.Heather Butts has been named the new weekend anchor for CTV National News.
Currently the television news program's Toronto correspondent, Butts will take on the role previously held by Sandie Rinaldo, who has been CTV National News' weekend anchor for over 35 years.
Rinaldo now anchors the early evening edition of CTV National News on weekdays at 5:30 p.m. ET
Members of Parliament have called CBC president Catherine Tait to testify about her announcement the public broadcaster would cut 10 per cent of its work force, while not ruling out bonuses for executives.
The House of Commons heritage committee unanimously agreed on Thursday to have the president of the public broadcaster address the cuts and potential bonuses.
The committee summoned Tait to appear at its first meeting in the new year following the holiday recess, but a date has yet to be set.
MPs on the committee also agreed to report to the House that given the job cuts, it would be inappropriate for the CBC to grant bonuses to executive members. (CP)
Facing diminishing advertising revenues and demands for budget cuts from the federal government, CBC/Radio-Canada announced Monday it would shed about 10 per cent of its work force and reduce production, in an effort to address a budget shortfall of $125-million in the next fiscal year.
Catherine Tait, the public broadcaster’s president and chief executive officer, said during a meeting with staff Monday afternoon that a total of 800 jobs, including 200 vacant positions, would be cut.
The broadcaster said in a news release that the CBC and Radio-Canada would each be losing 250 positions. The remaining 300, it said, would come from technology and infrastructure “and other corporate divisions.”
Some of the 600 union and non-union layoffs, it said, “will begin immediately,” with the rest to take effect over the next 12 months. (Globe and Mail)
Dozens of workers at Ontario’s public broadcaster will return to their jobs Monday after voting this weekend to accept a new collective agreement and end a strike that’s stretched on for nearly three months, the Canadian Press reports.
TVO says the accepted offer includes a wage increase of 7.7 per cent over three years — three per cent retroactive to 2022, 2.75 per cent in 2023 and 1.75 per cent in 2024.
“Everyone at TVO is looking forward to having our team at full strength once again and focusing our efforts on delivering the important educational content and current affairs journalism TVO is known for,” CEO Jeffrey Orridge said in a news release. (CP)
Toronto Star publisher Nordstar Capital LP announced plans to put Metroland Media Group, its regional newspaper business, into bankruptcy protection on Friday.The move. eliminated 605 jobs, or two-thirds of Metroland’s work force, and will convert more than 70 weekly papers into digital-only publications.Nordstar-owned Metroland launched the court-supervised restructuring after suffering what the company called “unsustainable financial losses stemming from the changing preferences of consumers and advertisers.” Court filings show Metroland owes creditors $74.2-million. (From the Globe and Mail)
The changing world! Bell Media has cut hundreds of CTV news staff including the Ottawa bureau steadies Glen McGregor and Joyce Napier as well as Tom Walter in Los Angeles and Paul Workman in London. Are people no longer watching TV news? Just getting news online?
Brian McKenna, long-time documentary film maker and a producer of CBC's The Fifth Estate, died Friday. at the age of 77, the CBC reports..
McKenna was best known for the award-winning series The Valour and the Horror. The three-part series examining Canadian involvement in three battles during the Second World War was the subject of controversy after its release and led to a five-week investigation by the Senate, a CRTC hearing, a $500 million lawsuit and a CBC ombudsman's report.
Twitter has removed its labels for the CBC in Canada, BBC in Britain, NPR in the United States and other media outlets in China, Iran and Russia, as global news organizations evaluate their presence on the social-media platform and its use as a communications tool amid its mercurial moves.
Earlier this week, the CBC had been labelled as “69% Government-funded Media.” The Canadian public broadcaster said Twitter chief executive Elon Musk was treating journalistic independence “as a game.” The CBC decided to pause activity on Twitter for the foreseeable future, mirroring similar decisions made by NPR and PBS in the U.S.
“We are reviewing this latest development and will leave our Twitter accounts on pause before taking any next steps,” CBC spokesperson Leon Mar told The Globe and Mail on Friday. (Globe and Mail)
The CBC said Monday that it was pausing activity on
Twitter, becoming the latest media outlet to refrain from posting because of
the social-media platform’s policy on labeling accounts.
CBC said the decision comes
a day after Twitter labeled its @CBC account as “government-funded media.”
Twitter defines such outlets as those that rely mostly on government funding to
carry out operations “and may have varying degrees of government involvement
over editorial content.”
Postmedia is shuttering its
Vancouver newsrooms and asking its journalists to work from home permanently, The Globe and Mail reports.
It’s the latest move by the media company – which owns more than
130 brands, including the National Post, Vancouver Sun, The Province and
Montreal Gazette – to shrink costs.
In an internal memo obtained by The Globe and Mail and sent by
Harold Munro, editor-in-chief for The Vancouver Sun and Province on Thursday
morning, journalists at the papers were informed that their newsroom and office
space will go on the market as early as next week.
“It’s been three years since we vacated the newsrooms to work
primarily from home. Initial concerns about the sudden shift quickly gave way
to a pleasant realization that all of you have the tools and talent to thrive
away from the office,” the memo reads.
“This is to inform you that Postmedia plans to sublease the
newsroom and office space.” (Globe and Mail)
“There is an enormous opportunity to expand the reach of our
Washington Post journalism and we are moving aggressively
to seize it,” said Fred Ryan, publisher and
CEO of The Washington Post. “This next phase of
our expansion builds on an already strong foundation
and will better position us to give audiences around
the world an essential and timely news report that
encompasses the authoritative coverage that
The Post is globally renowned for.”
To support this initiative, The Post will add 15 new positions,
largely based internationally. The majority of positions apply
to the newsroom but also include advertising and subscriptions roles.
The newsroom positions will be dedicated to enhancing
The Post’s around-the-clock news operation. The Post first
established its global live news team in 2021 with the openings
of news hubs in London and Seoul focused on covering breaking
news as it unfolds around the world during Washington’s overnight hours.
The new roles expanding this operation include a senior
head of audience focused on international growth, visual
reporters in both news hubs, global audience editors focused
on SEO, social and analytics and two newsletter editors aimed
at developing international audience growth through email.
Alesia Lewis, director of finance, and Sara Sorcher, head of the
London hub, will take on leadership of an international
coordinating group that has been studying and pursuing
opportunities to elevate and expand Post offerings
to global readers. Lewis will serve at the Vice President level
of the company and Sorcher will take on a senior leadership
role driving this new initiative.
The Post additionally is expanding its coverage of
international issues with three new positions: A second
correspondent in Ukraine, an investigative reporter focused
on tech and misinformation and a visual forensics
reporters focused on China.
After more than a decade of deep cuts to staff at the Montreal Gazette, many felt the incisions simply couldn’t go any deeper. But in January, the Postmedia chain (which owns the Gazette as well as the National Post, Ottawa Citizen, Edmonton Journal, and Calgary Herald, among many other newspapers) announced cuts across the board.
Already down to just 40 newsroom staff at the Gazette, employees were not told who would be getting laid off and who would stay. A backlash ensued that included a “reverse the cuts” petition, followed by some businessmen suggesting the paper should be bought out from Postmedia so as to preserve its local news coverage.
Postmedia has responded by establishing an advisory council that will attempt to come up with solutions to enhance community engagement and ensure the paper’s future.
One Gazette staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions at work, granted this interview to Canadaland. This reporter said the Gazette is, understandably, not a happy place to be at the moment: “It’s an atmosphere of absolute fear and loathing.”
Postmedia did not respond to our requests for comment. This interview is edited and condensed for clarity. (Canadaland)
Long-time broadcast analyst Barry Kiefl posted sone interesting points:
The federal government will remove the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from all government-issued mobile devices on Feb. 28 in response to privacy and security concerns, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier announced Monday.
The government will also block the app from being downloaded on official devices in the future.
After a review of TikTok, the Chief Information Officer of Canada decided the app “presents an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security,” Ms. Fortier said in a statement. The popular app is used for making and posting short videos, which are often accompanied by catchy music and focused on trends, including dances and pranks. Rola Salem, a Treasury Board spokesperson, said in a statement that besides TikTok, no other social media apps are being blocked at this time, though the government is conducting a “broader review of social media applications on work devices.” (Globe and Mail)
Google is testing ways of blocking Canadians’ access to news websites in response to the federal government’s online news bill, which would force the company and other tech giants to compensate news organizations for using their work.
The restricted access to global and Canadian news sites, which began earlier this month, will continue for five weeks, according to Google spokesman Shay Purdy.
Mr. Purdy said Google is “briefly testing product responses” to the bill, and that the tests will affect less than 4 per cent of Canadians using the search engine. “We run thousands of tests each year to assess any potential changes to Search,” he added.
But the office of federal Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez sharply condemned the move, saying Canadians won’t be intimidated by the tactic.
Laura Scaffidi, a spokeswoman for Mr. Rodriguez, accused Google of imitating Facebook, which in October said it would not rule out blocking Canadians’ access to news if the online news legislation, known as Bill C-18, passes without changes.
In Australia, in 2021, Facebook temporarily blocked access to news on its platforms in response to a similar law. Australians woke up to find that Facebook pages with local and world news sites were unavailable.
The platform lifted the ban days later, after an Australian minister held talks with Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, and agreed to make amendments to the bill.
“It’s disappointing to hear that Google seems to be borrowing from Facebook’s playbook. This didn’t work in Australia, and it won’t work here because Canadians won’t be intimidated,” Ms. Scaffidi said. “At the end of the day, all we’re asking the tech giants to do is compensate journalists when they use their work.”
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, a member of the Commons heritage committee, which scrutinized Bill C-18, said Google is attempting to “intimidate Canadians,” and that the tactic would backfire.
“As opposed to what Google hopes to achieve here, my hope is that it has the opposite effect and makes Canadians realize why social media giants need government scrutiny and reasonable regulation,” he said. (CP)
