Tag Archives: Richard Therrien

| Blogosphere, TV

Therrien joins blogosphere, teeveephiles rejoice

Le Soleil's Richard Therrien

Le Soleil's Richard Therrien

Allow me to add my voice to others in welcoming Le Soleil’s Richard Therrien to the blogosphere. He’ll be writing for Cyberpresse about television, tapping into his freakishly vast knowledge of everything that has ever aired, ever. (He explains his mission statement in his debut post)

Le Soleil, of course, is in Quebec City, so that changes… well, nothing. Unless he’s talking about the local news. Which he should, because local news is awesome for mistakes and stupidity, which he and I both seem to enjoy pointing out.

| Media

TVA mad at La Presse for suggesting they have managers

The petty legal war between the francophone media continues, as Groupe TVA (read: Quebecor/TVA/Journal de Montréal/Canoe) sent a lawyer’s letter to Groupe Gesca (read: La Presse/Cyberpresse) demanding that they retract statements that suggested the whole blurring-the-face-of-Bernier’s-biker-girlfriend thing was done on orders from management, according to Le Devoir (subscription-locked, sorry).

Specifically, it takes issue with an article from Le Soleil’s Richard Therrien and a blog post from Patrick Lagacé, both of which suggest that the decision was suspicious (the latter suggests that a friendship between Maxime Bernier and Quebecor’s Pierre-Karl Péladeau might have something to do with it).

I honestly have no idea what’s going through the minds of people at Quebecor (or just TVA?). Are they suggesting that management was not involved in this decision, and that any statement otherwise libels them somehow? Are we to believe that some non-management person made such a controversial decision on a major news story without discussing it with higher-ups?

And are we just to take it as coincidence that the Journal and TVA, both owned by Quebecor, are the only two news outlets that have kept her name secret?

Seriously, what’s their problem?

UPDATE: The Gazette’s Liz Thompson is also like: Dude, WTF?