Tag Archives: The Gazette

| Media, Navel-gazing

Andrew Phillips to leave The Gazette

Gazette editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips in a 2005 photo by Richard Arless.

Gazette editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips in a 2005 photo by Richard Arless.

Today was a strange one at the office, and not only because I was sitting at a desk in the Business section. On one hand, some employees were celebrating their induction into the Quarter Century Club (25 years of service). On the other, it was the last day of a colleague on the copy desk who is now enjoying his retirement.

But while we saw those two things coming, we didn’t anticipate an email saying that the paper would be losing its editor-in-chief.

Andrew Phillips, who was named to the top editorial position in October 2004, began his career here 35 years ago as a summer intern before moving on to Macleans magazine and the Victoria Times-Colonist.

The soft-spoken Phillips wouldn’t comment on why he’s leaving or what’s next in store for him, beyond saying that “it’s time to move on.”

It would be irresponsible of me to hypothesize, therefore I’m going to guess his departure is part of a massive government conspiracy and Phillips is sacrificing his career as part of a convoluted plan to help Jack Bauer stop a bionuclear attack on Canadian soil.

But seriously, as a journalist himself, Phillips always fought for the newsroom, pushing for more investigative journalism and finding ways to protect it from the inevitable budget cuts. He may not have always succeeded, but he always tried. For that, the newsroom will surely miss him.

Publisher Alan Allnutt, who was Phillips’s boss at the Times-Colonist and brought him along to the Gazette, had nothing but praise for his colleague today:

I have spent much of the last eight years working in close partnership with Andrew at two newspapers and I have nothing but great admiration for his intelligence, his principles and his journalistic talent.

In an email to staff today (republished here with his permission) Phillips himself wrote:

I’ve been associated with this paper all my adult life; it was 35 years ago that I first stepped foot into the ancient newsroom at 1000 St. Antoine as a summer student. It’s been a tremendous privilege to occupy the editor’s chair for the past few years, and to see how this newsroom has risen to the challenge of dealing with particularly tumultuous times in our industry. We’ve accomplished a lot over the past 4 1/2 years – remaking the paper and making the move to online. I’m proud to have worked with all of you, and grateful for the opportunity to get to know you on a personal level.

Phillips’s last day is May 8. Managing Editor Raymond Brassard takes over in the interim.

UPDATE: CBC has a brief about Phillips. Kirk Lapointe also writes about his departure.

| Media

Gazette wins, Post loses in ABC circulation numbers

The Audit Bureau of Circulations released numbers this morning for Canadian newspapers in the six months ending March 31.

The biggest loser was the National Post, plunging a horrifying 20% in that time. This was due mainly to the decision to pull the Post out of smaller markets (like, everywhere between Calgary and Toronto).

The big winner was The Gazette, whose paid circulation increased 13%. In fact, Quebec papers in general seemed to do well:

  • Le Devoir up 2.82%
  • La Presse up 1.19%
  • Le Soleil up 0.52%

Neither Journal’s numbers were in the story (probably because they went down aren’t part of ABC), but in any case would be hard to judge by due to labour conflicts at the papers this year and last.

Last month, NADbank numbers showed readership over the past year was stable.

| Media, Navel-gazing

Meet the new guy

There was a major reorganization of office space at work, so I was already a bit disoriented, but I could have sworn I saw a reporter I’d never seen before. Who was this guy? Was he hiding at a corner desk and I just never noticed him for a year and a half? Had he just come back from leave of some sort? Had he just been hired?

I learned later that none of these things are true. He’s an intern, spending a few weeks at the paper writing freelance stories.

His name is Alex Leduc. He’s on Twitter and everything.

His first story, about non-Habs fans in Montreal, came out on Wednesday.

Now he’s working on chasing the Google Street View car. Which leads to the same question you ask of every dog who chases a car: what do you do when you catch it?

UPDATE (May 10): Here’s another story about an anti-capitalist protest. He had a third about hard-core Impact fans, but it’s unfortunately not online.

| Media, Montreal

And bring back Ste. Anne’s Market!

War criminals!

War criminals!

It’s springtime. The snow has all melted away, we’re about to get our first 20+ degree days, the Habs are out of the playoffs and the Société Saint-Jean Baptiste has found something to complain about in the Gazette.

Last year it was that whole Bouchard-Taylor scoop, which the Quebec Press Council ruled was correct though sensationalized.

This year, the group is going into the archives and asking the paper to apologize for encouraging protests against the Rebellion Losses Bill that led to the burning down of Parliament … in 1849.

I believe they’re also calling for the immediate resignation of editor-in-chief James Moir Ferres.

The Gazette hasn’t commented about the demand yet because, as everyone knows, nobody there speaks French. Staff at the paper are desperately seeking a fourth-grader to translate the release into angloese. (UPDATE: Editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips says the SSJB “should get a life“)

Incidentally, to the people at the SSJB, “entièrement décimé” doesn’t make sense. Perhaps you should go to your dictionary and look up what “décimer” means.

More coverage from Presse Canadienne and Canoe.

| Media, Navel-gazing

Note to self: write novel, become awesome

The Financial Times has an interview with Miguel Syjuco, one of the many young people who joined The Gazette for a summer and then left for greener pastures (becoming an award-winning novelist). There he talks about the various cities he’s lived in and what makes them cool. (via mtlweblog)

The Gazette also interviewed Syjuco this week, about the book that earned him a Man Asian Literary Prize award. The National Post interviewed Syjuco in November, back when he won the award.

Syjuco takes part in a panel at the Blue Metropolis festival this week. Details are at the end of the Gazette story.

(Hey Miguel, you don’t per chance need an agent, do you?)

| Media

Freelancers get class action authorization against Gazette

The following was just released (following an embargo) by the Electronic Rights Defence Committee, a group of former Gazette freelance writers who have received authorization to bring a class action lawsuit (UPDATE: Link fixed. Stupid gummit website.) against The Gazette, Canwest and related companies for republishing freelance articles submitted to the paper in the Infomart article database.

The release is presented here without comment, since as an employee and freelancer (though not a member of the committee) I’m in a conflict of interest.

After more than a decade, the Electronic Rights Defence Committee has received authorization from Quebec Superior Court to proceed with a class action suit against some of the biggest names in Canadian media.

At issue is the electronic use without permission or compensation for work by freelance writers in The Gazette.  The defendants are Montreal Gazette Group, CanWest Global Communications, Hollinger Canadian Publishing Holdings, CanWest Interactive, Southam and Southam Business Communications, Infomart Dialog and Cedrom-SNI.

In February 2008, the Honourable Eva Petras, J.S.C., heard three days of arguments from Mireille Goulet, ERDC lawyer, and a team of lawyers representing the defendants. The Justice’s decision was rendered March 31, 2009.  It authorizes the ERDC to institute class action proceedings with writer and translator David Homel as its official designated member. The class action group includes all freelance writers whose articles, originally published in The Gazette, have been allegedly illegally reproduced on the Infomart data base since 1984.

The next steps will lead toward a trial on the merits of the case, a process which may take several years to reach a conclusion.

The ERDC case is one of several in North America seeking compensation for unauthorized electronic use of freelance writers’ work. In October 2007, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled five to four in the Heather Robertson vs. Thomson case that freelancers do indeed hold copyright on their work reproduced in electronic data bases.  The US$ 18-million class action settlement in the United States which followed from the Tasini vs. New York Times case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court which has agreed to decide whether a lower court has jurisdiction to approve settlement agreements. The Association des journalistes indépendants du Québec is also currently in the process of undertaking a class action against several Quebec medias.

I’ll update with a response from The Gazette or Canwest if one is issued publicly.

Other comments from ERDC members Mary Soderstrom and Jack Ruttan.

| Media

Marsden up for Press Freedom Award

Gazette reporter William Marsden, part of a dying breed of journalists who specialize in investigative reporting, has been nominated for a Press Freedom Award for an investigation into Pauline Marois’s Ile Bizard estate, which prompted the PQ leader to sue the paper for $2 million.

Of course, he and others nominated are underdogs compared to Daniel Leblanc, the guy who may end up going to jail for refusing to identify the source of his information on the sponsorship scandal.

UPDATE (May 7): And the winner, of course, is Daniel Leblanc.

| Media, Slow News Day

Gazette launches “good news” weekly page

In the wake of non-stop bad news about the state of the Canadian and world economy, and readers who say they’re tired of reading about crime, politics and foreign wars, The Gazette on Tuesday launched a good-news-only page called “You’ll Like This”, which will appear every week.

This idea isn’t new. The Calgary Herald launched a similar project in January with a “Good News” page on its website.

The biggest problem with the idea of “good news” is that there is a reason news is rarely good. Good events are planned, bad events are unplanned and more newsy. “Good news stories” tend to be non-news fluff, particularly human-interest stories. They tend to fall into a few predictable categories:

  • Fundraisers, charity and other events
  • Miracle survival and other good-because-it-wasn’t-bad stories
  • People coming together to work on some volunteer project
  • Science news that makes us feel good about ourselves or see hope for the future
  • Amazing/funny coincidences and other believe-it-or-not stuff

Editor-in-chief Andrew Phillips tackles the skepticism of us curmudgeonly cynics head-on in a piece introducing the page. He says “…It’s not about highlighting light and fluffy items with no lasting consequence. There’s no reason that substantive, even ‘serious,’ stories can’t focus on the positive.”

The first two articles in this new section include a piece by Peggy Curran on McGill Law Outreach, where law students go to high schools with high drop-out rates and encourage kids to keep working on their education, and another from David Yates on the LaSalle Lions Novice A hockey team, undefeated in 51 games (which probably sucks for every other team in the league).

The paper is also asking readers to send in their good news stories to share with others. No doubt they’ll get a few tear-jerkers.

There’s also an unrelated week-long optimism series from Canwest, which today focuses on health and living longer.

| Blogosphere, Montreal

The Gazette’s new blog … about Montreal

The Gazette’s Andy Riga, apparently not content enough with his new transportation beat, has started up a new blog called Metropolitan News at communities.canada.com/montrealgazette/blogs/metropolitannews/default.aspx.

In its inaugural post, Riga promises the blog will “offer quirky looks at Montreal events, news and personalities; highlight the city’s vibrant online community, from bloggers to Twitterers to video posters; and tell you what is being said about our fair city in other parts of the blogosphere.”

I look forward to seeing what he’s got in store, and not just because I’m on his blogroll. Riga also has a Twitter account associated with this new project, which is worth a follow.

| Media

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.

| Business, Media

Don Macdonald’s humble goodbye

Don Macdonald holds an iPod Touch to his ear, not knowing that (a) it's still in its box, and (b) it's not an iPhone.

Don Macdonald holds his retirement gift to his ear, not knowing that (a) it's still in its box, and (b) it's an iPod Touch, not an iPhone.

Business reporter and markets columnist Don Macdonald, whose last day at the Gazette was March 6, had his final goodbye column published on Monday. In it, he notes that if this whole market situation has taught us anything, it’s that slow and steady wins the race, and convoluted market get-rich-quick schemes always eventually fail.

Macdonald left the paper to take a job at the Business Development Bank of Canada.

| Media, Navel-gazing

All shelters look alike

It happens to every journalist, some of us more often than others: you get something wrong. Not just getting it wrong, but getting it wrong enough to prompt an angry phone call and a correction.

In the Monday Calendar which came out this week (I do the weekly calendar on A2 on Mondays), I mentioned a fundraising campaign that the Welcome Hall Mission is doing on Wednesday where volunteers will ask for donations in the metro.

Except the Welcome Hall Mission has no such campaign. It’s Accueil Bonneau that’s doing that.

You might think it’s a small error, that won’t make much of a difference to anyone, and that’s perfectly understandable (Welcome Hall Mission is Mission Bon Accueil in French), but as a journalist there are no small errors (or, more honestly, an error isn’t small if it needs a correction).

On the plus side, this personal disgrace embarrassing error of mine gives me an excuse to point out that the Gazette is making an effort to correct articles online when an error is pointed out. My calendar for this week includes a note at the top in correctionese pointing out the mistake.

Doing this isn’t always as simple as it seems. There might be multiple copies of an offending article, for example. Or the correction might not get passed on to the online desk. But it’s necessary (if only to placate Craig Silverman), so everyone has to make an effort to do it.

| Media

Gazette was (mostly) fair with Bouchard-Taylor scoop

The Quebec Press Council has ruled that The Gazette acted properly in its scoop of the year last year, getting its hands on a final draft of the Bouchard-Taylor report before any other news outlet.

When the Gazette published excerpts of the report (though not its conclusions), it elicited a lot of anger and hostility from hard-core separatists and francophone media who accused it of misleading the public even before the report was issued. Having failed to get the scoop themselves, La Presse, the Journal, Le Devoir and Radio-Canada tried to raise doubts about the paper’s take.

A week later, when the report was released, it turned out the Gazette got it right. Even then, other media (you know, the ones who put “EXCLUSIF” and “EN PRIMEUR” before every headline) questioned whether the leak was irresponsible, as if knowing the rather obvious conclusions of the commission on reasonable accommodation ahead of time would somehow undermine it.

The QPC process took longer than the media analysis. The panel rejected any notion of racism or irresponsibility that had been alleged by anglo-haters Jean Dorion and Gilles Rhéaume. It did, however, uphold a charge that the Gazette “misled the public with respect to the real value and importance that should be given to the information published.” In other words, pretending it was a bigger deal than it really was. The Gazette is appealing that part of the ruling (UPDATE July 24: The Gazette’s appeal has been rejected).

No one’s holding their breath waiting for corrections and apologies.

| Blogosphere, Canadiens, Media

Traffic up at Habs Inside/Out

Habs Inside/Out traffic

Habs Inside/Out, my newspaper’s most successful online venture so far, is seeing 100% traffic increases over last year, according to a recent post from Mike Boone. Those kinds of numbers put all of their other blogs (and mine) to shame, but they are well-deserved because of the efforts put into it by Boone, Dave Stubbs, Kevin Mio and Pat Hickey, who all contribute to bringing breaking news to the site in addition to their day jobs for the newspaper.