Tag Archives: The Gazette

| Media

As an editor, you apparently only have two choices

You Be The Editor, Peter Cooney’s favourite occasional series at the Gazette, has another edition today. Ten questions about journalistic ethics, and you have two diametrically opposed options on what to do with them.

The irony of the series is that the decisions are already made for you. The details of the Picton trial aren’t discussed, giving us no way to judge whether or not they’re appropriate. And an image of a woman’s naked breast appears only in its sanitized form, so we can’t tell whether the original is really pornographic or not.

That aside (plus the horrible formatting of the web page), some of the questions are quite tough, and they’re all based on events that actually happened. How would you decide?

| Uncategorized

The boring life of a photographer

I feel for professional photographers. Today’s cameras have automatic focus, automatic exposure, automatic white balance, and basically do everything by themselves. News photographers can’t play around in Photoshop to be creative, and there’s just so many angles you can use to take a portrait of a guy in a suit.

So every now and then, these people try experiments. They set the exposure very low, taking photos that look dark and mysterious, except for the politician’s face captured in the bright light of a television camera. They set the shutter very slow, to show a sense of movement.

But Marie-France Coallier’s shot in today’s business section just looks bad, like someone accidentally smudged the photo by wiping it down:

Blur

| Media

Can newspaper freedom reign?

With little fanfare, and what sources tell me was quite a bit of bureaucratic delays, The Gazette has lifted its subscriber wall, for all but its letters to the editor (which is a shame, because its letters are actually pretty good this week).

It’s an experiment. A newspaper’s content is its commodity, and giving it away free online does little to encourage people to subscribe. On the other hand, blocking original content behind a wall means it won’t turn up in search engines, can’t be linked to from blogs, and ends up not being talked about online.

Will the experiment work? Will the increased exposure make up for those who ask themselves why they should pay for something they already get free? Only time will tell.

| Business

Look who’s plagiarizing from me now

Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks corporate boards are incestuous.

Peggy Curran in today’s Gazette (no link, someone was sleeping at CanWest Interactive and forgot to upload the story):

It is a truth universal (sic) acknowledged – at least by those of us who will never make the cut – that corporate boards are incestuous affairs, peopled by well-tailored movers and shakers who go to the same functions, shop at the same fromagerie and get their best gossip in the VIP lounge at the airport.

Heather Munroe-Blum’s Alcan appointment isn’t the first time a university president from this town has had questionable appointments to other boards. Concordia’s ex-rector Frederick Lowy was on the boards of Dundee Bancorp (a “wealth management” company) and Neurochem (a pharmaceutical company). In exchange Dundee’s chairman Ned Goodman had an MBA program named after him and an honorary degree. Neurochem’s Francesco Bellini single-handedly created Concordia’s genomics research facility (Conflict of interest? Nah.) and also got an honorary doctorate.

Oh the tangled web they weave…

| Media, Montreal

Now I know how to commit suicide

The Gazette today has a very long feature article (inexplicably split into three parts online which, of course, don’t link to each other – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) about the life of Dawson College shooter Kimveer Gill, and seeks (and fails) to answer the question of why he did what he did. The piece is some feat for reporter Sue Montgomery, since Gill’s family has been long reluctant to speak to the media.

Meanwhile, Peggy Curran speaks to the family of Anastasia De Sousa, who was Gill’s lone fatality on Sept. 13, 2006. They too have been hiding from the media spotlight, and the article speaks of the stresses of ravenous reporters stopping at nothing to get a scoop.

Both articles are well-written and insightful, but a nagging feeling persists: De Sousa’s article is a page long, while Gill’s spans three pages. Had Gill simply shot himself or committed suicide some other way, he likely would have had no coverage whatsoever, due to newspapers’ policies of not giving publicity to suicides.

But because Gill went out in a blaze of gunfire, his suicide prompts an in-depth look at his life larger than most major politicians would receive. The uncomfortable message here is clear: If you’re going to off yourself, make sure to take a few people with you. Then nobody will forget you.

Hopefully no one will take that message to heart.

| Uncategorized

He’s all yours, Ed

The Gazette is reporting today that Dr. Ed Enos, former athletics director for Concordia University, died this week.

What the glowing obituary doesn’t mention is a scandal (PDF: Pages 2-3) which painted a rather large stain on Enos and the department after Link reporters (and Kurt Cobain conspiracy therologists) Ian Halperin and Max Wallace discovered that the athletics department was using its budget to pay athletes. The case escalated to the point of an alleged fistfight between Halperin and Enos’s son, which witnesses said Enos Sr. encouraged.

| Canadiens, In the news, Media, Montreal

Media too much for Habs?

Apparently the media firestorm that pounds at our beloved Canadiens day after day has brought out the veterans (Yvan Cournoyer, Henri Richard) who say they need to calm down.

But really, are there that many media outlets covering the Canadiens’ every move? Let’s see:

  1. The Gazette
  2. La Presse
  3. Journal de Montréal
  4. Le Devoir
  5. The Globe and Mail
  6. RDS
  7. CBC/NewsWorld/CBC Radio
  8. TVA/LCN
  9. TQS
  10. Canadian Press
  11. CTV Montreal/CTV NewsNet
  12. TSN
  13. Rogers SportsNet
  14. The Team 990
  15. CJAD Radio
  16. 940 News

Some of the above don’t cover every game, and others probably rely on wire services a lot, but it’s still a lot of coverage. The Gazette, for example, will have the following on a Habs home game:

  1. Red Fisher doing a game story
  2. Pat Hickey doing an analysis
  3. Jack Todd doing commentary
  4. Dave Stubbs blogging or writing features
  5. Mike Boone live-blogging
  6. Kevin Mio writing about coverage of the game
  7. A photographer shooting photos

That’s a lot of people doing a lot of work just for one news outlet, and this crew is small compared to the number of people required for adequate television coverage.

So maybe they’re on to something. The question is: what do we do about it?