Michel Jean hosted his last newscast on TVA at noon on Friday. “But I’m not retiring,” the best-selling bookseller in Quebec insists. Writing will also take up a lot of his time in the coming months. His new novel is expected in 2025. Other projects are also in the works, including a possible TV adaptation of his best-selling book Kukum.
In short, if we were able to read a little earlier this week, when the news of his departure began to leak, that Michel Jean was retiring, it would in fact perhaps be more accurate to write that he is simply leaving TVA. And the least we can say is that his last day of work at 1600, boul. De Maisonneuve Est was quite busy, LCN having been on special broadcast for several hours because of this gigantic water leak that flooded part of the Centre-Sud sector in Montreal.
“I’m definitely going to miss the adrenaline rush that comes with being live during this type of event,” he confided in an interview with The Dutya few hours before going on air for the last time on the most listened to network in Quebec.
“This adrenaline,” Michel Jean ran on it for nearly 40 years of his career. In the early 2000s, when he was a rising star at Radio-Canada, he was dispatched to the four corners of the world, sometimes braving danger, like in Haiti, when he found himself in the middle of a shootout, despite himself. “Let’s just say it shook me up a bit,” he says today in a rather euphemistic manner, as if to downplay what he experienced.
The star journalist also has an imperishable memory of the beginnings of the war in Iraq, which he covered from the roof of his hotel, and of the meetings he had in Sri Lanka, after the destructive passage of the tsunami in December 2004. But of all the historical events he witnessed, it was the attacks of September 11, 2001 that will have troubled him the most. “It was close to us. My brain was not ready to see the desolation that I saw,” relates the man who was one of the first journalists to reach the site of Ground Zero.
In 2008 he published Special Envoya book in which he looks back on his most memorable covers. For a long time, Michel Jean wondered what his life would have been like if he had stayed at Radio-Canada and traveled the world. “I would have probably ended up as a correspondent somewhere in the world. I loved going abroad to cover stories in the field. It’s something I really missed when I left Radio-Canada. But at the same time, I think that if I hadn’t gone to TVA, I would never have written books. It’s because of a guide we made for the show I that I started writing,” he ponders, thinking back on that period.
A jazz musician in a rock band
After refusing an initial offer, Michel Jean finally agreed to move to TVA in 2005 to co-host the show Iwhich was then taking a turn by becoming a magazine essentially focused on consumer protection. His mother, a loyal Radio-Canada listener, cried when he announced to her that he was leaving the public broadcaster to join this private channel very focused on news stories.
“At Radio-Canada, I was often told that I was too much of a TVA. And at TVA, I was told that I was too much of a Radio-Canadian. No matter where I was, I always felt like a jazz musician in a rock band. But what tipped the scales in favour of TVA was that at Radio-Canada, there are a lot of ants in the anthill. It’s a huge company and it’s easy to get lost. Things move slowly. At II was in a position where I could have a direct influence,” he sums up, without feeling any regret in hindsight.
Ultimately, Michel Jean says he really enjoyed himself at Quebecor, even though he still resents the way he says he was treated by Serge Fortin, the former head of TVA Nouvelles and TVA Sports. He accuses him of creating a toxic climate within the news department.
In 2020, TVA showed the door to Serge Fortin, whose management style was subsequently compared to a “regime of terror” in an article published in the daily newspaper. The Press. Michel Jean had not digested last year that his former colleague Denis Lévesque had teamed up with Serge Fortin to launch his podcast, and he had not hesitated to let him know publicly on social networks.
“Newsrooms are places that breed toxic climates because we’re all passionate people who work under pressure. Fortunately, things are changing. When I started, we accepted being yelled at by the bosses. We thought it was part of the job. Now, young journalists no longer accept that. They don’t hesitate to leave when they’re no longer feeling well, and that’s a good thing. But we have to remain vigilant to avoid falling back into that,” warns the journalist and writer of Innu origin.
“Kuei”
Shortly after Serge Fortin’s departure, Michel Jean was promoted to news anchor TVA News Midday. He opened each of his bulletins by greeting the listeners with the word kueiwhich means “hello” in the Algonquian languages. A symbolic gesture, which he took the initiative of without informing the bosses, and which earned him some derogatory comments on social networks.
“When you’re a little girl who grew up on a reserve on the North Shore, you don’t see yourself on TV. The only time people talk about you is when there’s a problem with Aboriginal people. We don’t realize how much Aboriginal people don’t feel taken into account in Quebec society. For me, saying “kuei“At the start of the bulletin, it was just a mark of respect to ensure that people heard at least one word in their language,” claims the author of the best-selling novels Qimmik And Tiohtiá:ke.
The TVA journalist has sometimes publicly criticized certain columns published in THE Montreal Journal that dealt with indigenous issues. He says he even complained to his bosses twice because he felt that what was written there bordered on hatred or defamation. However, Michel Jean denies having become an activist for the indigenous cause.
“You’ll never see me with a placard on the street. All I do as a journalist is turn on lights. When the light is on, people can take into consideration what they see or they can turn the light off. I’m not the one who’s going to tell them what to do,” he illustrates.
Over the next few months, Michel Jean will continue to turn on lights. This fall, he will be a columnist on the show There will always be culture. Anik Jean is currently working on a big screen adaptation of Qimmik. Kukumwhich will be staged this season at the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, could also become a TV series.
It was close to us [les attentats du 11 septem-bre 2001] . My brain was not ready to see the desolation that I saw. Michel Jean »