Provide information with humour, as radio programs do The day is still young And Everything can happen contributes to “confusing the genres” and can cause some confusion in the minds of the public, believes the ombudsman of French Services of CBC / Radio-Canada, inviting the management of the broadcaster to rectify the situation.
“Nothing prevents playing with words, but a certain caution must impose itself, it seems to me, when it comes to the word information, especially in this troubled era” underlines Pierre Champoux in its annual report released Thursday.
He gives as an example Everything can happen, the Saturday evening program hosted by Marie-Louise Arsenault on ICI Première, in which we find a segment offering a review of the news “where humor rhymes with humor”. He also mentions the radio program The day (is still young) moderated by Jean-Philippe Wauthier, where we “pride ourselves on providing information differently” by using a lot of humour.
While emphasizing the “undeniable qualities” of these broadcasts, and without wanting to denigrate this way of talking about current affairs “undoubtedly very effective with the audience”, Mr. Champoux considers it necessary to avoid “the pitfalls of confusing genres”.
“It is obviously not a question of censoring oneself, but of acting in such a way that the audience understands that they are being offered a humorous, non-journalistic work, and that this lighter treatment does not rub off on the credibility of the artisans. information,” he says.
In management’s response to Champoux’s report, Audio and Radio General Manager Caroline Jamet said adjustments will be made. For example, a precision will be added to the radio broadcast Everything can happen, precisely in the segment “The week in review” by journalist Jean-Philippe Cipriani, “so that listeners understand that this is a critical and humorous review of the week’s news”.
More visibility for the ombudsman
In his annual report, the ombudsman also reports a sharp drop in the number of communications from the public received by his office. For 2022-2023, it counts 1378 related to information, compared to 1607 the previous year.
These figures mark a return to a pre-pandemic level, with the number of complaints received in 2019-2020 amounting to 1,254 complaints and 1,349 in 2018-2019. But Mr. Champoux also sees it as a difficulty for the public to reach him.
“Apart from the website of the Office of the Ombudsman which, despite all its qualities, is visited by a fairly limited number of people, the citizen has few doors allowing him to enter into contact with the Ombudsman of the Services French to denounce a breach of the NPJ [normes et pratiques journalistiques] “, he writes.
There is otherwise a discreet mention of the ombudsman on the Radio-Canada site in the menu at the bottom of the page. “This service deserves to be better known and, above all, more accessible. Far from being a burden, receiving a complaint, founded or not, must be considered as an opportunity to reflect on our journalistic approach and, above all, to demonstrate transparency,” insists Mr. Champoux.
He recommends that a referral to the ombudsman’s services also be visible on the Radio-Canada Info, Radio-Canada OHdio or ICI TOU.TV mobile applications, since they represent “significant traffic vectors”.
For its part, the management of the public broadcaster explains this drop in the number of complaints by the end of generalized sanitary measures and the lower traffic on its platforms, and does not see it as a sign of a lack of visibility of the services of the ombudsman. On the contrary, she believes that the presence of a hyperlink in the footer menu of the media site “enhances the discoverability of the ombudsman’s site enormously”.
She adds that a hyperlink is on the Radio-Canada Info mobile application, but in the “Settings” section, considering “the limited space available on the screen”. A hyperlink will also be added to the OHdio and ICI TOU.TV applications — also in the “Settings” section — to lead to the services of the ombudsman.
At the source of the complaints
In all, the ombudsman received 1,817 messages from the public this year, of which 1,378 complaints were about news content. Among them, 574 required a response from management regarding the application of the broadcaster’s NPJ. In 18 cases, the complainants said they were dissatisfied, which led to a review of their file: 12 complaints were ultimately unjustified, 4 were founded, 1 founded only in part, and one has not yet been published.
The issue of firearms is the source of the greatest number of complaints this year, at 19% in total. Anne-Marie Dussault’s interview with Martin Bourget, president of the Aventure Chasse Pêche group, during the program 24/60 d’ICI RDI on December 5, alone collected 265 complaints.
105 complaints concerned coverage of the provincial election campaign last October. Several complainants denounced the lack of visibility of the Conservative Party. Media coverage of the war in Ukraine, gender issues and the Pope’s visit to Canada have also prompted complaints.