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Great Journalism Deserves Award

2012-01-05T13:54:00.002-05:00

Great journalists we want you! In an effort to reward good journalism and to encourage more and better coverage of labour and social justice issues CMG and our parent union CWA-SCA Canada have teamed up with the esteemed Canadian Association of Journalists to offer one thousand dollars (and our gratitude) to a winning Journalist. Deadline to apply Jan 31, 2012. Apply at caj.ca. Good luck!

Workers Unite

2012-01-05T13:15:00.005-05:00

If you are in a union, you have a say in how you are treated at work because you have a set of rules that the company and the union have agreed to, basically a collective agreement.
It sets out things like salary, working hours, shifts, annual leave and other practical information. Having this in writing gives staff a sense of confidence that everyone knows the rules and will be treated equally. It has taken years to get to the stage where we can hammer out these productive mutual agreements with employers. So its alarming to see the Harper government stepping in to order workers back to work; The Death of The Collective Agreement http://www.canadianlawyermag.com/3992/the-death-of-collective-bargaining.html
Equally concerning are suggestions the Conservative government wants to change Canada's 100 year old Labour Code.

Good Luck Canadian Press

2012-01-05T12:52:00.003-05:00

A century ago a handful of intrepid journalists and like-minded citizens strung up telegraph lines across the country and started sharing the news. The Canadian Press has been telling Canadians what's happening since 1917. More than 200 journalists across the country now send copy, photos, video, and radio audio to Radio, TV, newspapers, and online media across Canada.
On top of being historically significant, CP is one of the largest single original sources of news (because so many media use their material) in Canada. Sadly this year is a stressful one with jobs cuts likely. CMG's CP President Terry Pedwell is working with the company on
ways to save jobs, and help ensure a long productive future for both staff and a great institution.

Shameful Relocation

2012-01-05T09:52:00.002-05:00

Sad news over the holidays, as media giant (55 thousand staff worldwide) Thomson Reuters cut 22 jobs at its Toronto office; relocating the mostly IT work to India. Even more disappointing is the company is owned by the Toronto based Thomson family. How is that for a lump of coal in your stocking! Many of us worry about the declining quality of journalism as companies downsize
and find ways to move work to developing countries where labour is cheaper. On top of all of all of this new studies call IT Jobs most stressful . No wonder.

CBC Smackdown

2011-12-06T11:05:00.002-05:00

69% of Canadians support stable or increased funding for the CBC. A recent poll shows the level of support for the national network remains high. Three quarters of Canadians give the CBC high marks for fulfilling its mandate, and a majority want to see funding increased or maintained. The report by a Ryerson and U of Toronto professors shows viewers from all political parties believe the government should be supporting the CBC. The recent speculation around budget cuts has lead one group, to imagine a world where the CBC is sold to the highest bidder! A wrestling smackdown! See video at Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, May the day never dawn!

Running for A Cause

2011-10-31T14:50:00.002-04:00

A shout out to all union members running the New York City
marathon this weekend. Thousands of union members are runners,
and thousands of runners are union members.....so it must be
good for you!

Journalism Quality

2011-10-31T14:19:00.002-04:00

When journalists get together these days the declining quality of news is always on the agenda,
everyone is doing more with less; there are fewer working journalists, therefore fewer original stories, (not counting citizen journalists and personal blogs). Now a TV reporter may have to also file a radio or web story; print reporters are filing for multiple sources and everyone is taking photos. This multi-skilling means fewer bodies researching difficult stories because no one has time. What that leads to is the impression all newscasts are the same! To change that, and to encourage enterprize (innovative) reporting, where the real "scoops" come from, we need to support creative and alternate news sources, something many Euopean countries already do.
From Nick Fillmore of J-Source (at Ryerson University)
..."We need to build awareness among Canadians concerning the dangers of corporate media manipulation, as well as take steps to build and develop independent media outlets that will bring the public news and opinions that are more balanced and less ideological. "

"Mainstream journalists also need to increase their awareness level concerning their position in society. They need to listen to, and support, the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations because the one per cent that controls our lives is the same one per cent that owns and controls for-profit news organizations. This does not mean that journalists should become advocates in their work for the positions being expressed, but journalists, just like any other group in their private lives, have an obligation to be responsible citizens and support whatever they believe to be good for society. "

Hearts of Gold

2011-10-24T18:27:00.005-04:00

Congrats!

Big hugs to dedicated members who spend their blood and tears helping colleagues and improving our work lives.
The CMG at CBC handed its top prize to long time
volunteer and former President Lise Lareau. (Lise stepped down as President last year) and is now back in the newsroom, assigning news all day, and run ragged all evening volunteering as Vice-President. Honourable mentions include National Treasurer Jonathan Spence, and executive member Bob Sharpe from St.John's. (Plus Vancouver's Colin Preston, and member Liana Harman from Toronto).

Pen Pals

2011-10-20T13:49:00.004-04:00

Quebecor owner Pierre Karl Peladeau has send a dozen letters to the Prime Minister and others in government COMPLAINING that CBC Radio-Canada does NOT spend enough advertising in his newspapers. Meanwhile his papers have spent
the last three years criticizing the CBC over things most readers might not consider newsworthy. Both parties appear today at a parliamentary Ethics committee hearings. Radio Canada is Quebecors' biggest competitor in Quebec where the media giant owns dozens of newspapers and a television network.

Fighting for Better Care

2011-10-18T15:11:00.004-04:00

It's not just the kids anymore, many of us are struggling to take care of older parents. The papers are full of complaints about access to home care, when your dad has alzheimer's who helps your mom? This weekend a group of dedicated retired union members from across the country met to discuss how to persuade Ottawa to improve the lives of EVERY Canadian senior with better pensions and home care. (Details at CURC: Congress of Union Retirees of Canada.)

Pain and Persistance

2011-10-18T14:42:00.004-04:00

Congrats to CMG national treasurer Jonathan Spence for finishing Toronto's biggest marathon in 3:41. CBC had great coverage on the weekend, it was an exciting race with Canadian Reid Coolsaet finishing third in 2:10:55...seconds from breaking the Canadian record (2:10:08 by Jerome Drayton in 1975.)Last year CMG had a team running the Scotiabank Media Challange. Let's do it again next year.

Hands Off Our CBC

2011-10-14T10:55:00.003-04:00

Wow, the Liberals have found a voice, (and a heart)
and are shouting out to save the CBC. I quote "The Conservatives
are over-reading their mandate. We need to send
a strong message: CBC funding didn't cause your
Conservative deficit; so don't try to fix that
problem on the back of the CBC!". Hey I could have written that! The Libs even have a petition to sign. What a golden opportunity for ALL CBC fans, friends, staff and families to post their John Henry. Positive change doesn't just happen, if you have an opinion SHARE IT. Txs Bob.

What is Lisa Raitt in for?

2011-10-12T13:21:00.005-04:00

[Guest post from karenatcmg]

Has federal labour minister Lisa Raitt thought about what she may be in for as her government forces its way into the middle of collective bargaining in Canada?

The phrase "class warfare" entered the lexicon again this summer south of the border. Sure, it started out as conservative bluster but then the 99% set up camp on Wall Street. In the midst of all this, Air Canada flight attendants voted down not one, but two tentative agreements. Some of them created a great video to explain just why. Other observers have suggested Raitt sabotaged bargaining by interfering in two previous work stoppages since June and making it clear that any fair deal would only be granted by an arbitrator and not at the bargaining table.

So why is Raitt undermining a bargaining system that has brought relative peace to labour relations in Canada for several generations? Even management-side commentators (including George Smith, former VP of Industrial Relations at CBC) seem to be scratching their heads on that one. It is even more of a question for all of us who care about maintaining or improving working conditions, salaries and benefits. Raitt seems to be trying to take away our existing rights to bargain for ourselves and our interests. History has taught us that workers find other ways to go about it, and Raitt might not like those any better.

A Little Sympathy Goes a Long Way

2011-10-11T15:50:00.004-04:00

Young men out of work for more than 6 months are 40 times more likely to committ suicide. How is that for a sobering statistic and proof that work is actually good for you. There are no end of studies showing people with jobs are happier, and that goes for people with mental health issues too. Only in addition to the usual stresses at work they also suffer the slings and slights of unsympathetic colleagues. The experts suggest calling it a stress injury to remove the stigma. This is just part of ongoing discussions at progressive unions about how to make work more workable (1 in 5 Canadians will suffer a periodic MH breakdown: 1 in 100 is severe). Progressive grps like Ryersons' Centre for Labour Management Relations are helping.

Reporter Suffers Gruesome Overload

2011-10-07T14:26:00.007-04:00

Like his news stories, his personal account of the post traumatic stress effects of covering the "killing colonel" story is riveting. CBC Radio reporter Dave Seglins exposes his soul and the impact of sitting through grueling testimony for weeks covering Canada's most shocking serial sex offender-murder trail. He knows more about Colonel Russell Williams than you ever want to know. No surprise it is sickening. An enlightening read on the Canadian Journalism Project.

Occupying Wall Street

2011-10-07T13:55:00.005-04:00

Who says idealism is dead? I follow with admiration the wall street protests, working class parents and college kids fuming at the unfairness of a world where the rich get richer and the middle class more oppressed daily. As in Canada we have an educated generation that can't find decent jobs, that's the oppressive fog that lead to unions in the first place. It used to be unions led this kind of demonstration, but this has a searing spontaneity that unions are recognizing and embracing. We share their hope and passion for change. It's a beautiful world when we can work together for an empowering goal, instead of constantly being artificially divided by corporate spin masters. On a related note, big thanks to everyone who voted in recent provincial elections. Even an simple X in favour of a kinder, gentler government makes a difference.

Stop bashing workers

2011-10-03T13:25:00.007-04:00

I know you don't need a lecture on all the things unions have done to help Canadians, (fighting to increase minimum wage, better pensions for seniors, same sex benefits, paid parental leave, 5- day workweeks, smaller class size, subsidized daycare). There are many examples, but the bottom line is unions work to improve EVERYONE'S quality of life & work.

So it's bizarre to see Ontario Conservatives campaigning on a platform that includes "bringing public sector pay cheques in line with private sector standards". What are they talking about? If they mean decent pay and pensions, that has nothing to do with whether you work for government or a private company. Some private companies have good pay & benefits-usually when the employees have a union to fight for them. If there is no union, you have to fight for these things on your own and we all know how hard that is!

Is that what the Conservatives are talking about? Bringing all Ontarians' salaries down to the lowest possible level (and letting stockholders pocket the profit)? Who does that help? (The Conservatives' corporate backers, who must love the concept?)

Friends and Fans

2011-10-03T13:01:00.004-04:00

Thanks to all volunteers handing out
supportive flyers at CBC's OPEN HOUSE this weekend.
As we hear more Conservative musings about cutting the budget, we appreciate the support of CBC's friends and fans, and why not support a mandate to promote Canadian talent! The Huffington Post says Heritage Minister James Moore wants to "slash CBC's budget by 10%", just the latest in an increasing slew of anti-public broadcasting comments by prominent Conservatives.

A Good Question?

2011-09-27T13:58:00.008-04:00

(Updated)

I was surprised to see this week that several prominent Conservatives floated the question of CBC funding. One survey asked whether the money Ottawa spends on CBC was "good"or"bad" value. It's a troubling question for anyone who supports public broadcasting. Small surveys by renegade politicians might not support the official party line, but when our office sent a questionnaire on support for the provincial public broadcasters TVO & TFO to candidates in the provincial election, the provincial Conservatives did not answer at all.

UPDATE: Last night we received a response from a single PC candidate, leader Tim Hudak, who sent a letter on Wednesday evening, just before he appeared on TVO's Agenda. Here's how he answered our ten questions:

Thank you for your survey about TVO and TFO and for the opportunity to tell you more about the change we’re proposing for Ontario families.
I have firsthand experience with TVO and the quality broadcasting you deliver. As you know, I have appeared on TVO programs many times, both before and after becoming Ontario PC Leader. I also enjoy watching TVO programming with my family.
In changebook, we’ve set three priorities: Change to put more money in your pocket, change to guarantee the services you need, and change to clean up government. These are difficult but important choices that we made only after listening to literally thousands of families from every corner of Ontario.
On October 6th, Ontario families will face a clear choice. They will choose four more years of Dalton McGuinty raising their taxes, wasting their money, and never standing up for the things we believe in; or they will choose change with an Ontario PC government.
To read more about the change we’re proposing for Ontario families, I encourage you to visit www.changebook.ca
Sincerely,
Tim Hudak

Liberal, NDP and Green party candidates have been supportive of funding for TVO and TFO. To quote a Green : "would love to see more of Ontario shown off". We agree. Just another reason to question your candidates before casting your vote.

Speaking Out

2011-09-27T13:51:00.003-04:00

Thousands of people protested at Toronto city hall to oppose proposed cuts to programs and services. I'm amazed at the vigor and enthusiasm of people who showed up to fight for a more progressive city. It is inspiring.

Taxes and other Misunderstandings

2011-09-19T17:17:00.004-04:00

There are good kids, and there is bad behavior. That's the way I feel about taxes. Why is it a clown can get elected promising "no taxes"; it doesn't even make sense. Anyone who has traveled knows there are hundreds of places where "no taxes" means living in squalor, with no schools for your children, no decent roads, hospitals or dependable public services. Are any of us really against taxes that pay for good schools, hospitals, highways, garbage pickup, recycling, even public pools. Why is it such an oxymoron? Would we really have it any other way? What we don't want is waste, corruption, billions in corporate breaks, and helping the super rich avoid paying a fair share. So lets give the maligned 3 letter word a little love, and make politicians actually think and tell us WHAT they are going to spend our taxes on, instead of accepting a worn out old cliche.

We Can All Dream

2011-09-16T14:27:00.005-04:00

An insightful and sobering read from the US President written long before he was in the Oval office. Its not about politics, just the story of a young man trying to find his place in the world, and tracking down his absent fathers' family. There are millions of stories like it. The difference?His clear and perceptive observations on race and how the colour of your skin can affect everything from confidence to lifetime income. Its an inspiration for activists everywhere. None of us will ever match the impact he has made just by getting elected, but its so hopeful to be here at a time when that could happen. He will probably forever be the only US President (or any country's President) who actually got started working in downtown neighborhoods trying to make democracy work for the working class.

CBC hits back on Quebecor bashing

2011-09-13T17:27:00.005-04:00

Quebecor has been throwing $$ away for months foaming about the CBC's real and imagined slights, it has made an industry of rampant rivalry that rational minds try to ignore. This Monday a calm response from a CBC VP to a vexing Montreal Gazette editorial puts it in perspective.

Marvel at how much ink a jealous rival used to calling the shots can spill inventing a scandal just because he can. Quebecor's owner can afford to print whatever he likes in his newspapers (and he owns MANY). This is the dark side of letting anyone monopolize the media.

Something to Celebrate

2011-09-06T16:40:00.003-04:00

We had a great turn out from CBC, The Canadian Press, TVO, tfo, Shaw Television, Thomson Reuters,and Zoomer TV for the Labour Day Parade in Toronto. And no wonder. These are difficult times for anyone who works for a living and belongs to a union. Which is odd because at its core we are just a group helping each other and trying to help all working class people improve their lives. How can that be bad. Its unfortunate instead of inspiring others to work for similar goals, (we can help) it has become fodder for narrow minds to incite envy and intolerance.The only way an average person with no money and no power can get ahead is by working with others. Thus a union is born. It can work for everyone.

Ciao Bella

2011-08-30T14:34:00.002-04:00

This week we celebrated the long career of a favorite staff rep. Kathy Viner fought for better pay, pensions,benefits and working conditions for CMG members for nearly 30 years. (And loved every minute of it! ahh) So she says. Union work can be both satisfying and frustrating. Satisfying in that you really do make the world a better place, and frustrating because there is so much to do. Many of us start off as volunteers helping colleagues through a bureaucratic maze,
but working for a union is also a challenging, rewarding career that many people would love as much as Kathy did. (She's off to Italy now to enjoy her freedom!) Ciao Bella.

A Sad Day

2011-08-22T16:59:00.003-04:00

Jack Layton was a charismatic politician who spoke up for the kind and gentle side of politics. He was all heart, brains and compassion. An outspoken friend of the working class, if you met him in person, he was impossible not to like. We'll miss his cheery welcome at the Labour Day Parade in Toronto, I don't think he ever missed it. He was an enthusiastic supporter of public broadcasting and a voice for reason and compassion in many public debates. We will miss him.

Embracing Change

2011-08-16T13:35:00.002-04:00

An outdated term I try not to use anymore is visible minority. In cities like Toronto and Vancouver more than half the population is culturally mixed. (Stats Can predicts 60% will be
" visible minorities" by 2031.) So obviously the term is just plain wrong. We know from recent news reports the UN disapproves. But put yourself in your neighbors shoes, who wants to be called a viz min? Remember not so long ago when we stopped using fire and police MEN and started using firefighter, police officer; or calling actresses - actors. We can find a better way again.
Great article in Vancouver Sun
http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2010/03/17/has-the-term-visible-minority-outlived-its-usefulness.aspx

Forget Free Work

2011-08-05T11:19:00.003-04:00

Should young journalists work for free (as unpaid interns)? A brave young journalist
has publiclly criticized the industry for its increasing and selfish reliance on free labour by forcing young journalists to work as unpaid interns. Bethany Horne's personal pet peeve is it only allows students from families with money to get into jouranlism because anyone who needs an income can't afford to work for free...and that this defeats industry attempts to hire more diverse staff. It's a bold, thoughtful article that has generated heated debate, and may encourage companies with a conscience to reexamine the practise.

From The Canadian Journalism Project
http://j-source.ca/article/one-j-student-explains-why-she-will-no-longer-work-free

One for All

2011-08-05T11:01:00.002-04:00

The digital revolution is dazzling in the speed it has changed our lives. CD are on their way out already (remember when they were new), not to mention the family bonding over the evening news. Now everyone watches on their own time, on their own personal platform. This increasingly diverse delivery has techie guru and author Don Tapscott musing on the difficulties of sharing common interests in the public good in the future. In a thoughtful article in the Toronto Star recently Tapscott opines that alone is a significant reason to support a strong, national broadcaster. Of course I agree!

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1032448--a-new-reason-to-support-the-cbc

Moms' Hero

2011-07-22T16:14:00.002-04:00

A Toronto couple just won a precedent setting court case that will help thousands of new moms. I'm proud to say the new dad is a CMG member. SR thought it was grossly unfair a woman on maternity leave who became ill (his wife was diagnosed & treated for breast cancer), couldn't get extra paid time off for illness; that others NOT on mat leave could get. First he got mad, then they went to court. Now any other new mom who gets sick, may benefit! (as long as its not appealed)! SR says it bothered him to think that a single mom who gets ill, would be out the $6,000 she could have got from EI, on top of coping with sickness and a new baby. From his note to me; "one of the reasons I became involved in the union.. unions are one of the few organizations that can support such actions that lead to greater equality and justice". Congrats and thank you SR, your lovely wife N, and baby Aris.
http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1025199--toronto-mom-with-breast-cancer-wins-ei-case?bn=1

All For One

2011-07-22T16:04:00.002-04:00

..and one for all. The upside of the flagrant union bashing going on in the US (and the less obvious bashing going on here); is it is bringing unions together. We realize we have to work together to support gains like decent pension plans and fair working conditions or we all suffer. In the US non-unionized workers and small businesses are also coming out to oppose crushing cuts to social programs and services. If unions can't help improve general living conditions for everyone, who can? United we have a voice.

Hot Topics

2011-07-22T15:52:00.003-04:00

The weather isn't the only thing sizzling. A burning topic for unionistas is two-tiered systems; when a company offers a less attractive benefit to new hires, keeping a more beneficial package for existing staff. It works for companies, a way to save money and to encourage infighting. But new hires see it as an unfair betrayal, that they don't get the same deal as everyone else. This strategy is popping up at negotiating tables everywhere. Before you support it remember what the new hires get today, becomes the standard for everyone tomorrow!

(PIx: your team of delegates to CWA convention)

Everyone's A Winner

2011-07-07T15:01:00.005-04:00

Better pay, regular hours, respect; things we all want, and things unions fight for. But many people don't know the time, effort and money unions big and small put into improving living conditions for NON-UNION members. Things like boosting minimum wage, increasing Canada pension, better treatment for immigrant labourers and people who suffer with mental health issues, anti-racism programs, and so much more that you rarely hear about. it was inspiring to hear and see all the volunteers at the Canadian Labour Congress in Vancouver (2,600 people);sharing their goals and describing how they have improved their neighborhoods and communities, (not just their union).

Make It Great

2011-07-07T14:12:00.002-04:00

Getting the community on board is a great way to make friends, connections, and build solid support. That's the focus of a novel approach our progressive colleagues are taking in Kingston,Ontario. Martin O'Hanlon, of CWA-SCA Canada represents staff at The Kingston Whig -Standard, which is suffering the same ills as many newspapers with declining staff and disappearing local news coverage.

Instead of picketing to improve the papers fortunes, boost staff and improve working conditions he's spearheaded a community drive where readers can share their hopes for the Whig's improvement. Its a great city, it deserves a great paper with lots of LOCAL news.

Good luck Martin (and Kingston!)

greatwhig.ca

Rad-Can's Sylvain Lafrance and PK Peladeau settle dispute

2011-05-19T15:20:00.004-04:00

The VP of Radio-Canada, Sylvain Lafrance, and the CEO of Quebecor, Pierre Karl Peladeau (aka PKP) have buried the hatchet.

Today they settled a defamation suit PKP launched against Lafrance in 2007 after Lafrance said PKP was acting like a ~thug ("voyou" - a rather high-profile insult in France these days) when Quebecor stopped contributing to the Canadian Television Fund. The comment was reported. PKP wanted $700,000 in damages.

Instead, Lafrance and Radio-Canada issued a public statement saying they regret that the comments were taken in offence.

All right, then.

Best Budds

2011-05-05T16:40:00.005-04:00

The union for Canadian performers ACTRA: awarded long time CBC radio host Barbara Budd a national honour calling her the "voice of Canada". Among those cheering was Corner Gas star Eric Peterson.

http://http//www.actra.ca/main/press-releases/2011/05/actras-2011-john-drainie-award-presented-to-barbara-budd/

Meeting such talented people reminds me how difficult it is for actors in Canada, where we are swamped by all things American. Would any other country allow its independent voice to be so smothered?http://http//www.canadiancontent.net/people/actors/

I have high hopes a more assertive generation coming up will fight to protect a space for their own talent on Canadian Radio, TV and theatre screens. http://http://www.friends.ca/files/PDF/polls/Canada-US_IR_report_final.pdf

One Good Thing

2011-05-05T11:29:00.004-04:00

Congratulations to the handful of young leaders just elected to parliament. Imagine representing your country at 19!

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/meet-candidates-youngest-mp-in-history/article2009395/

In the union movement too we are lucky to increasingly have talented young members stepping up to run things. Age is not an obstacle to leadership. Anyone can learn the skills it takes to excel, make a contribution to your community and improve the lives of your colleagues at work. (photo: CMG national executive members)

A Good Reason to Vote

2011-04-26T17:09:00.004-04:00

On the election front the Bloc and Greens support increasing CBC funding, and keeping an arms-length relationship between the corp. and the government. The NDP and Liberals support "stable funding" (which could mean anything) and the Conservatives refused to even answer our questionnaire!
More details: http://www.cmg.ca/newsresults.asp?ID=1610&SubjectID=64&BranchID=10

NDP drops ball on major cultural issue

2011-04-21T18:55:00.002-04:00

While the Bloc and the Greens support increasing CBC’s funding considerably, the NDP merely vows to “maintain the CBC’s current levels of funding until Canada’s budgetary outlook improves.” The Liberals promise “stable and predictable funding” and the Conservatives didn’t even answer the Guild’s survey.

• Bloc: increase CBC/Radio-Canada funding to at least $40 per Canadian and Quebecker per year (some $230 million)
• The Greens: increase CBC/Radio Canada funding by $450 million over the next three years
• The NDP: stable funding until federal budget outlook improves
• The Libs: stable and predictable funding
• The Cons: NO ANSWER

In the last two elections, the NDP has promised an increase to CBC funding.

Click here for the full answers provided by the parties on the questionnaire the Guild submitted to them on April 5.

Who else can you count on to ask the tough questions?

2011-04-20T14:19:00.001-04:00

This Election Vote CBC

2011-04-16T12:02:00.004-04:00

The CBC (and its French services SRC) is the only national network devoted to promoting CANADIAN arts, culture, entertainment, sports and news. In every province, with services in isolated rural areas, the CBC/SRC brings Canadians together, reflects your community,(including in Aboriginal languages). Please ask politiicans if they support adequate funding.

http://www.cmg.ca/homepageEN.asp

watch our video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD6HM159DYQ

One in Four of Us Can't be all Bad

2011-04-16T07:28:00.004-04:00

Is calling someone a"wanker" or a "perv" in a headline discrimination? Yes says a mental health expert chiding the press for its insensitive coverage of Canadians with mental health issues. 25% of us struggle with a mental health episode (one in 4 seems high) but the experts are adamant, it is common, largely treatable, and NOT helped by the negative portrayal in the press. McGill University's Rob Whitley

http://www.mcgill.ca/tcpsych/faculty/robert_whitley/

says the media should be leading the way to treating suffers with respect, not reinforcing damaging (and incorrect) stereotypes. It's a message 40 union activist's (largely representing reporters and other media workers) at a CWA-SCA Canada conference in Montreal took to heart.

PS his group tracks the worst offenders! So be warned.

Investigative Reporters: Threatened Species

2011-04-15T22:29:00.005-04:00

Congratulations to an endangered species! The Hamilton Spectators' Steve Buist wins the Hillman Canada Award for Code Red, an original, insightful investigation into the circle of poverty and health care in Hamilton. Investigative reporters are practically an endangered species as more and more newspapers cut staff and resources increasingly using syndicated stories instead of local news. We salute Steve and other journalists trying to fight this dumbing down of the news, and the gutting of local newspapers. http://www.hillmanfoundation.org.hillman-prize-canada/

Why Vote?

2011-04-12T12:57:00.003-04:00

My husband and I often disagree on politics and sometimes support different parties. We’ve reached a truce lately by agreeing that we can each post one sign on our front lawn. Ridiculous? Maybe, since we risk canceling each other’s vote…BUT most of the time, I post my sign and he doesn’t (because he doesn’t care as much as I do).
So my vote usually counts even though it appears initially it won’t. In this federal election I hope everyone who cares about the state of journalism, the freedom we need to expose corruption, the access we need to get answers from politicians, the
support we need for public broadcasting to be able to dig up the facts, will put up their own sign. Who to vote for? Vote for freedom, transparency, social justice and politicians who answer the questions you ask, and who support the kind of world you want to live in.
http://www.caj.ca/?p=692

Politics Anyone?

2011-04-06T16:03:00.004-04:00

Many unions are openly political. Like savvy CEO’s, they use available funds to support political decisions they hope will pay off.There’s nothing wrong with that. Democracy thrives on it. If you don’t stand up for your own interests, why would anyone else?

For journalists, however, it’s a different story. We make a living being fiercely objective. Most journalists I know don’t vote, many won’t even eat at a free press lunch so they can’t be accused of being “bought”. It means a union that represents journalists faces a dilemma.

Do we stay quiet because journalists are supposed to cover the story, not be the story?

Do we lobby carefully for our interests; protecting sources, access to information,
ensuring Canadian content, fighting for fair rules governing the internet(http://openmedia.ca),protecting public broadcasting, http://www.friends.ca/providing TV in isolated rural areas, stopping the same 3 families from buying EVERY newspaper, TV and radio station so the only voices you will hear are trust fund heirs and their grandchildren. http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/front.shtml; http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/media-ownership/media-monopoly.html

Or do we take open political stands on issues that affect us as citizens and workers, as well as journalists?

Right now, CMG takes the middle road. Should we be doing more?

Dude, you need a union!

2011-04-01T15:42:00.002-04:00

Hard lessons and hope at Harvard

2011-03-22T17:15:00.004-04:00

The six weeks I spent Harvard this winter really opened my eyes. I was there to learn more about unions - history, labour law, and how collective action has advanced human rights - and how to be a better leader.

I certainly learned unions are in trouble. Membership is down and there is less and less public understanding about the good things unions do. In the US, people seem to believe that unions are responsible for the ongoing financial crisis. It's ludicrous and we have to fight that perception. Yes, it's worse in the States, but as we all know, every trend - good and bad - finds its way north. Our own government has frozen public service wages two years running, after all.

The headline is that we have to start fighting back. Here are some of the ideas we discussed at Harvard ... and CMG is in a good position to do make them real:

- work more closely with other unions
- get unorganized workers to join the union ... build our forces
- make sure our country's diversity is reflected in our ranks.

I picked up a library of books at Harvard on the struggles and successes of unions in North America. It'll take me three years to get through them all. I plan to do a review from time to time in this space.

The bottom line is, what kind of world do you want to live in?

New Prez in this space

2011-03-22T17:06:00.003-04:00

I thought I should introduce myself ... the new President in this space. My name is Carmel Smyth and I was elected national president of the Canadian Media Guild last December. I was a long-time reporter in various cities across the country and am now a television producer at CBC in Toronto. For the next three years, my day job will be leading the union through these interesting times.

I'm a little late getting started on this blog because I spent the first six weeks of the year at Harvard's trade union program. It was an eye-opener, depressing and inspiring at the same time. More on that in later posts.

I'd love to hear from you ... your thoughts, ideas and questions about this turbulent industry, about how the union is working for you, and any topics you might have. Feel free to leave a comment, anonymous or not.

The Guild election, gender bias and a new generation

2010-11-29T11:16:00.002-05:00

I had the tremendous opportunity of attending a conference this year called Stepping Up, Stepping Back about how unions must revitalize themselves and attract young workers – especially women.

The conference report makes no bones about it: unions are at a tipping point and risk losing relevance unless they become more reflective of the demographics of the workers they represent. And if unions don’t make changes, young women activists in particular will give up and invest their energies elsewhere.

The report says union structures are to blame – that they are shutting young women out of leadership. “Union political structures reward incumbents regardless of results,” it says.

One of the report’s recommendations is term limits, which I proposed at the 2010 CMG Convention. The motion was narrowly defeated though more than half the delegates were in favour (it needed 2/3 majority).

With these issues weighing on me, I decided to step down as president of the CMG and prompt a new generation of leaders to come forward.

But I’ve been saddened to learn that even in 2010, this election is turning out to be split down gender lines. And some older, mostly male leaders are actually telling people that some younger women candidates “just aren’t ready”. As far as I can tell, this sweeping statement is never applied to any of the male candidates.

They just aren’t ready? In this race, there are candidates with much more union experience than I could have imagined having when I became president twelve years ago. There are people with track records of actually solving problems, chairing tough committees and doing the really difficult work of unionizing new workplaces by signing workers up one-by-one. One (Carmel Smyth) is even the president of the CMG's biggest single unit (CBC Toronto, with more than 2000 members!!!).

I hope that if you hear that “they just aren’t ready” line – you ask precisely what it means. What has the other candidate done that makes them more “ready”? That’s the only way to get at the roots of this gender-biased slur.

Our skills and experience as media employees don’t necessarily prepare any of us to lead a union. Being ready means being ready to listen, to learn and to lead. You need the instinct to know what members want, the ability to make priorities happen, the smarts take on office and staff management functions, and the will to enlarge the network of people in leadership roles so you can avoid entrenching an insider clique.

This election is about members choosing who is most ready to truly represent them.

A reminder about how dangerous our work can be

2010-11-10T17:19:00.005-05:00

Being a news camera operator is one of the most physically demanding, and as we've been sadly reminded today, dangerous jobs in our industry.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for City-tv cameraman Bill Atanasoff who was hit by a car as he was shooting a separate police investigation in Toronto late last night. He had pulled up to the scene where other journalists were newsgathering, crossed the street to start shooting and was hit by the car.

Atanasoff was thrown several metres by the impact, in full view of the other media and police. He is in hospital in critical condition with injuries to his neck, skull and legs.

Police say they don't know if Bill's camera obscured his vision of the street or the oncoming car.

We know camera operators are incredibly vulnerable to injury. They are often looking through eyepieces and rushing to get to a scene at the same time -- meaning their own vision is obstructed and balance jeopardized. We know alot of shooting goes on in busy areas often at night and in bad weather. We know alot of news gathering takes place in unruly crowds and angry confrontations. And we know people are working longer hours, travelling further and doing more.

So let's take a moment to think about what we do, remember to be careful in what is a stressful profession, and talk openly to one another when we think enough is enough.

Cutting his way to being "digital first"

2010-10-29T18:05:00.004-04:00

Funny how the media doesn't report on how it's decimating itself.

Both CBC and CTV reported today on how 42 Ottawa Citizen staffers are taking the buyout offered by new Postmedia owner Paul Godfrey last month. The Citizen itself was strangely silent about it. Ever wonder why big general buyouts are the staff-cut method of choice? So there's no noise. No "L" word, as in layoffs. But the positions are still lost; the expertise gone and there's no added value to anyone.

Trouble is, this is only the tip of the iceberg at Postmedia. The numbers of positions being lost across the whole former Southam/Canwest (Montreal Gazette, Regina Leader-Post, Vancouver Sun and Province, Victoria Times Colonist and others) chain are at least triple that number of 42 and there are plans to centralize the business and advertising operations in a single city. If you read one of these papers, your local newspaper will be local in name only. Godfrey talks about being "hyper local" in news content but beware. Unless there's evidence of hiring people to do local news...those are just cute words. The strategy appears to be to cut an already lean newspaper empire to its very core, go public next summer and sell it all for profit.

Forget the demographic deficit. We have an information deficit.

Sign of hope for free TV in small-town Canada

2010-10-27T16:05:00.009-04:00

Last Friday, when the CRTC approved the application by cable and satellite giant Shaw Communications to take over Canwest Global, it also took an important step to ensuring Canadians in smaller towns continue to have access to free, over-the-air TV after the switch to digital in 2011.

The CRTC told Shaw that, within the next five years, it must upgrade some 66 transmitters, mostly in the interior of BC, central and northern Ontario and Nova Scotia, serving smaller markets. It includes places like Sudbury ON, Kamloops and Kelowna BC, and Sydney NS that would have otherwise lost free TV signals after the transition. Previous owner Global had planned to shut down some of the existing analog transmitter in each of these 66 locations on August 31, 2011, and keep the others running only as long as they still worked.

The Guild has driven people crazy talking about the potential of free digital TV in smaller markets, using the ability of a single transmitter on a single frequency to send out up to six channels where an analog transmitter can only send out one. It's called digital multiplexing and, perhaps due to sheer repetition, or because the CRTC wants us to go away already, the Commission also said in the Shaw decision that it is "persuaded of the benefits of multiplexing with respect to the promotion of media diversity and access, and its potential to offset some of the negative impact resulting from media consolidation."

What multiplexing means concretely for the Sudburys, Kamloopses, Kelownas and Sydneys of the world is the potential for viewers to get more than just Global for free. Shaw has said it would consider multiplexing, and therefore sharing with other broadcasters, in some of these 66 locations. And perhaps what the CRTC is saying is that it would be good for media diversity if a new local TV service were launched in these places (perhaps a true community station?) that could piggy-back on the Shaw transmitter.

The ironies in this are delicious. First, that it's cable giant Shaw that is the first with a national TV network to commit to over-the-air TV in smaller communities in Canada. Way to go. Second that Shaw might well end up helping independent community TV. This may be a pay of patching things up with supporters of independent community TV after the scrap they had earlier this year over the country's community TV policy and where the $120 million in cable money that's supposed to be devoted to "local expression" is really being spent.

Over to you, mayors of smaller communities. You can bring several channels of free TV to your city. Any takers????

Meanwhile, there's a growing chorus of support for free, over-the-air TV, especially among those in major cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Vancouver and those who live along the US border who are already receiving the new high-quality digital signals for free. You can see the latest love letter to over-the-air TV here and an article about how to get free TV here.

Good news: Sun TV's straight talk takes a turn

2010-10-06T17:37:00.006-04:00

Quebecor is retreating on its bid to force all Canadian cable subscribers to pay for its proposed Sun TV News ... aka Hard News, Straight Talk ... aka Fox News North.

This is a victory. The about-face comes after thousands of Canadians voiced their opposition through organizations such as OpenMedia.ca and Avaaz.org to what was perceived as a politically-connected corporation trying to get a special deal via the Conservative government. This appears to be a rare example of the public getting involved and forcing a shift in the broadcaster's plans.

The CRTC has been planning a hearing on the Sun TV News application (we'll soon see if that hearing goes ahead). The Guild made a written submission supporting the existence of the new channel, with conditions, and objecting to the request for the special treatment.

Among the conditions, we proposed that Quebecor commit to a base level of editorial staff for the new channel, based on concerns about Quebecor's recent commitment to news and journalism at its other outlets. The company has cut hundreds of newspaper jobs cut across the country in the last two years and yet says it will rely heavily on these print journalists to feed the all-news TV network. And then there's the way Quebecor values its newspaper operations in Quebec, where a lockout at the Journal de Montreal is now in month 20; a lockout at the Journal de Québec ended in 2008 after a year and a half.

The Guild also proposed that the CRTC hold a hearing on the definition of news programming. While news is clearly dear the CRTC - they set up that local program fund in 2008 to support it, and that's good - no definition of it exists in broadcast policy. That's dangerous when media owners such as Quebecor, with the Sun TV News application, and Corus, with the Local 1 application, cleary want to stretch the boundaries.

Canadians in for a rude shock after transition to digital TV

2010-09-09T10:34:00.006-04:00

The major deadline in Canada's transition to digital TV is now less than one year away, but you'd never know it from the deafening silence on the issue.

Beginning next September 1, Canadian over-the-air TV viewers in 32 cities will need digital equipment to continue watching television. They will need either a newer TV with a digital receiver or a converter box for their older analog set.

But it's Canadians in the other cities, towns and rural areas that are in for the really rude shock. Starting in less than a year, their local stations will start unplugging the analog over-the-air transmitters and replace them with ... nothing. If you want to watch TV in those areas, you'll need a cable or satellite hookup, unless you are close enough to US stations to pick those up over the air.

It is quite a shock to compare the before-transition and after-transition maps of Canada. Check it out.

Here's a live version of the after-transition map, where you can see what stations will be available in what cities:

View Free digital TV in Canada/La télé numérique gratuite au Canada in a larger map

Don't forget to compare it to the map of where free, over-the-air TV is available today.

Meanwhile, viewers in the US, where the transition is already more than a year old, and Canada who have tried digital over-the-air TV seem to love it. First, there's no monthly bill. Second, the picture quality is great. There is evidence of a growing grassroots movement in favour of over-the-air TV.

Too bad so many smaller-town and rural Canadians are slated to be thrown under the digital bus.

Richard Stursberg: early thoughts about a demonized man and his impossible job

2010-08-06T15:11:00.012-04:00

Richard Stursberg fired. Those words aren't in the official CBC release (see italics below), but they might as well be. Reports are that he was escorted out of the building today. I can't think of a more significant development at the CBC in years.

"Hubert T. Lacroix, president and CEO of CBC/Radio Canada, announced today the departure of Richard Stursberg, executive vice-president, English services, from CBC/Radio-Canada effective today."

Stursberg has been the head of English-language programming since 2004. I often thought of him as the Dick Cheney of the CBC, in the way he approached his power, his influence and the way he was openly derisive of different points of view. He took on battles that changed peoples lives, yet he seemed oblivious to the impact he had.

Most significantly, Stursberg took the CBC -- our public broadcaster -- down a very commercial road. It was his way of dealing with tepid funding and unreliable support from the federal government. Programs were judged as successful only by ratings, not by the value they may contain for public discourse or the public record. In fact, he rarely talked about the CBC as a public broadcaster. He once referred to programs about Rene Levesque and Pierre Trudeau as "goddamned legacy programming" in one heated discussion with me about his approach to public broadcasting.

Under his tenure, the CBC locked out its employees in 2005, shut down the CBC design department in 2007 -- ending the CBC's own ability to make sets and create costumes and props, and hired U-S based TV consultant Frank Magid to advise local news programs about how to be quick and snappy -- and talk alot about crime and weather.

Yet it should be said that Stursberg resuscitated local TV programming too by creating the 90-minute supper-time newscasts and the 10-minute late night newscasts -- even if wasn't necessarily because of the value of local journalism but because of the chase for the elusive eyeballs. He brought a lot of in-house production back to the network (even if he dismantled the department that supported that production).

He was a lightning rod for all kinds of opinion, a man easy to demonize. He was mercurial and surprisingly undiplomatic in meetings with staff.

Yet at the end of the day, what matters is why he's leaving.

"We are in the midst of developing a new strategic plan that will guide CBC/Radio-Canada through the next five years. This is the opportune time to bring new leadership...." the release says.

It seems apparent by reading between the lines of the CBC release is that the "new strategic plan" is linked to his departure/firing. What is that strategic plan? Let's hope it's a departure from the overly commercial approach that Stursberg pushed for so many years. Let's hope the new strategic plan values programming that's made in the public interest as much as for the potential "eyeball" numbers. Even better, let's hope this marks the end of the "Ottawa isn't going to give us any more money, so let's just deal with it" approach that's particularly depressing. It's time for this CBC administration to move forward post-Stursberg by embracing its public mandate, by reaching out to Canadians and working with them to make a strong case for a really public public broadcaster.

Working 9 to 5: how quaint

2010-07-20T18:48:00.003-04:00

The news industry is at once shrinking yet expanding...but in the expansion, there's a catch. The expansion is in online news...where everything is about speed, hits and the need to constantly update -- not necessarily inform. This piece in the New York Times is an excellent warning about the effect this is having on media workers -- early burnout.

Reporters are being measured by simple output -- which is assessed by "most viewed" lists on home pages. Pay is based on how many readers click on your article. What kind of world is this? One that burns out its young, apparently.

When digital technology turned our work into "multi-platform" and the distinctions between online, TV and radio were erased....most of our jobs morphed dramatically. We are expected to do it all, on many services and media, twitter/blog about it and do it five minutes faster than the competition. Workload has become the main issue for employees, far outpacing compensation. Looks like the treadmill will only move faster -- before anyone has time to think about the effects on our industry -- and those of us who work in it -- as a whole.

What's happened to all the G20 video, pictures?

2010-07-05T11:21:00.007-04:00

Amy Miller, one of the arrested independent journalists at the G20 summit last month (see previous blog post), tells me that all the journalists and others she knows who recorded police arrests/abuse/beatings etc. had their cameras wiped or "gone missing" while they were in the detention centre.

That video would obviously be useful for the public record about those fateful two days. It may be evidence for someone's defence. It could be damning evidence about the actions of the police. Or it could support the actions police took. In any case, it's all gone, and we should all be demanding whether police kept copies of the material confiscated, and whether and how it will be used.

Here's an example of some of what these independent journalists tell me:
Scott Weinstein says he was arrested July 1 at the Montreal G20 solidarity demo. He says he was told "that the group of agent provocateurs/undercover police who tried to infiltrate the demo previously" were at the demo, and he started filming them. "I was on the street and they then left the sidewalk and surrounded me, grabbed me and tried to take the camera. I want to state clearly that I at no time touched them or tried to fight back. I simply held onto the camera as long as I could (about a few minutes). I lay on the ground, trying to get into a fetal position as they were kneeing me and hit me with a few punches. It seemed about 4 or 6 of these guys were on top of me, and for a while, I had the illusion that I could actually keep them from taking the camera away... I was arrested, charged with assaulting the police with my bicycle, and they got the camera....I was held till about 5:30 p.m., and to my surprise, I was released. My camera and digital card were returned to me, but the file containing the film of the agent provocateurs was erased, along with photos I took of some of the speakers at the demo, and some of the vans carrying riot police."

Lisa Walter, the Our Times journalist, says she got her still camera and video camera back from police after her detention, but the memory card was taken from her still camera, and they erased the data on the video camera's hard drive.

Jesse Freeston, a video-journalist with The Real News Network, says he was attacked and had his mic temporarily taken away from him on Friday June 25th while covering the "Justice for our Communities" march. He thinks it was in order to stop him from filming what appeared as excessive force by police in order to clear an area after they made "a very suspicious and violent arrest of a deaf man named Emomotimi Azorbo". His video is here.

Some find it easy to dismiss the complaints of the G20 independent journalists because...well....they're independent and they have a point of view. They happen to be young, in most cases, and consider themselves activists. So what? Those are not good enough reasons for police to steal their private property and rob them and the public of the valuable images that was contained on all those hard drives and memory cards.

G20 journalists garner support from Canada and abroad

2010-07-02T15:22:00.004-04:00

It's comforting to know that groups far and wide are coming to the support of the media who were roughed up and/or arrested during the G20 weekend.

The latest is a release issued in Vienna from the International Press Insitute, a global network of media executives, editors and journalists. The IPI Press Freedom Manager says journalists "have a right to cover such events, including any protests that accompany them, without interference or harassment from police".

We at the Canadian Media Guild are asking members to tell us about what happened to them, to make sure that the whole story affecting media employees is heard, in all the right places. Julian Falconer and four journalists have filed complaints with the Office of the Independent Police Review Director in Toronto. That complaint is important. But it's not all that should be done. If and when any other inquries are called, the way the police handled all members of the media ("mainstream" and independent alike) must be documented and included.

The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression is doing what it can to make sure what happened is properly documented. It's doing a survey of journalists who believe "their freedom of expression was compromised by police/security personnel".

Now that we've had almost a week to hear from people, it's clear that the range of interference and harsh treatment directed at media workers was unprecedented. The cases of the independent journalists that Falconer is handling are the most publicized. But going largely unreported is the way the "mainstream" accredited employees were prevented from doing their jobs, in varying degrees. Read this account by Colin Perkel, long-time Canadian Press reporter who's done several tours in Kandahar (and yes, at one point he was a CMG executive member). He tells of the police operation that trapped hundreds of regular citizens and media personnel at a city block (Queen-Spadina) for five hours on Sunday. What I had not heard before is the degree to which equipment owned by Canadian Press was ruined by this operation, as police kept these people trapped in a torrential downpour in an operation now known as "kettling". I understand the cost to replace the damaged gear may be higher than $20,000.

Gear can be replaced, of course. It's the disregard for professional news gathering during public events like these that's cause for concern.

People in their 20s with cameras: the new enemy?

2010-06-30T17:46:00.006-04:00

Now that we are hearing more from those who were arrested or detained over the G20 weekend, it's becoming apparent that police were particularly irritated by people in their 20s documenting the protests in one way or another for alternative media publications.

Lawyer Julian Falconer announced yesterday he is taking on the cases of four such journalists, and the stories they tell are horrible.

Amy Miller was covering the demonstrations for the independent monthly Dominion when she says she was verbally abused, arrested and taken to the detention centre. Most alarmingly, she says one of the officers threatened sexual violence and added "you won't be a journalist after we bring you to jail".

Lisa Walter (who is the only one of the group not in her 20s) writes for the labour magazine Our Times. She says she was thrown to the ground and cuffed, her credentials challenged and was called a "f-ing dyke".

Adam MacIsaac was covering the same protest as Miller for the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. He was arrested, taken to a hospital after telling police he had a pacemaker. He was handcuffed to a bed according to this profile of 20 detainees in the Toronto Star. When he was let go 7 hours later, police said they had no idea where his $6K worth of camera equipment went.

Cameron Fenton was also reporting for the Dominion. He told the Star that about 30 people near a protest were boxed in by police and all were arrested and put in the G20 detention centre to be released later the same day.

Then there's the physical abuse of independent journalist Jesse Rosenfeld, who I wrote about Monday.

There may be some gray area between activism and journalism in all these cases. These are young, independent reporters with a point of view. But it appears that those who aggressively pursued the G20 story, who were not backed by big media companies, and who were young and seemingly vulnerable were particularly targeted for abuse.

It's like the police were sending an ominious message to the journalists of the future: don't go there.

Why These G20 Media Arrests Should Concern Us All

2010-06-28T16:04:00.005-04:00

On the day after a weekend of mayhem, it's important to focus on those who’ve been detained, arrested or imprisoned this weekend at the G20 summit just for doing their jobs: the journalists who were in the wrong place at the wrong time or looked the wrong way.

The hundreds of citizens, onlookers, and even joggers who were detained, arrested or imprisoned should be angry and have their stories told too.

But for the sake of solid information about these events, we should really be concerned about the people who had formal G20 media accreditation issued by the federal government’s summit office and who were still kept from doing their jobs.

• CTV News Channel producer Farzad Fatholahzadeh. He says he was looking to hand off his tape to another producer behind one of the police lines Saturday afternoon, and with his media pass clearly visible, a dozen police officers approached him. They asked him what he was doing there. Fatholahzadeh says he pointed to his news truck, the police told him to relax and then arrested him. His hands were fastened with plastic ties and he was brought to the Eastern Ave. detention centre. Six hours later he was released with no charges against him.
• National Post photographers Brett Gundlock and Colin O’Connor. The two were arrested and taken into custody Saturday at about 6 p.m. while taking shots of the clashes between police and demonstrators. They were charged with obstruct peace officer and unlawful assembly. They spent 24 hours in custody at the Eastern Ave. detention centre.
• Canadian Press reporter Terry Pedwell. He was detained for two hours in Huntsville while covering the G8 meeting, after police found he was carrying a standard-issue (for reporters covering demonstrations) gas mask in his trunk.
• Jesse Rosenfeld a Canadian freelance journalist based in Ramallah. He was covering what had been a peaceful demonstration on the Esplanade when two police officers grabbed him at about 11 p.m. He did not have an official media accreditation, but that's no excuse for the abuse he suffered. The case is getting widespread publicity because TVO host Steve Paikin witnessed and tweeted about it. The following are Paikin’s tweets during the arrest and beating:
“they repeated they would arrest me if i didn't leave. as i was escorted away from the demonstration, i saw two officers hold a journalist.” https://twitter.com/spaikin/status/17137794505
“the journalist identified himself as working for "the guardian." he talked too much and pissed the police off. two officers held him....”https://twitter.com/spaikin/status/17137826780
“a third punched him in the stomach. totally unnecessary. the man collapsed. then the third officer drove his elbow into the man's back.” https://twitter.com/spaikin/status/17137863106
“the officer who escorted me away from the demo said, "yeah, that shouldn't have happened." he is correct. there was no cause for it.” https://twitter.com/spaikin/status/17137918390
the demonstration on the esplanade was peaceful. it was like an old sit in. no one was aggressive. and yet riot squad officers moved in. https://twitter.com/spaikin/status/17138017712
Let’s get beyond the burning cars and smashed-in windows. Those acts of hooliganism come with G20 summits and they are completely predictable. By all accounts, the police simply let the cars burn and the windows be smashed. They were even lauded for their restraint by some. It was later Saturday and through the day Sunday that became really crazy. Because that’s when police, possibly frustrated at being ineffective with the Black Bloc when they were rioting, turned on activists, onlookers and just plain regular people randomly, people who happened to be in the way at the wrong time. Including journalists doing their job.

There will be many official reports filed about this weekend of protest in Toronto. I ask that at least a portion of those reports be reserved for coming up with better ways to allow accredited journalists do their jobs – whether or not the situation is uncontrolled and frantic. If we go through the hassle of formal accreditation, let’s make sure it means something when it really matters.

Sun's idea of "news" a joke, but will the CRTC care?

2010-06-23T16:12:00.009-04:00

I see that Quebecor/aka Sun newspaper chain isn't toning down its slanted "reporting" about CBC just because it's trying to get a license to compete with it in 24/7 news.

Check out this "news" story from Althia Raj , the Sun reporter who seems to be assigned the job of taking the Quebecor party line in these must-do anti-CBC pieces.

She writes: "CBC received almost 900 complaints from 2007 to 2010".

What Raj means is that 900 Access to Information requests were filed about the CBC in those three years. A big difference. Access to Information requests are routinely filed by reporters or citizens in order to get information from public corporations. They are not "grievances" which Raj also calls them.

Two paragraphs later, we learn that most of the requests were filed "on behalf of QMI Agency". That's Quebec Media Inc., Quebecor's own newsservice (Raj's employer), which Raj never points out.

In other words, this story is really about the fact that Quebecor filed hundreds of Access to Information requests about its competitor, the CBC. And it did so by abusing a process that's about making public corporations more transparent. The Access to Information process is NOT designed to be used by companies to get information to use as a competitive weapon.

You can count on more of this type of "news" on the 24/7 Sun TV News channel too. Wonder if the CRTC considers this type of "news" worthy of a must-carry cable designation?

Is Fox News North counting on a sweet deal from the CRTC?

2010-06-22T17:02:00.007-04:00

It's good to see real questions being asked about Quebecor's new "straight talk" all-news channel. Forget whether we need another right-wing voice or not. Forget whether it's appropriate that the former communications director to Stephen Harper is the guy in charge.

People are rightly asking whether Pierre-Karl Peladeau is banking on a special deal from the CRTC that would allow him to convert his unsuccessful over-the-air channel in Toronto to a lucrative three-year "category one" specialty channel license.

That's the license that would force cable operators to carry the channel. And that "must carry" designation is big bucks. Automatic carriage fees can range between 15 cents and 65 cents per month per subscriber. That's steady income, steady enough that selling ads isn't so important.

There's no precedent for such a request at the CRTC, and the Commission says that to be ruled a "must carry" a service has to demonstrate "exceptional importance" to Canadians.

Surprise. Surprise. It looks like Quebecor is counting on being ruled "exceptional", judging by the excellent interview CBC's Kathleen Petty did with Kory Tenycke, Quebecor Media's VP for development. Love the way she doesn't back down . And how it exposes Tenycke's lack of a back-up plan and his disdain for Canadians and their ability to understand CRTC regulatory lingo.

I can tell you this: Canadians may not know the difference between a cat 1 and a cat 2 license digital TV license, but they know when there's one set of rules for us, and another set for people who used to work for the prime minister and whose boss happens to be a close friend of a former prime minister. And they know when something stinks.

Quite apart from the discussion about whether this network is "Fox News North" or not, what we should really be watching for is whether the CRTC degrades itself and defies its own directive to give yet another sweet deal to powerful friends.

If you care about this, check out the media reform group, OpenMedia.ca. It's all about making sure independent media and solid information survive in this age of punditry and spin.

The Quebecor dilemma

2010-06-15T13:51:00.006-04:00

After two years of layoffs in this industry, word that Quebecor’s Pierre-Karl Peladeau is investing in news with a third all-news channel should be seen as a good thing. Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. We all need them.

There’s no question the journalism will be from a conservative right point of view, but my main concern is that the channel will probably serve a much narrower interest: what’s good for Quebecor and Pierre-Karl Peladeau. There’s no other media owner in this country who injects their own business interests into “journalism” as much as Peladeau does.

Talk to anyone who works at le Journal de Montreal, also Quebecor-owned. Reporters there filed a complaint with the Quebec Press Council because they felt pressure to give prominence to Quebecor’s mega-hit “Star Academie” on TVA. Quebecor-owned papers (Journal de Montreal, Journal de Quebec, the Sun chain) are frequently filled with rabid reporting about the CBC/Radio-Canada, Peladeau’s only real competition in Quebec, because he owns almost all of the rest of the media in the province.

And what’s good for Quebecor and Pierre-Karl Peladeau is rarely good for the rest of us. He’s cut the guts out of the Sun newspaper chain since he bought it, he’s cut beyond the bone to newspapers across Ontario, leaving the people of Kingston, Sudbury, North Bay and other smaller cities with less real information about their communities.

At the same time, there’s no question we need the diversity of opinion that comes with a "Fox News North", whether or not we like that opinion. I just hope it means the other “mainstream media” will be freed up from kowtowing to the right in this country. I’m happy to see the right-wing audience served by Quebecor, as long as everyone else concentrates on the mainstream issues they’ve been ignoring in their quest for the same audience.

The robot reporter: false hope or cautionary tale

2010-03-10T14:49:00.008-05:00

[Guest post by karenatcmg.]

Could a robot do your job? A lab on the Northwestern University campus near Chicago already has a prototype artificial intelligence program that can report on baseball games and will soon develop programs to cover football and basketball.

“It’s the dream of every managing editor: a reporter who is cheap, works fast and isn’t moody,” writes Le Monde correspondent Yves Eudes, who recently visited the lab.

The “Stats Monkey,” as it is known, will also soon turn its digital brain to reporting on financial markets.

The inventors of "The Machine," which is the byline on the prototype reports, gush that the product reads the same as AP wire copy. But without typos! (The machines – no kidding – are able to reproduce the same pat sentences that every reporter rushed for time uses to express the same range of outcomes). The benevolent inventors say they are not out to replace humans with machines and put them out of work. Of course not. They say their program could relieve journalists of the boring, repetitive work to allow them time for the noble part of the calling: field reports, investigations and analysis. Besides, they add, the purpose of the program is to report on minor league and varsity games and the stock market performance of smaller companies, which don’t currently get coverage in the mainstream media.

By the way, down the hall from the Stats Monkey is “News at Seven,” an AI project that puts together an online newscast, complete with animated male and female co-anchors (Zoe and George!), based on the preferences of the viewer. It gathers and summarizes relevant reports from a series of news sites and then “voices” them.

Frankly, the AI machines seem a day late and a dollar short. What can they do that we don’t already do, compiling and relaying data within seconds on a wire desk or producing newscasts according to a formula, primarily using secondary sources?

Besides, if news organizations aren’t devoting resources to high-school leagues and small business stock performance today, why would they invest in machines to do it tomorrow?

And who is to say that, once they had them, our employers would rehumanize our work? After all, if they wanted the fulsome product of human brains – if that’s where they saw the quick buck – they could have it already,couldn’t they?

Obviously the machines will solve nothing. It’s not even clear that they will be more productive (ie. produce more at less cost) or that they will create fewer headaches than regular human journalists. I mean who has NOT worked with temperamental IT systems?

But news of them alone is perhaps enough to scare us into working that much faster, with that much more accuracy, to avoid being replaced by a reserve army of computer chips.

Community TV should be supported - now more than ever

2010-02-01T15:32:00.003-05:00

I love the headline of the piece in support of community TV in rabble.ca -- titled "Community TV blamed for cable cash crunch". The story is a great read -- the story of Big Cable maximizing profits at the expense of their own stations, and of course, dodging any kind of criticism along the way.

Today's the deadline for submission of comments for an important set of CRTC hearings on community TV.

The hearings aren't getting alot of attention, but people in the industry know what's at stake. Once a place of dynamic innovation and divergent points of view, community TV stations are not what they should be. They could and should be a place for real local news. They could and should be a more effective training ground, especially if the stations were linked in some way, with any of the provincial public broadcasters or the CBC.

A group named CACTUS, which stands for the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations, is trying to improve regulations, funding and bandwidth for these stations. We at the Canadian Media Guild are supporting their efforts. The hearings begin April 26 in Gatineau.

Some commitment to local news!

2010-01-19T17:13:00.002-05:00

Citytv, the station that's synonymous with local news, is slashing its news operations across the country.

The reports vary but they all point to today's announcement by Rogers Media, which owns the stations. One report says there will be no newscasts tonight on Citytv stations in Calgary, Vancouver and Edmonton. Another from the Toronto Star says BT (Breakfast Television), CityNews at Six and CityNews at Night will continue to be produced in all five Citytv markets, but notes the Rogers statement makes no mention of the noon newscast.

About 60 jobs will be lost in Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Calgary and Edmonton.

Ironically, the move comes a day after a group of three people announced they were heading a bid to buy three of the Canwest newspapers up for sale because they believe in ... you guessed it...local news.

This layoff makes no sense. It comes at a time the economy is rebounding, when people are putting their money into local news, and when stations such as CHCH and CHEK are trying to make it on their own with a reliance on local news.

Once again, it proves two things: 1. Local news is always expendible when big media companies get bigger and people in all the affected cities should be complaining loudly. 2. That cable and satellite campaign over the summer and fall about their commitment to local news was just what we all thought -- misleading words aimed at making sure someone else pays for it, if it has to exist at all.

New buyers who actually want to talk about content!

2010-01-18T13:04:00.002-05:00

For the first time in a long time, some good news about the fate of Canwest. The Toronto Star and others are reporting that a group of investors led by former Senator Jerry Grafstein is preparing to make an offer for three of the Canwest newspapers -- the Montreal Gazette, the Ottawa Citizen and the National Post.

What's so encouraging about this news is that not only does the group have background in the business (Grafstein was a founder of Citytv in Toronto, Ray Heard used to be an editor at the Montreal Star then he was an executive at Global TV and Beryl Wajsman is editor of a weekly newspaper in Quebec), they are actually talking about content!

The three are not talking about "synergies", not making this about bottom-line cost-effective delivery of news on all sorts of platforms. That's the kind of talk that led to Canwest's troubles.

Instead this group is talking about how newspapers would benefit from local involvement that would produce timely, informative, well-written stories and grassroots journalism reflecting the priorities of Canada's diverse communities.

Wow! No matter what happens with Canwest up for sale, the injection of this kind of interest -- interest for all the right reasons -- can only be good news for the news business.

Canwest just an example of the media mess

2009-12-11T15:47:00.010-05:00

Not enough has been written about the media crisis (because most of the country's major media are too conflicted to report it). Check out this first in a series of articles by former CBC producer Nick Fillmore. His piece -- at rabble.ca -- examines the depressing state of the industry and begins to look at some ways out of the mess we find ourselves in.

CMG at the CRTC today: a voice for local and free TV

2009-11-20T12:53:00.003-05:00

The Canadian Media Guild brings its campaign to preserve local over-the-air TV after 2011 to the CRTC today. [Follow the proceedings live all day today. CMG is expected up after the lunch break at about 2 p.m. ET.] We’re the little guy in a room full of broadcast executives who appear in packs before the commission, arguing that they can’t possibly afford to pay to convert over-the-air transmitters to digital in smaller cities and towns across the country.

Instead, they argue that when the signal goes dark to 11 million Canadians in 2011, it’s OK to expect them to pay for so-called “skinny” or low-cost cable and satellite packages if they want to get any TV at all. Their option to get free TV over-the-air with rabbit ears will be cut off.

The CMG has taken a different approach to this issue for the past couple of years. We discovered a cost-effective approach for broadcasters to make the switch to digital, called “multiplexing” – several broadcasters sharing a single transmitter. It would actually provide more choice to people who rely on over-the-air TV.

Our view is that local news operations will become ever-more imperiled if they have to rely on cable and satellite to beam them into viewers’ homes and that over-the-air is still the best way to deliver local same-time TV.

So here we are. Read our remarks. With Big Broadcasters and Big Cable and Satellite “with access to a lot of capital engaged in death match” to paraphrase CRTC commissioner Tim Danton today, CMG is bringing forth a third option – one that is rooted in ensuring that Canadians from coast to coast enjoy the same access to TV, one that understands that local news is the very root of our information system—and to make the case for special funding for broadcasters who produce and air Canadian programming of all kinds in prime time.

Wish us luck.

Why Ottawa's museum workers need our support

2009-10-18T15:49:00.003-04:00

About a month ago, four hundred employees who work at the Museum of Civilization and the War Museum in Ottawa went on strike.

Unless you live in Ottawa, you may not be aware of this. But we should be -- because the issues are remarkably similar to those at the centre of the CBC lockout in 2005 and those we continue to fight today.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada which represents the workers, says that only 6 out of 55 museum guides are permanent. Employees go from contract to contract and lose traction in seniority and wage advancement every time they do. Sound familiar?

Online comments to various news sites about the strike indicate that some members of the public may not take the museum workers’ issues seriously because they are seen to be transient – doing this work until they figure out their “real” future.

This is a really dangerous assumption to make, as anyone in our business knows. People in the culture industry are often taken less seriously than other workers because of the “glamorous” perception of this work and the availability of part-time cyclical work that tends to attract students. Of course, these views are exploited by managements who want to pay their workers less. And we’ve got to stop this, wherever and whenever it happens.

Then there’s the big issue of the public funding of our cultural sector. Last year, the Conservative government subjected the Museum of Civilization to the same “strategic review” that the CBC is undergoing this year. The Museum lost $400,000 in that process. The CBC stands to lose about $50 million.

The Museums’ CEO Victor Rabinovitch hasn’t been vocal about this cut – just like his brother, Robert Rabinovitch who as CEO of the CBC refused to ask the federal government for more money for the Corporation.

This is bigger than a single dispute in the nation’s capital. The strike highlights the need to pull all kinds of workers and citizens together to fight for the overall health of our culture industry. In fact, as I write this, I'm at a conference where people are discussing more unity among everyone in the broader knowledge industry -- which includes academics. That means working together to achieve collective agreements that make real careers possible, and proper funding for our cherished institutions so they can survive without undercutting their own employees.

Canwest quietly gets another break

2009-10-17T16:21:00.003-04:00

In between meetings this week about Canwest’s bankruptcy protection and how it will affect its various employee groups, imagine my surprise when I found out that none other than Canwest has been granted yet another TV license.

You couldn’t make this stuff up. Check out the CRTC notice of October 14, giving Canwest a license for a new Reality TV channel (I kid you not). What could the CRTC commissioners have been thinking as they considered the application and actually approved it -- just one week after the company announced it’s seeking protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA)? Hasn’t the CRTC learned anything from approving Canwest’s grand plans?

Makes one wonder whether Canwest plans to set up cameras inside its own newsrooms at Global TV to shoot what happens to these folks next? It’ll sure be gripping television to watch the anger of former employees on severance payments whose pay is about to be stopped, shot alongside the executives who’ve been given rich bonuses to stay on. Upstairs, Downstairs meet 30 Rock. Only without the humour.

For the price of a cup of coffee

2009-09-17T10:28:00.004-04:00

So who's covering the big picture on what's happening with local TV, including the fire sale of a series of small-market TV stations across Canada over the last six months by conglomerates Canwest and CTVglobemedia? Who suggests the shuttering of the Red Deer station, which found no bargain-basement buyer, and the resulting loss of local news in rich Alberta's third largest city, is like Sherbrooke, Quebec, suddenly losing its local news coverage?

Le Devoir. It happens to be one of the only large-city daily newspapers in Canada that is not owned by a media conglomerate.

The "local TV matters" campaign - run by the major networks who have been using their local stations, including the ill-fated one in Red Deer, as bargaining chips to get access to cable fee revenues - is only mentioned toward the end of the article.

Meanwhile, the networks' "campaign" was the story earlier this week in many of the country's major daily newspapers. The ones that are connected through their media conglomerate owners to the those same campaigning networks.

Celebrating the survival of CHEK in Victoria

2009-09-11T19:36:00.003-04:00

A big note of congratulations to employees of CHEK in Victoria for surviving Week One after leading the effort to buy the station and rescue it from closure.

CHEK’s story of survival against all odds is another glaring example of how the media is doing a lousy job of covering its own crisis. And this one needs to be told, because there are lessons in it for many of us.

CHEK is one of five E! stations that Canwest put up for sale in February. By July, Canwest claimed it couldn’t find a buyer and CHEK would go off the air by the end of August.

While Canada’s media owners spent the spring and summer complaining that local news was no longer viable, we know a lot of prospective buyers weren’t listening. They knew they could improve on the E! model for local TV, which we know is deadly. For example, the E! station in Hamilton, CHCH, was charged more than $51M by Canwest for airing a package of mostly American shows. Compare that to the $8M spent on local news and sports. Revenue for 2009 was projected to be $44M. That’s respectable but not if you’re footing the bill for expensive Hollywood stuff. (Those figures were gleaned from Channel Zero’s successful application to the CRTC to buy CHCH.)

You can bet the figures for CHEK were similarly onerous.

Investors who thought they could improve on the model couldn’t get negotiations going with Canwest, and the competing groups of U.S. bondholders that appear to be running it. Things looked like they were going to stall.

So a group of employees dug in and began their rescue. Station manager John Pollard was the first to get the ball rolling and work on an employee purchase. “If he had put the Canwest corporate interest in front of the station’s interest, we would not be here today,” says assignment editor Richard Konwick who’s also president of CEP local 815M. Lesson #1.

“Virtually all” of CHEK’s 45 employees bought shares worth $15K each. CEP put up $105K in interest-free loans which worked out to $3,500 per employee to offset their cost of buying the shares.

Strings were pulled – by local MP Gary Lunn, who happens to be Sports Minister in the Harper cabinet. Levi Sampson, president of the Harmac pulp mill in Nanaimo, which was saved from closing by a similar model, helped rally local investors raise more money. Lesson #2. It's good to have friends in high places.

Many twists and turns later, the deal got done a week ago today. The employee group and local investors raised about $2.5 million to cover the first bit of operating costs and Canwest announced it was selling the station for $2.

The employees make up the 2nd largest single investor group and while the corporate structure of the new station hasn’t been worked out, Konwick says the intent is to have an employee representative on the Board of Directors.

Further, he says the deal would have been impossible if the station had not been unionized, because “you need some kind of structure to be able to pull this off”. Lesson #3.

Who says local news is dead? CHEK is a proof that people in communities know there’s real value in local news – as long as it’s freed from conglomerate structures that make no sense.

Hope is still alive for Victoria’s oldest TV station

2009-09-01T16:04:00.003-04:00

The group bidding to take over CHEK-TV in Victoria is still negotiating with Canwest to keep the station open. It was slated to be closed last night by the debt-hobbled media conglomerate – along with the Red Deer’s CHCA-TV, which unfortunately did go dark. However, CHEK stayed on the air today and was to take it day by day until a deal can be reached.

CHEK-TV employees and local investors launched a campaign this summer to keep the station on the air, reportedly raising $2.5 million. On the weekend, Canwest turned down an offer from the group, claiming it didn’t want to be on the hook for operating losses until the sale was granted the necessary CRTC approval.

Late Monday, on what they thought was the last newscast, CHEK reported that the deadline had been extended. Canwest reportedly hopes a deal can be made by Friday.

Given the local interest in the station, it would have been an outrage if CHEK had been allowed to close yesterday. We’ll keep our fingers crossed this week for the employees and the local viewers.

Meanwhile, Channel Zero’s purchase of two other Canwest stations – CHCH-TV in Hamilton and CJNT-TV in Montreal – was approved last Friday. The new owners got everything they were looking for from the CRTC: a seven-year licence, no requirements to show Canadian priority programming in prime time and no requirement to spend on tangible benefits from the deal. They will be called to a public hearing in 2012 to review their approach to programming.

CBC: Layoffs + News Renewal = Upheaval and Resignation

2009-08-06T17:13:00.002-04:00

At CBC News, these may look like quiet summer days…but they are days of complete upheaval. As if the layoffs weren’t bad enough to implement, there’s the process known as News Renewal, a massive reorganization of how the work gets done, and who does what.

For dozens of people, both behind-the-scenes and on-air, News Renewal means being reassigned – sometimes to a job that seems reasonable and interesting, and other times, to a job that’s not any of those things. Sometimes by nice conversation and other times, through curt and dismissive meetings. It’s disorienting for many people to be told that their views of what constitutes career progression are an illusion.

News Renewal is supposed to be in the name of making CBC News truly 24/7 on television, radio and online, national and local. I think most people understand and laud that intent. But then it collided head-on with the financial shortfall and the layoffs, which, among other things, led to greater uncertainty and varying degrees of pressure on senior employees to take voluntary retirement packages or simply resign.

The result: a feeling of deep hurt and resentment by those who weren’t quite ready to go, those who dared ask questions about the “multi-platform” 24/7 universe. They weren’t "laid off", but found they had no choice. They are people who gave years of valuable service, but who couldn’t relate to what they were now being asked to do.

How they feel is well expressed in a goodbye note from Dave Anderson of CBC Radio – which is contained in Jeffrey Dvorkin’s blog. Dvorkin is the former chief journalist at CBC radio and now distinguished visiting professior at Ryerson University.

What about the loss of all this talent? How do we address that? Who’s taking stock of who’s gone, beyond name and position? One way is a new section of the Guild’s web site – where we’re asking for people laid off this year to post their profiles so we know more about those losing their jobs. I’ll write more about this project later. But it’s only a small way to start documenting all this.

In the meantime, there’s a lot of hurt, a lot of disillusionment and a lot of anger.

CBC local news: good idea, bad time

2009-07-31T13:28:00.004-04:00

Check out this very interesting insider blog post about the CBC-TV schedule changes that are going to affect local news, and the "logic" behind them.

In case you haven't heard, local evening TV news is growing from 60 to 90 minutes. But there's a hitch. It'll start at 5 pm and be over by 6:30 pm to make way for the blockbuster lineup of Coronation Street, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, a detail that was buried in the announcement touting the change.

Good on Howard Bernstein, a former Executive Producer of the Toronto CBC local TV news show in the 1980s, when local news was a serious commitment, for providing another forum for discussions like this.

Please feel free to submit comments or guest blogs here (anonymous or otherwise) about the changes coming to CBC and other media this fall.

Two-tier TV service is an unpopular idea

2009-07-29T11:38:00.004-04:00

There is evidence out of Kamloops that the CRTC's ruling to mandate free TV signals in only 29 Canadian cities, and leave Canadians in the rest of the country pay for cable or satellite after the transition to digital, is not popular. In fact, 84% of residents say it's not fair.

The CMG commissioned the mid-July poll in Kamloops - a BC town of nearly 100,000 people and one of the hundreds of communities that will be deprived of free TV signals if the broadcasters and the CRTC stick to the current plan for the 2011 transition. Some 11 million Canadians will no longer have the option of watching TV for free, over the air.

What appears to be fairly popular, especially for the under-35 crowd, is the idea of having six free channels in Kamloops ... up from the 3 that are available right now. If people could get six channels - the local Pattison affiliate CFJC (soon to be affiliated with Rogers), Global BC, CBC, French-language CBC, CTV and the Knowledge Network - one-third of residents would chose rabbit ears or antennas over paying for cable or satellite, up from the 6% in Kamloops who currently watch over the air. And 42% of people under 35 say they would choose the free option if the six channels were available.

The thing is, it's quite feasible to make that happen if the broadcasters get on board. The six could share a single digital transmitter, which our research shows would cost around $90,000. Shared six ways, that's a mere $15,000 each. The move would probably boost viewership since those stations would become the channels of choice for more viewers, assuming some people do drop the cable in favour of the free TV, as they seem to be doing in other parts of the country where there's a decent choice of free channels.

The CRTC "encourages broadcasters to ... take advantage of multiplexing opportunities - multiple broadcasters sharing one digital transmitter to deliver programming services - as a means of reducing or delaying the infrastructure investments related to the digital transition." So there's no reason the broadcasters couldn't do it, from a regulatory point of view.

All viewers would need is a converter box, if they have an analogue TV (which costs $60 to $80) or a relatively new TV with a digital tuner, as well as rabbit ears or a rooftop antenna.

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Canwest can't stop causing pain

2009-07-28T17:41:00.001-04:00

There’s news today that should send shivers down the spine of every Canwest employee – as if they need more stuff to be worried about.

Canwest has told a group of retirees at CHCH-TV that it will be winding up the CHCH pension effective August 31, 2009. That’s the closing date of the sale of the station to Channel Zero..

Like many pensions, the plan has an “unfunded windup deficiency”. It’s not clear whether that’s because of the market and/or low interest rates or because Canwest hasn’t been meeting its pension payments. No matter the cause, the retirees have been told that Canwest has no plans to fund the deficiency.

This means the 108 pensioners of CHCH are left in the cold, with pensions reduced by an amount Canwest, not surprisingly, is not revealing. They are the newest faces of the damage a debt-ridden media conglomerate can do….and why we need to make sure another Canwest doesn’t rise from the ashes anywhere else.

For Canwest employees everywhere who’ve been waiting for word on whether the company will file for bankruptcy protection, this is sobering news indeed. They need to start asking some tough questions about their own pensions.

The reality is that while many companies are grappling with the effect of last year’s market crash on their pensions, and with outdated pension regulations, the better ones are taking on these massive problems in conjunction with their employees and/or unions. For example, the pension plan at Canadian Press has been restructured jointly with my union, the Canadian Media Guild.

It’s good to see that the retirees group at CHCH is using one of the best lawyers in the pension field, Hugh O’Reilly of Cavalluzzo Hayes. He certainly helped our members at the Canadian Press. But unfortunately, Canwest left this pension problem until the last possible moment. It’s quite possible that the only hope for the pensioners is relief from the federal government – which is dealing with beleaguered companies from coast to coast.

Victoria and Red Deer to lose local TV stations

2009-07-23T09:54:00.007-04:00

[Guest post by karenatcmg]

CHEK-TV in Victoria and CHCA-TV in Red Deer will close on August 31. However, Canwest says it will keep its Kelowna station open under the Global TV banner.

These are the last of the five E! network stations. CHCH-TV in Hamilton and CJNT-TV in Montreal are being sold to Channel Zero.

As a result of the closure of the two stations, 80 people will reportedly lose their jobs.

Not a great day for local TV in Canada.

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How Channel Zero plans to make a go of CHCH-TV

2009-07-21T16:33:00.009-04:00

[Guest post from karenatcmg]

The buyer of CHCH-TV in Hamilton figures they can start making money at the station by 2011 by running local programming all day and "popular movies" in prime time.

"It would be exceedingly naïve, if not arrogant, for our company to assume that we can succeed where Canwest did not with the same strategy. Canwest is an experienced broadcaster dealing with the same systemic issues facing all OTA broadcasters that the Commission is well aware of," says Channel Zero's application to the CRTC.

That application finally provides a little peak into the local station's financial affairs. Channel Zero's projection suggests that CHCH will spend about $8 million this year on local news and sports programming. However, it will be charged more than $51 million by Canwest for the (mostly Hollywood) programming that airs across the E! network, including on CHCH. The station will also be charged more than $4 million for "broadcast network support" provided by Canwest (master control, sales support, programming ops). With a forecast of only $44 million in revenue for the year, you can see why the local station was no longer able to prop up both the network's Hollywood shopping spree *and* local programming. There's your broken model: the station is expected to be $32.7 million in the red at the end of the year.

But, starting next year, Channel Zero plans to boost the budget for local news and sports to about $9 million with the help of the CRTC's new Local Program Improvement Fund. On the other hand, the budget for buying shows will be slashed to $2 million. And the new owner will provide its own "broadcast network support services" at a cost of about $1.3 million, or one-third of what Canwest is apparently charging CHCH for the same services. They do forecast a sharp drop in revenue for next year to about $18 million, but an overall loss of only $3.2 million. By 2011, they forecast net income after tax to be nearly $1.8 million.

The Channel Zero proposal means as much or more local programming as is now broadcast on CHCH. In fact, the programming grid in their application suggests they will broadcast 85.5 hours of local programming per week next year. However, they only say they are "likely" to broadcast more than the 36.5 hours per week that used to be a condition of licence for CHCH. It appears to depend on whether the CRTC lets them off the hook on another key condition of licence.

"[W]e would be prepared to accept ... the same license conditions as currently apply... It is our view, however, that such terms of approval would hinder our plans to revitalize and focus the stations [CHCH and CJNT in Montreal], as we have outlined in our application. Among other things our ability to provide the extent of local programming that we have contemplated in our application, and to provide long-term employment for the existing complement of staff at CHCH and CJNT could well be jeopardized." (Emphasis added.)

What licence condition do they want eliminated in Hamilton? The requirement to broadcast Canadian drama, variety, documentary and/or entertainment magazine shows in prime time. And the jobs of the existing staff are the bargaining chips.

Another hitch is that they want to be exempt from paying any monetary benefits from the purchase of the station, which are typically set at 10% of the value of the transaction and often get spent on the production of original Canadian programming. (Channel Zero claims the deal is worth $500,000 and the benefits, if they had to pay them, would therefore be $50,000.) The company argues that keeping the station open, the existing staff in place and the local programming on the air is a very tangible benefit of this deal and that having to pay out fifty grand would hamper their efforts.

The CRTC will hold a hearing on the purchase starting on August 24. Channel Zero has asked for the green light by August 31.

Go boldly where Shaw refused to go

2009-07-17T09:53:00.005-04:00

[Guest post from karenatcmg]

Somebody does want Brandon's CKX-TV for a dollar. All appeared to be lost after CTV made a terse announcement at 5:11 pm on June 30 (yep, minutes into the July 1 holiday) that Shaw would not be buying CKX and the Windsor and Wingham stations. You may recall the offer was made in a Shaw ad published in CTVglobemedia's Globe and Mail newspaper in the middle of the CRTC hearings in early May. The offer was accepted by CTV in an adjoining ad.

As suspected, it was all theatre. Shaw was trying to make the point that local TV is viable even without money from cable and satellite companies. Perhaps the lame exit from the deal emboldened the CRTC, which announced days later that it is increasing the funding from cable and satellite companies (yeah, that's you Shaw) going to the Local Program Improvement Fund from 1% of the companies' revenue to 1.5%.

Since the CRTC announced its bailout (more LPIF money, low standards for local programming) CTV announced it would keep the Windsor station open another year.

The latest successful bidder for CKX-TV is Bluepoint, an investment firm run by ad guy Bruce Claassen. Bluepoint wants to become a "significant media player in North America." Apparently, they think the boosted Local Program Improvement Fund is all they need to make a go of it. Perhaps it's not totally nuts. After all, Izzy Asper started his media empire from a single Manitoba TV station (albeit in Winnipeg, not Brandon). And Bluepoint's only in for $1.

They are probably busy looking for a new affiliation agreement for CKX-TV since CBC did not renew past August. Perhaps they will go the route of the Pattison Group out west, which just signed with Rogers for stations in Kamloops, Prince George and Medicine Hat. Pattison had to do something since their current affiliation with Canwest's E! network was doomed. Canwest didn't buy any programming for E! for next season and plans to shut the E! stations it can't sell. So far, only CHCH in Hamilton and CJNT in Montreal have a buyer. That leaves the stations in Red Deer, Kelowna and Victoria, as well as the CTV station in Wingham, in a very precarious situation.

We wish Bluepoint all the best in its Brandon venture. The 39 employees at CKX-TV can hopefully now take a deep breath and enjoy the rest of their summer.

CRTC draws line in the sand on free digital TV

2009-07-10T16:13:00.003-04:00

[Guest post from karenatcmg]

This week, the CRTC issued new policy on TV broadcasting. You likely heard about the apparent green light for ~~fee-for-carriage~~, sorry, for broadcasters to get "fair market value" from cable and satellite companies in return for their channels being offered in the lineup. If not, there is coverage here, here and here. Headline: broadcasters rub hands in glee as cable co's cry foul.

What you may not have heard is that the CRTC also issued the list of Canadian cities where broadcasters must put up digital transmitters by August 2011. That's when the existing 1,000+ analogue transmitters across the country will be shut off.

And at 29, the list of cities is pretty short. It includes those with populations greater than 300,000 and the provincial/territorial capitals. Here's a very small sample of the places *not* on the list: Kingston, Sudbury, Kamloops and Kelowna.

Check out the CMG website for the CRTC list.

To recap the issue, Canadians living in major cities and close to the US border already enjoy a smorgasbord of free, great quality digital TV. That's because US broadcasters and many - CBC, CTV, Global, Citytv, Radio-Canada - in the biggest Canadian cities (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver) have already put up digital transmitters. The channels are available for free to viewers with a new-ish TV equipped with digital receiver or a $60 converter box for (older) analogue sets.

Those Canadian broadcasters are not much interested in putting up any more digital transmitters than absolutely necessary. If you don't happen to live within range of a digital transmitter site, any TV not hooked up to cable, satellite or IPTV stands to go dark in August 2011.

The CRTC is accepting comments until August 10 ahead of a fall public hearing that will deal some more with over-the-air TV and the transition to digital. But note that issues related to the transition could easily be drowned out by the continued battle between TV networks and the cable/satellite companies, which is also on the agenda.

So: if you're being left out of free, digital TV, this is the time to speak up and send a comment to the CRTC. You should also let your MP know how you feel.

CHCH has a buyer!

2009-06-30T15:22:00.003-04:00

Toronto's Channel Zero will buy Canwest's CHCH-TV in Hamilton and and CJNT-TV in Montreal, assuming the company gets the green light from the CRTC.

Channel Zero owns Moveiola and Silver Screen Classics, a couple of digital specialty channels, as well as some "adult entertainment" channels.

There's apparently no buyer yet for the other three local TV stations Canwest is trying to unload by the end of this summer in Red Deer, Kelowna and Victoria.

In Hamilton, it looks like they plan to keep on the existing staff and run news all day until 8 pm, after which they will show familiar, if not first-run, movies. Think Adam Sandler and Jim Carrey.
It sounds quite a bit like the proposal originally floated by CHCH employees interested in mounting a community bid for the station. In fact, in an article in CARTT.ca, Channel Zero says they will be relying on the existing CHCH crew to pull off the new format.

In Montreal, where the licence is for a multicultural channel, they are talking about running foreign movies and "multicultural music videos."

Channel Zero seems bullish about local TV. At least somebody is. Funny that we haven't heard another word out of Shaw since they announced they were paying $1 to CTVglobemedia for the local stations in Windsor and Brandon.

Today's sale also seems to represent a move away from big media conglomerates.

A tale of two Globes and their attack on employees on both sides of the border

2009-06-26T16:44:00.003-04:00

Dear Media Employees Everywhere (especially those at the Globe and Mail ... our thoughts are with you this crucial weekend):

Don’t be bullied – and that’s what’s happening to you as I write this. Unionized workers at Canada’s national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, are just the latest in this industry to be intimidated beyond belief into deeply concessionary discussions.

Like media employers everywhere, Globe management (CTVglobemedia Inc.) is using the economic and media crises to claim they “need” a huge list of concessions, whether or not those concessions relate to the problem at hand. In the forced “final offer” delivered today to unionized employees after talks broke down, management says it intends to move to a two-tiered pension system: current employees have a choice between the good pension they’re in (defined benefit) or move to a defined contribution (RRSP-like) plan. New hires would have no choice: they get stuck with the DC plan. There are cuts to salary scales for new employees and a freeze on pay for two years.

My advice: don't buy it. Say no to the management offer. This kind of systematic pillorying of media employees will do nothing to save our industry. It’s eroding what content still exists and will likely drive the best and brightest away. It’s also selling out our next generation of employees (possibly your own kids, siblings, cousins) if yet another defined benefit pension is bargained away. Don’t make long-term/permanent concessions in a climate of day-to-day uncertainty. The climate will change, one way or the other, and you won’t be able to get back what you’ve lost.

Our Guild colleagues at the Boston Globe said no. The owners (New York Times Co.) threatened to *shut the newspaper down* if employees didn’t accept deep, deep concessions – to the tune of $20M. The Guild was the only Boston Globe unions to defy the threat when members narrowly rejected the first deal put to them, which would have cut salaries by 8.3%

Did the world end or the paper close? No.

The threat to close the paper was withdrawn. But in true bully style, the Boston Globe then imposed a 23% wage cut, yet another tactic to wear the employees down. Union and management went back to the table, and management announced the Globe is up for sale. Read the letter sent by Dan Totten, the Guild’s president, upon that news. Since then, another deal has been reached. The good news is that it’s slightly better: wage cuts of only 5.94%. But overall concessions are still in the $10M range.

What a brutal way to position the paper for the market, instead of working together on the changing media environment in a civilized way. As Totten said in another letter, “sharing the pain is not the New York Times way”.

The Boston Globe case is not a good-news story. But it is a demonstration that people can say no, and they should…sometimes over and over again. The future of this industry is at stake.

Newspaper finds new life under local ownership

2009-06-22T11:28:00.001-04:00

From south of the border comes a hopeful story of a newspaper emerging from the depths of conglomerate ownership, debt and thinning content.It's the Portland Press Herald in Maine, where a new chapter is unfolding.

When former owners Blethen Maine Newspapers put the paper up for sale a year and a half ago, employees thought the paper would be added to the list of US newspaper closures.

Then along came Richard Connor, from Bangor Maine. He bought the paper and bucked a trend, opting not to drop sections, stop Sunday papers or make other cuts to content the way so many media owners are dealing with this economy and the changing media environment.

Connor and the union that represents employees at the newspaper, the Portland Newspaper Guild, sat down and worked out a new arrangement over the past few weeks under what is known as Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Employees agreed to take a 10 percent pay cut in return for a 15 percent stake in the company. And they get two seats on the company Board.

Last week, just before Guild delegates from across North America met in Washington, the "new" Herald tribune hit the stands.And here's the really good news. The paper has *added* sections and editorial pages, says Guild president Tom Bell. That's a result of the greater degree of consultation between management and employees, because of the ESOP agreement.

I hope this is the beginning of a new way of doing business in our industry: local ownership, emphasis on content despite a tough economy, and a partnership between union and management.

The cuts are sinking in, Part II

2009-06-19T10:00:00.002-04:00

In a follow-up to the post that appeared here on May 27, I've written a longer piece for the Guild's newsletter G-Force about the impact of the cuts across our union. No job classification has been spared. It is really not clear how the continuing work will be done once the dust settles. What is clear is that our media employers are losing lots of bright lights: both those whose skills and creativity built the industry and those just starting out whose energy and enthusiasm might be lost to us forever.

Free TV: CTV gets it wrong

2009-06-15T18:32:00.003-04:00

I shouldn't be, but I am surprised at how badly some journalists cover our own industry. I know some are "edited" by their corporate bosses. On Friday night, CTV got the story of the U-S transition from analog to digital TV all wrong. And in this case, you have to wonder if there's a reason why.

Reporter Tom Walters’ piece left people with the impression that the switch from analog to digital TV broadcasting in the United States means the end of antennas and over-the-air television. He called it the End of an Era.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth – at least in the United States. There, all the major broadcasters have invested in making the switch to digital, and signals are still being beamed to TV sets right across the country, for free. The only difference is they’re digital signals now, which means they’re clearer and sharper signals. All you need is a converter box to receive them (which the U-S government helped people buy, by handing out millions of dollars worth of coupons), or a new TV. And a good antenna really helps.

So, in the United States, you can still get a wide range of TV signals in most places, for free.

In this country, broadcasters are refusing to make the transition, which is due to take place officially in 2011. Only the biggest cities west of New Brunswick can get digital TV over the air. And broadcasters have no plans to change that.

There’s a great story on cbc.ca that gives an overview of the transition in the U-S and the lack of transition in this country. Now, any wonder why CTV, which has already written off the idea of providing free over-the-air digital TV, would air such an incomplete story?

By the way, my union, the Canadian Media Guild, thinks all Canadians should have access to free TV, even after the digital conversion in 2011 and has provided original research about this to the CRTC. It’s been an uphill struggle.

Walters ended his piece with the Canadian broadcasters’ line (read: excuse): that only 10% of Canadians rely on over-the-air signals for their television, while the rest get cable and satellite, so the digital conversion will mean nothing. He didn’t mention that up to 10 million Canadians will be cut off from having the option of getting free TV in Canada after 2011, because of decisions that CTV and other broadcasters are making now. Would have been a better story, don’t you think?

Shakin' all over

2009-06-11T14:20:00.003-04:00

Former CBC producer (and Guild member) Nick Fillmore has written a good piece on the shake-up at the Globe and Mail for rabble.ca . In case you haven't heard, Editor in Chief Edward Greenspon got the boot last month in favour of John Stackhouse, who had been editor of the paper's Report on Business section.

It's not clear why the change was made, but Fillmore makes a case for what needs to change (but probably won't) in terms of how the Globe covers the news.

Now we wait a few more days to see if there will be a shake-up in the executive suites at Canwest.

Another wedgie for the CBC

2009-06-02T10:57:00.009-04:00

The CBC is a classic wedge issue for the Conservatives. Even talk of privatizing it is a morsel of red meat to throw to the hungry base. It's an easy stunt to try to shore up that deep blue Conservative brand in the heartland, especially when polling suggests the brand is starting to fade. It also deflects attention and energy from the growing national consensus that the public broadcaster is under-funded and should receive more money each year from Ottawa to provide the kinds of media services that simply don't get offered by commercial media.

So it's not that surprising that the National Post is reporting today that CBC is indeed on the list of assets the government might sell off:

CBC, Via Rail flagged for possible sale
The federal Department of Finance has flagged several prominent Crown corporations as "not self-sustaining," including the CBC, Via Rail and the National Arts Centre, and has identified them as entities that could be sold as part of the government's asset review, newly released documents show.
In its fiscal update last November, the government announced that it would launch a review of its Crown assets, including so-called nterprise Crown corporations, real estate and "other holdings." Finance Department documents, obtained by Canwest News Service under the Access to Information Act, reveal that the review will focus on enterprise Crown corporations, which are not financially dependent on parliamentary subsidies.
Such corporations include the Royal Canadian Mint and Ridley Terminals, which is a coal-shipping terminal in Prince Rupert, B. C.
But the documents also reveal that the government will consider privatizing Crown corporations that require public subsidies to stay afloat. "The reviews will also examine other holdings in which the government competes directly with private enterprises, earn income from property or performs a commercial activity," states a Finance briefing note dated Dec. 2, 2008. "It includes Crown corporations that are not self-sustaining even though they are of a commercial nature."
In the briefing note, the Finance Department identifies nine Crown corporations that fall in that category, including Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the CBC and Via Rail.
[...]

What's not yet clear is if there's anything more to the story than the boost it provides for the Conservative fundraising machine. Has anyone heard anything more substantive

The CBC cuts are sinking in

2009-05-27T16:51:00.001-04:00

Today’s the day the impact is starting to sink in from one of the biggest round of job losses in the media in this country. It’s the day people at the public broadcaster have been dreading since CBC president Hubert Lacroix announced the cut in March. Now we know there’s going to be a total of 350 frontline CBC and Radio-Canada positions eliminated outside Quebec (the people represented by my union) and another roughly equal number lost in Quebec.

Let’s keep in mind what the 350 represents: 100 of those are contract employees who’ve been “non-renewed” (one of the most bizarre of the CBC expressions). Many of them worked on Steven and Chris or the Living shows on TV. They’re also reporters, researchers, producers and administrative support staff on programs throughout the CBC. For the most part, there were no grand announcements about them because, by definition, contract employment allows for simple termination.

158 are permanent employees who will receive redundancy notices and they have rights, including bumping in certain cases. But that won’t ease the shock. Anyone who’s ever received a “redundancy notice” never forgets what it feels like.

Another 73 people are taking a voluntary retirement incentive (VRIP), and their positions are being abolished. Among that list are Newsworld’s Don Newman, John McGrath, the radio legislative reporter based in Toronto, and Steve Finkelman, the radio political reporter in Edmonton, and one of the six who will retire this summer in that city. There is producer Mark Bulgutch, a thirty-year veteran and dean of TV news specials at the CBC. There are long-time network cameramen Mark Parkman and Richard Furlong who’ve been everywhere and shot it all. Because of the nature of the VRIP approach, these 73 people are among the CBC’s most experienced, knowledgeable and recognizable employees.

And then there are the many, many people affected by this cut who are just starting careers at CBC. It is the loss of these people, and the work that they’ve been doing, that makes me anxious for the future of the public broadcaster. We know that half of the people creating radio programming in Sudbury are losing their jobs, for example. These are keen young journalists who should have had the opportunity to become the veterans of the future. We know there are people being cut from Radio 2 in locations big and small who do the type of work that doesn’t get done by any other radio station.

Overall, we are experiencing a huge loss of talent, energy and commitment from the CBC. It is a loss for the media industry as a whole. And in this climate, it’s possible it will be gone forever.

Please comment with your own sense of the impact of the cuts.

Sandbox feud detracts from real issue: they’re killing local TV

2009-05-22T17:58:00.001-04:00

There’s a cute little feud going on between media giants. In one corner, CTV, which last week launched a totally cynical “campaign” to save local news. Give me a break. They have a website, but I don’t even want to link to it here for fear you’ll visit and increase their click count.

In the opposite corner, Rogers, Bell, Telus and Cogeco, who today launched a complaint at the CRTC against CTV’s “one-sided and unbalanced coverage” of the subject of the feud … whether CTV can get access to cable and satellite subscriber fees.

In an annoying spot that CTV seems to run at least every half hour in prime time, the network blames its threat of killing local television on the fact that it doesn’t get money directly from cable and satellite subscribers. No, they don’t put it that way, exactly. Apparently there were also “reports” about the campaign on local newscasts. Tomorrow, they’re planning rallies at their local stations and trying to get people to pressure their MPs on the network’s behalf. Is this is advocacy journalism, 21st century style??

(Can you imagine the reaction if CBC did something like this?)

The cable guys are no angels, of course. They raise subscriber fees any time for any reason. Now they’re saying that if they have to raise fees to pay the conventional networks, it’ll hurt their business. Whatever.

Meanwhile, three CTV stations are still in limbo. CTV said it will close stations in Brandon, Windsor and Wingham on August 31.

Then Shaw (another cable guy) ran an ad in CTV’s own newspaper (the Globe and Mail) on May 1 – in the midst of CRTC licence hearings where the spat hit the headlines – saying it would buy the stations for $1 each. Curiously, we’ve heard no more from Shaw on this since then.

If CTV really wanted to “save local TV”, would it really hang these stations, these employees, these communities out to dry while they negotiate a better deal with Ottawa?

Petty media games in the hallways of power

2009-04-28T19:28:00.003-04:00

There’s a lot going on in the broadcast industry these days: a crisis in local news, fights between broadcasters and cable and satellite providers about who’s going to pay to make sure local programming survives, the 800 job losses at the CBC and hundreds of other job losses at other media organizations.

So you have to wonder why the Quebecor-owned SunMedia chain ran a piece yesterday rehashing a month-old story. On March 25, CBC president Hubert Lacroix said Corporation managers are going to get their performance bonuses slashed by 20% to 50%, for a saving of $4 million, as part of his speech to staff about the 800 layoffs. All the information in the top three paragraphs of the SunMedia article was in Lacroix’s speech to staff that day; a speech that was heavily covered in the media.

The only new element is that two Conservative MPs, (Shelley Glover and Rod Bruinooge) used their time in a parliamentary committee meeting on the crisis in local television on Monday to grill Lacroix about the bonuses. And though nothing new was revealed by Lacroix that wasn’t known a month ago, the story ran today with a prominent headline (“CBC to give perks and pink slips” ) in the Edmonton Sun and under a variety of other headlines throughout the chain.

It goes without saying that I’m not a fan of every executive decision made at the CBC in the past few years. And I know that reading about money spent on hotels and dinners has a deflating effect on Guild members. But it’s no coincidence the story about expenses just happened to be filed days before Lacroix’s scheduled appearance before the committee and just as the government is weighing whether any program to help the broadcasters cope with the crisis in the industry will include the public broadcaster.

One thing is for sure: rehashing old bonus news, and celebrating expenses filed three years ago just doesn’t seem too relevant when people are talking about the very survival of the news business and the future of conventional television.

You’d think Glover and Bruinooge would be concerned about the bigger-picture stuff. Both happen to come from the Winnipeg area, home of Canwest, which is spending these days teetering on the edge of bankruptcy and in desperate need of government help.

CBC's Real Estate King has left the building

2009-04-27T00:46:00.002-04:00

It was a classic Friday announcement – unnoticed until late in the day. But it was a big one. The head of CBC’s real estate division, Michel St-Cyr is leaving. He’s “accepted an offer in the private sector,” according to CBC CEO Hubert Lacroix, who implies this is part of a new direction. Let's hope so.

“Michel’s departure gives me the chance to push forward with my review of the structure, roles and responsibilities of the Senior Executive Team,” according to Lacroix’s note.

St-Cyr was a creation of former CBC CEO Robert Rabinovitch. And what a creation he was! Within months of his arrival, a whole real estate division at CBC sprouted (needless to say, the public broadcaster had never had a real estate division) and grew until it had a staff of 50 and its own communications director.

St-Cyr reported directly to Rabinovitch as “president” of the Real Estate division, bypassing the VPs of the media divisions. Real Estate was the Power!!!

The impact of the Real Estate grip on CBC decision-making and the mantra of “monetizing” the public broadcaster’s space cannot be underestimated.

Desks were measured with a view to squashing as many people as possible into some newly leased space too small for the numbers (look at CBC Ottawa, Edmonton). Real Estate staffers were shocked when we dared to suggest that media employees needed different types of space than the cookie-cutter call-centre model. The idea seemed alien to these designers and architects who no doubt had workspace appropriate for their needs.

Real Estate Power precipitated the layoff two years ago of 80 people who made sets, costumes and other elements of TV production at CBC Toronto. They happened to work in what was then considered valuable and large basement space in the heart of the city. Needless to say, the space still sits empty and producers of CBC programs have to get their sets built by outside contractors. The Real Estate folks? They're still on payroll, of course.

Further, there are many who believe Real Estate was the real catalyst for radio-TV integration because of the compression of workspace that would come with it. The idea was uttered at a corporate real estate conference several years ago. Couldn’t be true, could it???

Some people credit St-Cyr and Rabinovitch for creating a cash flow for the CBC when it needed it. But while the Real Estate empire was growing, the real crisis facing the CBC was being masked by the rush of Real Estate cash: no one was screaming about the woeful underfunding of the public broadcaster as a whole, not while the “quarter billion dollars in value” was being created. (It’s never been clear whether that value credited to St-Cyr was one-time value or ongoing money that can be counted on.)

In any case, here we are eight years after the creation of the Real Estate Power, with a $171M shortfall that Real Estate can’t fix, 800 layoffs on the horizon, and an unleased partly empty building in Toronto. There’s no word on whether St-Cyr will be replaced, but if Lacroix wants to send a real signal to his employees and to Ottawa that he's trying to renew the public broadcaster, let's hope St-Cyr's position is "monetized" in order to save a few of the jobs slated for layoff.

CBC: Now more than ever

2009-04-09T16:07:00.006-04:00

Canadians should be appalled at how the Harper government has handled the CBC file. It’s brought on a crisis in the media and culture industries that didn’t have to be. There’s not a lot of money at stake. In that way, it’s very similar to the furor caused by the $45M in arts cuts announced last summer.

In this case, the solutions are even there for all to see. They can be found in an all-party parliamentary committee report of last year. Let’s get Harper to listen to them.

The CMG and its allies are launching a campaign to help Canadians get the message to the leaders in Parliament that we need the CBC now more than ever.

Click here to send a letter to the Prime Minister and the leaders of the opposition parties urging them to:
§ increase CBC's annual parliamentary allocation by $7 per Canadian by the end of this year;
§ develop a 7-year contract with the CBC that sets expectations and guarantees funding indexed to inflation; and
§ provide immediate bridge financing to reduce the cuts this spring.

Click here to find out more about the campaign.

Let's consider this the Arts Cuts, Round 2.

The CBC cuts and the $1.1B: one has real impact and the other is meaningless

2009-04-07T19:17:00.006-04:00

It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly two weeks since the first word of the cut at the CBC…and my last post. Most days I felt so overwhelmed and saddened by the news it was hard to know where to start … so I stopped (for a while).

The more we learn, the more about this CBC cut is just wrong. The degree of impact on communities across the country is so much greater than the relatively small amount of money it would cost to prevent the cut. Take Sudbury as an example, where hundreds of people turned up at a rally Sunday. It’s about to lose half its radio staff. Less than half a million dollars would save these jobs. But without them, places such as North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Timmins -- not to mention the entire James Bay coast won’t get covered.

The sheer value of information and culture the CBC provides in places like Sudbury are impossible to measure and track and that applying dollar signs to this type of public service is simply impossible and meaningless.

That’s what irks me so much about the way the Harper government, through Heritage Minister James Moore, has responded to this cut. His approach has been all about placing a distorted value on a single dollar figure by suggesting the $1.1B that has been budgeted for the CBC is some crazy amount of money, that’s it’s even a mark of generosity, a financial line in the sand. It's even unprecedented, according to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

The truth is the CBC got $1.1B as far back as 1992. The figure dipped down in the late 90s, and was up over $1B every year since 2002. The CBC’s budget has had no increase for inflation in all that time. Put another way, if the CBC was granted the budget it got in 1992 in real dollars today…that would be $1.5B (and it would mean none of these cuts would be necessary and CBC radio could move into under-served areas such as Hamilton, Red Deer and Kelowna).

To further put the $1.1B figure in context, take a look at Canwest Global’s operating budget for 2008. It’s $1.7B. That pays for newspapers, television and the Canada.com web site --in one language. Compare that to CBC’s radio, TV and internet programming of nearly all Canadian original material in both languages, the Northern radio service in 8 Aboriginal languages and the international service. Does $1.1B for all that seem as “substantial” as Moore would have you believe?

Another layoff day at CBC: so sad and so inconclusive

2009-03-25T21:56:00.004-04:00

It all seems so familiar. Waiting for the CBC job cut announcement that’s been looming for weeks, and then hearing it, for yet another time, another year. But this year's version somehow seems so ... hollow.

We know that taking 800 jobs out of the CBC will have immense consequences, yet we have no faces or programs to attach to those job losses. In most cases, people are going home tonight not knowing how or if their own show or their own workplace will be affected. At Radio-Canada, we did learn that weekend news shows are being scrapped except for the one in Ottawa, the TV noon shows in Ottawa, Quebec and Moncton are gone, and the morning radio show in Windsor is being cancelled. But the details are coming out painfully, one piece at a time.

We don’t who will leave or even whether it will be by their choice or by layoff. Will the CBC be permitted to offer voluntary incentive packages to people who have the so-called 85 formula (years of service plus the years of age equaling 85 or more)? It’s up to the Heritage Minister to grant permission for that, according to CBC CEO Hubert Lacroix. And we don’t know when that permission may or may not come.

It was a day all about numbers; the $171 million needed to balance the budget, the $125 million that may come from a sale of assets, TV’s share of the cut (83%), radio’s share of the cut (17%). A lot of numbers, dissected many ways.

Yet at the end of the day, we know very little except the CBC is once again not being supported by the government, for no reason other than straight politics being played by Harper’s PMO. Stephen Harper mused about privatizing English TV as far back as 2004 and we all know about last year’s culture cuts. He’s been able to defend not providing the bridge financing by calling the base $1.1B allocation “record financing”, when even his Heritage Minister James Moore has acknowledged it’s not actually the most ever. On Friday, Moore more properly used the word “straight financing”. (As far back as 1990-91, the CBC was getting just under $1.1B which in today’s dollars would be $1.5B. So much for record financing.)

The numbers obfuscate so much. Tomorrow, we will learn details about program cuts. We are sad tonight, but I know we'll get mad tomorrow.

Harper government game-playing and the media crisis

2009-03-18T18:58:00.009-04:00

So let’s get this straight. Seems CanWest hired a former senior advisor to Stephen Harper to help with its lobbying efforts to stave off bankruptcy.

This is only reported after Heritage Minister James Moore says he’s considering ways to help private broadcasters weather the economic storm.

Meanwhile, CBC management dutifully meets with Moore to look for what little help a crown corporation can seek, since it can’t get loans or other financial breaks. Let’s remember the government and parliament are directly responsible for the CBC and as Heritage Minister, this job falls to Moore. But what happens?

Somebody leaks the fact and content of the CBC-Moore meetings to a SunMedia columnist, part of the Quebecor chain which takes every opportunity to slam what it considers to be a media rival, especially in Quebec. The Sun piece ridicules the idea that the CBC should be seeking help from the government.

Greg Weston’s most recent column uses indirect quotes to provide unsubstantiated information about the CBC, its budget crisis, the potential number of layoffs and the minister’s support for the Corporation.

Someone’s playing games here and they should stop.

Now the minister would be wise to move on to the real business of funding the CBC appropriately according to recommendations of the all-party Heritage committee of a year ago, before completely violating the arm's length relationship between the government and the public broadcaster. See our open letter to the minister about this.

More on the government’s plans for looser regulations for the private broadcasters once we have the details. Should have lots to say.

A troubled employer and the Conservatives are laughing????

2009-03-09T17:09:00.001-04:00

Word in just now that when Liberal Culture Critic Pablo Rodriguez asked a question in today’s Question Period about CBC funding, government MPs applauded and laughed in sync.

Hey, this is an employer that is about to make cuts and announce layoffs because the government of the day has decided not to find a relatively small sum to loan it. And that’s funny??? In today’s economy?

This is political partisanship at its very lowest. This government, through the actions of its MPs in the House, is openly mocking our public broadcaster, and dismissing the importance of more Canadians potentially losing their jobs.

Every Canadian should be outraged at this infantile display, whether or not they support the CBC getting a few million dollars of bridge financing.

CRTC fund gives hope to distressed local TV

2009-03-06T11:09:00.002-05:00

The CRTC's proposed fund to improve local TV programming in small markets is the key to saving local news. The Local Programming Improvement Fund (LPIF), announced last year and still under development, could be devoted to supporting initiatives to save local TV stations that are being abandoned by the big media conglomerates, such as the one at CHCH in Hamilton.

It is exactly the right thing at the right time. And it is more important than ever that the fund maintain those original principles of helping small market stations – both publicly- and privately-owned – improve local programming, and especially news.

The money for the fund will come from a percentage of cable and satellite revenues and is expected to amount to $60 million in the first year. Of the total, $40 million will be devoted to English-language markets and $20 million to French-language markets of less than one million.

In proposing the fund, the CRTC denied the TV networks access to cable and satellite fees with no strings attached. We note that Canwest’s most recent submission to the CRTC, made public this week, now asks that the fund simply be handed over to the conventional stations in all markets “to help subsidize local news” at a diminished level, which would negate the purpose of the fund. Canwest announced in February that it is trying to sell the E! network stations, including CHCH, and will shut them if new owners can’t be found.

The structure of the big media companies has not been friendly to local programming and there's no good reason that new money from cable and satellite should continue to prop up a model that hasn’t worked for local TV.

I urge other communities with stations at risk develop action plans that involve the use of this fund.

The fight to save local news is on

2009-03-05T16:59:00.011-05:00

People are fighting back to save their local news.

First, the employees and community of Hamilton got together in a move to buy CHCH in the Canwest firesale and return it to local ownership. It's a wonderful effort I'll write much more about later.

Now at least one city council is stepping up to sound the alarm. Not surprisingly, it's Windsor, which knows what it's like to lose a station (CBC in 1991 -- it returned in 1994). Now it's losing CTV's A Channel at the end of August. And because of the government-CBC budget dispute, there’s concern about the future of the CBC in Windsor too.

Last night, Windsor City Council adopted a resolution that calls on Council and the Mayor to petition the CRTC and the government to do a comprehensive review of the crisis in conventional TV and do what it takes to focus on policies that will guarantee Canadian media content in markets such as Windsor.

Here’s what it says:

Whereas the citizens of Windsor and Essex County want and deserve a strong local and Canadian television presence; and
Whereas Windsor-Essex is located with 1000 yards of a major American media shadow; and
Whereas Windsor-Essex is a unique region with regards to the impact of local issues and how they have profound provincial and national impact in areas such as the U.S. Canadian border, International Trade and the Auto Industry, to name a few; and
Whereas the CRTC has announced that later this year a review of the crisis in conventional television will take place;
Therefore, be it resolved that Council and the Mayor, for the City of Windsor, Ontario, petition the CRTC and the Government of Canada to undertake the following:

Without further delay, immediately commence a comprehensive review of the crisis in conventional television; and
That this review look at all policy framework with the intent of creating new, and/or enhancing existing policies in order to guarantee Canadian media content in unique markets such as Windsor-Essex, by way of special designations, recognizing the close proximity of major U.S. media; and
During this review, interim measures be immediately instituted in order to protect markets such as Windsor-Essex, and any other media markets, currently at risk of not having their broadcast license renewed by the current license holders.

Percy Hatfield, a former CBC Windsor reporter, is now a Windsor councillor and just happens to be at a meeting of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities this week. Let’s hope he spreads his Windsor zeal to every community in this country.