What, perchance, do former politicians do with their lives once they are no longer politicians? If you’re Mario Dumont – whose ADQ party almost became extinct in the last provincial election, you become a TV personality. The man has been a figure in Québec politics since he first sprang into prominence as President of the Québec Liberal Party’s youth wing. Such lengthy exposure to the ravages of political life should serve him well as he takes up the helm of his own current affairs show in the weeks to come.
Dumont has joined the newly christened “V”, until a few days ago the perennially failing TQS network in Québec. Short of cash and losing money ever since it was founded in 1986, TQS was purchased by Remstar from a bankruptcy trustee at the beginning of 2008. A television network purchased on the cheap. In order to get the network back on its feet, Remstar is filling up the schedule with a lot of US shows such as Fringe, Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles and Dirty, Sexy Money, a move not necessarily welcomed by all given their decision to axe the news department in an effort to stop bleeding red ink. The addition of Dumont should, therefore, provide some badly needed credibility that V has not entirely abandoned locally produced current affairs programming.
Dumont is serving in an advisory capacity until the autumn when he takes the helm of Dumont 360. The name is a rip off from Anderson Cooper 360, the award-winning, hard-hitting public affairs and interview show on CNN. The idea of Dumont 360 is to focus on one specific current theme and look at it from all angles, hence the reference to 360 degrees. Dumont will make decisions regarding which elements of an issue reporters will cover, conduct interviews with citizens and major actors and, at the end, provide commentary that will sum up his findings.
The similarities between Cooper and Dumont stop there. Cooper has more than 15 years of experience as a journalist in the field, reporting from major disaster and conflict areas. His experience demanded that he look at issues from an objective stance and not support one side of a story or another. Dumont, on the other hand, is a politician, a career that has exposed him to the machinery of government and the issues of the day that affect ordinary citizens. As a result, his questions will likely be delivered as if he were Mr. Everyman. Indeed, in an appearance on Tout le Monde en Parle earlier this year, the host graciously gave him the centre seat and his questions were, indeed, from the citizen’s mouth. Concerning a charitable foundation, for example, he asked those piercing citizen questions: “If I give ten dollars, where will it go? What will it be spent on?”
While Dumont is a known figure and will certainly attract viewers to V, it remains to be seen if this choice will lead to inspired journalism or insipid talking heads. Only time will tell. In the meantime, one hopes that Dumont’s university degree in economics will help V survive the most difficult operating environment broadcasting has yet faced.
Dumont 360 is scheduled daily from 5-6 pm. Anyone interested in checking out V’s bold new colours, go to vtele.ca/.
