Top 5 Halifax Media Stories of the Year (Part 1)

People don't write about the Halifax media scene much. It's probably for the very good reason that no one cares. But 2011 was an eventful year for all of us who have secret Joseph Howe tattoos and meet at the clubhouse on Wednesdays.

Please join me and my friend Mr. Wiser's as we run down the top five storylines involving Halifax media in the past year.

5) Global's comeback... any minute now

2011 was supposed to be the year Global re-emerged from years of wandering in the wilderness. A half-decade ago Global's then-owner Canwest moved production to Alberta and cut a bunch of jobs. Ratings plummeted.

Since then, the Nova Scotia news scene has been pretty consistent. CTV dominates with a roughly 70% share of the 6 o'clock market. CBC is still well behind but has been steadily chipping away at CTV's lead and currently sits at around 27%. Global has languished at about, let me do the math quickly... 3%.

(Note: I wrote this passage early yesterday evening. A few hours later the latest edition of allNovaScotia.com came out with some updated numbers, which basically show these trends continuing.)

Then things started to change in Fall of 2010 when anchor Tarek Hagamad pulled a Kai Nagata, decided he couldn't work for corporate media anymore and quit his job on short notice. Like, really short notice. As in his boss Allan Rowe had to rush in to read the the 11:00 news.

In 2012 Global bounced back by hiring veteran CTV newsman Ron Kronstein. The station was sold to Shaw, which ended years of labour uncertainty by finalizing a long-awaited new contract with the union.

Shaw talked a big game. It spruced up the website. It was going to start a new morning show to take on CTV's breakfast television. It was going to pump money into ad campaigns claiming its reporters are 50% sexier than the competition (or at least that's what I'd do). It was going to be a contender.

But then things kind of stalled. The morning show launch was pushed to 2012, so we'll have to sit back and see if the station's multi-year comeback comes to fruition. But so far this year they've bought a new property on Gottingen Street and will move to central Halifax from godforsaken Burnside.

Also they were the first local station to invest in HD equipment so you can see your local news anchor in high definition, if you're into that sort of thing.

4) Stan Kutcher takes on the Coast and everyone's sorry

When Liberal hopeful Stan Kutcher took on the NDP's Megan Leslie for the federal seat of Halifax in the spring he highlighted his career as a child psychologist.

But that wasn't good enough for The Coast news editor Tim Bousquet, hater of children. Bousquet wrote a story pointing out Kutcher was one of the authors in the infamous Paxil 329 study. I say infamous because the study was revealed to have exaggerated the benefits and downplayed the potentially harmful effects of Paxil, a child antidepressant from GlaxoSmithKline

After the Coast story was published things started to get weird. Someone from Kutcher's camp went on Anonymous message boards and claimed Scientologists were smearing Kutcher to keep him from getting elected. Now, Scientologists have waged a war against pharmaceuticals and done shady things to silence people (to say the very least). But neither Bousquet or Alison Bass, who wrote the book on Paxil 329 called Side Effects, are members of that cult. Bousquet's crazy, but not that crazy.

It didn't matter. Ever looking for an excuse to rage, Anonymous members sprang to Kutcher's defence. The Coast claims its website was attacked, though some Anonymous members accused the weekly of crying wolf.

In the end the Coast was sunk not by Anonymous, but by a single word. Bousquet's story quoted Bass on how the study authors hid that some teens became suicidal on Paxil and had to withdraw from the study. Bass said “They essentially distorted the outcome measures, and essentially lied.” Kutcher threatened to sue.

Now lying is a tricky concept to prove legally. The Coast went to their lawyer (why the story wasn't vetted beforehand is beyond me), who told them he could defend 99% of the story, but proving the lying part... well, imagine trying to explain the complexities of medical science ethics to a jury of your peers.

Not wanting to risk it, Coast owners ended up printing a groveling apology. "The Coast retracts those statements and without reservation, apologizes to Dr. Kutcher for having published them. We recognize that Stan Kutcher is the federal Liberal candidate in Halifax and we sincerely regret having published those statements during the campaign," it read in part.

The apology came at a particularly bad time for the Coast, as it had just apologized to pollster Don Mills months earlier for a blog headline insinuating he was "push polling". Kutcher sent out a jubilant news release claiming complete vindication and spent the final days of the campaign dodging any further questions about the Paxil study.

He was then crushed on election day by Megan Leslie.

3) The collapse and decline of Frank Magazine, in that order

By a mile, no news outlet had as crazy a year as Frank Magazine. More like 15 months really as it was fall of 2010 when Frank stalwart Cliff Boutilier (a.k.a. A. Frank Grunt) left and owner John Williams sold the gossip mag to Cape Breton rich guy Parker Rudderham.

Rudderham hired several new reporters and moved out of the legendarily gross Frank bunker for a new waterfront office. Things looked bright for the 25-year-old publication. Then early in the year editor Andrew Douglas wrote a column from the point of view of sexist boor Eddie Cornwallis, named after the controversial scalp collector who founded Halifax.

There was a tense staff meeting. One reporter was fired. Another resigned immediately after. The remaining two reporters walked out and when they returned the next day they were told they were being let go for insubordination. The entire Frank newsroom was cleared out.

(Note: At this point I should say that I know all of the ex-Frank employers personally. For that matter, I know almost everyone mentioned in this piece to some degree. Halifax is a small media circle)

Frank rebuilt with a stable of new employees. They may all be quite bright, but with so many new writers and not enough experienced hands to guide them, Frank started reading at times like a high school newspaper. There was more and more snark (and lots of naval gazing) but less actual information. And why exactly are people picking up Frank but for the dirt?

To be fair, a rocky patch was inevitable. But then there were some truly baffling editorial decisions. If you haven't read Frank in a while, picture this: it's now on glossy paper and features restaurant reviews. Not funny, sarcastic restaurant reviews. Straight-up restaurant reviews. In Frank Magazine. No word on when horoscopes will be introduced.

Frank used to be the scrappy, self-deprecating organ that took the pompous class down a notch. In contrast, a recent story gushed about owner Parker Rudderham donating a chunk of money at some event. It ended - honest - by detailing the long applause he got.

Moreover, Rudderham has been quick to bully reporters or former employees who talk about him by sending out threatening legal letters. This from the supposed defender of freedom of speech and pushing boundaries. In fact you should probably read the rest of this piece quickly as I'll likely get a cease and desist order soon.

For better or worse, Frank hadn't changed much over the past quarter century. In some ways it probably needed to. The old Frank is now gone and the question is whether the new Frank will find its niche.

Rudderham apparently told staff he was willing to lose $300,000 on the venture in year one (it was profitable at the time of sale, though with a smaller staff). As a longtime reader, I honestly hope Frank is sucessful. Because if not, even rich guys only want to support money-losing ventures for so long.

Jump to part 2 here.