Four years after being elected head of the Professional Federation of Journalists (FPJQ), Michaël Nguyen leaves with his head held high. His presidency will have been marked by a pandemic, which will have accentuated the distrust of part of the population towards the profession. It ends at a time when the media are going through an unprecedented crisis, as evidenced by the recent job losses at TVA and the Coops de l’information. But even in the heart of the storm, Michaël Nguyen calls for nothing to be given in, especially not to Facebook, which continues to block the sharing of news in the country.
“Facebook is playing on fear right now to force us to back down. But is it in our interest to step back and give the keys to the country to a foreign company? To step back would mean that Facebook can rule the roost,” he thunders with conviction.
The outgoing president of the FPJQ remains an ardent defender of C-18, the bill adopted in June by the Trudeau government to force Web giants to negotiate with the media for the sharing of revenues from journalistic content. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked news sharing on its platforms in protest. We recently learned that Google was considering doing the same by December 19, the date on which C-18 will officially come into force.
However, the disappearance of journalistic content from major digital platforms is hurting the media. C-18 was supposed to bring them new revenue, but for now, precisely the opposite is happening. This is what makes some people say that the Trudeau government should withdraw its law. But Michaël Nguyen does not hold this opinion at all.
“It’s a difficult time to go through. But what would the other solution be? Leave the situation as it was, with Web giants monopolizing almost all revenues, and leaving almost nothing for the media? The status quo was just no longer tenable. He was going to sign the death warrant of the media. C-18 was necessary,” reiterates the man who has been president of the FPJQ since 2019.
Uncertain future
Will articles and reports from major Canadian media outlets be able to be shared on Facebook again? Michaël Nguyen doesn’t know what the future holds for us. But he is convinced that the news blocking is also hurting Meta. “They agreed to deprive themselves of revenue, saying that the blockage would further deprive the media of revenue. In other words, they decided to shoot themselves in the foot to shoot the media in the head,” laments Michaël Nguyen, who is a legal journalist at Montreal Journal from a decade.
Involved in the FPJQ for almost as long, he could not seek another mandate as president under the statutes of the federation. As the FPJQ’s annual congress begins at the end of the week, he hands over to the man who was until then his vice-president, Éric-Pierre Champagne, daily journalist The Press.
The challenges that await him are immense. In recent weeks, TVA has eliminated 547 positions. Several journalists in regional stations lost their jobs. Another loss for regional information: around a third of Coops de l’information employees signed up to the voluntary departure program put in place with a view to the complete abandonment of paper by the group’s six dailies on December 30.
“The media situation is a roller coaster. […] But yes, journalism still has a future. He has no choice in having a future,” summarizes Michaël Nguyen, who sees journalism as one of the guarantors of a healthy democracy.
Shoot the messengers
However, a recent study presented as part of the Carleton-sur-Mer International Journalism Festival shows that a significant portion of Quebecers have reservations about the work of the media. Government aid granted to press groups would dissuade journalists from criticizing decision-makers, according to 40% of them. What’s more, 37% of Quebecers think that journalists sometimes broadcast deliberately misleading information.
“It’s more a decline in confidence in institutions than in journalists. And as we cover the institutions, we shoot the messengers. This was especially true during the pandemic. Journalists who covered government press briefings were criticized a lot. But all we did was report what the government said about health measures,” illustrates the outgoing president of the FPJQ.
Michaël Nguyen notes that distrust of the media is more a misunderstanding of the work of journalists. For him, it is urgent that media education be part of the school curriculum. If only to allow people to better understand the difference between an article that purports to be objective and an opinion column.