I love opinion journalism, which I have practiced with passion and, I hope, rigor for more than 30 years. Every day, I read my fellow columnists and editorialists at Dutyof The Press and Montreal Journal.
By offering me their diverse points of view, they help me to better understand the world and to question myself. As opinion journalism, moreover, allows for assumed subjectivity even in style, it makes the reading experience particularly pleasant. With the columnists we always read, we converse, even if we never speak to them.
The fact remains that the basis of journalism is facts. Without a detailed knowledge of these, in fact, a point of view on the world is not worth much. But the facts, these days, are mistreated.
On both the left and the right, we hear nonsense like “to each his own”. In such a situation where common factual reality is denied, society becomes a free-for-all between groups seeking to impose their vision of reality and democracy is in danger. Today’s United States embodies the quintessence of this disaster, which strikes everywhere else too.
In For the facts (Les Belles Lettres, 2023, 160 pages), the French journalist and philosopher Géraldine Muhlmann brilliantly argues against “the virtualization of the world”, that is to say “the difficulty we have in feeling the truth of the facts”, and for information journalism in which “factual material” takes pride of place. “Teaching us how to judge,” she writes, “everyone is at it all day; always teaching us more things about the reality we are talking about, it’s rarer. »
A fact, it is a subject that applies to everyone. Having access to the facts is not easy since they can be manipulated at the time of transmission. Hence, explains the philosopher, the ideal of modern journalism, which highlights the objective of “the transmission of facts by those who have the sensitive experience of them, to others who do not have it done “.
These transmitters, to inspire confidence, must cultivate impartiality, which is “permanent work on oneself”, and therefore avoid any editorial comment or judgment on the information, while being aware that they do not see everything.
The role of news journalism, in a democracy, is to establish the facts, which are the common basis from which conflicts of values can arise. Impartiality, or objectivity, remains an ideal, of course, and we remember Bourgault preferring the idea of ”honest subjectivity”, but abandoning this compass would amount to renouncing the idea of truth, even that of reality.
The more facts we know, the more we become aware of the complexity of reality and the more difficult it becomes to make a judgment, explains Muhlmann. Some people don’t like it and prefer to lock themselves into dogmas that simplify the world. They are not Democrats.
Such praise of news journalism should not blind us to the limits of the practice. I am, for example, a faithful fan of the show Investigation on Radio-Canada. That doesn’t stop me from finding remarkable the counter-investigation that journalism professor Marc-François Bernier reserves for one of the show’s shocking reports in his essay Target (Global Art, 2023, 300 pages).
On November 21, 2013, journalist Pasquale Turbide tells the story of five pairs of parents whose lives were turned upside down after a visit to Sainte-Justine hospital to seek treatment for their injured child. In these five cases, the hospital’s pediatric socio-legal clinic decided to make a report to the Director of Youth Protection (DYP) because it suspected abuse.
In the report, the parents attack Doctor Alain Sirard, director of the clinic, presented as an insensitive inquisitor who unfairly accused them. By listening to this report, we share their indignation.
However, Bernier, who was an expert witness in the defamation suit brought by Sirard against Radio-Canada and had, in this context, access to the court file, shows that the story was quite a bit more complex and nuanced than what the report suggested.
The reports, ultimately, were not accepted – which proves the report was right – but the investigations of various authorities into Doctor Sirard nevertheless concluded that the latter, with his team, had been right to make them – which proves the report wrong. In 2016, Sirard committed suicide.
Let’s be clear: Bernier’s goal is not to conclude that the reporting ofInvestigation in this drama, but to show that prestigious investigative journalism is not always impeccable and must therefore also be subjected to criticism.
Columnist (Presence Info, Game), essayist and poet, Louis Cornellier teaches literature at college.