I am extremely revolted by the situation that the local press is going through these days. The cry of alarm launched by Métro Média challenges me and resounds sadly in my ears.
No, not another newsroom under threat? Not another major player in an ecosystem, so important and so fragile, which is fighting for its survival?
I am revolted and saddened, but this is not the time to look for those responsible, to point out the culprits. First and foremost, I want to express my solidarity with Métro Média and all the local media. Métro Média is a local information company established in Montreal. It holds about twenty editions of neighborhood in the metropolis and in Quebec, as well as the Metro Newspaper distributed free of charge in print and digital format, reaching more than three million readers each week.
I therefore want to share my deep conviction that these media are pillars of the cultural, social and economic life of our cities, of our communities. I have always believed in the relevance and power of local information in the service of rootedness, inclusion, integration and diversity, in the service of our social cohesion.
I am a career journalist, in solidarity with my colleagues, a natural, assumed and legitimate ally of the profession. I am a former Member of Parliament and former Minister of Culture and Communications aware that journalism is essential to democracy. I am convinced of the capabilities of levels of government when the political will is there.
To reinvent oneself
I believe that the local press has been faced with a major challenge: reinventing both a digital editorial offer and a new business model. He was asked to do it in a very short period of time and in a hostile context. It seems to me that the least we can do is help him in this necessary but complex transformation.
This is what Métro Média, a historic and major player anchored and rooted in the lives of Montrealers and most certainly the most advanced in its digital transition, is asking for.
I can only support him in this process. At this critical and pivotal moment, I can only add my voice to those for whom the disappearance of the local press is not the sign of a strong and healthy democracy.
How do the hundreds of elected officials of Montreal want to communicate with their fellow citizens? How do they want to deploy local information? Through foreign digital platforms and their changing algorithms? With blows of post sponsors who siphon off their budgets and alter their judgment by subjecting them to the dictatorship of anonymous comments?
However, media anchored in their neighborhoods in their daily lives are there and allow a transparent and constructive exchange. They are there to ask questions, to challenge, but also to tell stories of the neighborhood and neighboring businesses, to put decisions into context, from a perspective of citizen participation, of proximity.
It seems to me that the choice is easy to make.
In closing, allow me to have a moving thought for the young journalists and all the employees of Métro Média, for whom the local press is very often a formative passage, a necessary springboard towards brilliant careers.