By David Farrell
Telecom complaints spike 44%
Complaints about Canadian telecom services have shot up by 44 percent, with billing mistakes and misleading contract terms the most common source of consumers' gripes, an industry ombudsman says.
"Incorrect charges" and "non-disclosure of terms" accounted for 29 percent of all complaints in the six months ending Jan. 31, the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services (CCTS) said in a mid-year report.
Canadian Media Fund webcast time & date
The Canada Media Fund (CMF) will hold a webcast to provide an overview of changes to the 2019-2020 programs budget, guidelines, and deadlines. The English webcast is to be held at 2 pm, April 9, and the French version at 11 am the same day. You can view the webcast on April 9 by clicking here or through Facebook Live.
Sex, slander & lawyers: Paul Bliss’s $7.5M defamation suit against Bell Media
The veteran television reporter who left CTV after a woman accused him of lewd behaviour at the Ontario legislature was fired for repeated sexual misconduct involving young women, new court documents allege. – Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press
West Jet April Fool’s Day inflight Flyre Festival
Like all great stories, this one begins with a flight. Welcome to #FlyreFestival – an immersive music festival at 35,000 feet on our 787 Dreamliner. The gag chalked up more than 850K views within 24 hours of West Jet’s marketing team uploading it to YouTube.
The Last Column, a book of stories by murdered journalists
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists is launching an initiative to highlight the work of slain journalists across the globe.
The campaign, called The Last Column, memorializes the final publication of journalists before they were killed. The org reports that 1,3337 journalists have been killed since 1992.
How mainstream media gets Palestine wrong
The Palestinian question has been presented as a conflict between two equal sides. The context of colonization, apartheid, illegal settlements, extrajudicial killings, home demolitions, arbitrary arrests and administrative detentions are mere footnotes in this general narrative. The word colonialism is avoided altogether because it conjures memories of the crimes of an era that Western powers would rather conveniently forget. – Mariam Barghouti, Al Jazeera
Fox News is poisoning America. Isn't it time to shun the Murdochs?
In a lengthy article in 2017, the Times reported that while Rupert Murdoch remained in control, the sons “seem determined to rid the company of its roguish, old-guard internal culture and tilt operations toward the digital future. They are working to make the family empire their own, not the one the elder Murdoch created to suit his sensibilities.” This friendly narrative bends reality. While shedding itself of Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes due to their sexual harassment of women, Fox News has not throttled back its xenophobic content. Indeed, it’s gotten worse (just watch Tucker Carlson’s show). Lachlan Murdoch even refuted the Times’s reformist narrative when he was asked at the DealBook conference — held in the Times headquarters — whether he was embarrassed by Fox News. “I’m not embarrassed by what they do at all,” he replied. – Peter Maas, The Intercept
Local Radio in the UK is getting gayer
BBC Local Radio broadcasts are getting gayer as a result of the 40-station network's commitment to introducing new, more inclusive, community-focused evening shows.
Whether there's some kind of "queer directive" at the BBC or not, it does seem as though the corporation as a whole is seeking to improve its LGBTQ coverage to attract a younger audience. – Nick Levine, Vice
