 2020. “There are obvious actions the CRTC and the federal government can take to strengthen Canadian programming,” said Dias, referring to the CRTC’s own “Harnessing Change” report on Internet-broadcasting issued in June 2018.

May 2, 2019 | Media

Media News Digest: Pony hoax, TVA Sports lawsuits, magazine awards

News about news

It’s the Semaine de la presse et des médias in Quebec this week. Various local news outlets are opening their doors to tours or holding open houses on May 3. The latter includes Les Affaires and Urbania in Montreal, but many others too.
The FPJQ isn’t impressed by small-town governments in Quebec barring journalists from public information meetings about flooding.
Montreal news reporters and authorities were scrambling to find a pink-maned pony after a photo circulated on social media. The image turned out to be a hoax by Vlog, the TVA viral video show.
The South China Morning Post has a story about Karen Lin Woods, who has been expressing opinions about Canadian politics without fully disclosing her employer’s connections with the Chinese government. Lobbyists for foreign governments are considered diplomats and don’t have to register with the lobbyist registry.
The Walrus has a story about how the cuts to local news affects political reporting in Canada, which is bad news going into a federal election.
La Presse is launching a new mobile app.
The Montreal Gazette and other Postmedia publications have switched from Facebook commenting to a new system run by Viafoura, which hopes to cut down on spam and abusive comments below news articles. So far it seems to have put an end to automated get-rich-quick-by-working-from-home spam comments.
The editor of Your Ward News, convicted of hate speech, is trying to stay out of jail, arguing he was giving a voice to angry people.
The New York Times is “deeply sorry” for a cartoon about the U.S. and Israel that appeared in its international edition and was condemned by critics as anti-semitic. The cartoonist tells the Jerusalem Post he didn’t feel the cartoon was anti-semitic.

At the CRTC

Approved: New English and Indigenous-language radio station in Afton Station, N.S.: Indigenous non-profit, 104.5 FM, 50W. Afton Station is about halfway between Antigonish and the start of Cape Breton.
Approved: New English commercial radio station in Listowel (North Perth), Ont.: Owned by Five Amigos Broadcasting, 100.1 FM, 8,000W. Listowel is about 50 km northwest of Kitchener and is not served by other radio stations. It plans an adult contemporary format.
Licences for 23 Indigenous radio stations, including CKHQ-FM in Kanesatake, have been extended to 2022 as the CRTC prepares a review of its Indigenous radio policy.

Ethical reviews

National Newsmedia Council: A Globe and Mail opinion piece did not include a significant factual error in citing how much money Bombardier received from the federal government, even though it lacked some context and qualifiers (such as the money being adjusted for inflation).
Globe and Mail readers say they want more fact-checking and analysis in election coverage.

At the CBC

The corporation is being less than forthcoming about documents concerning the construction of its new Maison Radio-Canada in Montreal. But Radio-Canada decided to remind people that the new building comes with no additional cost to taxpayers, because they’re paying the same rent as before.

TV

Pierre-Luc Dubois est fin prêt pour le match avec un cri de ralliement très particulier! ? pic.twitter.com/awtXSYSQMq

— RDS (@RDSca) April 30, 2019

Some colourful language got onto the Sportsnet/CBC NHL playoffs broadcast.
Rogers has picked up the rights to the Eurovision song contest, and will be broadcasting the two semifinals and the grand final this month on OMNI and streaming it on OMNITV.ca. (ICI, the Montreal ethnic station that partners with OMNI and carries some of its programming, won’t be airing the shows because of scheduling conflicts, president Sam Norouzi tells me.) Canada isn’t participating (and so Canadians can’t vote), but Greece’s entry is sung by Katerine Duska, who was born in Montreal.
Corus Entertainment has joined a group that’s developing a video measurement standard that hopes to finally solve the problem of how you properly measure the TV, online streaming and social media audience for a broadcast.
Amazon is bringing its Amazon Channels service to Canada, according to The Logic. Amazon Channels is sort of a cross between TV and streaming, offering subscriptions to services like HBO on an individual basis at different prices.
YouTube has scored the exclusive rights to 13 MLB regular-season games this season in the U.S. and Canada. The exact games haven’t been announced, but those games won’t be available on TV.
APTN workers voted 39-1 in favour of a new labour contract.
APTN is still feeling the energy of its NHL broadcast in Plains Cree, though there are no specific plans for future sports broadcasts on the network. They do want to do more sports in Indigenous languages though.
APTN has started airing a French dubbed version of Mohawk Girls, called Belles, fières et Mohawks.
CBC has revived Battle of the Blades, six years after its last season aired. The show will air this fall, and contestants are to be announced.
Bell Media has greenlit a new sci-fi mystery drama series called Albedo starring Evangeline Lilly. It will be broadcast by streaming service Vudu in the U.S. Bell doesn’t say where it will broadcast the eight-episode series.
Bell Media has commissioned a new six-part documentary series for Crave, called We’re All Gonna Die, about the various ways humanity could go extinct.
Séries+ has announced its first original series since it stopped making them during a failed sale to Bell: Winnebago, a six-episode miniseries starring Guylaine Tremblay and Josée Deschênes, to air in 2020.
Radio-Canada is working on a new comedy series that takes place in a universe where the Yes side won the 1995 Quebec referendum.
Netflix’s first original Quebec production, a film called Jusqu’au déclin, has finished filming.
Netflix and other foreign streaming services paid the Quebec government almost double what it was expected to in sales taxes, according to La Presse.
You know that lawsuit that was obviously inevitable from Bell after the TVA Sports debacle? Yeah, it’s happening. Bell wants $150 million, for being forced to offer Sportsnet for free, the additional work for customer service, the misleading ad campaign that tried to blame Bell for cutting the signal, and Pierre Karl Péladeau breaking a confidentiality agreement by revealing the wholesale rate that Bell TV paid for TVA Sports. There’s also a separate class action lawsuit in the works by Bell subscribers.
J-Source has a story about TV newsroom automation, and CBC’s efforts to implement it. It’s using a similar system that Global put in place a decade ago, though it’s not going as far as Global did in terms of centralizing on-camera functions.
RDS’s 85 or so newsroom employees have been accredited as a union.
Jimmy Kimmel is bringing back All in the Family and The Jeffersons for a primetime special.

Radio

A strange story about a Labrador City francophone community radio station called Rafale FM that was collecting ad money for ads that it never aired because it was off the air. And it wasn’t just an honest mistake, either. The general manager confirmed in writing that the ads had aired.
Rogers Media has acquired the podcast company Pacific Content, which mainly creates branded podcasts for companies.
Matt Cundill’s Soundoff Podcast interviewed two people in the radio industry with Montreal connections: Ian Howarth is a freelance writer who wrote a book about Montreal’s top 40 radio heydays of the 60s and 70s. And Steve Anthony worked at CKGM and CHOM, along with stations in Toronto.
The National Post has launched a new business podcast.

Print

The National Magazine Awards nominations are out. Nominees include Toronto Life (19), The Walrus (14), L’actualité (9), Nouveau Projet (9), Maclean’s (9), Hazlitt (8), the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business (7) Maisonneuve (6), Fashion Magazine (5), Canadian Geographic (5), Cottage Life (5) Dînette magazine (5), The New Quarterly (5) and The Site Magazine (5).
La Presse and Groupe Capitales Médias are seeking more bailout money from the Quebec government. The latter, which owns Le Soleil, Le Droit, Le Nouvelliste, Le Quotidien, La Tribune and La Voix de l’Est, says it could run out of money by the end of summer.
Métro Média, the company that owns Métro in Montreal and the former Transcontinental community weeklies on the island, is launching a new free magazine aimed at people over 50, called Nouvelle Liberté.
ESPN The Magazine is shutting down its print edition.
The Guardian in the U.K. has finally stopped losing money. It gets more revenue from online than print, and getting money directly from readers has helped a lot in getting to this point.

Online

Facebook broke several privacy laws, the Canadian and B.C. privacy commissioners find in a new report. It’s enough that the Canadian privacy commissioner has deleted its Facebook page and no longer wants to be associated with Facebook. But Facebook promises it will take privacy more seriously now.
HuffPost Canada is shutting down its unpaid blog section and will be paying writers for opinion pieces. HuffPost Québec us doing the same.
Websites owned by Microsoft and Google will not be taking Canadian political ads this year, and others are still considering their options, according to a CBC News survey. The new registry requirement for political ads is the main reason why, although some websites don’t allow any political ads in any country.
Blackberry is shutting down its BBM messaging platform for consumers on May 31. People are sad.
Twitter deleted tweets with links to stories about copyright infringement after a company hired by Starz to deal with copyright infringement went a bit overboard.
The group behind the Ontario Proud Facebook page has started a federal version aimed at making sure Andrew Scheer defeats Justin Trudeau this fall.
The Globe and Mail on Hollywood studio Voltage Pictures’ attempts to sue thousands of internet users in a reverse class action for movie piracy.

Other

Tony Award nominations are out.

News about people

https://twitter.com/chrishallcbc/status/1121416290961436675

CBC freedom-of-information specialist Dean Beeby has retired from the Ottawa bureau.
Pierre Karl Péladeau, CEO of Quebecor, is buying the remnants of the bankrupt Téo Taxi, including the Montreal taxi companies it bought, Taxi Diamond and Taxi Hochelaga. They are being bought by him personally, and not by Quebecor.
Péladeau was interviewed by Esther Bégin for her CPAC show. It focuses mainly on Péladeau’s career path and the intersection of his personal and professional life. Part 1, Part 2.
Marc-Olivier Brouillette is the new play-by-play analyst for Alouettes games on TSN 690. He gave an interview to the station when the hiring was announced. He replaces Bryan Chiu, who left during the season last year because of family issues and has since gone back to coaching.
Anne-Élisabeth Bossé is Véronique Cloutier’s summer replacement on Rouge FM’s afternoon show in Montreal.
Jeff Douglas, formerly of As It Happens, is the new host of Mainstreet, the afternoon show on Radio One in Nova Scotia.
Nabil Karim, formerly of TSN, has joined ESPN.
Simon Coutu is leaving Vice Quebec.
Political reporter Elise von Scheel is now permanently at CBC’s parliamentary bureau.
Amir Nasrabadi, former president of Pixar Canada, has been hired to head up animation at DHX Media, which owns Family Channel.
Stephanie Myles, a former Montreal Gazette sports reporter who has been writing about tennis since leaving it, was the target of Genie Bouchard’s fans after the tennis player tweeted “fake news” at Myles’s report that she was taking time off the court to get healthy. Two weeks later, Bouchard confirmed the news herself, saying she was rehabbing her “ab”. Réjean Tremblay writes about how unfair that was to Myles.
Gazette Alouettes reporter Herb Zurkowsky, on leave to be treated for bladder cancer, is in the middle of six weeks of immunotherapy treatment.
Quebecor columnist Richard Martineau got blocked from Facebook for three days after comments that were deemed transphobic.
Radio broadcasters Boyd Kozak of Winnipeg and Bob Ridley of Medicine Hat are being inducted into the Western Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame.
Krzysztof Pelc of Montreal has won the CBC Short Story Prize. Jacques Lemaire is the winner of the Radio-Canada French equivalent.
More RTDNA award announcements:

Obituaries

Jobs

News editor, Ottawa Citizen/Sun (deadline: May 3)
Provincial affairs reporter, Radio-Canada in Toronto (deadline: May 9)
Summer journalist, Iorì:wase in Kahnawake (deadline: May 10)
Digital broadcast journalist, Global News in Toronto (deadline: May 10)
Extended-Term Appointment in Digital Journalism Futures, Concordia University (deadline: May 10)
Report On Business Magazine editor
Calgary reporter, Globe and Mail

April 30, 2019 | Radio

Leclerc abandons purchase of Radio X and 91,9 Sports after CRTC sets condition on transaction

The CRTC has said no to Leclerc Communication’s request to own three French-language FM radio stations in Quebec City, but approved the $19-million deal for it to acquire CHOI-FM (Radio X) in the provincial capital as well as CKLX-FM (91,9 Sports) in Montreal, for which it also acquired a licence amendment to convert from a sports format into a music one based off its WKND brand.

Though the overall deal has been approved, under the CRTC’s conditions, Leclerc would need to sell one of its other stations — WKND 91,9 or Blvd 102,1 — in order to buy CHOI and still comply with the ownership rules in Quebec City. The ownership rules limit an owner to two stations in one market in one language on one band.

And Leclerc has said it won’t sell its stations. So its own media are reporting that the entire deal is off, and its owner confirmed to La Presse that it won’t proceed with the transaction.

Continue reading →

April 21, 2019 | Media

CBC Quebec holding biennual consultation May 2

It’s an odd-numbered year, which means CBC is preparing its next public consultation with Quebec’s official language minority community, as required under its CRTC licence. (It also has a similar requirement for French-language communities in “Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Western Canada, and the North.”)

Like it did two years ago, the CBC is inviting people interested in expressing their views on its programming and services to a roundtable discussion on Thursday, May 2 from 10am to noon at Maison Radio-Canada.

For those who can’t make it in person, the event will be broadcast on CBC Montreal’s Facebook page and comments will be taken through online discussion as well.

Attendance is free, but registration is required. You can register here.

The way it worked last time is that people are broken up into small groups, each one led by a CBC employee (generally a journalist, on-air personality, producer or manager), and asked to discuss and come up with ideas.

You can see the Facebook video from the 2017 event here.

In addition to Debra Arbec, who will serve as host, this year’s participants will include:

Sally Catto, General Manager, Programming, CBC Television
Meredith Dellandrea, Managing Director, CBC Quebec
Fred Mattocks, General Manager, Local Services
Susan Marjetti, Executive Director, Radio & Audio
Jennifer McGuire, General Manager and Editor in Chief, CBC News

As public consultations go, CBC’s isn’t bad. It engages with the audience and seems to take their views seriously.

The report filed with the CRTC after the 2017 event glosses over the feedback a bit, but goes into detail about the various events that the CBC has organized to get it more in touch with the anglophone communities across the province and have Quebec anglophones reflected on TV, radio and online.