Tag Archives: Radio-Canada

| Montreal, Radio, Sports, TV

Team 990, RadCan to air Impact games

The Montreal Impact (you know, one of our other sports teams) has signed deals with Radio-Canada and The Team 990 to air games this season.

The Team 990 will air all 15 Impact home games throughout the season and all playoff games, with CTV regular Brian Wilde doing the play-by-play. He’ll be joined by former Impact player Grant Needham and The Team’s Noel Butler, who will also host a weekly, one-hour soccer show beginning in May. The same is the case for the 2009 season. The station is the team’s only English broadcaster. 

Radio-Canada will air 10 games (9 home games and one away game) on TV, online and on Sirius satellite radio. Play-by-play will be done by Claude Quenneville, with Guillaume Dumas on analysis and Marie-José Turcotte, Marc Durand and Andrea Di Pietrantonio hosting. Radio-Canada is the team’s only television broadcaster, and “could” also air the playoffs.
The Impact’s home opener, which will be covered by both stations, is May 19, playing host to the Vancouver Whitecaps. The first game of the season is Saturday at Vancouver.

Home games are also on CKAC and all games available at USLlive.com (if you’re willing to pay for it)

| Blogosphere, Media, Opinion, Web design

Sur le Web: Get a clue

RadCan’s Sur le Web, a blog-style page with links to interesting things online, has added the ability for users to comment, except with a strange rule: No links. Period.

Sur le Web is a very strange animal in the local blogosphere:

  • Each post is paired with a tiny video of the blogger’s talking head explaining what we’ve just read.
  • Permalinks are created with page anchors as opposed to individual pages, meaning they become useless after a couple of days.
  • The site’s RSS feed has no text for its posts

Now this. I’m seriously tempted to unsubscribe as a protest, and would have done so long ago had the site been any less useful for information. But the fact that it seems to intentionally make it as difficult as possible to use annoys me to no end.

I couldn’t care less about comments. Fix everything else first.

But the fact that a blog about links to stuff online doesn’t allow links in its comments? That’s insane.

Among some of RadCan’s other draconian rules:

  • No comments in languages other than French
  • No anonymous or pseudonymous comments
  • No more than three comments per person per discussion

If similar rules had been put in place at CBC.ca, we’d be hearing about it. Maybe we need a Radio-Canada version of Inside the CBC?

| Humour, Media, Opinion, Slow News Day, TV

Rock et tous les oreilles

RBO

I guess RBO’s Bye-Bye show was a success, considering the sheer number of articles written about the subject, on everything from its ratings (2.4 million people watched it) and the price of its ads to its use of makeup to Hérouxville’s reaction to being made fun of.

Even the Oscars don’t get this kind of coverage.

Maybe they should schedule them during the holidays.

UPDATE (Jan. 17): My God, they’re still talking about it. Three million viewers, plus another million and a half the next day on the repeat. CBC would kill for those numbers.

| Media, Opinion, Video

Political punditry is not journalism

Radio-Canada turns the lens on political has-beens turning to “journalism” by becoming TV pundits:

Coulisses Du Pouvoir Ex Politicien A LaTelevision
Uploaded by mediawatchqc

To their credit, my good friend Laflaque makes fun of the issue better than I could:

Laflaque Le Club Des EX
Uploaded by mediawatchqc

Sheila Copps, Liza Frulla, Michel Gauthier and their ilk say they provide a valuable service, they aren’t attached formally to their parties anymore and can speak their minds, and they can provide unique analysis as former insiders.

But political punditry is the most pathetic form of journalism ever created. It fills airtime with people shouting at each other, debating along party lines, defending their friends and attacking their enemies. Even if they feel they’re free to speak their minds, they’re untrustworthy on their face (especially now that they admit they had to lie while in office).

Another problem, that nobody talks about, is that there’s an assumption among journalists that just because they have ex-members from each of the major parties that they’re fair and balanced. But what about the parties who aren’t represented in the legislature? What about special-interest groups with views that differ from the major parties? They’re unrepresented.

What we need are more political journalists uncovering stories, not political losers killing time yelling at each other about inside politics that nobody cares about.

| Media

Awarding excellence in Quebec journalism (with links!)

As part of a weekend conference, the Fédération professionelle des journalistes du Québec presented awards for journalism. Radio-Canada was the big winner for the Judith Jasmin awards for reporting, and La Presse the big winner in the photo category.

The coverage in the media was as you might expect, each media outlet trumping its own successes and downplaying others:

What was particularly annoying about the announcement of the winners is that neither the FPJQ announcements nor any of the news reports about them contained links to the winners’ articles, video reports or photos. This is 2007, for crying out loud. It should be beyond obvious by now that online reports are incomplete without us being able to see what they’re talking about.

So as a public service, here are the winners of the FPJQ’s awards this weekend, with links to the original pieces where appropriate.

Prix Judith Jasmin (reporting)

Grand prize: La leçon de discrimination
Pasquale Turbide & Lucie Payeur
Radio-Canada (Enjeux)

The winner, a TV documentary tackling the hot issue of discrimination, is already available on DVD.

Investigative journalism: Du sable dans l’engrenage
Guy Gendron, Jean-Luc Paquette and Monique Dumont
Radio-Canada (Zone Libre)

An in-depth look at the Alberta oilsands which are booming like nobody’s business now that the high price of oil has made them profitable. It also explores the environmental and (hence) political angles of this industry.

Feature: Inde, poubelle de la planète techno
Noémi Mercier
Québec Science

Mercier’s report on how so-called “recycling” of electronics overseas is really just a long-range garbage dump apparently involved a lot of personal risk on her part.

Opinion: Femmes en retrait
Manon Cornellier
Le Devoir

Cornellier’s piece was recognized not for its original subject (the lack of women in power in politics), but for the clear, well-written way it was presented.

Profile/interview: Monique Lépine, 17 ans de silence
Harold Gagné
TVA

Gagné’s interview with the mother of École Polytechnique killer Marc Lépine was one of those epic scoops, even if it wasn’t timely. The interview itself became news all over the country as other outlets reported on it (The Globe, CTV, CBC, La Presse). The timing was unfortunately perfect, coming just days after the Dawson shooting.

The fact that a runner-up in this category was Sue Montgomery’s portrait of Dawson shooter Kimveer Gill (breaking the silence of his mother) says something, either about their selection criteria or about the state of the media.

National news: Hérouxville dicte un code de conduite rigoureux pour ses futurs immigrants
Katia Gagnon
La Presse

The article that started it all. A reporter talks about a small town called Hérouxville which has some odd ideas about race relations (they polled residents asking “are you racist?”, the answer was 100% “no”). The rest is history.

Local news: L’érosion des berges (video)
Hervé Gaudreault
Radio-Canada Baie Comeau

Honoured for one simple reason: He made the issue of soil erosion sound interesting. I’ll add that it proves that real journalism can in fact come from small markets.

Prix Antoine Desillets (photography)

Daily life: Bernard Brault
La Presse

A this-must-be-photoshopped silhouette of a vacationer in the Antilles. Brault was a finalist last year for another photo from the Antilles.

Sports: David Boily
La Presse

This spectacular photo of F1 driver Robert Kubica having his vehicle totalled (I think, there were a few photos that got picked up) made the AFP and Canadian Press wires and got published around the world.

Photojournalism: Olivier Hanigan
La Voie du succès

The words “acid attack” don’t evoke much emotion until you see the photos of these victims in a Bangladesh hospital.

News: Ivanoh Demers
La Presse

(I’m assuming it’s this photo – it’s part of a gallery with the rest.) A photo of mafia boss Nick Rizzutto being arrested, honoured for its excellent composition of elements denoting the once great man’s being taken down by the law.

Portrait: Bernard Brault
La Presse

Bernard Brault wins again, for a photo of a security guard at the University of Oxford. Chosen for the way it captures the essence of British style.

The winning photos will be on display in Montreal starting Dec. 4.

Prix Judith-Jasmin hommage (lifetime achievement)

This career award went to former Journal de Montréal justice reporter Rodolphe Morissette, who retired last year after 22 years of service.

Bourse Arthur-Prévost (aspiring rookie journalist)

This $2,000 financial award went to Marie-Hélène Proulx, who’s currently at Jobboom Magazine but has had her name just about everywhere since starting a freelance journalism career in 2003. Her magazine articles have already won grownup awards.

Prix Jules-Fournier (quality of language in print writing)

This $5,000 prize for quality of writing in a French-language Quebec newspaper went to Valérie Borde, an independent journalist who works for l’Actualité and writes about science.

Prix Raymond-Charette (quality of language in electronic media)

This $5,000 prize went to Hugues Poulin, Radio-Canada’s European correspondent.

These last two awards are sponsored by the Conseil supérieur de la langue française.