Tag Archives: The Gazette

| Media, Montreal, Navel-gazing

Gazette staff start byline strike

You know, everything happens on my day off.

In case you hadn’t noticed, Thursday’s paper was missing names on top of articles written by Gazette reporters (and under photos by Gazette photographers). The union called for a byline strike as a pressure tactic after being frustrated by negotiations.

For those who want some background, Slate explains what byline strikes are all about. The last time Gazette staffers did this was in 2001 to protest a new national editorial policy by Canwest, one that many people have asked me about years later thinking it’s still in effect.

UPDATE: Bylines are also being pulled from Habs Inside/Out.

So you all can just go ahead and assume all the articles are being written by me now. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

| Business, Media, Montreal, Navel-gazing

Gazette editorial dept. votes 98% for strike mandate

At a general meeting Sunday afternoon, members of three bargaining units at the Montreal Newspaper Guild, which represents workers at The Gazette, voted overwhelmingly in favour of a strike mandate.

The results:

  • Editorial: 98% (Representing reporters, photographers, photo processors, desk clerks, graphic artists and copy editors including myself)
  • Reader Sales and Service: 100% (Representing what’s left of the department after the call centre was outsourced to Winnipeg)
  • Advertising: 59% (Representing sales staff and other advertising workers outside the classified department)

Turnout was 70% of the 182 members.

Two other units, representing the business office and classified advertising, are currently under contract and are unaffected by this.

This vote greatly strengthens the union’s bargaining position as the two sides return to the table on Tuesday. It does not necessarily mean there will be a strike, but it does give the bargaining committee the power to call one if negotiations break down and they decide it’s necessary. The employer is currently in a lock-out position.

The main issues on the table are:

  • Jurisdiction (a clause in the collective agreement that prohibits the employer from hiring non-unionized employees to do work normally done by the union, a clause that the guild argues is already being violated by the outsourcing of copy editing to Canwest Editorial Services in Hamilton, Ont.)
  • Wages (the employer is offering no wage increase, the union’s starting demand is 6% per year)
  • Job classification (the employer is asking that the distinction between reporter, critic, photographer and graphic artist be eliminated so employees can be forced to do jobs in more than one of these categories for no extra pay)

This strike mandate vote follows a similar one by the Ottawa News Guild representing workers at the Ottawa Citizen. They voted 83% in favour (though they had a higher turnout) and eventually settled on a 2-2.5% wage increase over five years (double what the employer had offered before the strike vote), with no jurisdiction guarantees.

UPDATE: Le Devoir has a brief about it. It describes the job classification issue as the “main issue,” which I think is debatable. The Gazette also has a brief, including a quote from publisher Alan Allnutt about how surprised he was by this vote.

| Navel-gazing

Empty nest

Interns once sat here.

Interns once sat here.

September is always a sad time around the office, though perhaps my opinion is somewhat biased because I’ve had two contracts run out during that month. It’s when veteran staff return from summer vacation, when new mothers return from maternity leave, when retirees return from the dead and when Red Fisher returns from suspended animation for the new hockey season.

The result is that understaffing issues suddenly disappear, and the young contract workers they bring in as temporary replacements are no longer needed.

That, combined with the summer interns returning to school or otherwise continuing on with their lives, means that a lot of young, talented people are leaving the office (and raising the average age back above “back when I worked at the Star” level).

It’s not all “tough luck kid, you fall off the ladder.” Some are leaving voluntarily and have other plans. A couple are going back to school (one to law school where he’s concluded that he can get a real career), three others are moving to Europe for some reason, and the rest have a vague idea of what paths their future careers will take.

It’s a fact of contract life, temporary work is by definition not permanent, but it’s still sad when the end finally comes. This past weekend I gave a big hug to a departing coworker who failed to escape the culling of temps and is already being missed by her colleagues.

Kate Molleson: Behold her adorableness (Gazette photo)

Kate Molleson: Behold her adorableness (Gazette photo)

One of the more visible faces to leave the office is Kate Molleson, who joined as an intern last year on the copy desk and has been blogging about cycling issues since April (she also wrote and blogged about classical music, because she’s just that much more cultured than I am). She has already left to London to study music, and gives her goodbye post in which she introduces three experts who will replace her on her blog.

Kate practices her Queen's wave

Kate practices her Queen's wave

By my count, the paper is losing five reporters, two copy editors, a graphic designer and at least one web editor. And they will be sorely missed, at least until next May when a whole new crop of interns and temporary workers comes in to fill gaps in the schedule.

(In case you’re wondering, I’m sticking around at least until January, assuming there’s no strike or lockout before then.)

Of course, since many of the people who leave the Gazette go on to bigger and better things, perhaps I shouldn’t feel so bad.

| Business, Media, Navel-gazing

Ottawa Citizen workers accept contract deal

Members of the Ottawa Newspaper Guild, which represents workers in the newsroom of the Ottawa Citizen, have accepted a contract offer that includes wage increases of 2.5% the first year, 2% the next three years and 2.5% the final year.

This sets the stage for a coming strike vote at the Gazette this Sunday.

And the union executive isn’t happy about the rejecting of their recommendation.

| Media

Gazette books section: bigger, less often, plus blog

As part of incremental changes to reduce the amount of newsprint it uses and otherwise cut costs, The Gazette has made its weekly tabloid Books section into a monthly one, while increasing its size to about double what it was.

For you math experts out there, doubling the size of a section but having it run only a quarter as often will result in 50% less content overall on average. (It’s actually a bit better than that, because on Saturdays when the section doesn’t appear there will be a page from it in the Saturday Extra section).

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to people who have been following the newspaper industry worldwide, as fewer and fewer papers still have such sections at all. If anything, the surprise is that the section wasn’t eliminated entirely.

The Science section, which appeared at the back of Books every week, gets cut loose from that odd-couple relationship and will rejoin the Insight section (which is now part of the A section) on Sundays.

As part of the metamorphosis, the paper gets a new online Books page, which includes a blog called Narratives, and both will get updates between appearances of the big monthly section.

I’ve never been a big book-review-section person myself, so I’m not particularly affected by this decision.

Perhaps that’s the problem.

UPDATE: Andrew Phillips has a post about this on his blog. He mentions that the local literary community was consulted and that, generally, it’s an agreeable compromise.

| Media

Citizen in strike position, and Gazette may follow

The Ottawa Newspaper Guild, which represents employees of the Ottawa Citizen took a strike vote on Thursday, its members voting 83% in favour of a strike mandate. This is a bargaining tactic, showing the employer the union is serious and that its members are prepared to walk off the job to get their demands. However, the union has said it has no plans to follow through with a strike so long as productive negotiations are continuing. The Citizen’s contract expired July 20, and the major issue standing in the way of a new one is wages: the employer is offering increases of 1%, 1%, 1.5%, 2% and 2% over five years, which represents a pay cut compared to inflation.

Meanwhile, the Montreal Newspaper Guild, which represents employees of the Gazette (including myself), has called a strike vote for Sept. 28. Same deal about this being a bargaining tactic (the sides go back to the table Sept. 30). Negotiations haven’t progressed to the wage discussion stage, but among the contentious issues is an employer demand that removes the distinction between reporter and photographer, which would mean journalists have to perform both functions.

| Business, Media, Montreal, My articles

New Monday Gazette (with TWIMy goodness)

New Monday Gazette front (Sept. 8, 2008)

New Monday Gazette front (Sept. 8, 2008)

The four of you who still read paper newspapers will notice a dramatic shift in Monday’s Gazette. It’s gotten smaller.

The most dramatic change is the consolidation of the news, Your Business and Arts & Life sections into the A section, similar to what happens in the Sunday paper. The Sports section is unchanged (in fact, it’s a larger-than-normal 10 pages this week), as is the ad-generating Driving section. The length of the paper reduces overall by about six pages.

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Phillips is honest in his note to readers today about why this is happening:

The main reason for the change is that the cost of newsprint is rising dramatically. In the past year, it has gone up by about 24 per cent, and it is adding more than $2 million to our annual expenses. Fuel costs, as everyone knows, have also gone up sharply.

The fact is we can’t keep printing the same size newspaper at a time when the competition for advertising revenue (which makes up about three-quarters of our income) is much tougher. The time is long past when newspapers like The Gazette could just absorb extra costs and pass all of them on to advertisers.

Of course, no doubt some readers won’t agree (especially when it’s combined with a slight increase in subscription rates), so Andrew and the rest of the staff are fully ready for an onslaught of complaints. He has a blog post explaining the situation, and readers are encouraged to comment there, or by email to his address or the new monday@thegazette.canwest.com.

As if in answer to management’s prayers to give them some cover fire, the New York Times also announced that it would be consolidating sections to save on newsprint. One of my colleagues got the idea to run a story about that in the Your Business section today, and Andrew points that out to readers.

(UPDATE Sept. 11: Andrew has a summary of the reaction, which is negative, but not as bad as he feared)

Here’s what’s changed

The new layout of A1 (as seen above) emphasizes the newspaper’s slew of Monday columnists (because, try as they might, little news happens on Sundays), with quotes along the side from marquee names.

Content-wise, the changes are modest:

  • Your Business takes the biggest hit, dropping to only three pages (1.5 if you discount the ads). This essentially means there will be one entrepreneurial feature story instead of two. Don Macdonald’s and Paul Delean’s columns are still there. It will also no longer be able to take advantage of the occasional extra page that pops up at the last minute when obituaries are light.
  • Editorial and Opinion pages are, for the first time, combined into a single page, with an opinion piece along the bottom, a single editorial and fewer letters. Monday opinion pages tend to be a bit stale sometimes because they’re created on the Friday before (along with Saturday and Sunday pages).
  • Arts & Life is reduced in size (and fewer pages are in colour), but no regular features are cut (the HealthWatch column moves to Tuesdays). Green Life, Showbiz Chez Nous, Dating Girl, Susan Schwartz (though she’s off this week), Hugh Anderson’s Seniors column, Applause, This Week’s Child, Fine Tuning (with the TV grid) are all still there.
  • Squeaky Wheels moves off of A2 to make way for the Bluffer’s Guide and the new Monday calendar.

It’s not all bad

On the plus side (and so people can get excited about something), two new features are being introduced on Mondays. A2 features a weekly look-ahead calendar, with information on events to look forward to. There’s also a Monday Closeup, which features an interview with someone who will be relevant to something happening that week. (The first week features an author talking about winning book awards, as the Man Booker shortlist is being announced)

But let’s get back to talking about me

Now here’s where I fit in: I’m the one putting together that look-ahead calendar. So if you know of any interesting newsworthy events coming up, let me know and I’ll see if I can get it in. Take a look at what’s already in the calendar to see what kind of stuff I’m talking about.

Note that the following are not things that will make it into the calendar:

  • Your birthday party
  • Your awesome rock/blues/polka band playing at Sala Rossa.
  • Your garage/bake/charity sale
  • Your book reading
  • Your support group meetup
  • Your $500 basket-weaving training course
  • Your company’s new advertising campaign launch
  • Any of the above replacing “your” with “your friend’s”

I mean, unless it’s really exceptional. Like you’re pulling a plane or something.

| Media, Navel-gazing, Opinion

Don’t mess with the readers

A couple of weeks ago, the faxes at the Gazette were more active than usual. A letter came in, in ALL-CAPS RAGE format, which took issue with the paper’s decision to streamline the TV Times listings booklet that comes in Saturday’s paper:

WE ARE TERRIBLY DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR CHANGES TO TV TIMES. THE MANNER YOU PROCEEDED WAS ARBITRARY, WITHOUT NOTICE NOR EXPLANATIONS.

YOU CANNOT CLAIM PAPER ECNOMY (sic) SINCE YOU HAVE WASTED NUMEROUS FULL AND PARTIAL PAGES OF SENSELESS GRAY FOR MANY YEARS. MORE TREES HAVE BEEN FELLED THAN TV TIMES WILL EVER REQUIRE.

SINCE THE DATA IS ALREADY DIGITIZED THERE IS NO ADDITIONAL LABOUR IN PRINTING THE INFORMATION.

YOU ARE CAUSING A SERIOUS DISSERVICE TO THE NIGHT VIEWERS SINCE THEY CANNOT PLAN THEIR VIEWING NIGHTS; THEY ARE TOTALLY IGNORANT OF THE PROGRAMMES AVAILABLE TO THEM.

IN ADDITION YOU ARE ROBBING THE SPONSORS OF THESE PROGRAMMES OF THE EXPECTED EXPOSURE OF THEIR PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. YOU ARE ALSO SHORTCHANGING US, YOUR READERS, OF AN ESSENTIAL INFORMATION THAT WE PAY FOR AND EXPECT.

WE SUGGEST THAT YOU USE YOUR EDITORIAL PAGE TO ADMIT YOUR ERROR AND APOLOGIZIE (sic) FOR THE INCONVENIENCE YOU HAVE CAUSED BY YOUR UNTIMELY DECISION.

SINCERELY YOURS,

ASSIDUOUS TV TIMES NIGHT READERS

The fax (who uses faxes anymore, anyway?) was followed by others, hand-written like they were ransom notes:

IT WASN’T BROKE

WHY SCREW IT UP?

TV TIMES IS A MESS

FIX IT RIGHT LIKE IT WAS

and

SNAFU

TV TIMES IS SCREWED UP

FIX IT RIGHT

Those faxes were resent at a rate of one a minute for over an hour before the faxes were shut off to avoid wasting any more paper. Over 50 faxes that powers that be will never see (unless they read this blog), and which won’t change anything.

But it served as a reminder that despite all the times I hear “I don’t read The Gazette” when I talk to people my age about it, there are plenty of people in an older age group who take the paper very seriously (and think their news judgment is vastly superior to everyone else’s).

Another reminder came as I started hearing (and reading) comments from readers who heard about the paper’s plans to make the Monday paper “more compact” like Sunday’s through a survey the paper commissioned. They’re almost universally opposed to the idea, and most took the time to complain that the Sunday paper needed to be fixed by adding more content and splitting up the sections again (currently it’s in two sections, the second being sports and classified).

The Gazette is also considering cutting the width of the paper by 2.5 inches, in order to make it more convenient to use as well as to save money on newsprint. (Considering how much I read the paper on public transit, any size reduction – provided the content stays the same – is welcome in my book).

A lot of people think they have better ideas on how to spend the paper’s money. More sports, less sports, more analysis, less analysis, longer articles, shorter articles, more hard news, more lifestyle features. Others simply demand the paper spend more money until it goes bankrupt.

I’m just glad they care.

| Media, Sports

Gazette starting Olympics page, photographer blog

As editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips explains in a blog post, The Gazette is jumping on the bandwagon and has launched an Olympics website to cover the Beijing Games that start next week, at www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/sports/beijing2008/index.html. Most of the web content is provided by Canwest, which has a similar page (as does the Ottawa Citizen, Vancouver Sun, etc.)

Other media outlets have already launched Olympics pages, which I have almost universally panned. That said, it’s clear the news media is making a much bigger effort toward these games in terms of online coverage. (It remains to be seen which of these websites will have better live coverage of the Games.)

As part of local coverage of the Games (and to justify the oodles of money spent sending him there), The Gazette is also starting a blog for photographer John Mahoney, who will accompany reporter Dave Stubbs to Beijing (Stubbs already has a blog up with funny little stories leading up to the Games). Mahoney has a first post relating Beijing to his first Olympics in Lake Placid in 1980.

The paper, of course, will also have special coverage. Mahoney has photo profiles of different athletes each day starting Saturday, there will be a special Olympics preview section on Wednesday, and each day of the Games will have special Olympics sections with pages of coverage (some of which will be edited by yours truly).

| Media, Sports

Gazette live-blogging Impact game

The Gazette is trying something new tonight, live-blogging the Impact vs. Toronto FC game at Saputo Stadium BMO Field in Toronto. The copy is a bit dirty (note to marketing dept.: “Pat Hickey RAW”), but at least you get the news of what’s going on.

La Presse is doing similarly with blogger Pascal Milano, as is Radio-Canada, with at least a half-time report from each.

Unless I’ve missed something, Le Devoir, Quebecor’s Canoe portal, CTV Sports and even the sports networks (TSN.ca, RDS.ca, Sportsnet.ca) have nothing on how this game is going.

The Impact is the unpopular little brother of the Alouettes and Canadiens, and the media tends to half-ass coverage of the team (in most cases, only covering home games so they don’t have to spring for airfare). Since this is a non-league game, it’s not on TV. RDS and TSN have Rogers Cup tennis, and CBC/Radio-Canada have regular non-sports programming. Fortunately, though, CBCsports.ca has a free live broadcast of the game online.

UPDATE: 1-1 draw gives a victory in the CONCACAF Canadian championships to the Montreal Impact. SUCK IT, TORONTO!

Rad-Can and Milano win the race for breaking news, having the result up within minutes (seconds?) of the game ending.

CBC Television is also replaying the game at midnight.

| Media, Montreal, Public transit

Gazette starts transit column

This morning, The Gazette launched a new weekly column where readers submit incessantly boring rants about the most minor of uninteresting inconveniences questions and suggestions about the Montreal transit system and they get responses from an STM flak.

The first column includes complaints about metro doors closing too fast, the 162 bus schedule, and wheelchair ramps on buses.

It remains to be seen whether such a column can sustain interest to be repeated on a weekly basis, or whether it will degenerate into a bunch of random people ranting like old men about how the buses are always too full, people aren’t courteous, or that one bus showed up late that one time.

| Media, On the Net, Opinion, Sports

Olympics blogs ahoy!

La Presse unveiled its Beijing Olympics blog, noting that it’s sending a team of reporters, including columnist Pierre Foglia, to China next month. (Ten years ago, a newspaper sending reporters to the Olympics wouldn’t be news, but with the industry suffocating and cutting back, every plane ticket and hotel room has to be justified as a Newspaper Reporting Event.)

The Star, meanwhile, is putting links to its Olympics website on every page, including a logo next to its flag. Sadly, the website from Canada’s largest newspaper has about the same design finesse you’d expect from a YMCA bulletin board.

The Gazette’s Dave Stubbs, meanwhile, is still milking the Chinese news sources for weird stories relating to the Games on his Five-Ring Circus blog, which contrasts with Canwest’s matter-of-fact topic page.

The Globe and Mail hilariously has its Olympics coverage in a section called “Others“. Their Olympics blog is better, at least, though I’m not sure what “Wb” stands for in the URL.

The best Canadian Olympics news website unsurprisingly goes to the CBC, which not only has a general Olympics website, but has separate related sites for each major sport at the Games, each filled with stories. These will be the last Olympics the CBC has broadcast rights for.

And for completeness sake, Quebecor’s Canoe portal has yawnable websites in French and English for the Games with stories from its newspapers and wire services.

But even that’s better than CTV’s Olympics website, which doesn’t exist. (CTV has rights to 2010 and beyond, so you’d think they’d take advantage of the opportunity to get some practice online)