The daughter of Montreal’s new police chief, Fady Dagher, posed with a toy gun last fall. The Journal of Montreal posted the photos with this headline: “Embarrassing Halloween Photos for Montreal Police Chief Fady Dagher.”
I add: it is the adult daughter of Mr. Dagher, she is 22 years old.
I often and with pleasure relay news – investigations and scoops – from the JdeM. I concede that the decision to publish a news, in a media, is not an exact science. What is news for a journalist is not necessarily news for his colleague. Ditto for the media: what media A will deem relevant may not be in media B. Fine.
But in the case of Fady Dagher’s daughter’s costume, I’m puzzled: where is the news?
The pretext for this revelation of Montreal Journal, here, is that the greater Montreal area is grappling with an undeniable increase in gun violence. The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal is at the center of efforts to curb this armed violence. We all know the ravages of this scourge.
Hence the decision of Log to publish the photos of the SPVM police chief’s daughter posing in a hood for Halloween 2022 with a toy gun: because she is, precisely, the daughter of the Montreal police chief (Longueuil police chief, at the time of the events).
But no matter how hard I look, I don’t see the link between this photo and gun violence.
Is it great genius to pose with a toy gun in 2022? It’s debatable, but let’s not forget the context: that of Halloween, a party where people… dress up.
(Know this, though: the police may wake you up in the early hours of the morning looking for the toy gun you posed with, because the cops don’t know if the gun is a toy, if the photo makes the subject of a complaint. This is not automatic, but it is a possibility.)
That these photos of the young Dagher have become a new place for the chief of police of Montreal in a delicate situation, yes… But only from a point of view of the image, of public relations. Concretely, I don’t see how that can even raise doubts about his ability to lead the SPVM.
If Fady Dagher himself had posed with a toy gun, even as a joke, the story would be completely different. The news would be perfectly justifiable. It would even be a lack of judgment justifying his resignation.
Another example: if Fady Dagher’s daughter had posed with a real weapon, if she had links with real bandits, the story would once again be completely different. You can hardly be the father of a young woman associated with banditry AND be a police chief.
But more broadly, beyond the JdeM news, allow me to jazz up a little on two things…
First, at 22, in 1994, if I had posed with a toy gun, this photo would never have seen the light of day. Not because I had more judgment than Fady Dagher’s daughter, but simply because I had nowhere to post her! Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and blogs: none of that existed. We live in a time where ordinary bullshit is increasingly immortalized in pixels. Extensive program, if each bullshit is worth a new one.
Second, to what extent are public figures responsible for their children’s bullshit? For the criminal bullshit, I understand: if Minister X’s son does a hit-and-run, if Mayoress Z’s daughter imports a kilo of coke: it will be on the front page of the newspaper. It’s part of the game public.
But for the ordinary bullshit of children of public figures, where is the line, for what constitutes news or not?
I sincerely ask the question. I just know that if we put our minds to it, we can probably fill a whole newspaper with what we will find on the social networks of the children of our mayors, ministers, aldermen, hockey players, heads of state corporations , union presidents, CEOs of fleurons de Québec inc., journalists, actresses, singers or MRC prefects…
And you don’t have to be a mayor, minister, alderman, hockey player, head of a government corporation, president of a union, CEO of a flagship of Quebec Inc., journalist, actress, singer or prefect of the MRC, in short, he you don’t have to be a public figure to know this: we raise them, we love them, we equip them, but despite all our efforts, sometimes our children – teenagers or adults – will still do stupid things, big or small.
This is all the more true for young women who celebrate Halloween as one can at 22 and whose only “crime” is to have forgotten that dad is a policeman in sight.