Four years to the day after the release of Ceci n’est pas un complot, Bernard Crutzen shares his thoughts on Arnaud Ruyssen’s podcast Les Clés, which aired last week on RTBF. In this op-ed, he invites journalists to ask themselves whether they may have been misled by their sources.
Last Thursday, a friend informed me that my documentary Ceci n’est pas un complot was being discussed on La Première (RTBF). I listened to the Les Clés podcast on replay, hosted by Arnaud Ruyssen, and was surprised—I didn’t recognize the excerpts from my own film! I then realized that Les Clés had made a mistake, which I hope was unintentional: they used the statement of intent[1] that announced the crowdfunding campaign in early October 2020, rather than excerpts from the documentary, which was released in February 2021.
I do not deny the statements I made in that statement of intent, but my position had evolved by the time the film was released. The anger that prevailed in October had turned into indignation. The commentary was more nuanced, and I had come to understand how much the media had been misled by their sources (I will return to this later). The media narrative had also evolved somewhat: the press was more critical of the disastrous handling of the second wave, though it still believed that the vaccine would mean a return to normal.
Today, four years to the day after the release of Ceci n’est pas un complot, I am left with a feeling of disappointment and powerlessness—I was not heard by journalists.
The podcast series Covid, 5 years later gives the impression that the authorities and the press are trying to justify their missteps. “At the time, we didn’t know” is the phrase repeated like a mantra. But the use of “we” is incorrect. Some experts knew, some healthcare professionals raised alarms—they were not listened to. On the contrary, they were blacklisted, ridiculed, and sometimes even prosecuted by those who believed they were closest to “the truth.”
Arnaud Ruyssen is undoubtedly the most nuanced journalist at RTBF, and I agree with him when he says: What I also paid a lot of attention to during this crisis was the humility of the experts, their ability to acknowledge that there were things they did not know. That’s why I struggle to understand why he allowed his guest, Xavier Counasse, to be so assertive in the episode dedicated to the media. Several times, the Le Soir journalist emphatically declared: “That’s false!” in a peremptory and definitive tone. I would like to invite him to show a little more nuance. To help with that, I have dissected some of the claims made in the podcast Covid: Were the media critical enough?
Read the full statement by documentary filmmaker Bernard Crutzen at https://bam.news/opinions/tribune/rtbf-ce-qu-on-doit-penser?utm_source=newsletter_127&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=bam-les-nouvelles-de-la-semaine.