Pierre Bruneau is undoubtedly the last of the Mohicans. He embodies through his person values that have frayed over time.
First, no television anchor will accumulate forty-five years of daily presence in the future. We live in a time of constant change, of successive ruptures where the very notion of permanence seems negative in the eyes of many.
It is an understatement to say that people are used up quickly under the constant pressure of the need for novelty. And television personalities are subject to the fashions of the day. However, by definition, fashion goes out of fashion quickly so that the star of the moment risks being telescoped by the latest arrival.
Stability
Pierre Bruneau was the image of stability during all these decades when our collective landmarks were shattered on the altar of new technologies, among other things and more deeply in the successive ruptures that our social institutions suffered.
This polite, reserved man was able to pass on the information to us without trying to dramatize the reality any further. If he had rather the concern to popularize it, it was always without effect of toga, one will say, without trying to provoke useless emotions, the content of the news being rarely cheerful.
TVA audiences have followed him through his forties and have always identified with him. This is how his credibility was established.
It is hardly surprising that I pay homage here to the quality of Pierre Bruneau’s language, a language without pretension but without concession. The head of the antenna never spoke in relaxed French. In front of a large popular audience, he never ceased to respect the language. The temptation to play, to trivialize his vocabulary, to “talk to the people” as too many academics and artists do has never been his cup of tea.
Tradesman
Pierre Bruneau experienced a tragedy that no parent wants to experience. He overcame his pain and no doubt during these years of his son Charles’ illness until the latter’s death, being on the air every evening allowed him not to be drowned in grief. His love for his profession and the immense sympathy shown by the public transformed him. In fact, on the air, he happened to leave room for an emotion. He kind of got closer to people.
We grieve in front of people we admire and respect without knowing them other than through the screen. Alas, one can be very disappointed sometimes. Because notoriety is a trap into which personalities adored by the public fall. Pierre Bruneau, who was acclaimed, who received dozens of trophies, escaped this fate. He never had a big head, as they say.
In this sense, Pierre Bruneau, who accompanied the public through all the historical events in Quebec, who interviewed all the politicians of past and present generations, who announced all the good and bad news always with the distance that this function of chief of antenna, wishes to find its share of shade and its personal life. Pierre Bruneau has deserved well from his country and he has the advantage of having chosen the time and day of his professional outing himself.
Let him know that his departure makes us all nostalgic.