Dissension within the 4th estate

MONTREAL - Yes, bombs are falling on Afghanistan and the Canadian economy is in trouble, but it seems that nothing gets the media worked up like controversy involving a fellow journalist. Until a few weeks ago, Normand Lester toiled in Radio-Canada's TV newsroom, translating international reports. Now he is the best-selling author of Le livre noir du Canada anglais (The Black Book of English Canada), celebrated by Quebec's nationalist elite after his anti-English Canada rant earned him a suspension for breach of journalistic ethics. On Tuesday, he announced his resignation.

Paule des Rivières, an editorial-writer with Le Devoir, noted Mr. Lester could not have orchestrated a better publicity campaign for his book if he had tried. Since news broke of his suspension, the book has been snapped up from Montreal bookstores. Ms. des Rivières found the network's response heavy-handed and saw signs of meddling by Radio-Canada's head office, "if not the Prime Minister's Office." The episode is further proof, she wrote, that the supposedly impartial public network is clearly on the side of the federalists.

That, however, was about as much sympathy as Mr. Lester got. Pierre Foglia of La Presse wrote of throwing down the book in disgust after the following passage in the first chapter: "The English have always considered the French, whose women, food, geography and climate they envy, as their enemies." For Mr. Foglia, the comment was proof the author is "a mechanic who just had a lobotomy ... How can you keep reading after that? I couldn't. You owe me $26.70, Mr. Lester. I have the bill."

Columnist Don Macpherson, in The Gazette, criticized Bernard Landry, the Premier, for twice recommending Mr. Lester's book to separatist supporters. He found it odd for Mr. Landry, on the eve of his first speech in Toronto, to be urging French-speaking Quebecers to read "a work of anti-English hate literature." Gilbert Lavoie of Le Soleil likened Mr. Landry's advice to Mike Harris telling Ontarians to read "pamphlets" on Quebec written by Mordecai Richler or Diane Francis. "One wonders sometimes what planet Premier Bernard Landry lives on," Mr. Lavoie wrote.

Another reporter, Alexander Panetta of The Canadian Press, found himself at the bottom of a journalistic pile-on after he had the temerity to report peculiar comments in which Mr. Landry drew a connection between the "project for Quebec sovereignty" and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. The remarks made the front page of the National Post and played prominently in other English Canada newspapers, but were not considered news in Quebec. Katia Gagnon, an editorial writer with La Presse, allowed that Mr. Landry's speech was "ambiguous" and perhaps it would have been prudent to avoid mentioning Sept. 11. But she reserved her harshest criticism for the Canadian Press, calling the report "dishonest." Michel David, writing in Le Devoir, said attacks on Mr. Landry in the English Canada media in fact target "the sovereignty project itself, and ultimately Quebec's capacity to democratically decide its future." Mr. Macpherson gave Mr. Landry the benefit of the doubt. "I do not believe for a minute he meant to justify terrorism in the name of Quebec sovereignty or to allow his party to be linked in the public consciousness with violence," he wrote. But the Premier's comments were open to interpretation. "To put it unkindly, Landry is a pompous windbag."

Then there was the case of Ken Hechtman, the young Montrealer who set out to report on the war in Afghanistan, and found himself facing possible execution by the Taliban. Mr. Hechtman's reports in the Mirror, an alternative Montreal weekly, had gone largely unnoticed until word broke last week that he was being held captive. Experts expounded on the dangers facing journalists in the volatile war zone. Jooneed Khan of La Presse commended Mr. Hechtman's dispatches for showing "humour, spontaneity and sensitivity too, far removed from clichés and stereotypes."