Quebecor's new national news agency and how it will operate is coming into focus, thanks to a recent memo sent to TSF by a tipster.
QMI Agency (Quebec Media, Inc. Agency) will handle all text and photographs generated from Quebec sources. Sun Media credits will be used for all shared text and photographs from outside Quebec.
Read the following memo from a Quebecor exec and judge for yourselves whether PKP's vision of a national news service is on track.
QMI Agency (Quebec Media, Inc. Agency) will handle all text and photographs generated from Quebec sources. Sun Media credits will be used for all shared text and photographs from outside Quebec.
Read the following memo from a Quebecor exec and judge for yourselves whether PKP's vision of a national news service is on track.
"Eds
Just to clarify the relationship between QMI and Sun Media for now, here are a few details:
Just to clarify the relationship between QMI and Sun Media for now, here are a few details:
- QMI has a separate website similar to the Sun Media Bulletin Board where they post French-language content and photos. This material is available for all to use. That material, for the large part, is included on the QMI sked which is posted for all on the Sun Media bulletin board daily.
- Sun Media's editorial coordinators monitor the QMI portal for useful images and the sked for interesting articles. Any Sun Media paper may request material from the QMI sked for translation to English.
- All material imported from the QMI site to the Sun Media site will be posted under Sun Media text and photos with one exception: The slug Sun Media is replaced with QMI Agency.
Please feel free to contact Sun Media's editorial coordinators if you have any questions or concerns about any of this."
Two points from this armchair critic.
Translations from French to English for publication in English newspapers? We have read Quebecor content translated to English and it can be erratic.
Why a mix of Sun Media, QMI Agency and, as read yesterday, Agencie QMI, when all of the news sources are Quebec Media properties?
And what's with Quebec content being branded separately from the rest of the chain?
It makes it clear the Sun Media Family is not standing under one big umbrella.
As a reader of Sun Newspapers I am dismayed that more content and editorial direction originates in Québec. Additionally, the editorial philosophy has clearly departed the right and has moved to centre. Noticeable especially in Ottawa with comments editor Kerry Thompson. Québec as a society leans strongly left and this is evident in the Sun publishing chain. Certainly is a shame to lose the voice of the right.
ReplyDeleteQMI stories are riddled with horrific grammatical errors and some barely literate ones, such as, in this story about "Missing men baffle Montreal police"...
ReplyDelete"New elements that arisen around two Laval residents who have been missing since last Wednesday have added more mystery to the case."
... need a proofreader? Hire ME, I have 40 years experience.
How about this one from Jan 26, 2010? A woman is suing Starbucks over constant sexual demands made by her supervisor, TIM HORTON!
ReplyDelete-QMI Agency
The "Tim Horton" supervisor was not a typo, just an unfortunately coincidence. The employee really was named Tim Horton.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that QMI agency is raising red flags for other people. Today's article in the Ottawa Sun About Jerry Hawley is a fine example of atrocious journalism. It seems like the reporter could only find people who barely new the man and mostly after his disabled brother died (under his care which he is now being charged with murder for). The article quotes an employer who hired him 4 months after the fact and held him for 8 months. (Doesn't say why Hawley stopped working there.) How about talking to his employer at the time of the incident? What was he doing? How many hours was he working? What kinds of stresses was he under? When and why did he become the power of attorny?
ReplyDeleteThe QMI article about Eldon James Hardy "criminally insane pedeophile on the run again" really threw me off. It was in Ottawa Sun as well. It's a hard news story that uses the word "bitching" as a verb. Not in a quote, it's in the body.
For these articles to run I assumed at least 2 editors would have to approve them. One a QMI before posting and one at the Sun before printing. What happened to standards? Is this a cost saving measure and if so to what end? Does it not contribute to the dumbing down of society? Shame. Shame on journalist everywhere for allowing it to happen.
W.S.
P.S. The spell check on my mobile device sucks, my apologies for any and all airers.
QMI has really started to produce some of the most poorly-written journalism in recent months. One of the biggest issues I have is with the link titles on-line either being misleading or simply wrong. Example: “Emergency Landing at T.O. Airport”. Click on the link and it states clearly that the problems developed after the landing; this is not an emergency landing! Or the countless quotations that end with something like “said Mr. Smith”, without ever telling us who Mr. Smith is! Shoddy writing.
ReplyDeleteReading about Ryan Kerrs puppy in 24 hours dosen't suprise me my cat was hit by a car a few years ago me and my wife tok it to Willowdale Animal Hospital they ask us for $700 before they even lok at the cat the cat was in pain. These morons care nothing about Animals they only care about money Ronnie O'brien 416 693 2856
ReplyDeleteBig mistake.
ReplyDeleteBut when have corporations thought things through in terms of good service for their actual clients?
S. Wolf
Ottawa
Only one thing that I have to say and that is that I find it REALLY misleading when I first read the initials QMI in or at the end of an article written by a Toronto reporter. This in itself is deceptive because when I "Google" "Canada pages" and the "Web", I saw NO mention of Quebecor Media and it wasn't until I "Googled" QMI Agency that I found the true meaning. What are you trying to hide from the majority of Canadaians and like some of the people writing above,I too find that """QMI has really started to produce some of the most poorly-written journalism in recent months. One of the biggest issues I have is with the link titles on-line either being misleading or simply wrong.""" and as another writer pointed out, """As a reader of Sun Newspapers I am dismayed that more content and editorial direction originates in Québec. Additionally, the editorial philosophy has clearly departed the right and has moved to centre."""
ReplyDeleteWhere were your editors and proofreaders when you let the article on Queen Victoria be published? Elizabeth Bowes-Lyons was NOT the daughter of GeorgeV and Qeen Mary but their daughter-in-law - married to their son who became GeorgeVI when EdwardVIII abdicated. Where did Susan Batsford and Megan Dinner get their educations? They must have skipped Canadian and British history.
ReplyDeleteMy jaw is on the floor. Minutes ago, I came across a 'QMI Agency' article on the Toronto Sun's website. The statement I'll repeat below from the article could be considered FRAUD, given that the article makes wild fabrications about expected attendance at the Honda Indy Toronto autoracing event, which QMI's media-sister, The Toronto Sun, is a major sponsor of.
ReplyDeleteArticle: "Start your burners"
By: "RITA DEMONTIS, QMI Agency"
Publication date: July 14th, 2010
Article link: http://www.torontosun.com/life/eat/2010/07/14/14712641.html
note: offending parts ALL-CAPPED by me:
[quote]Honda Indy is roaring into Toronto this coming weekend..
HUNDREDS OF INTERNATIONAL RACE CAR DRIVERS and CLOSE TO A QUARTER OF A MILLION SPECTATORS will be in attendance in Toronto, along with a whole contingent of mobile kitchens manned by an army of executive chefs.[/quote]
Last year was the first year that the event was held as an IRL IndyCar event (prior to a year with no Toronto race event, the previously annual auto race featured rival racing series Champ Car, which enjoyed great popularity and a long history with the event). Although actual attendance was not released last year, it wasn't hard to see that the number of grandstands was far fewer and smaller than previous years and that most of them weren't full. This year, seating capacity could be determined by looking at the online ticket-ordering webpage. Seating capacity not including corporate suites or a couple rows of 'accessible seating' for those with disabilities was just shy of 13,000. General Admission spectators of course would need to be added to whatever total are seated but AT BEST, it'd be 25-35,000 (on race day) - and realistically (as it's not expected to sell out), 15-20,000.
Even if you multiply that by 3(days), that's NOTHING like "close to a quarter of a million"
As for the number of drivers, I read elsewhere "145" across the 6 racing series taking part in the weekend, but I count 140. Either way, it's *not* HUNDREDS (plural) it's DOZENS, or "over 100" or "about 140".
When people see an article and don't know better, reading "hundreds of drivers" and "close to a quarter of a million" people expected suggests it's a pretty big deal, that you'd be out of the loop if you didn't also attend, and the admission price is good value (a quarter of a million people can't be wrong) and that the product is of such quality that it's worth seeing (again, a quarter of a million people surely can't be wrong).
Are there not certain journalistic STANDARDS QMI writers and publishers must live up to?
People need to be fired. This is inexcusable!
We are getting it in the Calgary Sun now too.I just read 2 articles with QMI journalists, if you can call them that,that were so misleading and strongly right wing they went over the limit even for the Calgary Sun.
ReplyDeletelet’s not forget the article written about the Real Estate markets which only serves the big banks and mortgage lender sponsors of the sister newspapers...LOL. Welcome to sponsor based news releases that end up in the paper and bend public opinion!
ReplyDelete