08:35 on 2012/06/11 Reply  

• Matt 08:41 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  I used to love your blog Kate. Now its nothing but protest related posts (and you are clearly biased towards one side). This place is no longer fun and it really saddens me. I know this is a Montreal blog and all of this is happening in Montreal – but is there nothing else going on in the city anymore?

• ant6n 08:48 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  @Matt
  Don’t shoot the messenger

• Kate 08:52 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  This is current news. How should I have reported this? “Vicious anarchists are expected to congregate outside the Forum of the Americas, which is meeting to work out how much benefit they can benevolently bring to the habitually lazy, feckless denizens of their respective countries. Luckily the manly, tireless SPVM police will thwart the anarchists’ evil intentions and show the world Montreal is prepared to repress any and all dissent” ?

  In the last few days I’ve linked to stories about ethnic neighbourhoods, the Lafontaine Park zoo, Euro 2012 fans in town and concerns about the state of the sewers. I was about to link to further stories about urban agriculture and Bixi.

  I can’t help the fact that we’re in a season of demonstrations and that those are the biggest news.

• Ephraim 09:00 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  @Kate – Your post was fine. Don’t worry about it.

• Kate 09:06 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  Incidentally, and even though I promised a few days ago to try not to bring my own opinions to the blog because it was making people angry:

  I NEVER EVER EVER PROMISED THIS BLOG WAS GOING TO BE UNBIASED.

  EVER.

  I am not a journalist with the modern journalist’s implied “balanced” position. I try to look at what is happening in this town from day to day, but I’ve lived here all my life, including doing this blog for more than ten years, and I think I am capable of looking at trends and commenting on where I see things going.

  If you want, you can go to Google News and plug in “Montreal” and get a list of current stories. It’s easy to do.

• Mark 09:06 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  I think this is further evidence that providing no extra commentary won’t make people think you’re running an “unbiased” blog. Indeed I don’t think a truly unbiased news source is even possible; I think the best we can do is attempt to make our biases known.

  A few weeks ago I was looking around for international coverage of the unrest here, and I found myself on the Wikipedia’s list of France’s newspapers. What immediately struck me is that their political affiliation–insofar as you can represent such a thing in one dimension–was given for each. The list of Canadian newspapers has no such labels. Now I know this is the Wikipedia and there is no guarantee of consistency across similar pages, but reading more about the French papers indicated that they do indeed have open biases. My opinion is that, Canadian news outlets have biases as well but that we are supposed to believe that we as a country are past thay sort of thing. I think most people know this too, implicitly or explicitly, but still the illusion of official objectivity persists.

• cheese 09:10 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  Personally I think Kate’s commentary is excellent, generally really helpful and that is the main reason I read this blog. Perhaps not totally unbiased but she never intended this blog to be unbiased. Odd that this particular post which is very spartan and does not seem to take sides at all is the one which spurred the comment.

  Keep up the great work Kate!

• Kate 09:15 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  Thank you, cheese.

  I would also like to add: if someone feels there should be a Montreal news blog done from a right-wing bias, I say: go for it! I’d like you to show us how it should be done.

• Bill Binns 09:33 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  Kate, most bloggers have some axe to grind or some political slant to push or they wouldn’t have bothered to start a blog in the first place. It’s really your professional tone and writing skills that made me think of you as an unbiased journalist for a time. Of all the people who express opinions here, I don’t see why you should be excluded. Let your lefty flag fly!

• Steve Quilliam 10:48 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  I don’t want to sound to negative here but i’m also a little tired of the protest related articles or blogs. I don’t care about the bias or unbias part as i am well capable of forming my own opinion on whatever is going on but at one point….

  Just like LCN which i had to stop watching (fairly easy since i dont have a TV at home only at work). It gets a little crazy when they send 3 or 4 journalists in the middle of the ”hopefully upcoming possible” action and, suddenly, there’s one fist thrown and it becomes the news of the day. They are pushing/encouraging the little anti-capitalist idiots to do something bad in order for them to have something relevant to show on the news.

  There was ten times (if not hundred times) more people for Francofolies and yet the medias are almost completely silent. There was thousands of people on Mont-Royal street this week end and a complete black out from our medias. There is also no coverage of Festival mondial de la bière, or hardly, and i’m pretty sure thousands of people showed up.

  What i’m saying is that some medias are focusing to much on what might happen and making a big story out of nothing. This blog focused to much on this for a while, in my own opinion, but it is the prerogative of the blogger. Other small but interesting stories, like both coffee article this morning or the ethnic neighborhood related post are what this blog is all about.

  So, i like this blog very much and despite the numerous protest related post i still refer this blog to my american friends with pleasure. I like it when i can find good Montreal articles in english for them to be able to read what is going on in Montreal and i think Kate is the best ressource for that so i simply thank her fro providing this ”service” !

• Blork 10:53 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  Kate, I think you’re doing a great job as-is and there’s no need to change anything. And your comment that you never promised to be unbiased is bang-on.

  And for what it’s worth, as others have said, every media outlet has a bias. The ‘implied “balanced” position,’ as you put it, is a journalistic standard in which journalists are compelled to present both sides of a story, and if they don’t do so it affects their credibility *as journalists.* That doesn’t mean they are unbiased. After all, say what you want about journalists, but they are human beings, not robots. Being unbiased is only a problem if you claim to be unbiased while you are not.

• Kate 11:00 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  Blork, Bill Binns, cheese: thanks for the support.

  Steve Quilliam: I say again, demonstrations are the order of the day. I ‘ve been trying to do one demo entry a day summarizing what has happened, but Grand Prix weekend was so crazy it demanded more attention and now this CLAC demo is separate news, because it’s not really part of the overall student protest picture (which isn’t to say there’ll be no crossover between the participants).

  It also doesn’t help your problem with the blog that the demo entries tend to provoke a lot of discussions. Maybe you could use the Toggle Comment Threads link at the top of the page to turn off all the comments and just skim the posts?

• Jack 11:51 on 2012/06/11 Permalink

  Kate , one more time keep doing what you do! Naturally some people will be pissed but who cares.

• JaneyB 17:48 on 2012/06/12 Permalink

  I also enjoy Kate’s witty and often sage commentary. I also like the way she referees commentors – a good thing because it is her blog, after all. Be as ‘biased’ as you like Kate. How can anyone be neutral about their city anyway?

  The many protest entries here lately are a very welcome antidote to the MSM coverage. I am just stunned at the brazen disinformation that they are generating on the topic. Thanks to all the local bloggers and Twitterers who spend their free time getting the word out. I think it was here that I learned of the blog “Translating the printemps érable” (now: http://www.quebecprotest.com). Fabulous!!

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