The former head of the Newscast from Radio-Canada Bernard Derome received the Judith-Jasmin Tribute award on Saturday evening at the annual convention of the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec (FPJQ). This prestigious award highlights his entire career. Interview.
“When I learned about it, I was extremely surprised and at the same time very moved because this recognition comes from peers, it’s extraordinary recognition,” said Mr. Derome in an interview with The dutya few days before officially receiving its prize.
Even if he left the middle ten years ago, he remembers his beginnings as if it were yesterday. “I was young, but I always had this seed of journalism in me. I knew I wanted to do radio, TV, ”he says.
Even before reaching his twenties, Bernard Derome found himself behind the microphone of the CJBR Rimouski station in 1963. Two years later, he joined the Radio-Canada news department as a journalist, then quickly as animator. As early as 1967, he took the helm of television public affairs magazines such as Here and Todaybefore briefly returning to the newsroom.
At the turn of the 1970s, the man who dreamed of being a foreign correspondent finally received an offer he couldn’t refuse: to be the news anchor of the Newscast of Radio Canada. He held that chair until December 2008, with a brief hiatus from 1998 to 2004. During those years, he hosted specialty news shows like 5 out of 5 Where The world.
“The objective that has been with me all these years was to lay the foundations, to define the contours of a function that we still knew little about in Quebec at the time, we were just beginning to have heads of antenna in the United States,” he explains.
Mr. Derome worked hard to deliver a Newscast worthy of the name. This, of course, depended on his rigor, his irreproachable ethics, his credibility and his always fair tone in presenting the news. But also by setting up a whole teamwork mechanism with daily production meetings to prepare the bulletin.
He also and above all fought to guarantee the independence of the news service before the political or financial powers and the commercial service. He also strongly objected to commercial interruptions during the Newscast.
“I was a journalist first and foremost, not an advertiser,” he points out, recalling that before he instituted this way of doing things, American and Canadian news readers used to advertise.
Four decades of news
For four decades, he was also a privileged witness to significant events in history. He notably presented the October crisis, the referendums of 1980 and 1995, but also more than twenty federal, provincial and municipal elections.
Even today, he says he is inhabited by some of these moments on the air. “The war in Iraq is something that marked me a lot. We followed it closely, we saw things happen at some point and we went back on the air by interrupting the editions in the program, since we did not yet have a continuous channel. Above all, I remember saying in a serious tone: “Canada is at war”. I never thought I would say that one day. »
Another highlight of his career: the Polytechnique massacre on December 6, 1989. He was not on the air that day since he was accompanying his daughter who was having her tonsils operated on. “While she was resting and I was waiting for us to come home, we started to hear the sound of sirens and ambulances coming fast one after another. A Sainte-Justine nurse told me: “Mr. Derome, there is something serious going on!” recalls the ex-host. The next day, he was at the helm of a special program on the premises of Polytechnique. “I remember asking myself: ‘but what do we do, what do we say in such events?’ We must not fall into pathos or corny, we had to find the right tone, the right words. »
Does he miss the time when he was in the heat of the moment? “Of course, when I watch an election night, it’s thrilling, it brings back memories,” he replies, laughing to note that his famous phrase “If the trend continues” has remained in the mouths of his successors at Radio-Canada. “I should have bought the rights to it,” he jokes.
Mr. Derome, however, believes that he has had time to grieve over all these years. “When I said ‘it’s over’, it’s over. I moved on. And at the same time, I’m still active in the medium, but in another way, with documentaries. It’s great, we have time, we take the time. »
Moreover, he has two documentary projects currently under consideration. He is also, since 2010, the very first president of the Institute of International Studies of Montreal at UQAM.
In addition to this Judith-Jasmin Tribute award, the host has already been honored several times during his career. In particular, he received the Olivar-Asselin prize in 1981, he is a member of the Order of Canada, a knight of the National Order of Quebec and in 2009 he received the Medal of Honor from the National Assembly of Quebec.
The Homage Prize jury is made up of former presidents of the FPJQ.