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kakwa_ | 4 months ago
Most of French media, specially newspapers, are money sinks only surviving because they are useful to push the rent-seeking business or ideological agenda of their owners (Dassault, Bouygues, Lagardere, Arnault, Bettencourt, Saade, Pinault, Niel).
Also, just for context, Martin Bouygues, Bernard Arnault and Vincent Bollore, the respective owners of TF1 (main French TV channel), Le Parisien (major newspaper) and CNews/Europe1 (major TV channel & radio) are personal friends of Sarkozy (a la "witness at your wedding, god father of your son or let's celebrate your election on my yacht" kind of way).
The Figaro (main right-wing newspaper in France) and its owners, the Dassault family, are also not far away.
Seeing the Figaro website was actually quite funny. Because the evidences are so damming, their main page was textbook "how to propagate fake news with plausible deniability". It was mainly pro-Sarkozy Editorials/Tribunes from non-journalists people, articles titled with quotes from Sarkozy's supporters and the few articles actually on the case were about the side stories.
French press ownership map:
https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/PPA#&gid=1&pid=1
There are only two truly independent major media left in France: Mediaparte (the ones we have to thanks for Sarkozy's well deserved condemnations) and Le Canard Enchaine (a bunch of scandals, but lately, the "Affaire Fillion").
The rest is either owned by billionaires, state run, or is far smaller and doesn't have the aura, size & credibility to reveal such scandals.
neves|4 months ago
kakwa_|4 months ago
But Le Monde Diplomatique's redaction has been able to remain independent thanks to it's 49% shares and veto right.
It's also fairly small (~10 permanent journalists + independent contributors, ~150k monthly readers).
It's not really the kind of journal able to sustain a long investigation, it's more "social commentaries with a left-leaning/alter-mundialist point of view".
keane|4 months ago
En: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/about-us/article/2023/09/24/two-ma...
Fr: https://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2023/09/24/d...
This was the result of journalist demands, covered here: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/le_monde_daniel_kretinsk...
This structure is also used by Mediapart, owned by Fonds pour une presse libre, and Libération, owned by Fonds de dotation pour une presse indépendante, with Mediapart being inspired to emulate The Manchester Guardian (which has been operated by a trust since 1936): https://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/medias/le-monde-appartie...
mbivert|4 months ago
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde_diplomatique offers a few first insights. Note how the page quickly emphasizes the redaction's independence.
Yet, it might be reasonably true: as stated in the Wikipedia page, Le Monde Diplomatique is read mostly by educated people, who probably are 1/ less susceptible to/more aware of coarse manipulation 2/ much less numerous.
That's to say, influencing (too much) the redaction might have too low of a costs/benefits ratio.
Personal anecdote: I've read it a few times about a decade ago. At that time, I perceived some of the articles to be more emotionally grounded than rationally, and the prose to be at time needlessly heavy, "sophisticated".
Those are the main reasons why I didn't kept reading it more often.
xorbax|4 months ago