| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Fred Stone" |
| Date: |
12 Nov 2005 09:34:15 PM |
| Object: |
How do you say "Media Bias" in French? |
http://www.eursoc.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/901/Swept_Under_The_Carpet.html
The head of one of France's major news services has admitted censoring
coverage of the riots because he fears right-wing groups would benefit
from more comprehensive coverage.
Jean-Claude Dassier, chief executive of news channel LCI, complained
that other broadcasters' coverage of the unrest had been "excessive" and
may even have encouraged rioters. However, it was the effect images of
rioters might have on France's electorate that worried him more.
"Politics in France is heading to the right and I don't want rightwing
politicians back in second, or even first place because we showed
burning cars on television," he told a conference in Amsterdam (The
Guardian reports).
"Journalism is not simply a matter of switching on the cameras and
letting them roll. You have to think about what you're broadcasting," he
added.
For Dassier, denying viewers coverage of what's happening on their own
doorsteps isn't enough : No-Pasaran reports that more than a week ago,
LCI and its parent company TF1 suspended the comments sections on their
news reports. Comments supporting a tough law-and-order line against the
rioters outnumbered messages from those sympathising or calling for
understanding ten to one.
LCI-TCF is not alone: Radio broadcaster France Inter has also warned of
the need to "constantly put the events into perspective" and has
produced numerous positive stories from the banlieu (a kindness French
journalists were notably unwilling to extend to their coverage of
Hurricane Katrina). Other journalists and broadcast executives spoke of
how they have limited images of violence.
Censorship even extends to selective hearing. Rantburg reports that
Canal Plus showed "youths" chanting insults about interior minister
Nicolas Sarkozy. According to Canal Plus' handy subtitles, the youths
were chanting "Sarkozy, fascist."
Viewers, however, have keener hearing than Canal Plus' reporters:
Contributors to many French web forums claim that the rioters were
actually chanting "Sarkozy, sale juif" ("Sarkozy, dirty jew!").
When announcing France's state of emergency, prime minister Dominique du
Villepin declared that censorship would not be used to combat the riots.
Not so, according to a number of right-wing French blogs, as reported in
No Pasaran (again). Several blogs containing views strongly critical of
the rioters found their service slowed and even blocked in the hours
following Villepin's declaration. Conservative and techie discussion
boards simmered with rumours that the state was attempting a service
blocking "field test" on certain blogs.
Certainly, the authorities monitor and even block certain sites - two
teenage bloggers were nicked a week ago for using their weblogs to
incite rioters - but an all out service denial on dissenting websites:
Surely this is the stuff of paranoid fantasy?
Or is it? Remember that the EU has recently sided with Iran, China and
Saudi Arabia in an attempt to wrest control of internet domains from US
clutches.
By their own logic, France's state censors and those of the
self-inflicted variety in the media are playing a dangerous game.
The approved opinion on the riots runs that France has swept immigrants
away to distant housing estates for thirty years. The riots are the
inevitable result of three decades of being isolated, marginalised and
ignored. Or so the story goes.
So why then is the state and its media so keen to do symbolically to
right wing opinions what it has been doing physically to the families of
North African immigrants - if by their own reckoning simmering right
wing resentment is likely to blow up in their faces some time down the
line?
--
Fred Stone
aa# 1369
"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up
for something, sometime in your life." -- W. Churchill
.
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