For the sixth time, the Lot-et-Garonne village of Couthures-sur-Garonne is preparing to host the International Journalism Festival, sponsored by the Le Monde group. It will be July 15-17 and there is sure to be no shortage of news and discussion topics. To select the seven current themes, which, since its creation in 2016, constitute the backbone of the festival, the journalists of the Le Monde group and the festival-goers, who were able to choose their favorite subjects on the Facebook page of the event, did not have to rack their brains, but rather lent themselves to a difficult selection process.
The Festival’s editorial team, made up of journalists from International Mail, from HuffPost, of World, from L’Obs, from Telerama and of Life, but also of seven students from the Institute of Journalism Bordeaux-Aquitaine (IJBA), has been working since January on the content of these themes and on the personalities – journalists, researchers, artists, actors in the news and in civil society – who will come to express themselves. The International Journalism Festival is the only event on which these six editorial staff, gathered for two years in the new Parisian building of the Le Monde group, collaborate.
A reflection on the media
As usual, three themes devoted to the media and journalism have been selected, and four others, linked to current affairs. In the first category, there is a subject that is difficult to circumvent in a journalism festival: the concentration of the media in France. While the merger between Vivendi and Lagardère is already part of the media landscape and the merger between TF1 and M6 is on track, we will wonder about the consequences of this phenomenon and its impact on the quality of information. Festival-goers will certainly not fail to remind the Le Monde group that it is itself concerned, since it is owned by businessmen Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse.
The Ukrainian crisis has recently led us to add a theme relating to information as a weapon of war, where we will summon lessons from the past and live analyzes of a present which sees the conflict moving into the field of information. and alternative “truths”. We had planned even before the conflict to address, in Couthures, the question of freedom of information in Russia. The news has caught up with us.
The third theme devoted to journalism is not unrelated to the previous one: it will address the issue of objectivity in terms of information. It will first be necessary to define the term itself, to distinguish it from those of neutrality or honesty. Is objectivity even possible or is it a horizon behind which journalists run, without ever being able to reach it? We will also talk about factual journalism and opinion journalism, committed journalism and militant journalism.
Climate, borders, demography
In terms of current affairs and social issues, the theme “Borders, protection or prison?”, which already largely echoed the national and international context of recent months, is further legitimized by the invasion of Ukraine and the expansionist policy of Vladimir Putin. As for the one dedicated to “The ecological transition to the challenge of inequalities”, she will wonder about the relevance of the slogan “End of the world, end of the month, same fight”, taken up during the movement of “yellow vests” by those who tried to bring together climate emergency and social emergency.
The environmental question will also appear in the background of the soberly titled theme “Do we still have to have children?”, where we will talk about demography, generations and the relationship to the family. And to comfort ourselves after debating these somewhat anxiety-provoking subjects, it must be admitted, we will discuss the great return of eating well, further accentuated by the pandemic and the periods of confinement, with, it is promised, some practical work the key: it will be “All gourmets!”, the seventh theme of this festival.
For those who have never tasted this festival, which seems essential to us in these times of great informational confusion, it is an event intended for the general public, which allows news enthusiasts to exchange at random for three days with information professionals, and this in the most welcoming and friendly setting of the village of Couthures, less than 400 inhabitants, and the banks of the Garonne.
The view of foreign journalists
The programming is designed and provided by journalists from the Le Monde group, but all forms of journalism are present. Among the media whose journalists have already confirmed their presence in July: France Télévisions, France 3 Nouvelle-Aquitaine, M6, Arte, LCI, France Inter, AFP, South West, Liberation, Mediapart, The Days, L’Express, XXI, Topo, The Comic Review, El-Watan, the Guardian, Le Temps, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, El País, the Corriere della Sera, without forgetting some youtubeurs, tiktokeurs and other instagrameurs, who invent new expressions of information.
The International Journalism Festival is about 150 meetings, debates, screenings, workshops, exhibitions, performances and concerts over three days, a junior festival for the children of festival-goers and teenagers, quality catering provided by producers lot-et -garonnais… The perfect time and place to settle down and try to learn the lessons of an exceptional year from the point of view of the intensity of the news.
Information and tickets on Festivalinternationaldejournalisme.com