By: Karim Mostafa Quebecor Changes News Sites To Corporate Sites
Without any warning, Quebecor Inc. on Saturday shut down its two
newspaper Web sites in Quebec and in their place posted a letter
saying outside consultants recommended the closures.
Le Journal de Montreal and Le Journal de Quebec, both owned by
Quebecor's subsidiary Sun Media Corp., published online daily and
were accessible to one-year or longer print subscribers in Quebec
and to users outside of Quebec for $85.
The letter to the sites' readers said this strategy no longer fit
the newspapers' business development. It also said the sites'
subscribers would be reimbursed.
Pierre Francoeur, publisher and CEO of Le Journal de Montreal and
executive vice president and COO for Sun Media Corp.'s daily
newspapers, told The Globe and Mail that research showed users
wanted live news and interactive advertising on the sites, rather
than just a duplicate of the printed papers. Quebecor said the
unions have prevented it from revamping the Web sites, according
to the Globe and Mail article.
But Andre Dalcourt, a desk editor at the Montreal paper and secretary
of its union, Syndicat de Travailleurs de L'Information du Journal de
Montreal, says the only grievance the union has regarding the Web
sites is Sun Media moving their production away from the newspapers
and to the parent company's CANOE office in Montreal. Online since
September 1999, CANOE is the French-language version of Sun Media's
Canadian portal.
The Journal de Montreal's union objects to the two producers who post
the newspaper online being non-union workers.
Dalcourt, speaking on behalf of the union, said Quebecor's assertion
in the Globe and Mail is unfounded. 'We would be more than willing to
contribute our creativity and expertise to revamping the Web sites,'
Dalcourt said. 'We want our newspapers to be online.'
Dalcourt has requested a meeting with Francoeur to find out exactly
why the newspapers aren't online anymore. The only explanation the
newspapers and the union have received thus far is the notice that
appears online. And until now, no one knows the name of the consulting
firm that recommended the Web sites be pulled.
Francoeur has not responded to Dalcourt's request for a meeting, and
he had no comment for E&P Online.
As to the newspapers' future online presence, their online producers
are being relocated within Quebecor, said Francois Boulet, general
manager of CANOE. However, Dalcourt said the two non-union producers
were laid off.
'After meeting with the editor of Le Journal de Quebec, today or
tomorrow we will post a corporate Web site,' Boulet said Wednesday.
The new site will only post advertising and subscription information
about the print edition. Le Journal de Quebec's site also will carry
a link to CANOE's ClassifiedExtra site. Boulet didn't know what Le
Journal de Montreal's site has planned.
News from the two print editions will not appear on any of Sun
Media's other online properties. Boulet says that CANOE cannot use
content from the newspaper Web sites because of the union contract.
So far, only seven of Journal de Montreal's journalists have ever
written for CANOE and that was to produce original content on a
freelance basis, he said.
Dalcourt said, 'If our articles appear on other Web sites, we should
be compensated. It is within our jurisdiction.
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Karim Mostafa (kmostafa@editorandpublisher.com) is associate editor
for E&P Online.
(c) Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher
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