All your eggs in one Scribd
This blog post at the Globe and Mail is kind of funny. It started off innocent enough: the Globe wanted to embed a part of the auditor-general’s report into a news article, so it posted a chapter to a...
View ArticleA study into Quebec media
Quebec culture minister Christine St-Pierre announced at the FPJQ conference that she has ordered a study be done on the future of media in Quebec. Dominique Payette, a professor at Université Laval...
View ArticleThe Globe Ad Fail
Newspaper advertisements – both in print and online – often suffer from failure of context, where the ad seems inconsiderate next to specific kinds of news stories (usually bad ones). In newspapers, it...
View ArticleJust give money, m’kay?
I passed by this donation bin setup at Concordia for Haiti. In it, I saw bags with scarves, winter coats, and mittens. I’m guessing they were from people who have never been to Haiti, and who aren’t...
View ArticleCHOM changes logo, pretends it’s more than that
That’s CHOM’s new logo. No, seriously. No, seriously. They launched it this morning, to great fanfare: With PJ Stock joining the morning show this week (it will be “Chantal, PJ and Bad Pete”), it made...
View ArticleListen to Le Devoir (or, you know, don’t)
As part of its centennial celebrations, Le Devoir invited Hexagram to record audio from their newsroom. You can listen to a four-minute clip of it on their website. But as much as I’m fascinated with...
View ArticleA Moving Day trash tip
A little late for this year, obviously, but next time, it’s probably best not to leave government documents with your personal information all over them out on the curb. In fact, this applies whether...
View ArticleHe’s like Hitler, get it?
And here you thought it was only in the United States that you could find the crazies. Sure, Hitler killed millions of Jews and all, but Obama told NASA they couldn’t send people to the moon again!...
View ArticleFront-seat driver
Maybe I’m being a bit of a prude, and insufficiently open-minded. And I know it can get boring when you’re driving a bus late at night. But it just seems somewhat … inappropriate to have someone...
View ArticleThe metro car contract: a depressing timeline
Just to recap: May 2006: The Quebec government announces it’s going to hand a $1.2-billion contract to build new metro cars to Bombardier without putting it out to tenders. It reasons that Bombardier...
View ArticleThe garbage can is too dry
Automatic sprinkler systems annoy me quite a bit. I mean, we get enough rain here that it’s really not necessary to use the public potable water supply to water the grass. But those behind the Place de...
View ArticleNew bus shelters are so sharp it hurts (UPDATED)
UPDATE (Nov. 25): The Gazette’s Andy Riga reports the STM says the average price for these shelters is actually lower than what they reported earlier. Also see below my photos of this shelter at night....
View ArticleShow me your paper’s papers
At its general assembly on Nov. 28, the Fédération profesionnelle des journalistes du Québec will be debating a series of motions recommended by the organization’s executive committee. Among them is a...
View ArticleBadly-timed celebrity deaths
Jerry Orbach, Susan Sontag, Benazir Bhutto, Michelle Lang, Tony Proudfoot, Rémy d’Anjou. What do these people have in common? They had the misfortune of dying in late December in recent years, meaning...
View ArticleI don’t want to be a professional journalist
Members of the Fédération professionelle des journalistes du Québec are being asked to vote today until Thursday on a proposition to establish the “title” of “professional journalist”, in an effort to...
View ArticleAll-traffic radio: A $9-million waste
Last week, news came out that Cogeco and the Quebec government have reached a deal that will see the creation of two new all-traffic AM radio stations in Montreal set to open in the fall. The project...
View ArticleCTV Two: The second-rate brand
BBC Two. ESPN2. CBC Radio 2. TSN2. And now Bell Media has added another broadcaster to the list of brands whose names literally scream out “second-rate stuff goes here”: A Channel/ATV will become CTV...
View ArticleSTM takes down its totem pole
Last fall, the STM showed off – with great fanfare – a prototype for a brand new bus stop shelter, which it installed on René-Lévesque Blvd. near Jeanne-Mance St. Installed along with it, a few feet...
View ArticleThe contradictory stock photo
I find it funny how the lady in the Sun News Network promo complaining about how “political correctness has run amok”: is the same lady promoting government assistance to old people in Quebec: (Click...
View ArticleCBC jumps into semantic nightmare with “ICI” debacle
I thought nothing short of an alien invasion would unite the country. Heck, even then I’m sure the PQ would blame the federal government. But the CBC managed to do so last week when it announced that...
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