This is a chronicle on the mechanics of incitement to hatred. On political intimidation. On cowardice.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
Yes, I’m talking about Radio X.
Quebec journalists will tell you that a good way to know if you have been talked about on this “toxic radio station”, as Régis Labeaume calls it, is that suddenly you receive dozens of hateful messages, insults, of threats.
It happened to my colleague Mylène Crête, who recently filed a complaint with the Quebec police for death threats. A brave anonymous on Twitter had not digested his questions to Éric Duhaime.
Note: not his text; his questions.
Mylène is one of the few journalists to follow the Conservative leader from start to finish of the campaign. We can hear him regularly at press briefings doing his job very well.
At the start of the campaign, Mario Dumont wrote in the Montreal Journal that Éric Duhaime should distance himself from the conspirators who form part of his base. Not all Duhaime supporters, of course, but many are antivax, believe Trump was robbed of the presidency, and so on.
Mylène therefore asked Duhaime outright if he believed that Joe Biden had indeed been elected, if he himself was going to recognize the result on October 3 in the event of defeat, if he saw a problem with 5G…
Duhaime did not take offense, ridiculed the conspiracy theses and affirmed that he would recognize the future result, whatever it was.
Case closed.
Well, not exactly…
On the show of Dominic Mrais and his acolytes, the hosts began to broadcast the questions to ridicule them. “Pie questions. Pie alert! Fucking pie”, etc.
Oh, nothing personal, no doubt Mylène is “a smart person”, but she asks tough questions.
And we continue.
See the topo.
On Thursday, Duhaime is on Radio X. Ms. could once again have the excerpt played with the question. The journalists who follow Duhaime, including Mylène, are there.
“Are these the most silly questions?” asks the host.
Duhaime, who plays it very relaxed, says there have been far worse ones.
What was the host up to, if not to publicly intimidate and humiliate the journalist present, in fact all the journalists around his favorite candidate?
Note that Duhaime himself has a very cordial and respectful relationship with journalists. Activists are not hostile in rallies either. Duhaime warns them when there are unpleasant questions not to react badly. In short, in the campaign, things are going well.
But my column is not about Duhaime and the campaign.
It is about manufacturing and accelerating hate.
You will tell me: journalists are not immune to criticism. Of course not. Except that if you pass excerpts repeatedly, if you insult the person over and over again, that’s another story. All this does not fall into a vacuum. It excites the hatred of the listeners. And hatred is relayed by social networks.
In 2017, a man emailed columnist Karine Gagnon, from Quebec newspaper, with a photo of Régis Labeaume bloodied, with lyrics by Metallica. The man was found guilty of threatening the mayor – but not the journalist, even though she was associated and showered with insults.
The threatening email was accompanied by a photo of Radio X hosts.
People in Montreal often think that “toxic radio stations” stand out for their more or less “extreme” or “shocking” opinions. Or their verbal excesses.
“Ho! Didn’t you say that? Have you heard what they say…”
It is, of course, part of the arsenal of what the Americans have called shock radio.
But what really characterizes these radios is the technique, not the opinion. What makes them different is the use of repeated personal attack for ideological purposes.
I understood what André Arthur was when I spent several weeks in Quebec listening to him. He could put himself on someone’s “case” and not let go. An unknown teacher with a weird lesson plan. A local reporter he didn’t like. Politicians, of course. But often nobody’s. And day after day, for weeks, he did it again. He terrorized a lot of people in town.
His heirs are inspired by it. Jeff Filion was ordered to pay $300,000 for his radio harassment of Sophie Chiasson. Same degrading technique.
But the difference now is that they exist in the age of the internet and social networks. They know the multiplier effect of hatred that they provoke in certain disciples.
Have you noticed ? Often, cowards and bullies especially enjoy picking on women. There is an excellent and very important film on this in our theaters right now: I salute you bitch, realized by Léa Clermont-Dion and Guylaine Maroist.
As if by chance, Mrais’s favorite targets are often female journalists: Anne-Marie Dussault, Céline Galipeau, etc. Or female journalists from Quebec.
It must be a coincidence.