Canada Radio’s Leaning Tower

Like the famous Tower of Pisa, the Radio Canada Tower also tilts. Always on the same side.

It’s not SRC’s transition into a beautiful rectangular aquarium that will change anything. For reasons that neither sociologists nor psychologists can undoubtedly explain, if they were not their special guests, most public television and radio stations still leaned to the left. In our democratic country, because in other countries they sleep with power.

This is why we always find the same faces on Canadian radio debates and public affairs programmes. The same with Télé-Québec, who together with Le Devoir, the couriers of our “awakened” left.

I know Radio Canada well enough to know that there is no written “editorial line”. An editorial line is drawn up for all choices and decisions made by the chairperson or editorial committee. I would be surprised if there is one on TVA or Noovo, but it has nothing to do with it. These are the networks that live off the income they earn from ad salespeople, not from our plans.

official line

To be without a useful editorial line. This makes it possible to claim strict objectivity. We are neither on the right nor on the left. This is the official line. Who raises like a white flag in front of any shameless who dares to denounce. Whether the critic is right or left, that can sometimes happen.

Those responsible for News, from 24/60, from The more fun, the more we read, from Politicians aficionados, etc., etc. You don’t need an editorial line. They know instinctively that we do not invite Matteo Boc Coti to the discussion, if not to confront him. Don’t invite Natalie Normando to discuss her book, if not to remind listeners of the 14 counts of fraud and conspiracy that led to her sensational arrest in the early hours of the morning. Accusations that the court turned into black candy.

It’s natural — and desirable — for journalists, researchers, and public affairs presenters to look for the little monster, they say. The problem is that at Radio Canada, we always turn over the same stones in hopes of finding the little monster, the ones we think right-wingers are building their fascist theories or building their schemes underground.

What do we want to forget?

Radio Canada sometimes takes the boat at the last minute. As with sexism not so long ago, as with diversity and inclusion today. Once at the bridge, RCA flaps its wings, calms it down, and makes a noise to make us think it’s ahead of the action and carried it along, rather than lagging behind.

Is this to make people forget that for 50 years, Radio Canada’s screen was so exclusively white that we now see a group of blacks and aborigines? Is he making people forget the reserved fate of Mira Cree, Louise Arcand, Adrien Lafond, Judith Jasmine, Michel Feruli, Dominique Poirier, Pascal Nadeau, and so many others that women now make up the vast majority of Canada’s columnist and radio-research group?

Unless it’s because we can hire them at a lower cost. That’s because Radio Canada has long given actresses and TV series stars lower fees than men. I dare not believe that this could still be the case.