Category Archives: Video

| TV, Video

Is bad math something to celebrate?

Those who still care about Jeopardy! are all atwitter about its first ever three-way tie. It sounds amazing, that three people could have exactly the same score.

But it’s not. Two players were tied and both doubled-up. The third, who was leading by a large margin, bet the difference between his score and their theoretical doubled-up scores. Except, as commenters on the YouTube video point out, he forgot to add an extra dollar so he’d come out on top. It wasn’t a fluke. Someone just forgot his basic Jeopardy strategy.

YouTube visitors also note that Trebek was rushing through the answers and seemed a bit scripted through all this.

| Blogosphere, Video

Those lefties know their online video

Vanou points me to this video from Quebec Solidaire’s candidate in Terrebonne Jean Baril, who is frustrated that our public institutions are serving crappy cafeteria food and letting people go to McDonald’s instead of buying locally-produced (and he argues healthier) food. Le Devoir has a short story.

Meanwhile, the Bloc Pot’s Richard Lemagnifique (yes, that’s his real name) has a slightly less serious video about the benefits of hemp.

| Media, Video

Speaking of biased reporting

This again?

For the unfamiliar, “Confrontation at Concordia” was a “documentary” created by “journalist” Martin Himel after the Sept. 9, 2002 riot at Concordia University which stopped a planned speech there by former Israeli Prime Minsiter Benjamin Netanyahu.

I put words in quotes because the Global TV special was insanely biased in favour of one side of the conflict (namely, the right-wing, pro-Netanyahu, anti-Palestinian side). It was so bad the matter was taken up with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. Its decision (which I reported on) said in part:

The Panel recognizes that the documentary film at issue was not detached and objective in a journalistic sense; however, the Panel is not of the view that its broadcast was in breach of any of the foregoing provisions of the either the CAB Code of Ethics or the RTNDA Code of (Journalistic) Ethics. That being said, the Panel considers that it would have been helpful to the audience to inform viewers that the broadcast was a point-of-view documentary.

The council made the point that since it was a documentary, not a news piece, it didn’t have to be objective. I disagree, but c’est la vie. Now because of this, people think Concordia’s Muslim groups are funded by the Saudi government.

As far as documentary coverage of that era of Concordia history, I recommend the far more balanced documentary Discordia.

| Media, Montreal, Video

YouTube, the neverending pit of content

I stopped by YouTube today and did my usual search for things Montreal-related:

  • Concordia’s TV journalism students have this week’s Concordia Reports focusing on the Quebec election, talking to some angryphones in the West Island including Ste. Anne mayor Bill Tierney and political columnist (i.e. failed politician) Ricky Blue. I’m actually pretty impressed with what has been coming out of Concordia’s budding journalists lately in terms of quality. I’m not sure if it’s because they’re getting better, because real TV journalism requires so little real effort, or because even half-assed videography is light-years beyond most of what YouTube has right now.
  • Two Marianopolis kids started a Rock-Paper-Scissors league.
  • Even street kids are videoblogging.