Temperatures are falling, so emergency spaces for itinerants are being made available. But it seems unlikely we’ll be getting more snow before Christmas.
Updates from December, 2018 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Charges for parking meters and car towing will be going up this spring.
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Kate
Montrealers were, I think, dubious when the Coderre administration decided to build a vast new amphitheatre on St Helen’s Island for Evenko, involving cutting down hundreds of trees and paving a large area of the park. Even so, it isn’t good news for the city that Quebec has withdrawn a promise to help pay for what’s repeatedly called a “natural amphitheatre” in this story.
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Kate
I mentioned recently that the Gazette has an anti-Plante bias, but it’s not the only entity that does. TVA suggests Valérie Plante basically stole the RDP‑PAT byelection by blandishing the residents of an old folks’ home. They even quote a UQÀM professor who suggests Projet confused the oldies with a candidate who used to work for Chantal Rouleau, the Coderre/Ensemble mayor who ascended to the National Assembly recently, so that the fuddled oldsters must have voted for her by mistake.
Obviously media will always be criticizing city hall, and in some sense that’s what it’s meant to do – ask questions and inform readers of anomalies; some commenters have suggested that because Projet is “anti-car” while media rely on car advertising, that might have an effect too. But I’m feeling something a little more personal against Plante. I can’t tell yet whether it’s because she’s a woman or mildly lefty or some combination. That will no doubt become clearer with time.
At least most media were fairly bland in their reports on the traditional Christmastime open house at city hall, particularly given that the building will soon be closed a long time for renovations. (Although I have a faint qualm about the face makeup on those girls in the Gazette photo.) However, CTV didn’t hesitate to get in a barb about Plante not making a firm statement about her plans for 2019 during the event, and reporting on a dip in her popularity. Nice Christmas spirit, CTV.
Kevin
I am always amused when people say that advertising has some sort of influence over news coverage.
Having worked as a journalist several cities and two countries the one constant is that there is no contact between the advertisers and the sales people and the news people creating content.
The news people have no idea which ads are running and are actually the least likely to even see these ads.
Kate
That was my experience too, Kevin, but is there no sense in which decisions on tone adopted by upper management editorial people would filter down? Just as a paper will often decide which party or position they back in an important election, mightn’t there be some overall position taken for unspoken reasons?
Kevin
As for managers, like everything else in the business their numbers have been affected by layoffs too.
The manager may push to have certain stories covered but it is of the “hey make sure we cover that court verdict as quickly as possible today”. He is not a tone police officer.
Coverage with what appears to be a negative slant is usually, simply, a reflection of the populace at large, many of whom don’t frequently follow or participate in politics until it affects them. And every government is elected in absolute numbers, by a minority of the actual population, so we should all remember that political policy supporters are actually weirdos 😉
I can give you half a dozen reasons some reporters don’t like Plante’s administation, or didn’t like Coderre’s, or don’t like Legault’s. And most of them will come down to interpersonal relationships, or being annoyed that someone is yet again 45 minutes late for a meeting, or just, like any other citizen, not liking the policies. And at the same time there are reporters who love those administrations and what they are doing.
Raymond Lutz
“Coverage with what appears to be a negative slant is usually, simply, a reflection of the populace at large,” Hmm… les contre exemples sont nombreux: je pense à l’article du JdM sur la Mosquée qui ne voulait pas de femmes ouvrières sur son chantier… Je pense à la couverture merdique des medias mainstream français concernant les Gilets Jaunes. La couverture mensongère des media US beating the war drums before the Irak invasion.
Again, not mtl related, mais je ne peux laisser passer cette discussion sur les “manufacturing consent” media sans y mettre mon grain de sel et au moins un lien… this one about a former TIME editor literally admiting he’s for governement propaganda! “Political Disruptions: Combating Disinformation and Fake News (sic)” May 2018 Council on Foreign Relations Workshop Youtube.
Watch the other panelist griping her water bottle when Stengel does his ‘coming out’ about the joy of publishing lies and see her scratching her head when he jumps out of the stage refusing to answer a question. Quel trou de cul. It’s Operation Mockingbird all over again…
Chris
There are of course entire books on this subject, so we won’t get to the bottom of it with blog comments. If you’ve never read Herman & Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent’, I do recommend it, though of course it’s a little dated, being pre-web, but still great. There’s no need for influence to be anything as overt as Kevin describes.
Or spend some time googling ‘advertisers pulling out of’ for all kinds of examples of advertisers ditching the NFL, various Fox News shows, etc. etc. What percentage of revenue comes from ads? Think it makes no difference when they go away? Think they don’t try to keep them?
Kevin
@Raymond Lutz
Évidemment j’ai parlé en généralité mais l’exemple d’une reportage qui été rétracter par la station de nouvelles parce qu’il avait aucune base en réalité… c’était fausse, et tout le monde savez que c’était fausse. Et Des autres journalistes en suivi cette histoire et ils ont trouvé la vérité.Mais au même temps il y a beaucoup de discrimination contre les musulmans et beaucoup de peur de les autres ici au Québec. C’est un fait regrettable mais des bons journaliste sont conscient de leurs préjugés.
Je ne connais pas trop de Richard Stengel mais je note qu’il était aussi un sous secretaire de gouvernement americain, et un des premiers liens que j’ai trouvé vien de la site de propagande russe rt .com … À suivre.
@Chris
Most of what is on Fox News is not journalism. It is entertainment programming that masquerades as information and it has no ethical standards.
Rather than look at Chomsky, I would look at the US Fairness Doctrine and its repeal.Suz
Media bias and editorial slant The impact of media bias: How editorial slant affects voters — Northwestern …
https://www.scholars.northwestern.edu › t…
I guess that phenomenon does not occur here?Raymond Lutz
Suz, your URL has been mangled and only points to a website, not a particular document (as you intended?).
Chris
Kevin, the NFL isn’t journalism either. Doesn’t matter the business, when advertisers pull out, business that depend on ads listen. And they proactively keep them happy too. Actually, your description of Fox reminds me of CNN and others too. Most US ‘news’ is infotainment. It’s only slightly better here.
Which is not to say that individual journals are all bad. The world certainly needs them!
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Kate
Trudeau Airport has had its busiest year and this week will be the busiest of all.
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Kate
It was initially reported as long ago as November 2017, but now the kiosks on Phillips Square face imminent removal and won’t be back after the square is renovated. The owners, offered spaces in Jean-Talon or Atwater markets, have said no: their clientele is downtown and they want to stay there.
Steve Q
Bad decision by the Plante administration, These two small kiosk are very charming and a definite plus to that square. If they are to enlarge the square, there should be room for these two kiosk.
I don’t want to see bixi rack or toilet in that square.
Kate
There’s already a long Bixi rack along the east side of Phillips Square in season, Steve. And there were toilets there years ago, underground, as there were in Place d’Armes at the time, which isn’t to say I’d welcome the sight of those big auto-pissoirs the city bought into last year.
The city tends to de-commercialize spaces when it redoes them. There was at least one commercial kiosk around the northern edge of Place d’Armes once, selling flowers, but when they redid the square a couple of years ago it vanished. You can still see it in the 2009 shot from Streetview.
Mind you, there’s seemingly still a flower kiosk at the southern edge of Victoria Square, not far from the metro entrance on St-Jacques. At least, it’s still there on Streetview in August 2016 and I’m pretty sure I saw it there earlier this year. But that square is bigger and more varied than Place d’Armes or Phillips Square.
I think maybe the philosophy is: if you can see the whole square at a glance, don’t clutter it up with random commercial offerings. It’s rough on those kiosk owners, but the decision will visually declutter the square.
EmilyG 20:07 on 2018-12-23 Permalink
I’ve always found it a bit weird that people tend to want snow for Christmas, and then complain about snow for the rest of the winter.
Antyn 21:49 on 2018-12-23 Permalink
I’ll have 8cm of snow at -1C for xmas, please.
Kate 22:50 on 2018-12-23 Permalink
EmilyG, I think it’s that damn song.
Jorgh 18:12 on 2018-12-24 Permalink
Well, I’m in Chicoutimi and a Christmas that is not like that damn song is unknown to me. Hopefully climate change will take a long time to break that perfect record.