Category Archives: Opinion

| Opinion, Slow News Day, TV, Video

Journalism, politics sink together to a new low

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:

  • CTV’s transgression was not a breach of journalistic ethics. There was no promise of confidentiality, no pre-agreement, and no information was gained through deception. Murphy did, however, go back on his word by airing the outtakes after he “indicated” he wouldn’t.
  • Dion’s campaign is right when they say the purpose of airing this was to embarrass Dion. It’s a secret every journalist keeps, even to the point of deceiving ourselves. Political campaigns so ruthlessly control the narrative, that latching on to something they don’t want you to talk about gives us a thrill. It’s not that CTV is biased against Dion. It’s simply biased against politicians and in favour of scandal.
  • CTV wasted minutes of airtime putting this interview out there. This time could have been spent on news, and the interview outtakes posted to a blog somewhere. Had that happened, we would not be discussing journalistic ethics here, but the clip would have gotten just as much traction online.
  • The clip has little news value. It shows that Dion is a logical thinker, perhaps to a fault, in trying to wrap himself around the exact hypothetical situation. But that’s not why CTV chose to air it. The fact that they did not specify what news value it contained is a good indication that there was none.
  • Some have mentioned that Dion has a hearing problem and that may be related. It’s not. The question was clear and the room was quiet. It was a logical comprehension question, mixed in with some grammar issues.

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.

| Media, Opinion, Slow News Day

That one.

I’m sorry, apparently I forgot during last night’s debate to be offended that John McCain used the words “that one” and pointed to Barack Obama when pointing out something about Obama’s senate record. Apparently it’s a codephrase that everyone but me knows about and is inherently racist.

Remember all those white racists in Alabama chanting “that one” and pointing to MLK? He was clearly trying to appeal to the racist electorate.

Now we need to make this into the issue of the election, because it’s so much more important than those boring things like the economy, tax policy, the environment or foreign policy.

| Media, On the Net, Opinion, Sports

Time to vote for something important

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.

| Media, Opinion

The USA-Todaying of newspapers

The Chicago Tribune has become the latest newspaper to unveil a dramatic redesign, which emphasizes dramatic visual elements instead of boring words (the News Designer blog has more).

Sans-serif type, drop shadows, giant cutout clip art overlapping adjacent elements, words over photos, columnist headshots everywhere, and little one-paragraph snippets of text where there were once articles.

The result makes these newspapers look much more like magazines, and conventional wisdom is that the more design-y these pages look, the more interesting they will become to readers.

But these new designs have two problems that you’d think would make them highly unpopular in an age of declining newspaper revenue and tightening budgets.

First, they take up more space, which means either more pages need to be added to the newspaper to fit the same amount of content (this isn’t happening – in fact many of these redesigns are done in order to fit a reduced page size), or dramatically cutting the amount of content that goes into the paper. Where a copy editor’s instinct is to cram as much information as possible onto the page, the designer’s is to waste as much space as possible to make it visually attractive. And it looks like the designers are winning.

Second, these things are complicated, which means design staff have to essentially be laying out all these pages, and in the case of sports they have to keep working late into the night. Where newspapers are shrinking budgets, this increase in staff hours will have to be offset by a drop in the number of copy editors or reporters. It makes me wonder how long these dramatic designs will stay dramatic before we start seeing cookie-cutter default designs used everywhere to save time.

Don’t get me wrong, I love good design. I think far too few stories are told using charts, maps or illustrations, in many cases where they are desperately needed. One of my pet peeves is opinion poll stories, which include a couple of paragraphs of opinion from the pollster and then hundreds of words trying (and failing) to translate a table of numbers into prose. Whenever I can, I try to convert those back into tables, which are easier to read and easier to analyze.

But I look at newspapers like Metro, which has coloured boxes with numbers all over the place, tied to articles that have only a handful of sentences to them. I wonder, looking at this: At what point does substance throw in the white towel against the towering forces of style?

| Opinion, Technology, Video

Fast. Finally.

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

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

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

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.

| In the news, Opinion

Stop the presses: Maxime Bernier might be human

La Presse has the scoop this morning on what Julie Couillard is going to say in her book due out on Monday. Essentially, she says Maxime Bernier is an arrogant, womanizing SOB who badmouths his party leader and his constituents behind their backs and whose primary concern is himself.

I’m trying to contain my shock. I mean, a politician who’s self-obsessed and hides his true feelings from the public? What is this world coming to?

Of course, I’m willing to trust these claims about as much as I am Bernier’s denials. The fact that she’s releasing such a book in the first place (and has moved the publication date back a week to have more of an impact before the election) shows quite a bit about her character.

But if we assume that what she says in the book is true, does that make Bernier a horrible person? Concluding that sovereignty is inevitable and saying your prime minister is too fat are clearly offenses worthy of expulsion, and badmouthing your own constituents is usually political suicide. But I find it hard to imagine any politician not doing these things on a regular basis.

Do we really think that Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae aren’t trash-talking Stéphane Dion in private? Or that Gilles Duceppe thinks he can win 75 seats in this election? Or that Jack Layton doesn’t think Alberta Conservatives are stupid? Or that John McCain and Barack Obama are really as religious as they let on?

There were a couple of scenes in the West Wing’s last two seasons in which presidential candidates said that voters are asking to be lied to when they put their politicians up to such unrealistic standards.

So, in the end, should the most successful politicians simply be those who are better at concealing their private thoughts and keeping their lies going?

I think that’s a scarier thought than a minister leaving confidential papers at the home of a biker chick.

| Business, Media, Navel-gazing, Opinion, Sports

Declining sports coverage

The Globe and Mail has a piece about how U.S. newspapers, facing budget and staff cuts, are reducing the amount of coverage they are giving to NHL teams (via Habs Inside/Out). Some are only covering home games, some aren’t covering their own NHL teams at all. Instead, they focus on baseball, basketball and football, which are much more popular and sell more newspapers.

We can poo-poo them, as we live in the hockey capital of the universe where each paper has about a half-dozen people covering every home game and at least one on the road for every away game. But while our hockey coverage remains strong, other sports like NBA, soccer, NFL football and others have fallen off the radar, and coverage of major-league baseball has virtually disappeared since the Expos left town.

And sports, like cars and movie listings and crosswords, are supposed to sell newspapers, generating the revenue to offset the cost of investigative reporting, arts coverage and editorials. When even they are getting cut, you know there’s something seriously wrong.

I’m still, to a large extent, a rookie in this business. I have no recollection of the good ol’ days when newspapers spent like drunken sailors, had hundreds of reporters and essentially controlled the news.

Instead, I live in a world of increasing cutbacks, threats of more cutbacks (or worse), rising prices, fewer voices, more wire service copy and newspapers struggling to get by with their massive bureaucracies and middle-age staff, their future extinction seemingly a foregone conclusion.

And, like hundreds of newspaper managers across the developed world, I have no clue how to fix it. Or even if that’s possible. (Though if I did know, I could make millions…)

Kind of a sobering thought.

But then again, I’m an eternal optimist. And I’m naive enough to think that I can help them get through this slow crisis, so that’s what I’ll do in my own little way.

| On the Net, Opinion, TV

CTV’s new Hockey Theme

CTV has released its re-recording (with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra) of the Hockey Theme (i.e. the ex-Hockey Night in Canada theme), which will be used on RDS and TSN hockey telecasts starting Oct. 10 and Oct. 14, respectively.

Here it is (MP3). TSN also has a story with video about the new theme.

Perhaps I should wait until it actually goes on air, or maybe it’s just my computer, but it sounds like elevator music compared to the rough-and-tumble CBC version.

The press release, which says it “revisits the original 1968 version” also gives plenty of praise for how awesome they think it is:

We’ve taken great pride in blending the heritage of the song with the best digital technology available, creating a stunning rendition sure to resonate with hockey fans across the country.

Colour me unimpressed.

| Media, Opinion

Missing links

You know, the fact that a website considering linking to other websites is news… that’s one of the many many things that’s wrong with corporate media’s approach to the Internet.

I hope that, for the sake of their continued existence, a major strategy overhaul takes place among the higher-ups at certain traditional media organizations. But I expect that it won’t happen, and that corporate media will continue to be half a decade behind the rest of the world in understanding how to exploit new technology.

| In the news, Opinion

By-erection

Those of you who had Sept. 23 as the day when “erection” would be used in an election story and not be a typo, pat yourselves on the back:

But that statement was contradicted by a retreat participant, who said the New Democrat had a partial erection in front of the young girls.

So let’s discuss: How much of an erection is it appropriate for an MP to have in front of young girls? What qualifies as a “partial erection”? What if you just have to pee?

Who cares about issues when we can talk about penises?

(Though seriously, stories like this make me wonder: If the choice in a no-hope riding is between some unknown party loyalist and nobody at all, perhaps it’s best to go the latter route?)

| Blogosphere, Media, Opinion, Web design

Cyberpresse redesigned

Cyberpresse today went live with a redesign of its entire site, ditching the old coloured box motif in favour of a grey, white and red OMGWEB2.0 deal that seems to be in vogue with media sites recently.

The first thing you notice, as you do with all these new news websites, is that it goes on forever. You see, some web marketing genius decreed that users no longer care about vertical scrolling (which is true) and some web designer at an important media outlet decided this meant the homepage should be infinitely long vertically. And now everyone is mindlessly copying each other with these layouts that have no structure and look absolutely haphazard as far as placement of stories on the homepage:

Cyberpresse homepage goes on and on and on and on and on...

Cyberpresse homepage goes on and on and on and on and on...

Still with me? Good. Since the page is so freaking long, I had to shrink it down considerably, so let’s take a zoomed-in look here:

Top of the Cyberpresse homepage

Top of the Cyberpresse homepage

It’s a very boring, unoriginal layout. Some account-specific links at the top, then a horizontal bar for links to individual sections. Oh wait, it’s actually two horizontal bars. One is for sections, the other is for “websites” that Cyberpresse owns for sections special enough to get their own domain. If you’re not familiar with that system, you’ll probably get confused here and have to read the entire thing a couple of times to figure out which link is the best one to click on. Below that are main stories on the left, a search box on the right and some editor’s picks. Looks OK so far.

Middle part of Cyberpresse homepage

Middle part of Cyberpresse homepage

Here’s the meat below. It goes on like this for about four or five screens worth, and they’re all basically the same. Can you tell the logic behind what goes in which columns?

If you answered anything coherent to that question, then you’re wrong. The first column has sections like news and business, except for fluff sections like home, auto, environment, movies that are in the second column, except for arts, technology and lifestyles which are back in the first column.

Oh, and they have names like “Automobile” and “Maison” even though their names are “Mon Volant” and “Mon Toit” elsewhere. Whatever, consistency is for losers.

The third column at least has some consistency. It’s where all the interactive stuff goes. The polls, the “most emailed stories,” the user-generated content, etc. In fact, you’re encouraged to submit your own content (click on “Soumettre une nouvelle,” a page I can’t link to directly), which requires you fill out a form and agree to an 800-word terms of service (which I also can’t link to directly) with gems like these:

  • Lorsque vous soumettez Votre contenu à Cyberpresse, vous concédez à Cyberpresse une licence mondiale illimitée, irrévocable, non exclusive, perpétuelle et à titre gratuit : i) d’utilisation, de reproduction, de stockage, d’adaptation, de traduction, de modification, de création d’œuvres dérivés, de transmission, de distribution, d’exécution publique ou de mise à la disposition du public de Votre contenu à quelque fin; et ii) de concession en sous licence à des tiers du droit illimité d’exercer l’un ou l’autre des droits précités. Outre la concession de la licence susmentionnée, par les présentes, vous i) convenez de renoncer à l’ensemble des droits moraux dans Votre contenu en faveur de Cyberpresse; ii) reconnaissez et convenez que Cyberpresse ne saurait être tenue responsable de quelque perte, endommagement ou corruption de Votre Contenu; et iii) reconnaissez et convenez que Votre Contenu sera considéré comme non confidentiel.
  • Vous devez être âgés de 14 ans ou plus afin de pouvoir soumettre Votre Contenu à Cyberpresse.
  • Les Règles de Contributions des Utilisateurs peuvent être modifiées en tout temps par Cyberpresse à son entière discrétion.
  • Vous vous engagez à coopérer avec nous dans la contestation de toute réclamation.

Well, when you put it that way…

One thing the website emphasizes is its Dossiers, in which stories on a single topic are packaged together, like the U.S. presidential election. Organizing stories by topic instead of more broadly by section is something you’d think media web types would have concluded long ago was boneheadedly obvious, but the news sites are only now really picking up on that. And there are plenty of important, recent topics that don’t have their own pages yet and really should.

Cyberpresse’s launch article also mentions a more powerful (i.e. less crappy) search engine that better finds what you’re looking for. I typed in “Patrick Lagacé” and was pleasantly surprised to see a photo, biography and even email link. Except nowhere do I find a link to his blog. I tried again with “Patrick Lagacé blogue” and the response was “Aucun résultat.” Bravo.

Putting in other search terms for important stories of the past few weeks, I become even less impressed with the search engine.

The blogs also got a redesign. The authors’ pictures are moved to the side, leaving a big space for “le blogue de X”in stylized letters. (Though it seems poor Sophie Cousineau and Nelson Dumais got left behind.) These designs range from the obvious clichés to the we-don’t-know-who-this-is-or-what-she-writes-about generic.

Finally, there’s the RSS page, which has lots more feeds for specific topics. This is good, though the wording on many of these feeds is strange and confusing (what does “ctrl::dossiers cbp” mean?). I managed to decode a few of them which have been added to my Google Reader.

And now, the really bad intro videos

Patrick Lagacé gives us a tour of Cyberpresse

Patrick Lagacé gives us a tour of Cyberpresse

Oh, and I just noticed there’s a video tour of the new website (honestly folks, if you have to give a video demonstration of how your website works so people understand it, then you didn’t design it properly in the first place). I say “just noticed” because the article announcing the new website has no link to the videos nor does it even mention them.

The videos star some tech dude or blogger I’ve never heard of. His intro video is unintentionally hilarious, as he invites people to see another video “en cliquant ici” (clicking on the video per his instruction does nothing), and then sits there and does nothing but stare at the computer screen for a minute and a half while we make up our minds.

Lagacé does his best blogger imitation on camera

Lagacé does his best blogger imitation on camera

In fact, it goes on for so long that he twice looks off camera wondering if he can stop yet:

Lagacé telepathically pleads with the director for permission to leave

Lagacé telepathically pleads with the director for permission to leave

The content of the video is basically him repeating the same thing that was in the introductory article, although he strokes his ego by using himself as a search example. Even though he got the same result I did (i.e. a picture of himself but no link to his blog), he pretends that it works.

Other than all that the site is great. I mean, it’s got gradients and JavaScript-controlled content tabs, so how could it not be?

P.S. WTF?

UPDATE: Michel Dumais has a positive review of the new Cyberpresse. Steph looks at it from a Web 2.0 perspective.

| Movies, Opinion, Video

Slacker

I just finished watching Michael Moore’s free-to-web (but only in the U.S. and Canada, wink wink) documentary “Slacker Uprising,” about his tour of swing states just before the 2004 presidential election.

Well, you get what you pay for, I guess.

I’ve always had mixed feelings about Michael Moore’s work. I liked Sicko, The Awful Truth and Bowling for Columbine, and I was ok with Fahrenheit 9/11.

But Slacker Uprising doesn’t explain any issue. It doesn’t argue any point. It doesn’t actually try to change anything, despite Moore’s pleas that the film be screened before the election. It’s just a bunch of videos of stump speeches pieced together with a bunch of videos of artists performing protest songs. This review from the Ann Arbor News explains it pretty well.

There are some interesting parts, about how Republicans attempted to stop the speeches, offered money to get student unions to cancel them, and even showed up, chanted and prayed out loud while Moore was speaking, but there’s already a documentary about that.

For those used to Moore’s passionate, personal arguments about political issues, you’ll be disappointed. He doesn’t even narrate the movie. Instead, you just hear him speaking to the converted, to the point where the hyperpartisanship of those audiences might turn you off from voting for Democrats.

Michael Moore chanting “one more day” isn’t entertaining, moving, inspiring or educational. And it’s not worth watching.

| On the Net, Opinion

Bloc-cast

Last week, the Bloc Québécois started running a minute-or-so-long podcast in which Frédéric Savard gives a fast-talking roundup of political news and ends each item with a pun or other bad joke about other parties in the election.

As a master of punnery and bad jokes myself, I have to say that some of them are funny (black holes and Denis Coderre) and some are beyond groaner territory (Stéphane Dion being “tragically un-hip”).

Still, it’s pretty entertaining as far as party activities online go. The Liberals and Greens don’t have podcasts that I can find. The Tories’ podcast is nothing but stump speeches by Stephen Harper, and the NDP podcast hasn’t been updated since 2005.

| In the news, Opinion, Technology

Akoha: Is that all?

Last week, we got our first true glimpse into the über-secret world of Akoha (formerly Project Ojibwe, aka Austin Hill’s new project), after they presented the project at TechCrunch50.

I find myself feeling for Akoha something similar to what I felt about Standout Jobs when it launched in public beta: disappointed.

Not heartbroken. Not “wtf this is crap,” but more a feeling of “a team of computer programmers spent months in super-secret hiding for this?”

Added to that was the fact that both did a lot of talking about supporting the local community, but when it came to actually launching, they both took off for the other side of the border.

Based on the presentation, the comic on the website and Roberto Rocha’s article, Akoha is some sort of game where you buy cards and have to do what the cards say. And then you go online and tell everyone you did what the cards say. And then you feel good.

Mark MacLeod points out some of the issues Akoha will have to deal with, like marketing, user retention and monetization. I’ll also add authentication: How do we know that someone’s claim to have done something is true?

But the biggest problem, I think, will be keeping a critical mass that goes beyond the fad. People will be interested, at first, but without that Facebook-like regular activity and new information, I can see people using Akoha less and less until the playing cards start collecting dust at the back of the closet.

But then, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. TechCrunch liked it, as did Scoble. So maybe it is the next big thing.