Section Agence France-Presse du Syndicat national des journalistes |
SNJ-AFP |
Agence France-Presse Branch of the French National Journalists' Union (SNJ) |
News & Views
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News or Show-Business? The Limits of Press Pick-ups
The announcement by French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy and his companion that they were considering legal action against AFP for having carried a "people" style story concerning their couple raises new questions about the use of press pick-ups. It is also a warning shot to AFP management over the dangers of drifting more and more away from real news and into the wild and wacky world of gossip. All of which management likes to describe as being aimed at better serving our clients. It may seem surprising that Sarkozy should suddenly seem so worried about coverage of his private life after having abundantly exploited it in the past to boost his media image. And it is of course likely that his latest moves also are not unconnected to his status as an undeclared presidential candidate. But all that does not in any way justify the agency picking up any old story, in particular from a daily that is currently desperate to win readers. The fact that the story in question had been public knowledge among many journalists for weeks makes no difference. There can also be no justification for management congratulating itself on the coverage, given that a basic editorial mistake had been made. To make things even worse, the story was followed up by a series of "people" style backgrounders and other coverage of what should basically have been a non-story. Contrary to what part of AFP’s management seems to think, AFP is not just any old news agency. We cannot set aside our mission as a news provider acting in the public interest and turn ourselves into purveyors of gossip and advertiser-friendly pap. AFP’s job is news, and not responding to any and all client pressures, as for example was suggested by the recent Lépinay report on the provision of ready-to-print pages for the French regional press. Management would do better to concern itself with the best way to fulfil our mission while respecting the agency’s rules, starting with basic journalistic ethics and respect for people’s private lives. Developing the company’s technical facilities and working on providing diverse, reliable and speedy coverage by maintaining our network around the world - including in the French bureau of Besançon, currently threatened with downsizing - is a much more important task than rummaging through the dustbins of celebrities and the tabloids. 14 October 2005 |