Charlotte Biron has scoured seventy-five years of print in French Canada to produce a clear story of reportage. Diving headfirst into pre-1945 newspapers is often a serious challenge, far beyond the mush of poorly reproduced characters. You have to know how to be patient and learn, along the way, to control yourself so as not to succumb to the temptation to read anything and everything on the side.
A lecturer at several universities, with a doctorate in literature, Charlotte Biron comes from a family of scholars. Patiently, she followed the long tape of microfilms unrolled in front of her, in search of forgotten reports, from Arthur Buies to Gabrielle Roy. From this fragile thread, with a remarkable capacity for synthesis, she was able to weave a solid history of journalism in a period often unfairly relegated to oblivion.
“I didn’t expect the reporting texts to be so good! When I started my research, I was told that I wasn’t going to find anything, that it wasn’t a genre that had been practiced so much here,” explains Charlotte Biron in an interview. She was all the more surprised.
The word “reportage” was not yet in use in the 19e century, recalls Charlotte Biron. So it could be a question of “reports” before this word was erased in favor of “report”. In front of these journalists sent to the field, we sometimes speak of “news agents”, sometimes of “reporters” or even of “novelists”. The term “reporter” apparently only appeared in 1891, on the occasion of a census.
Objectivity?
Of course, the form of these texts can surprise us today. “For us, there is nothing that seems objective. But this notion of objectivity, of neutrality, we have constructed it to satisfy ourselves. The passage of time has left us to decant the ideologically heavy biases present in some of these texts. Will it be the same when, in a hundred years, the writings that reflect our current events will also be considered from afar? Will the a priori be revealed just as much?
“Today, journalism has become more professional. At the time, it was still pretty much the Wild West. The shapes are not yet very defined. There were all kinds of goofy stories and practices. Today’s frames are less varied, clearer. Which does not mean that they are without a priori.
“We forgot that before 1945, everything went through the newspapers. Everything is here. Life intertwines with newspapers. The newspapers are very numerous. It’s all there, of course, because there’s nothing else to compete with. Radio barely exists as of the 1920s. Television is not there. The documentary film does not exist. Book publishers are still lacking. After the Second World War, in French Canada, everything did not change overnight. However, a new era is beginning, without a shadow of a doubt.
The gaze of women
Charlotte Biron says she was surprised in particular by the role played by women and their place in journalism. “I didn’t expect to find so many women! The further I went, the more I found. »
It is obvious that it must be repeated all the same: women did not enjoy the same opportunities as men. Far from there. “Journalists, moreover, they must constantly respond to the criticisms made of them for not being in their place. They are criticized for stepping out of their role. So they apologize… Their lyrics almost always begin with litanies of apologies! It’s quite boring. They apologize for being dressed as they are… For being “neglected”… They apologize for wearing traveling dresses, hats…” In short, they apologize for having only paper and pencils. In short, to do their job. “They apologize constantly, yes, in postures of humility! But once this barrier to reading is crossed, they offer a lot. It is exciting. »
Their reports, for example, give access to life in the home, to the words of other women, in short to a register of intimacy that their male counterpart leaves aside. “Some places are forbidden to them. But they go into the houses. They talk to other women. They tell of ordinary life, everyday life. It is very valuable. »
In 1901, Géorgina Bélanger, Éva Circé-Côté and Anne-Marie Huguenin met in Lac-Saint-Jean to gather the words of women in the early days of colonization. “Sometimes it seems like it takes three women to be allowed to be on assignment! This gives unique colors to a world otherwise seen from afar, from too far away. Here we are in “primitive homes”, watching people smoke, children huddle in a corner to sleep, in front of uncurtained windows.
Charlotte Biron also shows that these pioneers of journalism know how to use irony to thwart the constraints that are theirs. They trick social norms to sneak around the constraints imposed on them. They learned “to murmur against authority”, while valuing women’s words and writing.
On the side of the irrelevant
Charlotte Biron gives the impression of having read everything, gone through everything. It goes from the writings of Germaine Guévremont to Jules Fournier, passing from Arthur Buies to Jean-Louis Gagnon, continuing its path between the writings of Gabrielle Roy, Edmond de Nevers, Robertine Barry, Georgina Bélanger and many others. still others.
“Gabrielle Roy’s texts are stunning. I never tire of rereading them. Those, at least, are virtually all available to readers. They have been collected and edited. But how to read those of all the others? Charlotte Biron proposes at least to publish shortly an anthology of the best female reports gleaned from this period of beginnings.
In these Quebec reports, there is something truly unique, explains Charlotte Biron. “Everything is imbued with irrelevance. Gabrielle Roy, on the road to Alaska, talks about what this place was and what it will become. She is not in the present at all, even though she has both feet on the ground. It’s always like that. This is, she says, a distinctive feature of reporting in French Canada. “Reporters systematically talk about what the place has been and what it will be. Almost never from the present, from the news. All the reports are in this tension. Eyes are constantly turned towards the rear-view mirror. Perhaps to give himself the assurance of existing.
In 2022, Charlotte Biron had published an autobiographical book entitled radio garden. “I wrote this book almost at the same time as my thesis, in a practical form of reporting. It was a bit my personal version, if you will. The literature of the real is the one I like to read. »