UPDATE: MTL Blog CEO Charles Lapointe just finished a Twitter Q&A. I’ve updated this post with what he said, some of which answer the questions, others don’t.

Since it launched in 2012, a website called MTL Blog has been increasingly popping up in people’s Facebook feeds, with short stories reporting on the viral news of the day. Its Facebook page is very popular, and your friends are probably among its 66,000 likes.

Recently, the blog has come under pressure from critics, who accuse it of everything from stealing their content to sensationalizing the news to getting basic facts wrong in their reporting.

Those accusations culminated in this blog post, titled “a love letter to Montreal”, in which the website starts off by saying “you’re welcome, and we’re sorry,” and by explaining how great it is with its “unmatched knowledge of events, parties, and general goings-on,” its “daily fountain of relatable content, one that never runs dry,” its “modern testament to the Montreal lifestyle” and its “level of interaction and interconnectedness” that “media megaliths” cannot match.

The letter was instantly derided as “terrible“, “incredibly bad“, “arrogant and insincere“, “breathtakingly tone-deaf“, “douchebaguerie arrogante“, “the worst apology ever” and “infinite arrogance“. The sentence “hate us, and we rebuttal” was oft-quoted as both an example of the website’s issues with the English language (which it also apologized for) and its self-centredness.

So after ignoring it for months, I decided to look into this website. During that process I learned a lot more, hearing accusations it asked for money in exchange for news content, that it employed unpaid reporters and photographers, and that it threatened legal action against websites that criticize or parody it.

I even heard an allegation that MTL Blog itself was stolen from one of its founders.

This is serious stuff. So I asked MTL Blog’s owners, Charles Lapointe and Josh McRae, and its news editor, Michael D’Alimonte, for an interview. All three signed the “love letter” (though Lapointe now suggests he was not an author.)

A week later, with no response, I called up Lapointe and identified myself. After realizing who I was, he asked if I was the guy who was bad-mouthing them on Twitter. He accused me of acting in bad faith and refused an interview. But he said he would be “happy” to answer questions sent to him by email.

I compiled a list of 20 questions and sent them on Aug. 5. I reiterated that I would be happy to meet in person or conduct an interview using whatever medium they would prefer.

I quickly got a response: “Although I do appreciate your interest in MTL Blog and your call, unfortunately nor I or my team has the time or resources to be able to answer your questions,” Lapointe wrote.

Instead, Lapointe directed me to this glowing profile written by a website called The Run-In, which did not answer most of my questions at all.

As I spoke to more people who had things to say about MTL Blog, my list of questions grew to 35 and finally 40. I sent those to Lapointe as well.

His next email to me made it clear he would not respond to my questions, and it had nothing to do with a lack of “resources”:

What I have seen from you online is not something I would like to associate myself or my brand with.

Never mind that I’m not seeking to “associate” with him or his brand.

All my emails were also sent to McRae and D’Alimonte. I never got a response from either of them.

(I also contacted Alex Melki, who hosts the MTL Blog TV series. He agreed to an interview but politely reneged after speaking with McRae and Lapointe, relaying their concerns that I would use it against them.)

So what follows in this long blog post with its intentionally clickbaity and (formerly) sensationalized headline are those 40 questions, as I asked them. Some of them are based on statements made to me that cannot be absolutely verified because the only people who would actually know are the people making the statements and either Lapointe, McRae, D’Alimonte or some combination of them. Nevertheless, all three of them have been given the opportunity to comment on these statements and had chosen not to do so before today.

Instead, Lapointe said he has agreed to only one interview about the criticisms of his website, with freelance journalist Pierre Chauvin, whose story about MTL Blog is posted on Jesse Brown’s Canadaland website. It, too, fails to answer many of the questions posed below.

The nature and purpose of MTL Blog

1. What is the purpose of your website? What is its goal?

It might seem like a straightforward question, but in order to properly frame this debate, we need to know what MTL Blog is, exactly. Is it a personal blog? Is it a serious journalistic enterprise? Is it a social network? Is it something else?

The website’s “about” page describes it as this:

MTL Blog is now one of Montreal’s biggest online networks, created by and catering to a new generation of Montrealers. We strive every day to deliver important news, the latest in pop culture, and showcase interesting things around Montreal and the world that inspire us.

I’m not sure what “online networks” is supposed to mean here, but the impression is certainly that this is at least in part a journalistic venture. A different description on its advertising page reinforces that:

Founded in 2012, MTL Blog began as a few hungry photographers eager to cover the coolest events around Montreal and showcase them on our own site. As MTL Blog grew, we started seeing a lack of online and English mainstream journalism in Montreal, so we started thinking of ways we could contribute to the industry, with our own special creative twist. Now a team of over 10 journalists, 2 editors, and 10 photographers, MTL Blog is now one of Montreal’s biggest online networks, created by and catering to a new generation of Montrealers. We strive every day to deliver important news, the latest in pop culture, and showcase interesting things around Montreal and the world that inspire us.

Journalists. Journalism. News. I think the point is pretty clear here. But I reinforce it because I’ve actually seen some debates on social media from MTL Blog’s defenders (or devil’s advocates) saying that MTL Blog isn’t a newspaper or other professional journalistic media.

UPDATE: Lapointe didn’t directly address several questions about whether MTL Blog considers itself a journalistic venture. But he did say this:

@jakeryanrussell We are a media site targeting young Montrealers that want to find out more about their city /what is happening. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

2. Why do you identify yourself as a “newspaper” on your Facebook page?

Unless there’s a print edition of MTL Blog I’m unaware of, this is at least factually incorrect. Perhaps a more accurate term wasn’t available. I can’t really think of any other reason why it would say this.

Lapointe said this description, and a similar one on their website, was an error and would be corrected.

3. Who owns MTL Blog? Is it a for-profit company?

Thankfully, the government allows me to answer this question for them. According to the Registre des entreprises, MTL Blog was formed as a general partnership on July 26, 2012. It was then incorporated as 8683905 Canada Inc. on Nov. 21, 2013, and became MTL Blog Inc. on Dec. 11, 2013. Its only shareholders are Charles Lapointe and Joshua McRae.

Interestingly, it categorizes itself as an advertising company selling display ads and as photographers selling event coverage, in addition to being a “plateforme médiatique en ligne qui a pour but de créer du contenu local et culturel pour les Montréalais.”

It lists 1-5 employees.

@MickCote We are a for-profit company. We want to grow the company all while contributing to the greater good of Montreal #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

4. Would you be willing to share any information about its revenue or whether or not it is profitable?

Obviously not. Though Chauvin’s piece says Lapointe and McRae have invested their savings into it, and that “it’s making money.” It has a storefront office on St-Laurent Blvd. in the Plateau, it spends money to promote its Facebook posts, and it’s even been mentioned in radio ads.

5. Are you (Mr. Lapointe) the owner of the following domain names and websites?

These domain names are either registered with the same name and email as MTL Blog or are hosted on the same server. Some, like charleslapointe.com (pointing to Lapointe’s LinkedIn page) and lapointemarketing.com, are obviously connected to Lapointe, and mtlblog.co is MTL Blog’s former domain name. The others are projects in various states of unreadiness, including a dating website, a social events website, and other content sites apparently adopting a similar philosophy of spreading around stories, videos and other stuff that’s already online. (dailybabe.co is blank, but we can guess what its purpose was supposed to be).

There is, of course, nothing wrong with having other websites with unfinished projects. But they give some insight into how the owners of MTL Blog think.

The history of MTL Blog

6. Peter Ryaux-Larsen describes himself as a co-founder of MTL Blog and says it was his idea. Do you agree with this description?

I spoke on the phone with Ryaux-Larsen after another source told me about him. “MTL Blog was my idea, from the get-go,” he told me. “Josh was my first partner. I was the one that suggested the idea to him. He wasn’t sure at first. He wasn’t sure the idea would stick.” They brought on Lapointe later, he said. All three, who knew each other from their days at John Abbott College, are described as co-founders, with Ryaux-Larsen listed first, on an “about” page for MTL Blog contained in the Internet Archive captured in April 2012.

In neither of the interviews that touch on MTL Blog’s history is there any mention made of Ryaux-Larsen. His contributions nevertheless remain on the site, the last one dated Aug. 5, 2012, and the first one Feb. 8, 2012, making it one of the oldest stories on the website.

Ryaux-Larsen and MTL Blog’s owners generally agree on how the website got started: They wanted to take photos of Igloofest in 2012, and with just a Facebook page (started Jan. 23, 2012) and some homemade business cards, they got in.

They also seem to agree on how they built their brand at first by taking pictures at events. As McRae explains to The Run-In:

“I threw out about 300 [business] cards a night. Chuck created the card. It’s the easiest way to get follows. We put up pictures and [told people to] tag themselves and like the page. We would only upload the albums to Facebook. People would tag themselves in the photos and their friends would see that and they would like the page also.”

UPDATE: Lapointe admitted that Ryaux-Larsen was “part” of MTL Blog in 2012. He did not address the nature of their relationship, and whether Ryaux-Larsen had any ownership stake.

7. Ryaux-Larsen says you (Mr. Lapointe and Mr. McRae) locked him out of the website and forced him out of the group in August 2012. Is this correct? If so, why did you do this?

This is probably the most damning accusation against MTL Blog, and yet it hasn’t been made publicly until now. Ryaux-Larsen flat-out says his website was stolen from him.

“I was away in Africa for the better part of a month working with a foundation,” Ryaux-Larsen says. “And while I was there they decided to register the company name without me, remove me as an admin from the Facebook page and transfer the entire website to a new server. When I came back they said let’s have a meeting. They said basically we don’t want to work with you anymore. We will offer you $200 for the domain name for you to sell it to us. And then that was it.”

Is this true? Well, it’s impossible to prove what happened at that meeting, but there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence to back up Ryaux-Larsen’s case. He still owns the original domain name for MTL Blog at mtlblog.ca (old posts on MTL Blog’s Facebook page still point to now-nonexistent mtlblog.ca URLs). And he controls the YouTube account MTLBlog, dating back to 2011. At the very least, he was clearly involved at the very beginning and they can’t pretend they don’t know him.

UPDATE: Chauvin tells me that he asked Lapointe about Ryaux-Larsen, and that Lapointe had a different take on the issue. Lapointe described Ryaux-Larsen as someone who “helped start the site in 2012”, and take photos. When he left for Africa, Lapointe and McRae handled the entire site and started to transform it into something bigger. When Ryaux-Larsen returned, Lapointe and McRae gave him an ultimatum, telling him they no longer wanted him as a partner, and Ryaux-Larsen said he wanted nothing further to do with the site.

“I never said anything of the sort,” Ryaux-Larsen tells me. He said he left the country for two weeks and never abandoned his partners. “I was heavily involved and working hard on getting content for the site until the day they cut me out.”

Lapointe says in his Twitter chat that Ryaux-Larsen “did not have the same vision as my partner and I” and that the website was moved after he “refused all our proposals.” Lapointe doesn’t elaborate on what those proposals were or why he felt he could simply eject a partner from a partnership without any compensation.

Ryaux-Larsen disagrees:

@fagsteinlive @charleslapointe #askmtlblog They registered the brand without me and locked me out before ever making proposals. — Peter Ryaux-Larsen (@larsen514) August 20, 2014

8. I understand you (Mr. Lapointe and Mr. McRae) were friends with Ryaux-Larsen. Why are you no longer friends?

Ryaux-Larsen said he hasn’t spoken to Lapointe or McRae since 2012.

“We knew each other for years,” Ryaux-Larsen said. “I was very frustrated that who I thought were friends, the people I would go drinking at bars with, spent camping trips with, they were the last people I thought would be doing this to me. They showed absolutely no empathy.”

“They decided they didn’t want to work with me and they shut me out.”

UPDATE: Lapointe says in his Twitter chat that their falling out as friends “is all him.”

9. Are you worried about the possibility of legal action from Ryaux-Larsen as a result of your falling out?

“Because I gave them the keys to the website, they had access to do what they wanted with all the information and all the server whatnot,” Ryaux-Larsen said. They took control of the Facebook page and Twitter account and all the content of the website. Ryaux-Larsen still had control of the mtlblog.ca domain name. MTL Blog moved to mtlblog.co, and eventually to mtlblog.com (after apparently buying that domain name).

Ryaux-Larsen hasn’t initiated any legal action as a result of this. But he doesn’t rule out eventually doing so. And he said he has plenty of documentation to use in such a case.

Treatment of staff and contributors

10. How many of your contributors or staff are paid vs. unpaid?

MTL Blog says it has “a team of over 10 journalists, 2 editors, and 10 photographers,” but Lapointe admits this isn’t true, telling Chauvin that they actually have “two paid writers, three to four unpaid contributors plus the occasional intern.”

As part of my investigation, I reached out to several MTL Blog contributors. Of those who responded, all said they weren’t paid by the website (including one who wrote sponsored content — stories that MTL Blog was paid for publishing), and these contributors suggested that others weren’t paid for their work either. In most cases, contributors are unpaid interns who stick around for about three months.

For photographers, it appears some of them are paid (out of the money that MTL Blog gets for covering events), some of them aren’t, and some have special arrangements. One said that there’s payment for paid club gigs, but not for bigger events, and that those are done for free in exchange for accreditation to the event.

If you pay attention to bylines, you see that, aside from the picture-heavy event posts, most articles (particularly newsy ones) are written by Michael D’Alimonte. In fact, at the time of this writing, an astonishing 1,366 articles dating back to April 2013 carry his byline, which works out to about 20 articles a week.

UPDATE: Lapointe said on Twitter that MTL Blog has a paid staff of six, including himself and McRae. Presumably this does not include freelance photographers.

@mariannebrault Most of the interns at @mtlblog still go to school and they are part of a University program. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

11. Did you at any point tell contributors to get “pics of drunk sluts”? Do you encourage your contributors to take photos of women that you believe will draw traffic?

“I wanted to be a fashion writer but they would just send me to club events and told me to get ‘pics of drunk sluts’,” said one former contributor, who expressed reluctance to discuss her experience there, and noted that Lapointe and McRae were nice to her, “if a little douchey and insensitive at times.”

UPDATE: Lapointe said he does not recall using the term “drunk sluts”. He did not respond to a follow-up question about whether others had said this.

In speaking with other contributors, I understand that MTL Blog likes sex, and may have some issues with the objectification of women, but no one else has reported its owners saying something like this to them.

Despite its focus as a cultural website, MTL Blog’s owners expressed little interest in covering things like the Fringe Festival or Zoofest, and seemed more interested in clubs and party-like events like Osheaga, contributors told me.

Another former contributor, who didn’t want to be identified to protect a future career in journalism, said the blog’s favourite topics were “pot, bacon, sex, drinking … oh and making Montreal more hipster.”

MTL Blog’s attitude toward women is one of many things that has irked critics. The creator of Stop MTL Blog, a website whose purpose should be self-evident, said “what really pushed me over the edge” was this post about a British woman giving blowjobs in Spain in exchange for alcohol. It had nothing to do with Montreal, but was posted apparently as a cheap way of driving traffic at the expense of a young woman’s dignity.

Ryaux-Larsen, who still owns the mtlblog.ca domain, posted a single story to it, “9 Reasons why you should NOT cheat on your significant other“, as a response to a post on MTL Blog about why you should cheat on someone (which also had nothing to do with Montreal). Designed specifically to get people angry, it listed reasons that basically boil down to convenience, being selfish and having no respect for the other person.

12. How are stories assigned at MTL Blog? Who decides what stories are covered and which are not?

I’m actually not completely sure how it works. There isn’t much of a sampling of writing to draw from, since D’Alimonte writes most of the news pieces. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that virality is a big part of what stories get written about. Lots of sensationalizing simple stories, or listicles, particularly top-10 lists (where 10 can be any number, really).

UPDATE:

@fagsteinlive Most stories are decided by our @MDAlimonte and my partner, Joshua McRae. They are then assigned to someone free #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

Journalistic practices

13. You charge for coverage of events. Do you make it clear to your audience on your website and on social media that your coverage is a de facto advertisement? If not, why not? What other types of coverage can be bought at MTL Blog?

If you click on “submit your event” on MTL Blog’s website, you’re met with a page that makes it clear they charge for the privilege of telling their readers about it. The prices aren’t listed, but a rate card posted to this blog put it at between $80 and $160, depending on the event.

Those rates have since gone up.

Posing as a club owner, I inquired as to their pricing. For $200, an event can be listed on the website, suggested in the weekly newsletter (which has “5,000+ subscribers”), and tweeted. The website will also send a photographer to take pictures of the event for two hours, and post the photos on the website the following day with a “short article”.

“For $100 more, you can add the ‘featured banner’ in the events section and a guaranteed Facebook post of the photo album the following day.”

If you’re wondering why MTL Blog keeps taking photos at Tokyo Bar every week, this is why.

And the venues seem to be happy with this coverage. Some blog post comments from bar owners say the arrangement makes financial sense for them as a promotional tool.

(UPDATE: Lapointe said MTL Blog has refused to cover events in the past. He wouldn’t give any examples. And he said he would refuse sponsored content “if the product is not something that will do well with our readers”. He would not give examples of this either.)

I asked the person at MTL Blog for an example of such paid-for coverage, and was sent a link to their Osheaga coverage. Shocked that such a prestigious event would pay for something like this (they had their own photographers covering it, after all), I checked with Evenko.

“Evenko has never paid for editorial with anyone,” said spokesperson Caroline Audet. “We did buy banners for some projects on their site but we will never pay for editorial. The coverage that you see is their own initiative.”

Leisa Lee, who handled media accreditation for Osheaga, confirmed the website was accredited like any other media.

The existence of this payola system has led some, like Katie Nelson, to suggest that all content on MTL Blog has been paid for. That’s not true, unless you think the STM paid for a factually incorrect story about how their new metro trains are too big to fit in the tunnels. Rather, this particular system seems to be limited to the Events section.

@fagstein Never. "Best of Montreal" articles have never included Sponsored listings. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

That said, there are news stories that are also paid for. Many stories, including this one about a Bixi sale on half-season subscriptions, have “sponsored content” labels on the posts themselves and on the homepage linking to them. This is not much different from how traditional media handles content that’s been paid for. And it’s a good sign.

A couple of caveats, though: The Events section does not specify that its photo gallery posts are sponsored content. And when it posts events or sponsored posts to Facebook and Twitter (which is part of that sponsorship), those posts also don’t make clear that those posts are paid for. They should.

(UPDATE: Lapointe says they’ll try to be clearer in the future. He might start with this post, which appears to be an undisclosed product placement by Keurig. The creator of The Main says Keurig approached them about a similar deal. — Aug. 21: The page with the Keurig plus now has a sponsored content label on it, though the post leading to it doesn’t. Lapointe says “we just forgot to put the sponsored tag on it”.

And maybe also be sure to sign contracts before showing up to events and then charging artists for taking pictures of their fans.

Michael Cota, who is in a band called Archery Guild, said he was contacted by MTL Blog looking to cover one of their shows. They accepted, of course, but then said they would charge for the privilege. Cota said he never agreed to that or signed any contract, but after the show got an email asking him to share the pictures that were taken (which were mostly of the audience instead of the band).

“I was trying to be nice and work with these guys at first, but they became so rude and non responsive online, telling me to email one person so they could tell me to email another person so I could figure out why, what, how much and where I could pay,” Cota said. “But I didn’t pay because I didn’t have the money.”

Now, Cota said, they’ve started adding interest to monthly bills. “It took a little bit of time for me to actually step back at what was happening,” he said. “It started so pleasant and then MTL Blog reared its ugly head.”

UPDATE: Lapointe says Cota’s statement is “completely false” and that there was an agreement to cover the event for payment. Lapointe did not produce documentation to prove this.

@fagsteinlive Yes, we do. We would never ask someone to pay if they didn't consent to our paid service. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

14. MTL Blog has been accused of exaggerating, misunderstanding, sensationalizing or even making up stories in order to generate traffic. Do you believe there have been some errors in your reporting? What measures, if any, are you taking to fix that?

“We are guilty of making many a mistake,” MTL Blog’s love letter says. “We are sorry to any we have led astray, or made weary with informational/grammatical errors.”

But the website doesn’t go into any detail about what those errors are. The word “correction” rarely appears on MTL Blog. And there’s been little apparent change in how it does its reporting.

Stories that have been heavily criticized for factual errors and sensationalism include this one, which falsely said there was a tornado warning for Montreal, and a story about $2 bills being worth $20,000, which resulted in a debunking piece in Huffington Post. Examples go as far back as posting a fake Osheaga lineup in March 2012.

15. Do you agree with the characterization of MTL Blog as using “click bait” in order to generate traffic?

Here’s another story that has nothing to do with Montreal. But it does feature a naked woman. Here’s another, which is just reposting leaked iPhone photos from TMZ. And another, which informs the world that TMZ says Robin Williams died.

I’ll let you decide for yourself whether these posts are designed to inform readers, to attract clicks from horny teenage boys or to suck up some traffic from trending search terms.

MTL Blog’s antics have already gotten it labelled a “spamblog” and a permanent ban on the r/Montreal subreddit on Reddit.

UPDATE: Lapointe admitted stories posted that have nothing to do with Montreal are “mostly” about capitalizing on viral content rather than actually providing a service to MTL Blog readers.

16. Are you interested in doing original reporting on MTL Blog, other than event coverage? If so, how will you do that?

In the time I’ve been following it, I’ve yet to see any story broken by this website. Chauvin’s article points to a single story that MTL Blog claims is original journalism, but it consists simply of embedding a recording that was posted to the Internet.

Lapointe tells Chauvin that he plans to hire more journalists to do more original reporting.

And maybe that’s what will happen. Websites like Huffington Post and Buzzfeed made so much money off of clickbait ripoffs that they eventually hired their own serious journalists. (Buzzfeed got into some hot water recently for trying to erase some of its history.)

17. Your website has many lists that appear to be rankings (“Top 15 Places To Get A Cold Iced Tea In Montreal” or “Top 30 Montreal Boozy Brunch Restaurants”). What ranking criteria do you use to evaluate these restaurants, places or other subjects of your rankings? How many don’t make the list?

MTL Blog has an entire section devoted to best-of lists, mainly restaurants and bars. But several factors make me question whether any quantitative analysis has gone into these rankings:

The stories make no mention of how the lists are evaluated, whether there is any quantitative measurement involved, how they are judged, or any indication of how they have been determined to be the “best” in Montreal

The number of items in a list varies

The lists are not ranked

Descriptions of items in these lists are brief and vague, the kinds of things that could be written without ever having gone there

Photos are sourced from the Internet rather than taken by the reviewer or a staff photographer

UPDATE: Lapointe says in his Twitter chat that “most” restaurants that are reviewed “have been tried by at least one member of our staff.” The others, he says, are gathered from the staff’s social networks. He said they ask those people whether they have personal connections to the restaurants or companies they recommend.

A contributor who writes these pieces confirmed that they use their social networks to fill in the gaps for restaurants they have not visited.

18. You state in the Canadaland story that you never give negative reviews to restaurants. Does this mean you won’t review restaurants you don’t like, or you just won’t say anything bad about them? Do you feel this might have a negative impact on your integrity as a restaurant review website?

Chauvin’s story quotes Lapointe as saying “You’ll never see us write a negative review of a restaurant, ever ever ever.” Which logically means that either they are reviewing places and not publishing the reviews because they are negative, or that they are publishing positive reviews of every place they review, no matter the quality.

Or, perhaps, that they aren’t actually reviewing restaurants at all. Just listing them.

UPDATE: Lapointe said on Twitter that “we try to our best (sic) to bring the good out from the bad. Most restaurants we review are amazing though.”

This doesn’t address how they separate the “best” places from the not-best ones. The best I could get on that was a reference to “a few internal check points”, whatever that means.

@fagsteinlive We never had to write a negative review. Hopefully we never will #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

19. Your website says you want to “contribute to the industry” of mainstream journalism. What do you contribute to journalism?

Lapointe implies in Chauvin’s story that MTL Blog contributes by exposing stories to an audience that would otherwise not read them, citing The Gazette (my employer), which he says has stories that are “18 paragraphs of text, no images” and are therefore “boring”. (I don’t take that personally. The Gazette could definitely improve on the way it presents certain stories. Though I disagree that any story more than 300 words is boring.)

Another way of looking at it is that when stories become popular, the original source doesn’t get the traffic because sites like MTL Blog re-report them. But that’s hardly a problem that started with MTL Blog. News media have been “matching” each other’s scoops for decades.

Compare this to a website like Kate McDonnell’s Montreal City Weblog, which summarizes stories in a sentence or two but prominently links to the source. Rather than trying to steal traffic away from other news sites with hot stories, it’s designed in a way to send more traffic to them.

UPDATE:

@LauraPLive Work on how they reach people via social networks. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

The apology

20. What exactly are you apologizing for, and to whom, in your love letter to Montreal? Can you give specific examples?

@fagsteinlive Mostly for the lack of fact checking we had, grammatical errors and forgetting to source photos. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

The letter does not give a single example of an error MTL Blog has made. It apologizes in general for grammatical errors, “informational” errors, for having “slighted” people in the “Montreal community” and for having “offended with our content.” It doesn’t explain what it means by any of this.

21. In posts where you feel you have made a mistake, have you edited those posts to include an apology? If not, why not?

I can’t find any posts with the words “apology”, “correction” or “regret the error” indicating an apology. The closest thing I could find was the metro train story, which the STM flat-out said was wrong, which was updated with “a few clarifications” (i.e. explanations about how each paragraph of the story is incorrect) but with the erroneous headlines left intact.

UPDATE: Lapointe said on Twitter that MTL Blog plans to go back into erroneous posts and correct them, and “hopefully we can get this done before the end of the year!”

@fagsteinlive We try to acknowledge our mistakes most of the time inside the articles in question. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

22. Do you believe you’re infringing on the copyright of photographers when you use their photos without permission? Is this part of what you’re apologizing for? What are you changing about the way you use photos? Do you feel it would be acceptable if other websites used your content without asking you first?

One of the things MTL Blog has been criticized for the most is its liberal use of other people’s photos. Or as some would call it, stealing. From its news stories to its restaurant best-of lists, MTL Blog’s posts are picture-heavy, but it doesn’t have much of an image library. So it takes images from the Internet and reposts them, sometimes with a “photo cred” underneath.

“Sometimes we didn’t credit (the pictures used),” Lapointe says in Chauvin’s article. “That was a big mistake.”

Lapointe’s words suggest a fundamental misunderstanding not only of Internet ethics, but of copyright law. Giving credit does not allow you to use other people’s photos without permission, any more than acknowledging the source allows you to distribute movies, albums or other copyrighted material.

Many Montreal photographers, particularly those who have taken pictures of food, have complained privately and publicly that MTL Blog stole their photos without permission. Even one of my pictures was taken without permission.

Hey @mtlblog YOU STOLE MY PHOTO, didn't even acknowledge my comment & the photo's STILL UP! Take it down now pls! http://t.co/0iBtqoP85i — mayssam samaha (@mayssamaha) July 11, 2014

So I guess I'm going to ask here again: @mtlblog, please REMOVE the pic you used, uncredited, in this article http://t.co/ElSGlk3TIS — Eve Martel (@evemartel) August 5, 2014

One of those photographers was Jason Lee of Shut Up and Eat, who found many of his photos (identifiable by their watermarks) included in MTL Blog galleries like this one, despite a clearly stated policy not to use photos without permission.

“I had no clue until someone mentioned it to me that they were using my pictures,” Lee told me in an email. “If they linked back to the original post, I would have received a ‘ping back’ notifying me that a particular post has been linked to. Around the same time I had a scheduled meeting with the co-founders about potentially working in collaboration with them. I met them once at their Old Port office and I told them in person that I didn’t appreciate them using my pictures and that it wasn’t very cool. They said that they would fix it right away – to which I got a link-less ‘photo cred: shut up and eat’ under the photo used.”

They came to a deal in which Lee shared content with MTL Blog in exchange for proper credit.

But then Lee saw a ranking of pho restaurants that seemed suspiciously like one on his own website (the same top three restaurants in the same order).

“It didn’t sit well with me or my collaborator Emilie from Bouchepleine.com, especially since a lot of the pictures were used without attribution or credit and most were thrown into their article randomly and not representing the respective restaurant. Since we actually went around the city to try over 30 different bowls of pho to compile this list and spent a lot of money out of our own pockets researching this article – it was pretty shitty of them to ‘coincidentally’ list the same top three as us and paraphrasing most of our article.”

Now, Lee said, “I don’t know if they’re still using my pictures because I now refuse to click anything on their site to find out – I’m not getting any ping backs so even if they are, I wouldn’t know. I would only assume they’re giving me a ‘photo cred’ without a link, using a water marked picture. I don’t want to bother stirring the pot with them, so I’ll accept their half-assed attribution.”

In addition to local bloggers, MTL Blog stories have taken photos from The Gazette, The Canadian Press, Le Devoir, La Presse, Radio-Canada and others. Some photos were later removed after these organizations complained. But many are still there, either because the media outlets aren’t aware of the infringement, or because they don’t want to put in the effort to deal with it.

And that’s the big problem. No one I’ve talked to wants to put in the effort to do anything about what amounts to petty theft. And until someone does, it doesn’t look like MTL Blog is going to change the way it operates.

UPDATE: Lapointe admitted on Twitter that failing to credit photos was a serious problem. And he says contributors have a “sourcing checklist” to follow now. But he did not respond to repeated questions about why he believes it’s appropriate to use other people’s photos without their consent, except to say this:

@fagsteinlive We find most of our photos on public websites such as Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook. We give credit when we can #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

23. You mention in your letter the “ethics of the Internet” that are “ever-evolving”. What do you mean by that? What do you use as your ethical compass? And what have you learned?

The other truth is that a lot of what it does isn’t that unusual. Huffington Post was notorious for “aggregating” other journalists’ stories and making them more search-engine and social-media friendly in order to hijack traffic. Buzzfeed was so notorious for ripping pictures off the Internet that it has been threatened with lawsuits from photographers despite its sketchy reasons for claiming fair use.

(For more on Buzzfeed, you can see this post and accompanying video.)

But just because Buzzfeed does something doesn’t make it right.

24. You say “Changes will be made, rest assured, and those who don’t believe us will simply see it in our actions.” What exactly have you changed? Can you give some examples?

MTL Blog is labelling some sponsored content. And it’s giving “photo cred”s to its pilfered images. Other than that, I don’t notice any changes. It’s still using clickbait and ripping stories off of mainstream media, Reddit, blogs and other sources.

25. Your letter states “we will do all in our power to remake our relationships into an equal exchange, where all can benefit.” What do you mean by this?

Lapointe’s response to critics suggests there has been no such effort. At least not until today’s Twitter chat. And many people left that disappointed.

26. You state that your “knowledge of events, parties, and general goings-on” is “unmatched”. Do you have any quantitative data to support this claim?

Of course they don’t.

27. You state “ask us, and we give you a response.” Your Twitter feed has sent out about 10 replies out of about 250 tweets in the past week (N.B.: When this question was sent on Aug. 5). And you haven’t replied to any of the comments in response to the love letter post. Does this statement require some sort of qualification? Do you not respond to people who criticize you?

Lapointe says the questions posed to MTL Blog were not constructive, which is why they weren’t answered.

28. Did you (Mr. Lapointe) have a Facebook conversation with Eve Martel on July 25 in which you asked how to make amends for using people’s content without their permission? Did she propose the “love letter to Montreal” to you as an idea during this conversation?

Martel publishes a food blog called La Pantry and a lifestyle blog called Tellement Swell, which include her original photographs. She called out MTL Blog for stealing her photos, and told me that Lapointe contacted her to try to make things right.

It was her, she said, who suggested the idea of publishing an apology in the form of a love letter to Montreal, explaining what they did wrong and promising never to do it again.

Four days after their conversation via Facebook chat, MTL Blog’s post went live.

“When I read it, I thought he was trolling me,” Martel said. “But it looks like they are that disconnected from reality.”

“I told him nobody will like this,” she said, calling the apology a “horrible self-serving crapload.”

On top of it all, they didn’t actually remove her photo until a week later when she asked them again to do so.

UPDATE: Lapointe apologized for that. He did not answer whether the two had communicated by Facebook.

29. Are you disappointed that Eve Martel is unsatisfied with the Love Letter to Montreal? Do you understand why?

I honestly have no idea why Lapointe would seem so interested in making amends and then so disinterested in following through.

UPDATE:

@AdamJKovac We're aware that our response letter has not received very positive reviews. Hopefully I can change this with #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

Websites parodying and criticizing MTL Blog

30. Did you file a complaint against BlueHost requesting that it shut down the website stopmtlblog.com? If so, what intellectual property do you believe it has improperly used? And what has it posted that you believe is defamatory?

The defamatory part is obvious if you believe all criticism is defamation. But the claim also says it infringes on MTL Blog’s trademark. Which doesn’t make sense because the MTL Blog logo wasn’t used on that website.

Stop MTL Blog has changed domains, moving to stopmtlblog.to, in part because the original site was hosted on a friend’s hosting package, said its creator, who didn’t want to be identified by name (in part to protect against further repercussions from MTL Blog).

“They’re just an SEO/SMO company pumping out content to make themselves bigger,” he said in a phone interview.

I asked him how much money he’s spent on this campaign. He said it was under $300, but still significant. He’s been asking for donations via Bitcoin, which is a way to ensure they’re anonymous, untraceable and unappealable. Since I cannot verify this person’s identity, I would be very wary of sending any money this way.

He said he has no personal connection to anyone involved with MTL Blog. I am, of course, unable to verify that.

UPDATE: Lapointe confirmed they did act against Stop MTL Blog, and said it was because it had “mtlblog” in the domain name (which is not trademark infringement by itself). They did not, however, act against mtlblog.ca. He did not explain this discrepancy.

31. Did you file a complaint against Facebook requesting that it delete a page for Blog MTL, as described here? Have you also taken measures to try to have that website shut down? If so, why?

Blog MTL is an MTL Blog parody site, which posts stories filled with intentional grammatical and factual errors. It has since renamed itself SOOO MTL to avoid further legal trouble or any confusion.

The people behind this website also refused to give their names (they did say it was more than one person). But did agree to an interview over email.

“There are two of us (and one frequent contributor) and although we are ostensibly in the target demographic for MTL Blog we are not necessarily who they are speaking to,” the email said.

This group also claims no personal connection to MTL Blog or “anyone whose content was lifted to the extent of our knowledge.”

I asked why they put this site together:

MTL Blog was easy to ignore for the longest time, and then I guess it just reached a breaking point. It became a daily presence in our lives whether we wanted to or not and we started making fun of it amongst ourselves. Eventually we decided to post some of them on a WordPress site on a day where we felt particularly inspired by the stream of insipid nonsense they were putting out. We honestly thought that we’d reach about fifty people we knew and the joke would die out immediately, but we found out that we weren’t the only ones who felt that way about their content and their so-called ‘formula’. Our goal was really to amuse ourselves at first, but at this point I guess we’re amusing a whole bunch of people. If it forces some people to learn to be more discriminating and less drawn to furiously sharing pictures of things with bacon on them, that’s good too.

I asked about their feelings about MTL Blog:

We have nothing against the idea of the blog or the people behind it. We don’t even mind that they want to adhere to the Buzzfeed model of clickbait. If they found a way to make a living out of the Internet, good for them, but they could reach as much of an audience by crafting better content. A website ‘going viral’ also means many people will come back to your website afterwards. Many of them will stumble across information and take it to be a reliable source. It’s fine to talk about whatever you want online, but branding yourself as a reliable source of information and making no effort to make sure what you put out in reliable is frustrating. You’d be surprised how many people get into a blind rage at some our articles by taking them at face value without ever taking two seconds to verify what it is they’re reading. A 20-second look through Google can show you that most of their articles are either lifted quasi-verbatim (sometimes thrown in Google Translate as in the case of one article about the metro) or repurposed from other ‘best waffles in Montreal’ type of articles. Our problem is with the badly-written and badly-researched content, the questionable ethics in reposting or repurposing content from other sources, the lists that seem culled directly from Google searches and the omnipresence of their articles in our social media spheres. More so than directly attacking the ‘creators’ of the content, we aim to target those who blindly skim and share terrible articles full of factual mistakes, typos and empty padding. It’s also very easy to parody.

And I asked them about MTL Blog’s love letter, which they also parodied:

Their apology was its own best parody. We wish we had written it. We understand their argument about the constantly evolving ethics of the Internet, but there’s no reason to be so shifty and evasive when people call them out on appropriating content. I’m sure no one would be this up in arms if MTL Blog went about their unoriginal hackwork with a minimum of honesty and transparency.

UPDATE:

@KayLaframboise @SoooMTL was using our name in its FB page and site. People were mistaking them for us.We needed to do something #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

@charleslapointe #askmtlblog why haven't you ever contacted us directly instead of just having our facebook shut down? — Sooo MTL (@SoooMTL) August 20, 2014

@A_lysa We love satire and we think what @SoooMTL is doing is hilarious. Just not when they are using our name. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

32. Did you accidentally copy-paste a complaint against Blog MTL and use it in a complaint against Stop MTL Blog? Either way, how many people have been complaining that they are confusing that website with yours? Can you provide their contact information and/or texts of their complaints?

The complaint against Stop MTL Blog contained this paragraph:

We have received multiple complaints from many users that think that this blog is our site (they call themselves Blog MTL). It is a misleading, ironic, sarcastic and slander website created by a group of individuals that want to ruin our reputation with local clients and users (in Montreal, Canada).

I can’t help being amused that MTL Blog plagiarized and failed to proofread its own complaint letter.

UPDATE: Lapointe was asked, but did not respond to, whether he could produce anyone who was actually confusing MTL Blog with these other websites.

33. Do you believe it’s ironic that a website accused of stealing other people’s intellectual property is having websites and Facebook pages that criticize and parody it shut down for infringing on intellectual property?

It’s funny how despite the fact that “the ethics of the internet are ever-evolving,” MTL Blog seems so confident that a website that parodies it and one that criticizes it are breaking intellectual property laws.

34. Do you believe in the right to parody and criticism? Would you accept these websites if they took measures to ensure they did not infringe on your intellectual property and clearly identified themselves as parodies or criticism?

Lapointe suggests to Chauvin that there will be no further action against SOOO MTL, so perhaps we can chalk this up to being a bit too protective over the use of “blog” and “MTL” in the same sentence.

35. Do you intend to take actions to take down other websites, such as http://mtlblog.sexy/?

@fagsteinlive No, as long as they don't infringe our trademark. #askmtlblog — Chuck Lapointe (@charleslapointe) August 20, 2014

The list of websites criticizing or parodying MTL Blog seems to be growing by the week:

Stop MTL Blog – A website devoted to straight-up criticism

SOOO MTL – A parody of MTL Blog’s grammatical and factual errors

mtlblog.ca – Ryaux-Larsen’s site with a single article responding to an MTL Blog post

mtlblog.sexy – A parody site that replicates MTL Blog’s layout and story titles, but replaces its text with lorem ipsum and all its photos with images of Nicolas Cage (before it was pictures of kittens)

mtlblogs.com – A website supposedly reviewing Montreal blogs that praises other media and trashes MTL Blog

mtlblogsucks.ca – A website set up by a Reddit user that has one article called “Top 10 Ways To: Create A Shitty Blog and Be an Asshole”

Plus some individual posts, such as this one from Katie Nelson

The explosion of some sites has led to at least one suggestion that some or all might be part of a campaign by MTL Blog itself to draw attention to itself. And while I can’t absolutely prove that isn’t the case, all the circumstantial evidence, from the website designs to their choice of domain and hosting providers suggests that they probably aren’t connected.

36. Do you believe that all the journalists, websites, bloggers and others who have criticized you are simply misunderstanding you? What do you believe are their motivations? Do you want to mend fences with them, or will you refuse to communicate with them as you have refused to communicate with me?

Lapointe described MTL Blog’s critics as a “hate movement” in one of his many emails to me refusing to answer my questions, and told Chauvin that Stop MTL Blog are “jealous competitors.”

Perhaps today’s Twitter chat will cause them to rethink that attitude.

37. Did you warn Ian O’Shaughnessy that you would “take away” any domains he attempted to register that had “mtl” and “blog” in it? Do you have any intention of trying to have mtlblogs.com shut down?

“The owner of [MTL Blog] had the audacity to email me and say that I was not allowed to register any domain with the words ‘Mtl’ or ‘blog’ in it, as he believes he owns those words,” O’Shaughnessy told me. “He threatened to have any domain I register ‘taken away’…”

O’Shaughnessy, who said he had never heard of Lapointe before two weeks ago, said he heard about the cease-and-desists going around, and spoke with the person behind Stop MTL Blog.

“I emailed Lapointe asking why he was threatening people with legal letters,” he said. “I insinuated I felt like registering a domain similar to stopmtlblog’s due to Lapointe’s anti-social behaviour. He replied, sending me a link to his recent trademark filing for his site’s logo. He followed that up with a threat: he would have any such domain taken away from me.”

O’Shaughnessy didn’t appreciate that. “I don’t like bullies,” he said. “I explained to him that even a fully registered trademark on a logo does not entitle him to the words displayed in it, just the specific logo. He has not changed his views.”

So O’Shaughnessy registered mtlblogs.com and started posting.

38. You have described your critics as a “hate movement”. Why do you think so many people dislike your website?

It’s hard to believe that so many people who had never met before have decided for no apparent reason to join together in some sort of movement to attack MTL Blog. Either MTL Blog’s owners are genuinely this paranoid about a massive conspiracy against them, or …

Coverage of this story

39. What specifically have I tweeted that you believe is incorrect? Do you believe I have been unfair in what I have said about MTL Blog? If so, how?

I won’t pretend like I haven’t taken the gloves off when posting about MTL Blog on Twitter. But I don’t believe anything I’ve written is incorrect. And I’m more than happy to correct anything that is.

Despite all of this, I am actually interested in hearing MTL Blog’s side, getting further into detail. My offer for an interview, in person, on the phone or via email, still stands. And I’m updating this post with their responses and statements from others. My goal isn’t to shut MTL Blog down or compete with it. I simply want to explain to everyone (including them) what’s going on here and why these are important issues.

40. Was anything written in Chauvin’s article incorrect? Is there anything you would like to correct about it, clarify about it or add to it for the record?

Lapointe pointed to the story and said I could get answers to my questions there. Except, of course, my questions aren’t answered there. Presumably he believes what it says is true, but he hasn’t said so explicitly. So I can’t be sure that he agrees with everything that is said in that story.

Unanswered questions

Today’s three-hour Twitter chat (storified here) gave answers to many of these questions for the first time. There remain some that were not answered:

Unanswered #askmtlblog question via @traceylindeman: Do you pay your writers who write paid content? — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 21, 2014

Unanswered #askmtlblog question: What is the difference between a best-of list and a review? Why is it OK to charge for one & not the other? — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 20, 2014

Unanswered #askmtlblog question by @AdamJKovac: Do you consider MTLBlog to be a journalistic entity? — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 20, 2014

Unanswered #askmtlblog question: How do you rank your best-of lists? — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 20, 2014

Unanswered #askmtlblog question: Is anything reported in this post wrong? http://t.co/EBF444SZrU — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 20, 2014

Unanswered #askmtlblog question: What was the ownership of MTL Blog before @larsen514 left? Was he not a partner? — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 20, 2014

Unanswered #askmtlblog question: Did Keurig pay for this product placement? http://t.co/uDB66vV3Ia (The Main says it declined similar deal) — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 20, 2014

Unanswered #askmtlblog question: What does Seinfeld have to do with Montreal? https://t.co/jKvvCUuNk1 — Steve Faguy (@fagsteinlive) August 20, 2014

See also