Faced with the acceleration of the rise of the far right caused by the
early legislative elections, a platform brought together independent
media from all left-wing tendencies, to assert a "common front" and
recall that the far right is also the enemy of freedom of the press and
information. ---- On June 19, Alternative libertaire was a signatory to
a platform, "For a common front of the media against the far right"[1].
Supported by the Fund for a free press, and co-signed by 90 media, it
recalled the mortal danger for the press that the far right represents:
"Everywhere[it]governs, freedom of the press is violently attacked:
publication bans, destruction of the confidentiality of sources,
multiplication of gag orders, censorship, pressure and intimidation,
drying up of public aid to the press."
Public audiovisual media, a propaganda organ?
Once in power, one of the extreme right's first objectives is to keep
it. This involves, among other things, the destruction of media
pluralism and freedom of the press. This was seen in Hungary, where
oligarchs close to Viktor Orbán's party now control more than 80% of the
media landscape, and where public broadcasting has been transformed into
a propaganda organ. The Pegasus affair also showed that the government
had placed several journalists and press bosses under surveillance[2].
A quick look at the RN's program shows that the issue of the media is
only mentioned in one sentence: "Privatize public broadcasting." This
has the merit of being clear: in a context of concentration of French
media in the hands of a few billionaires, the RN wants to step on the
accelerator. With the unavowed aim of finishing pushing the audiovisual
landscape towards a hegemonic conservative and fascist discourse.
But the extreme right-wing shift in television did not wait for the RN:
two days after the publication of the column mentioned earlier, we
learned of the "withdrawal" of five journalists from France Télévisions,
accused of having "violated the rule of political neutrality", for
having signed this text on behalf of the Society of Journalists (SDJ) of
France 3. Placardized until July 8, the signatories will no longer cover
the legislative campaign, the management considering that "the image of
impartiality of the editorial staff of France Télévisions is at stake".
Freedom of the press in decline
It must be said that if the RN wants to accelerate the transformation of
the PAF, previous governments have largely prepared the ground for it,
with successive reforms of public broadcasting and the Higher
Audiovisual Council (CSA), which became Arcom[3]in 2022. If the Hollande
government had reversed the law of March 5, 2009 which gave the
President of the Republic the power to appoint the presidents of public
broadcasting, this task now falls to Arcom, a body whose president is
appointed... by the President of the Republic. The regulatory authority
is also run by a college of eight members in addition to its president,
three of whom are appointed by the presidency of the National Assembly:
this will be an important issue in the weeks following the legislative
elections of July 7, the RN being able, via the assembly, to acquire
control over the "audiovisual policeman", already very weak when it
comes to monitoring the excesses of Bollorized media.
But that's not all: the Macron government has also set back freedom of
the press, by giving priority to business confidentiality and by
undermining the confidentiality of sources, increasing the number of
actions against investigative journalists: pressure, but also searches
and police custody of journalist Ariane Lavrilleux, a journalist at the
media Disclose, who had already been targeted by the DGSI on multiple
occasions for having taken too close an interest in files classified as
defense secrets[4]. Even more recently, a journalist from the media
outlet Blast investigating arms sales from France to Israel was placed
in police custody for 32 hours[5].
The shift also occurred in Macron's speeches, particularly during the
Benalla affair. Not appreciating that the press was taking too close an
interest in his protégé, the president then denounced in a statement "a
press that no longer seeks the truth", marking a shift towards a
Trumpist-inspired post-truth discourse[6]and a direct attack on
investigative media. This communication based on the pure and simple
rejection of facts that are nevertheless observable and sourced is not
unrelated to the rise of fascist discourse. How can we be surprised by
the explosion of conspiracy theories from the Covid-19 pandemic when the
President of the Republic himself seems to develop such a flexible
relationship with material reality? Signed by 90 media outlets such as
Mediapart, Street Press and L'Humanité, the platform "For a common front
of the media against the far right" is clear: "The challenge is to
preserve the very possibility of a press that is independent of
political power, pluralist, with journalists practicing their profession
in complete freedom. Without a free press, there is no democracy."
The press, a tool of resistance
Today in 2024, this anti-journalist discourse has become widespread, as
Reporters Without Borders notes in its annual press freedom ranking
where France's score continues to decline. A comfortable context for the
RN's discourse, which can launch vague attacks against "journalists" on
television sets that are increasingly won over to their agenda, without
worrying about the paradox of the scene.
Allied to the traditional racist discourse of the far right, these
positions unsurprisingly lead to facts targeting racialized journalists.
Between the two rounds of the legislative elections, journalists Karim
Rissouli and Mohamed Bouhafsi of France Télévisions, as well as Nassira
El Moaddem of Arrêt sur images, all three received letters of insults
and racist threats directly to their homes, or those of their parents.
As the extreme right takes an increasingly dominant place in the
country's political institutions, we must more than ever strengthen the
free and independent press, whether it is the investigative press or
revolutionary media and newspapers. The press and the circulation of
information and ideas that it allows is and will be a major tool of
resistance against the extreme right.
N. Bartosek (UCL Alsace)
Validate
[1]"For a common front of the media against the extreme right", Rapports
de force, June 19, 2024.
[2]"Pegasus: a member of the ruling party in Hungary admits to using
spyware", Le Monde, November 4, 2021.
[3]Audiovisual and digital communication regulatory authority.
[4]""Disclose": the DGSI has heard journalists from the investigative
media five times since 2018", Le Monde, September 22, 2023.
[5]"After being held in police custody, the Blast journalist
counter-attacks in court", Blast, June 28, 2024.
[6]""Deception is rooted in political communication"", Mediapart, April
9, 2019.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Medias-Une-presse-libre-face-a-l-extreme-droite
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
early legislative elections, a platform brought together independent
media from all left-wing tendencies, to assert a "common front" and
recall that the far right is also the enemy of freedom of the press and
information. ---- On June 19, Alternative libertaire was a signatory to
a platform, "For a common front of the media against the far right"[1].
Supported by the Fund for a free press, and co-signed by 90 media, it
recalled the mortal danger for the press that the far right represents:
"Everywhere[it]governs, freedom of the press is violently attacked:
publication bans, destruction of the confidentiality of sources,
multiplication of gag orders, censorship, pressure and intimidation,
drying up of public aid to the press."
Public audiovisual media, a propaganda organ?
Once in power, one of the extreme right's first objectives is to keep
it. This involves, among other things, the destruction of media
pluralism and freedom of the press. This was seen in Hungary, where
oligarchs close to Viktor Orbán's party now control more than 80% of the
media landscape, and where public broadcasting has been transformed into
a propaganda organ. The Pegasus affair also showed that the government
had placed several journalists and press bosses under surveillance[2].
A quick look at the RN's program shows that the issue of the media is
only mentioned in one sentence: "Privatize public broadcasting." This
has the merit of being clear: in a context of concentration of French
media in the hands of a few billionaires, the RN wants to step on the
accelerator. With the unavowed aim of finishing pushing the audiovisual
landscape towards a hegemonic conservative and fascist discourse.
But the extreme right-wing shift in television did not wait for the RN:
two days after the publication of the column mentioned earlier, we
learned of the "withdrawal" of five journalists from France Télévisions,
accused of having "violated the rule of political neutrality", for
having signed this text on behalf of the Society of Journalists (SDJ) of
France 3. Placardized until July 8, the signatories will no longer cover
the legislative campaign, the management considering that "the image of
impartiality of the editorial staff of France Télévisions is at stake".
Freedom of the press in decline
It must be said that if the RN wants to accelerate the transformation of
the PAF, previous governments have largely prepared the ground for it,
with successive reforms of public broadcasting and the Higher
Audiovisual Council (CSA), which became Arcom[3]in 2022. If the Hollande
government had reversed the law of March 5, 2009 which gave the
President of the Republic the power to appoint the presidents of public
broadcasting, this task now falls to Arcom, a body whose president is
appointed... by the President of the Republic. The regulatory authority
is also run by a college of eight members in addition to its president,
three of whom are appointed by the presidency of the National Assembly:
this will be an important issue in the weeks following the legislative
elections of July 7, the RN being able, via the assembly, to acquire
control over the "audiovisual policeman", already very weak when it
comes to monitoring the excesses of Bollorized media.
But that's not all: the Macron government has also set back freedom of
the press, by giving priority to business confidentiality and by
undermining the confidentiality of sources, increasing the number of
actions against investigative journalists: pressure, but also searches
and police custody of journalist Ariane Lavrilleux, a journalist at the
media Disclose, who had already been targeted by the DGSI on multiple
occasions for having taken too close an interest in files classified as
defense secrets[4]. Even more recently, a journalist from the media
outlet Blast investigating arms sales from France to Israel was placed
in police custody for 32 hours[5].
The shift also occurred in Macron's speeches, particularly during the
Benalla affair. Not appreciating that the press was taking too close an
interest in his protégé, the president then denounced in a statement "a
press that no longer seeks the truth", marking a shift towards a
Trumpist-inspired post-truth discourse[6]and a direct attack on
investigative media. This communication based on the pure and simple
rejection of facts that are nevertheless observable and sourced is not
unrelated to the rise of fascist discourse. How can we be surprised by
the explosion of conspiracy theories from the Covid-19 pandemic when the
President of the Republic himself seems to develop such a flexible
relationship with material reality? Signed by 90 media outlets such as
Mediapart, Street Press and L'Humanité, the platform "For a common front
of the media against the far right" is clear: "The challenge is to
preserve the very possibility of a press that is independent of
political power, pluralist, with journalists practicing their profession
in complete freedom. Without a free press, there is no democracy."
The press, a tool of resistance
Today in 2024, this anti-journalist discourse has become widespread, as
Reporters Without Borders notes in its annual press freedom ranking
where France's score continues to decline. A comfortable context for the
RN's discourse, which can launch vague attacks against "journalists" on
television sets that are increasingly won over to their agenda, without
worrying about the paradox of the scene.
Allied to the traditional racist discourse of the far right, these
positions unsurprisingly lead to facts targeting racialized journalists.
Between the two rounds of the legislative elections, journalists Karim
Rissouli and Mohamed Bouhafsi of France Télévisions, as well as Nassira
El Moaddem of Arrêt sur images, all three received letters of insults
and racist threats directly to their homes, or those of their parents.
As the extreme right takes an increasingly dominant place in the
country's political institutions, we must more than ever strengthen the
free and independent press, whether it is the investigative press or
revolutionary media and newspapers. The press and the circulation of
information and ideas that it allows is and will be a major tool of
resistance against the extreme right.
N. Bartosek (UCL Alsace)
Validate
[1]"For a common front of the media against the extreme right", Rapports
de force, June 19, 2024.
[2]"Pegasus: a member of the ruling party in Hungary admits to using
spyware", Le Monde, November 4, 2021.
[3]Audiovisual and digital communication regulatory authority.
[4]""Disclose": the DGSI has heard journalists from the investigative
media five times since 2018", Le Monde, September 22, 2023.
[5]"After being held in police custody, the Blast journalist
counter-attacks in court", Blast, June 28, 2024.
[6]""Deception is rooted in political communication"", Mediapart, April
9, 2019.
https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Medias-Une-presse-libre-face-a-l-extreme-droite
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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