Tag Archives: Journal de Montréal

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Journal Weekly Digest: Bring in the lawyers

We all knew it would happen eventually: the union has officially protested with the government that the Journal de Montréal is using scabs to replace 253 locked-out workers.

Specifically, it is asking for an injunction preventing the Journal from using content derived form the “Agence QMI” news service as well as other Quebecor publications and websites. It’s also asking that freelancers be restricted to providing the same amount of work as they did before the lockout, and not being given more space to replace locked-out columnists (they point specifically to Joseph Facal, who had written once a week but was upgraded to twice a week after the lockout started). And it complains about cartoonist YGreck, who hadn’t appeared in the Journal de Montréal before but has been used since the lockout.

The text of the complaint is available as a PDF on Rue Frontenac.

Exhibit A in the union’s argument is the decision reached in the Journal de Québec case which showed that much of what that paper did during its lockout was exploiting illegal scab labour, including those who worked for other Quebecor divisions, notably the Canoe website. The main difference in the Journal de Montréal case is that 24 Heures and ICI, where it’s taking much of its content from, existed long before the lockout and are legitimate publications. The question will be whether the work some of them are doing is being done primarily for the Journal’s benefit, in which case it would probably be ruled illegal.

Quebecor, of course, denies that they’re breaking any laws, just as they did with the Journal de Québec.

The government won’t step in, but the STIJM (and the FPJQ which supports them in this matter) still hope the case will be expedited.

Meanwhile…

And at Le Réveil, Quebecor’s other locked-out newspaper, they’re handing out stickers so people can show they’re boycotting the free weekly paper.

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Canadian newspaper readership stable

It seems to go against conventional wisdom, but NADBank results released this morning show that readership at major Canadian newspapers remains stable, with three quarters of Canadians reading at least one daily newspaper each week. Online numbers also remain stable, which is disappointing because they represent so little.

Both the Toronto Star and Globe and Mail cherry-picked results to declare victory. The Star has more print readers on a daily, Saturday and weekly basis, but the Globe has more online readers and a higher total readership of both online and print (the Globe also says it won “key” demographics and implies that its readers are smarter). Other newspapers trumpeted their gains, especially the Calgary Herald, whose readership jumped 7% over last year,

In Montreal, the Journal de Montréal is still the undisputed print leader, with 578,800 having read it “yesterday” and 1,129,600 in the last week, 40% more than second-place La Presse (even throwing in Cyberpresse readers, against the Journal’s lack of a website, the paper still comes up short). Note that this is all before the lockout.

For those who care about comparing competing papers, there’s not much new here. The market percentages are almost identical to last year. A slight uptick in online readers for Cyberpresse, but only from 9% to 11% of the market.

In terms of raw numbers:

  • The Journal de Montréal lost about 3% of its weekday and Sunday readers.
  • La Presse lost about 30,000 weekly print readers but gained about 26,000 weekly online readers.
  • The Gazette (my paper) gained modestly in all categories, but online growth is robust, rising 11% since it relaunched its website last fall. In the Greater Montreal Area, it rose 31%. (Still, most of the website’s traffic comes from outside Quebec, an oddity among Canwest’s papers)
  • Metro lost almost 5% of its weekly readers, and though it gained almost 20% online, its web readership is still negligible.
  • 24 Heures gained 2.4% in weekly readers (perhaps partially at Metro’s expense). Its online numbers are similarly negligible.

In general, 49% of Montrealers 18 and over read a newspaper on the average weekday, 74% read at least one a week, and 76% read a newspaper or go to a newspaper’s website in a week (which means a tiny number – 4% nationally – go to newspaper websites but don’t subscribe). Freebie newspaper readership is at 24% here, with 717,000 people having read either Metro or 24 Heures in the past five weekdays.

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Journal Daily Digest: Jack to the rescue

NDP leader Jack Layton roared into town on Wednesday and stole the show for this week. In a meeting with locked-out Journal de Montréal workers, he lent his support, denounced the use of scabs and said he’s written to the prime minister asking that federal advertising be pulled from the paper until its union conflict is resolved.

Seeing an opportunity to get his name in the media again, Denis Coderre also wanted to make sure we know that the Liberals support the workers.

[Insert rebellious song title pun here]

Eric Goulet

Quebecor sucks!

In the wouldn’t-have-been-printed-in-the-Journal category:

We like freelancers, trust us!

The STIJM makes a case for the support of freelance journalists with the Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec. Though it admits that fighting for freelancers isn’t its primary mission, it says it tried to get some union protection for freelancers at the Journal and has opposed onerous contracts that demand excessive rights waivers.

Meanwhile, in other news

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Journal Daily Digest: Boycott 24 heures?

Youssef Shoufan, the guy behind this video about Journal de Montréal workers, has suggested through his blog and a Facebook group that Montrealers boycott Quebecor’s 24 Heures free newspaper in protest of its alleged bias in favour of Quebecor companies like TVA and Videotron.

It’s very unlikely such a move is going to make any difference, for the simple reason that people who care about the state of the news industry don’t read the free papers, and the vast majority who don’t care about media convergence won’t give this a second thought and will go on reading the newspapers boycott or no. You can’t threaten to cancel your subscription to 24 Heures.

Meanwhile, at the Journal, there’s little going on. Le Devoir had a piece from Paul Cauchon on Monday summarizing the stalemate, and focusing on all the anti-Quebecor articles that have appeared on RueFrontenac.com now that journalists have the freedom to say what they really think about their corporate overlords.

And at the little brother Le Réveil, which was also locked out by Quebecor, advertisers are pulling out of the publication in solidarity with workers (so says the no-agenda-here RueFrontenac). Saguenay’s mayor is under pressure to pull the city’s $130,000 worth of advertising from the free paper.

Keeping the machin running

I’m starting to like this overly-enunciative fellow. (The original, for those missing context)

Elsewhere

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Journal Daily Digest: SCANDALE!!!

Rue Frontenac had the news EN PRIMEUR this morning, a result of an ENQUÊTE EXCLUSIF: The Journal de Montréal is subcontracting its subscription marketing to a company that’s not registered and is perhaps not being entirely honest with people. (THE HORROR!) This investigation involved the usual Journal technique of going undercover and exposing all of the inner dealings, then talking to experts about how this might be illegal if anyone cared to prosecute. It caught Lagacé’s attention, at least.

Meanwhile

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Journal Daily Digest: Guichets fermés

Journal picket

The protest of the day was against René Angélil, whose biography, published by a Quebecor-owned company, has just been launched.

In more interesting (and topical) news, at least a few people were seriously turned off by a Journal headline about the funeral of those kids in Piedmont. Perhaps annoyed by the fact that the public (i.e. news media) was excluded from the small crowded building where the funeral was taking place, the newspaper used the headline: “Cérémonie à guichets fermés“. At least one blogger and one letter-writer found that to be a tacky and inappropriate comparison between a private family funeral and a rock concert.

Meanwhile

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2/3 support Journal de Montréal workers (by default)

Branchez-Vous has the EXCLUSIF today: a poll it commissioned shows that about two thirds (literally 66.7%) of Quebecers support the 253 workers who were locked out by the Journal de Montréal in January.

But the full results of the survey show that about the same percentage (65.5%) support the employees and their union in labour conflicts in general. So it’s probably fair to say that the level of support is more of a default position than any serious analysis of the conflict. This is backed up by results showing that while the vast majority (82.7%) of Quebecers are aware of the lockout, three quarters of them (70% in Montreal) say they know little or nothing about the reasons behind it.

Who wins in this is a good question. The union will no doubt consider this a big win, because it looks good on its face and because initially it seemed the public might turn its backs on the union because of the generous working conditions (32-hour weeks, high salaries, etc.). Despite Quebecor’s efforts, this seems not to be the case.

But public support is irrelevant if people are still buying newspapers and advertisers are still putting ads. We don’t know how this is affecting the Journal financially, but that will be the big decider in all this.

The online poll of 1125 adult Quebecers taken Feb. 10-16 (margin of error 3% 19 times out of 20) also breaks down its answers by region (Montreal, Quebec and other), though the only one that shows a significant difference is that people who live in and near Quebec City support locked-out Journal workers more than they would workers in general. This is probably a result of the long Journal de Québec conflict, which also began with a lockout.

Meanwhile

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Journal Dailyish Digest: All your caisse are belong to us

(Video from Youssef Shoufan)

Locked-out Journal workers protested in front of the Caisse de dépôt et placement on Wednesday to take advantage of their announcement that they’d lost all our money. The Caisse has a financial interest in Quebecor (45%), which is the reason for the protest.

Speaking of that financial interest, Quebecor released quarterly report this week, and “Quebecor réduit sa perte” was the headline. The improvement was mostly because of Videotron, which increased its number of customers and managed to squeeze 10% more out of each one on average. Newspaper revenues dropped by 5.5%, though the report covers the period before the lockout at the Journal started.

Crank calls? Really?

La Presse reports that managers at the Journal got calls last week from people answering classified ads on Craigslist and Kijiji. Apparently their phone numbers were placed on fake ads put on the sites and managers got calls late at night. Those of you wondering when the union’s pressure tactics would descend into the cliché and juvenile, there you go.

Meanwhile

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Journal lockout hits one month

(Once again, my real job kept me from my self-appointed Journal-monitoring rounds, this time for a full week. Here’s what we missed)

A view of the Journal de Montréal building, from the offices of the STIJM

A view of the Journal de Montréal building, from the offices of the STIJM

The big news, sadly, is no news. One month into the Journal de Montréal lockout, there are no negotiations scheduled, no sign that any end is near.

But there’s plenty of other stuff going on. Here’s what I’ve found:

Habs stories top all others

Shortly before that big La Presse thing, when everyone was still talking about Alex Kovalev and how much the Habs sucked, Rue Frontenac posted an article from Marc de Foy about what Kovy supposedly said to his peeps back home, namely blaming other players for the team’s misfortune.

Pretty standard fare for the Journal, because it sells papers to bring up stuff like this that has about a half-and-half chance of being true. De Foy was interviewed on CKAC, reports circulated on RDS and other Habs-crazy places, and that was enough to bring down RueFrontenac.com for a few hours on Wednesday evening.

That was enough to worry some hard-core followers. But don’t worry, the site is still there.

Mongrain is the new Martineau

Jean-Luc Mongrain, formerly of TQS, has returned from a relaxing vacation and will begin giving blowjobs to all three of Quebecor’s penises on March 2 when he starts a show on LCN. He’ll also have a column in the Journal de Montréal (lockout shmockout) and a blog on Canoë (even though he says he’s never seen a blog before).

You’ll recall Richard Martineau already has an LCN show, a Journal column, and a Canoë blog, but Mongrain still thinks his will be new somehow (I think he means new to him).

He sees himself being a doorway to “citizen journalism” because people can email him ideas. I’m not sure he understands what “citizen journalism” means, but it involves a bit more than that.

Canoe has a video interview with Mongrain about his new multiplatform initiative.

Meanwhile

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Journal (almost) Daily Digest: Rue Frontenac adds classifieds

(So I’m a bit behind…)

Classifieds ahoy!

Rue Frontenac, the website of locked-out Journal de Montréal workers, launched its classified ad section today. Their taking classifieds by phone or email. No prices are listed online.

Meanwhile

And finally, as a demonstration of the excellent reporting skills that the Journal is missing because of this lockout, I give you this Rue Frontenac report on the Snuggie.

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Journal Daily Digest: Brodeur comes on board

Still recovering from elbow surgery that has had him sidelined since November, New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur has been welcomed into the fold of Rue Frontenac, the website published by locked-out Journal de Montréal employees. They even got a formal news release issued to mark the signing. Financial terms, if any, were not disclosed.

Brodeur was a columnist for the Journal de Montréal before the lockout, and made it crystal clear that he would not write for the paper in the event of a labour disruption.

Nomadic agency

The Gazette, Feb. 13, Page A4

The Gazette, Feb. 13, Page A4

Noticed this photo in my newspaper the other day. It’s on top of this story about police sweeping down and making dozens of arrests in an anti-gang operation. The original photo, taken at 6am, can be seen on Rue Frontenac’s website.

So not only are they providing enough material for their own website, but they’re doing enough journalism to be able to freelance it to the Journal’s competition.

Meanwhile

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Journal Daily Digest: Leak documents, get sued

Journal de Montréal picket photo

Steve Proulx, who like me has been following the Journal de Montréal lockout closely, is being sued by the paper, apparently for a document he posted to his blog (later deleted) from the STIJM union which was critical of Journal management. (UPDATE: A Facebook group has been setup to support Steve)

Hugo Dumas reveals this in a column which also says the union at TVA is complaining that content its journalists provide to the business network Canal Argent is being used in the Journal and they’re acting as de facto scabs.

Meanwhile

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Journal Daily Digest: What do managers do, anyway?

Journal: PKP = Detruire

Not much going on, though we might get some news in a few hours as there’s another general assembly today.

Rue Frontenac, remembering that it’s primarily a pressure tactic and union vehicle, takes some jabs at the Journal. One article asks whether managers are really needed in the production of a newspaper since all of them seem to be doing reporting now.

Elsewhere:

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Journal Daily Digest: Cauchon sticks his nose in it

Journal de Montréal picket

The link of the day comes from this morning’s Le Devoir, in which media reporter Paul Cauchon does an analysis of the Journal situation, the freelance columnist problem and the role of unions in media. It’s a bit opinionative (and, since it’s in Le Devoir, that opinion is left-of-centre), but worth a look.

Tout le monde won’t shut up

Patrick Lagacé and Bernard Landry were on Tout le monde en parle last night, and both answered questions about the Journal. Landry recently quit his column (with a lame excuse) and Lagacé had to answer for his boyfriend Richard Martineau, who just won’t quit. Rue Frontenac was watching and has the play-by-play. As does Richard Therrien.

On the other channel (with twice the audience), TVA had the premiere of Star Académie, and Journal workers were picketing outside giving out flyers to audience members. (The Clique du Plateau wonders if Rue Frontenac’s critique of the show would have been as critical if it had appeared in the Journal)

In other news

Meanwhile, a journalist at Transcontinental in Quebec City has gotten her job back after she was fired last year, coincidentally (or not) as she was organizing a union for their community weeklies in the area.

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Journal Daily Digest: The back and forth continues

STIJM cartoon

STIJM cartoon

The Syndicat des travailleurs de l’information du Journal de Montréal, in response to Quebecor’s response to their response to the lockout, has released a page of frequently asked questions on its Journal du Journal website.

The text makes the union’s case on some of the issues that have been circulating in the media:

  • It finally gives an explanation for the discrepancy in salary figures. As I suspected, the union is using base pay and the employer is using pay including overtime and other perks to reach $88,000. As the union points out, all overtime is approved by the employer, so journalists are making that extra $30,000 because the Journal didn’t want to hire more journalists to make up for a shortfall in staff.
  • It links to a summary of those 233 demands the employer made (PDF), with commentary about what those changes would mean for workers
  • It links to a letter sent to freelance columnists (PDF) just before the lockout was called.
  • It says the union is against Quebecor setting up the Journal website as part of the Canoe network and they want the Journal to have its own unique website
  • It explains the work week (30 hours plus breaks = 32 hours over four days) and says the union is willing to be flexible about that
  • It explains why workers are paid time and a half for vacation (it was the suggestion of the employer in a past contract)

There are also some items that might rub people the wrong way. It suggests that, because most of the workers the Journal wants to lay off in the classified department are female, the move is in some way anti-women. It also skirts around the issue of freelancers, and the fact that the union has done little to protect their interests and is not giving them strike pay.

In other news