{"id":795,"date":"2008-04-15T13:40:40","date_gmt":"2008-04-15T18:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingmontreal.ca\/?p=795"},"modified":"2008-04-15T13:42:37","modified_gmt":"2008-04-15T18:42:37","slug":"the-great-fare-evasion-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/04\/15\/the-great-fare-evasion-scandal\/","title":{"rendered":"The great fare evasion scandal!"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Journal de Montr\u00e9al wouldn’t be a tabloid if it didn’t like to plunge head-first into the murky waters of sensationalism. Its attempts to generate scandal are frequent and, sad to say, frequently successful. Earlier this year, the paper’s “investigation” into the use of English by store clerks in Montreal, which involved few hard figures but a sensational account of how a young reporter, No\u00e9e Murchison, was able to serve customers entirely in English while working undercover at a handful of retail stores. The investigation was manipulative, ethically dubious and cynical, but it managed to win the Journal a lot of attention by reigniting nationalist sentiment.<\/p>\n

Every so often, though, the Journal’s attempts at manufacturing controversy fall flat. The most recent example of this has been the Journal’s three-article series on fare evasion in the STM. Last month, No\u00e9e Murchison decided to see how easy it would be to ride the STM’s buses without paying. Weilding an expired transfer, she managed to board 27 buses<\/a>; only once did a driver refuse to let her board. Since that article was published on April 1st, the Journal must not have gotten the reaction it desired, because Murchison is back at it today<\/a>, writing that she was once again able to board 10 buses with an expired transfer. Another article accuses the STM of encouraging “laxisme” among its drivers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Fare evasion is a big deal — it costs the STM more than $20 million per year — and it’s certainly worthy of media coverage. But the Journal’s glib treatment failed to look at the issue in any real depth, choosing instead to focus entirely on Murchison’s success at evading fares without examining why those fares were so easily evaded and what the STM is doing about it. In the original article, for instance, there is absolutely no mention that the STM is in the midst of overhauling its entire fare collection system. There’s no word about the new electronic fareboxes that were installed on buses in 2006, which have eliminated cash fraud; there’s no word about the impending arrival of the smart card, which will make it nearly impossible to forge monthly or weekly passes; and there’s nothing about the introduction of new magnetic-strip transfers that will be scanned and verified by the new fareboxes. Laval has already been using the new transfers for more than a year; Murchison could have seen whether or not they have been successful in reducing fare evasion, but she didn’t.<\/p>\n

Even in today’s articles, the only reference to the STM’s new fare system is a short, inaccurate paragraph that reads like an afterthought: “L’implantation de nouveaux \u00e9quipements de perception dans le m\u00e9tro et les autobus doit \u00eatre annonc\u00e9e d’ici \u00e0 la fin du mois.” This isn’t even true. The installation of the new fare equipment was first announced in 2006 — the STM has had a webpage detailing the new system<\/a> for several months — and the new equipment, including the smart card, will be introduced<\/i> by the end of the month. In other words, the faulty fare collection system that the Journal has gone to such lengths to decry will be completely scrapped before the end of the year. Whatever point Murchison and the Journal have tried to make is already moot.<\/p>\n

What we need in Montreal is accurate and insightful reporting on public transit issues. Luckily, we have three daily newspapers that provide that: La Presse, Le Devoir and the Gazette — but it’s a shame that this is something our most widely-read newspaper, the Journal, seems incapable of doing.<\/p>\n

Photo by Pascal Ratth\u00e9, Journal de Montr\u00e9al<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Journal de Montr\u00e9al wouldn’t be a tabloid if it didn’t like to plunge head-first into the murky waters of sensationalism. Its attempts to generate scandal are frequent and, sad to say, frequently successful. Earlier this year, the paper’s “investigation” into the use of English by store clerks in Montreal, which involved few hard figuresContinue reading “The great fare evasion scandal!”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[2218,268,2224,2219,2223,265,92,486,2217,1587,125,2221,2222,344,805,345,302,2220],"class_list":["post-795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transit","tag-daily-newspapers","tag-driver","tag-fare-collection-system","tag-fare-equipment","tag-gazette","tag-la-presse","tag-laval","tag-le-devoir","tag-manufacturing-controversy-fall-flat","tag-media-coverage","tag-montreal","tag-noee-murchison","tag-pascal-ratthe","tag-retail-stores","tag-smart-card","tag-the-gazette","tag-usd","tag-young-reporter"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe great fare evasion scandal! - Spacing Montreal<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/montreal\/2008\/04\/15\/the-great-fare-evasion-scandal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The great fare evasion scandal! - Spacing Montreal\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Journal de Montr\u00e9al wouldn’t be a tabloid if it didn’t like to plunge head-first into the murky waters of sensationalism. 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