La Presse is running ads in its paper asking readers to become part of an online panel (read: focus group) to take surveys and say what you like and don’t like about the newspaper.
An irony, of course, is that when you enter the registration form (which is huge), you’re greeted with the words “Loading (please wait)”. I guess Research and Analysis of Media, which runs this thing, doesn’t have a French version of its software.
Taking a page from the Journal de Québec workers who started their own publication when they were locked out, the striking workers at the Winnipeg Free Press have started up their own website at freepressonstrike.com with local news.
It includes an FAQ as well as embarrassing coverage of Free Press owner FP Newspapers (though pointing out that your employer is bleeding money doesn’t sound like it will get the public on your side when you demand more money)
Looking at my feeds, here’s a roundup of links about media coverage of the campaign and especially election night:
As the results finally become known in all 308 ridings (some recounts may occur, but none were apparently close enough to qualify for an automatic recount), the two big seat-by-seat projection websites did a self-analysis to see how they did:
DemocraticSPACE got 25 of 308 ridings wrong, for a 91.9% accuracy rate
Election Prediction got 27 ridings wrong, for a 91.2% accuracy rate
Those sound like impressive numbers, but I wondered how significant that is when so little changed. They both got Edmonton Strathcona wrong, for example, but then again so did all the pundits. They also didn’t predict three seats shifting from the Liberals to Conservatives in New Brunswick.
Looking at the election results (Wikipedia has a riding-by-riding breakdown on one page), I see that the incumbent (or incumbent’s party) won in all but 41 ridings. So if you blindly picked the incumbent to win in all 308 ridings, you’d have an 86.7% accuracy rate.
That makes 91% sound a lot less impressive.
Then again, in an election where only 25 of 308 winners got more than half the vote, predicting anything is a throw of the dice.
In the video above, editorial cartoonist Terry Mosher (Aislin) goes behind the scenes as he draws five cartoons of the federal party leaders as sports-themed bobbleheads (you can see the cartoons on the Viewpoints page).
Meanwhile, CBC interviews Red Fisher, who has been covering the Canadiens since the dawn of time.
One day I hope to be able to meet them, and be referred to as something beyond “that kid over there.” But that’s years away.
So there you go. CBC’s Hockey Anthem Challenge winner, out of almost 15,000 entries submitted, is Colin Oberst’s Canadian Gold. The one with the bagpipes. Hockey Night in Canada made a big thing about it, with loud congratulations from Don Cherry. And Oberst takes home a $100,000 cheque.
UPDATE: CBC has posted the announcement, new theme and a season intro montage in Quicktime format.
With the new theme comes new intro graphics as well. This season, rather than go the classic route of showing hits, goals and saves, CBC has gotten its computer graphics department on overdrive, recreating classic moves so they could look at them from impossible angles (even simulating Bobby Orr’s Stanley Cup-winning goal, which created the best sports photo of all time). Unfortunately, this kind of computer animation still has a long way to go, and it just ends up looking like they’re showing scenes from EA’s NHL 09 video game.
Meanwhile, on RDS, the original Hockey Theme reigns. They paid a lot more for it, and their re-recording doesn’t sound as good as the most recent CBC version, but it still sounds better. It’s still the one with that special place in our hearts.
Real Canadiens fans have been watching RDS for years now. Even Leafs fans have moved to TSN or Rogers SportsNet. Many people I know turn to CBC to watch the opening theme and switch to RDS for the play-by-play.
Now, with the hockey theme on RDS, does Hockey Night in Canada have any purpose anymore?
Steve Proulx’s slow descent into madness continues, as he locks himself in a small room with only a recorder and a webcam to keep him company.
He’s taking requests (Freebird?). He’s already done the Passe-Partout theme.
Now I’m gonna spend all night doing air recorder.
I was busy dealing with real news tonight, so I completely missed the broohaha over this incident with Stéphane Dion and ATV News.
For those who haven’t heard of it, you’re lucky to have limited exposure to the echo chamber of political gossip reporting. Here’s the deal: ATV (an Atlantic TV network owned by CTV and rebranded CTV Atlantic) had Stéphane Dion on for an on-camera but pre-taped interview. Host Steve Murphy asked Dion a question about what he’d do about the economy if he was prime minister today, and Dion started answering before realizing he didn’t quite understand the question. It was an awkward exchange with a few false starts.
Dion asked if they could re-start the interview, and Murphy agreed. Murphy also, according to CTV, “indicated” that the bad part of the interview would not be aired.
Except later, after the interview, people at the network huddled and decided to go back on their word and air the outtakes, deeming them to have some news value.
Thanks to Stephen Harper’s decision to devote a whole press conference to this “gaffe,” it’s been analyzed from all angles:
I don’t have much to add, so I’ll keep it brief:
Conclusion: Steve Murphy and his cohorts at ATV are douches, and Stéphane Dion a human francophone who can be annoyingly professorial at times. And it’s just a matter of time before someone unearths an interview outtake of Stephen Harper that makes him look bad.
Now can we get back to the issues?
UPDATE (Oct. 24): J-Source looks back on this story with some interesting background on what happened at ATV and CTV News offices.
Some Montreal-based anglo writers have put together an online magazine called Rover, which bills itself as an “independent review of the arts.” You might recognize some names if you obsess over freelance bylines in the Gazette (and we all know you do).
So far, everything is free, though the plan is to eventually support the site through advertising.
Considering that Maisonneuve magazine is almost perpetually starving for cash and subsidies, don’t expect much of a financial windfall here.
There are now just a few hours left to vote for one of the five semifinalists in the CBC Hockey Anthem Challenge. Sadly, Hockey Scores is not one of them.
In order to help you visualize them, CBC has set the songs to video of the HNIC opening (even including the “Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland” voice intro). In all of them, the absence of the old theme is jarring, especially next to familiar video.
Here are some thoughts of mine off the top of my head for the five semifinalists. I’m not a music expert (but I know a few who will no doubt chip in), so don’t take these as gospel because I have no clue what I’m talking about.
(Warning: CBC forces you to watch the same stupid Bell ad before each video. Sorry.)
1. Ice Warriors (by Gerry Mosby): A complicated melody, but without any climax. It sounds like a good part of a song, but it’s missing the rest. Even as a fan of rock music, the guitar really threw me off. It belongs in a 70s album, not on the Hockey Night theme.
2. Sticks to the Ice (by Robert Fraser Burke): This one builds energy, and the professional arrangement is a huge improvement over a 13-year-old on a piano. But it’s still lacking. Just when you think it’s going to hit you hard, it sulks back into a melody that doesn’t seem to go anywhere.
3. Eleventh Hour (by Graham McRae): McRae is a skilled composer, and this one doesn’t lack for energy. He seems to really get the point. CBC’s orchestral recording of it seems a bit muted though, especially compared to McRae’s original. The melody in this one is my favourite, but that doesn’t necessarily seal the deal.
4. Let the Game Begin (by Christian St. Roch & Jimmy Tanaka): This contribution from two Montrealers echoes the original in a non-copyright-infringing way. Similar use of instruments. It is very successful at building energy and anticipation, and best of all it doesn’t waste any time getting there (this is, after all, a minute-long intro, not a three-minute song). It has punch, but the theme gets a bit repetitive. Still, if your goal is to find as close to the original as possible, this is probably the one for you.
5. Canadian Gold (by Colin Oberst): I like this one, not so much because I think it’s better than the rest but mainly because it’s so different. It’s the only one I think that comes out swinging after it gets going, and has that feeling of raising an army to defeat the enemy. It doesn’t sound like it’s holding anything back, and it’s not as repetitive as the others. It’s also more upbeat, almost to the point of cliché, which I think will appeal to less hard-edged hockey fans. But I could do without the bagpipes.
All five are works worthy of praise, and the CBC chose well. I don’t think any of them nail it 100%, but they surprise me with their quality (I had earlier suggested the contest might not be worth it). The fact that there were close to 15,000 entries is kind of astonishing.
Voting closes at 11:59pm Tuesday. Two finalists will be announced Thursday, and then the winner will be on the Hockey Night in Canada premiere on Saturday.
For those of us who look down upon Americans, thinking how stupid they are based on cherry-picking the worst responses to simple trivia questions, well, turnabout is fair play:
Dominic Arpin, the former TVA journalist, popular blogger and now host (again) of his own TV show about videos on the web, has finally launched a project called WebTVHebdo, which is a guide to web-based television shows. It’s a project he started a while ago with lackey Patrick Dion.
It covers international sensations like Ask a Ninja, but focuses on Quebec-based series like Le Cas Roberge and Les Recycleurs.
In a world where these things are popping up all over the place, a need quickly emerges to provide a reference, and Arpin and Dion have jumped on that void decisively.
Take your pick, everyone’s doing it:
The debate itself is an unintelligible shouting match, so I don’t think there’s much analysis to get out of it.
But feel free to analyze the liveblogs themselves below. Which is funniest? Most astute? Quickest?
UPDATE: My initial reactions: most of these liveblogs sound more like transcripts. Are these for people who can’t access TV? They seem to think that knee-jerk snark can replace rapid analysis. As the king of knee-jerk snark, I wonder why I’m not being paid to liveblog this.
My winner is the National Post, which has special software which works properly, has comments from a team of writers instead of one personality, and includes (moderated) comments from visitors with the liveblog comments. Losers include Le Devoir and Canoe, which didn’t have liveblogging at all.
UPDATE 2: Paul Wells has a franco blogger roundup of debate analysis.
UPDATE 3: Regan Ray at J-Source has a taste of the liveblogging action.
Dear FinallyFast.com,
I understand computers are hard, and that filming a commercial with people you found off the street can be difficult.
FinallyFast.com is for PC Computers Only
But when you say your product is for PCs only,
This iMac is apparently supposed to be a PC in the magic fairytale land of FinallyFast.com commercials
perhaps you shouldn’t show people using what are obviously Macs (albeit with the logos covered up).
BSOD on an iBook.. err, PC laptop
I can’t tell you how often I’ve gotten a blue screen of death on my iBook. Oh wait, yes I can. It’s never.
La Presse’s Émilie Côté has put together an interesting little project, Michel Dumais points out: an audio guide to St. Laurent Blvd. The idea is that you download the “podcast” (media outlets need to learn what “podcast” means: putting audio or video online doesn’t automatically make it a podast – a podcast is something you subscribe to which doesn’t apply here), and listen to it as you follow its instructions and walk slowly up the Main from La Presse’s office to the Plateau.
The audio is very professionally done, and it shows that La Presse got professionals to produce and narrate this project instead of having some clueless in-house person to muddle their way through. I haven’t listened to the whole thing (I don’t have an hour and a half to spare), but it seems to work.
There is one nagging problem though: I can’t for the life of me find an MP3 download link, even in the extended user’s guide. You can listen to it live on the site (which is completely useless if you’re intending to listen to it while following its instructions), and you can click on a link to download it through iTunes, but if you don’t have iTunes you’re screwed. I don’t see the point in having website visitors forced to use a particular piece of software. Is Apple paying them or something?
UPDATE (Sept. 30): They’ve added a link to an RSS feed that has links to the MP3 files.
That said, if you don’t mind jumping through that unnecessary hoop, and you have a couple of hours to kill, it’s something to do.