Advertising boycott

The concern is structural: in Saint-Lambert, the municipality was both the subject of the Journal’s reporting and a source of revenue for the paper. In 1986, Quebec’s Press Council noted a striking correspondence between municipal advertising and the Journal’s coverage. In 2017, a court found the Journal’s municipal reporting unbalanced and inaccurate, and said the defendants had placed themselves at a politician’s “unconditional and almost exclusive service.” Years later, David Léonardo said the Journal could not remain financially viable after the City ended its advertising support. This does not prove that payments dictated coverage, but it shows why relying on public money from the government a paper covers can threaten confidence in its independence—and why this boycott asks municipalities to scrutinize their advertising spending.

A separate advertiser-boycott call was reported in Quebec in 2020. FM 103.3 reported (opens in a new tab) that former Saint-Lambert district 4 councillor Dominique Lebeau publicly urged advertisers to stop placing ads in the Journal Hebdomadaire de Saint-Lambert. The station described his proposal as a way to send a message to the paper’s owners and editor, David Leonardo. This was Lebeau’s call about a Quebec publication, not a call by this project or about the three Ontario newspapers.