FRENCH CENSORSHIP OF PRESS
- From: shogun@xxxxxxxxx (shogun)
- Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:52:35 GMT
Riot Coverage 'Excessive', Says French TV Boss
Submitted by editor5 on November 10, 2005 - 2:28pm.
By Claire Cozens
Source: MediaGuardian
One of France's leading TV news executives has admitted censoring his coverage
of the riots in the country for fear of encouraging support for far-right
politicians.
Jean-Claude Dassier, the director general of the rolling news service TCI,
said the prominence given to the rioters on international news networks had
been "excessive" and could even be fanning the flames of the violence.
Mr Dassier said his own channel, which is owned by the private broadcaster
TF1, recently decided not to show footage of burning cars.
"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," Mr Dassier told an audience of broadcasters at the News
Xchange conference in Amsterdam today.
"Having satellites trained on towns across France 24 hours a day showing the
violence would have been wrong and totally disproportionate ... 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 said.
Mr Dassier denied he was guilty of "complicity" with the French authorities,
which this week invoked an extraordinary state-of-emergency law passed during
the country's war with Algeria 50 years ago.
But he admitted his decision was partly motivated by a desire to avoid
encouraging the resurgence of extreme rightwing views in France.
French broadcasters have faced criticism for their lack of coverage of the
country's worst civil unrest in decades. Public television station France 3
has stopped broadcasting the numbers of torched cars while other TV stations
are considering following suit.
"Do we send teams of journalists because cars are burning, or are the cars
burning because we sent teams of journalists?" asked Patrick Lecocq,
editor-in-chief of France 2.
Rival news organisations today questioned the French broadcasters' decision to
temper coverage of the riots.
John Ryley, the executive editor of Sky News, said his channel would have
handled a similar story in Britain very differently.
"We would have been all over it like a cheap suit. We would have monstered the
story, and I didn't get the impression that happened in France," he said.
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/1817
.
- Prev by Date: Islamofascists vs. Islamofascists
- Next by Date: THIS WEEK IN ISLAM
- Previous by thread: Islamofascists vs. Islamofascists
- Next by thread: Life under Osama (Ho Chi) BinLaden
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
