Vous can't handle the truth!

In stark contrast to the American news channels, which reported every hysterical rumour about Hurricane Katrina on the flimsiest of grounds, the head of a prominent French all-news network admits to playing down news of the riots. Also in contrast to American journalists, he freely admits his channel did so for blatantly political reasons:

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 LCI, 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.

It must be noted that the "rightwing politicians" to which he refers aren't conservatives as we know them in Canada or the United States, but neo-fascists like Jean-Marie Le Pen. (No word as to whether LCI censors its coverage to avoid bolstering the extreme left-wing parties.) But it's interesting, to say the least, to see the media in supposedly enlightened France openly admitting - bragging, even - to slanting its news coverage in ways that just happen to benefit the government. Kind of puts the Fox News Channel in perspective, doesn't it?

(via Captain's Quarters)

Posted by damian at November 12, 2005 02:20 PM | TrackBack