Geneviève Garon enters the revolving doors of the Maison de Radio-Canada early in the morning around 3 a.m. to be on air at 6 a.m. when she hosts D’abord l’info weekend on ICI RDI. Last Saturday, October 7th, the host and her team already suspected at the end of the night that we had to follow the last minute international news: the rocket fire fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip.
Posted at 7:00 am.
Marie-Josée R. Roy Special collaboration
However, around 5 a.m., when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that his country was at war with Hamas, as reports of hostages and deaths began to arrive at regular intervals, Geneviève Garon and her troops understood that the entire weekend and possibly even the The following would be dedicated to these events that shook the entire planet.
“Everything we had prepared was 90% put aside. It went from five minutes to five minutes super quickly. Everyone mobilized,” recalls the 35-year-old journalist, who is still amazed at the resources her employer dedicated to finding the best experts in geopolitics who could explain the conflict on the ground.
“It was very intense. We had to keep in mind that in such a context, viewers have the reflex to turn on the television because they want to understand, not to hear gibberish from people talking to each other. In these moments a sentence often comes to mind: We live it together. »
I also needed the experts to understand what it all meant. Together we let each other explain it to each other and I, like a belt, ask the questions that cannot be asked…
Genevieve Garon
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, THE PRESS
Geneviève Garon at the Maison de Radio-Canada
Build your confidence
If Geneviève Garon, when she took over as director of D’abord l’info Weekend in mid-September, replacing Caroline Lacroix, had made a list of the most stressful unforeseen events that were likely to occur during her show, a resurgence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would certainly have been in his top three.
But the communicator didn’t panic. Better yet, she describes this hectic morning as a “beautiful experience.” “Once you do it once, it builds your confidence and the next time you are stronger and better prepared,” analyzes the woman, who began her career in 2011 at Radio-Canada in Saskatchewan and then moved to Ottawa.
In 2016, the public broadcaster she had tattooed on her heart called her back to Montreal to assign her to cover legal cases. The “courthouse,” she says, was her office for seven years. Her followers on Twitter saw her tweeting faster than her shadow, including about the trials of Tony Accurso, Gilbert Rozon, Éric Salvail, as well as those of Harvey Weinstein and Ghislaine Maxwell in New York, before we ran the first Weekend Info .
“I still love the justice system, which provides access to incredible human stories representative of social problems. It brings humanity, an understanding of the human condition,” notes Geneviève Garon about her first loves.
Host of D’abord l’info weekend, Saturday and Sunday, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m., and of L’info neuf, Saturday at 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. and Sunday at 10 a.m., at the ICI RDI and previously assigned reporting on legal matters at Radio Canada.