François Bayrou wants to amend the constitution to guarantee (or is it require?) the independence of the media. The impulse is comprehensible, perhaps, but the content of such a guarantee is difficult to imagine. The media are subject to influence by way of financial dependence, but if the state promises subsidies to maintain pluralism, they become dependent on the state and potentially subject to its control. The content of coverage is already regulated: for instance, there are equal-time requirements for the coverage of political campaigns. Whether these actually promote fair coverage or hinder it is a matter of debate. The immediate issue of contention is criticism of the media by government officials, including Sarkozy and culture minister Christine Albanel, both of whom attacked the AFP for failing to give more play to Ségolène Royal's conviction in a case involving illegal termination of two of her employees. If the intent of Bayrou's proposed amendment is to muzzle such criticism, I think it's a bad idea. Let such matters be fought out in the open rather than regulated and muffled.
Fair and intelligent journalism would no doubt be a national asset, but it can't be achieved by fiat.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
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http://www.lemonde.fr/opinions/article/2008/05/13/l-afp-n-est-pas-un-blog-par-christophe-beaudufe_1044298_3232.html
AFP is a press agency. As such, it should not simply release all and any text given by a political party, whatever the party, even if the party is the ruling party.
There were at least 3 press releases that I got about the infamous affair that led JP Raffarin to call for Royal's resignation. There also was an emergency meeting which AFP covered, related to this matter.
In my opinion, AFP did its job.
Three weeks later, people had moved on.
Furthermore, Raffarin's call was cut short because several Representatives pointed out the problem was quite frequent and someone on the left pointed out that Raffarin's protege had himself been condemned twice for far more serious infractions. The issue would rather be why Royal did not solve this "amicably" since according to Representatives this is how *they* commonly deal with this situation. (Apparently, in France, during the electoral campaign, assistants are paid via URSAF and can't double-dip. Don't know why they can't be paid for campaigning. They're usually paid afterwards, so why didn't Royal do that?)
Anyway, I don't think Lefevbre's right to pressure AFP. As to Bayrou's request, I don't know.
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