There was big news yesterday from Radio-Canada with the
announcement that Celine Galipeau would become the lead anchor of its nightly news broadcast. Celine Galipeau is a seasoned journalist known for her
comprehensive and insightful coverage from Moscow and Beijing. She was born in
Longueuil, Quebec to a French-Canadian father who was a diplomat and a
Vietnamese mother. She replaces
Bernard Derome who has defined TV news in the province for over three decades.
Some anchors "read" the news, others seem to "tell" the news. I've always felt that Bernard Derome’s familiar and less formal delivery of the news made the content more credible as if he was personally vetting the news.
It's perhaps one of the reasons why Quebeckers appear to trust media news reports more so than Canadians in the ROC. A recent Ipsos-Reid survey on behalf of the Canadian Journalism Foundation (May 2008) asked Canadians which of the following two statements about the news media they agree with more:
(1) The news media’s primary goal is to find and broadcast the truth.
(2) The news media’s primary goal is to run a business and to make money.
Significantly more Quebeckers (62%) said that the news media’s primary goal is to find and broadcast the truth. (54% in Ontario and as low as 38% in the Prairies)
That's consistent with findings from the Yankelovich Monitor ten years ago. Asked whether they agreed or disagreed with the statement “I am skeptical about the accuracy of news stories and information presented in the media”, 75% of English Canadians agreed compared to 63% of French Canadians.
It must be true if they say it.
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