Citizens of the Charlevoix region have called out Groupe le Massif on the lack of social acceptability of its development projects. As community media, TVCO helped give them a voice. Since then, there has been radio silence on the mountain side.
Lydia Duchesne - Local Journalism Initiative
For several years now, the gap between the Massif de Charlevoix and the inhabitants of the region had been widening. The latest development projects, involving huge public investments for a private company, and prices never seen before in the province, citizens have started to raise their voices. We talked about it at the grocery store, in office door frames, during community events... What happened to this beautiful unifying project, now inaccessible to the little people of Charlevoix? It has been compared to heartbreak and with good reason. Because the Charlevoisians love their mountains. Many learned to ski there and subsequently went there with their children and even grandchildren. Some, like me, went there just to party at the many crazy events that were organized there.
But the Massif now seems to have a big head and its costly ambitions are worrying the population, particularly in terms of the environment. An open letter written by a well-engaged citizen, Simon Fortin, has made its way into the written media. It was with a feeling of solidarity that TVCO received him for an interview to discuss it. The important point to remember was this: "we don't want to go to war against the Massif, we just want them to hear what we have to say and recreate the link that was broken", Simon told me before the interview.
I had the feeling of participating in something important with this shoot. I wanted to participate and contribute to this citizen mobilization from a journalistic point of view. So I put my contacts, a privilege of the profession, to work to try to get a response from Groupe le Massif, or at least, to try to ensure that the subject does not run out of steam, that it remains news. I would have liked our participation to have more impact. Yes, we participated in the movement, yes we made noise with the community, but the company's strategy of "non-communication" is a silence that hurts.
It is therefore here, a few weeks later, while the subject fades and the Massif continues its activities as if nothing had happened, that journalism will perhaps have an impact. What if we brought the subject back to the table? After all, nothing is settled.
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LJI Impact is the section of commediaportal.ca where the journalists and their organizations participating in CACTUS' Local Journalism Initiative can share their greatest successes.
Through the written stories, photos and videos you see in the LJI Impact section, you'll be able to read first hand accounts about how the presence of a community journalist is making a difference in communities across Canada through the Local Journalism Initiative and the Community Media Portal.
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The Community Media Portal has been funded by the Local Journalism Initiative (the LJI) of the Department of Canadian Heritage, and administered by the Canadian Association of Community Television Users and Stations (CACTUS) in association with the Fédération des télévisions communautaires autonomes du Québec (the Fédération). Under the LJI, over 100 journalists have been placed in underserved communities and asked to produce civic content that underpins Canadian democratic life.
