Journalists and columnists are in the habit of handing out hugs and floats at the end of the year to people in our society who have had the guts to ask citizens to vote for them for the privilege of running the affairs of the city and to receive, therefore, accolades and floats.
It would only be a fair return of things that elected officials publish a journalist’s bulletin every year. If they don’t, it’s because they know that, as the saying goes, you can never have the last word when it comes to someone who buys ink from. the ton. In other words, who has control of the message.
Politics having left me, and having previous journalism experience, I thought I was in a good position to make this list. The year 2021 being behind us, I would be perfectly prepared to identify the biases, omissions, excesses and errors that any professional in the field may find over the days. If there were huge ones, I would let you know. But my observation is that the Quebec press played its role in 2021 with competence and rigor and that there is more to emphasize excellence than poverty. In the disorder, and without claiming to be exhaustive:
Thomas Gerbet, of Radio-Canada, which had previously given the floor to the agricultural whistleblower Louis Robert, did it again in 2021 when he told us that an Ontario school board was burning Asterix and lucky Luke, and that the Ministry of Health had received alarm emails before the hecatomb in CHSLDs, among other findings.
Isabelle Hachey, of Press, continues to document slights against academic freedom at universities, not just in Ottawa. His work has greatly contributed to the creation of the commission chaired by Alexandre Cloutier and its excellent report. Joseph Facal, in Le Journal de Montréal, also regularly submits documents to the file.
I would have a lot of good things to say about the Duty, of course, but I especially want to highlight the work of Marie-Michèle Sioui and of Jessica nadeau on discrimination against Aboriginals in the health network, which found cases that the Viens commission had not unearthed. From the coroner’s hearings on the Echaquan case, Jessica nadeau also offered a reconstruction of the days of hospitalization, then of the death, of the infamous Joyce, with more precision and nuance than contained in the report of coroner Géhane Kamel herself.
At the beginning of the year, Isabelle Ouimet and Félix Séguin delivered on Illico a remarkable documentary series, The proof, on the breathtaking failure of the attempt by the police and prosecutors to put a hundred Hells Angels permanently behind bars in 2009. Tour de force: the Hells who testify become sympathetic to us. This is the second year that the QMI Investigative Office has offered us a very high-quality documentary series, the previous one being The last felquist. Mention also for The breach on the Huawei affair and the looting of Nortel.
The excellent show Investigation, hosted by Marie-Maude Denis, do not blush in front of this welcome competition. This year, reports requiring an enormous work have made it possible to follow millions of dollars of the corruption of the Vaillancourt era in Laval through the maze of tax havens or to retrace the shamelessness with which the lesson-giver Jacques Villeneuve has camouflaged his huge jackpot.
AT VAT, Pierre-Olivier Zappa is the rising star of economic extension. His moment of glory was the question he asked in French to the president of Air Canada, Michael Rousseau. The question and the astonishing answer (in English) made the event.
After five years at the helm of the most popular political column in the country (yes, in the country), Bernard Drainville chose to cut back before the lack of sleep eventually took a toll on her. He had the formidable challenge of succeeding the inimitable Jean Lapierre (and not replacing him, which was impossible) at Paul Arcand’s microphone at 98.5. He managed to occupy the niche brilliantly and to make himself indispensable. Good luck to the next one, Jonathan Trudeau.
We cannot talk about the Quebec media universe without emphasizing the extraordinary success achieved in France by Mathieu Bock-Côté. He hosts on Saturday evening It is necessary to talk about it, whose audience on CNews is stronger than those, at the same time, of the other three French non-stop news channels. It offers a daily editorial on the air the rest of the week, takes part on Sunday morning in the big political interview on Europe 1 (all future presidential candidates go there). Point dedicated a flattering portrait to him, The world, a creaky portrait riddled with errors. At the slightest pretext, he speaks well of Quebec. As energetic and polarizing there as it is here, it occupies a place in France that no non-singing Quebecer has ever occupied.
Mention finally to Stephan Bureau. We can think that his July interview with the sulphurous Didier Raoult lacked bite. But it was more acceptable than the shocking precedent that the Radio-Canada ombudsman wanted to create, decreeing that in the future, any speaker deviating from consensual thinking should be preceded or followed by a panel of well-meaning people. who would say why he is wrong. Bureau was right to denounce, on the air, this dangerous attempt to sterilize speech.
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