“Legislative provisions limiting media concentration are insufficient”

2023-07-25 05:43:01

“The printing press and the bookshop are free. » Through this introductory article of the law of July 29, 1881 on the freedom of the press, a pillar of French democracy, the press freed itself from a century in which a form of turmoil in the opinion press and a form of political censorship had cohabited. Today in France, the stranglehold of the shareholder has replaced that of the sovereign.

Of course, the models of newspapers owned by the journalists themselves or their readers naturally have the preference of elected officials from the left or ecology. But the challenges related to recent or future technological breakthroughs require significant investment. In the current system, many media need outside capital to continue. Our priority must therefore be to legislate so that media shareholders cannot infringe on the freedom of the press, either by exploiting information for commercial ends, or by “hijacking” a general information media outlet at the service of a political agency, in defiance of journalistic honesty and the ethics of its editorial staff.

A constitutional foundation

A corollary of freedom of expression, among the “most precious human rights”, freedom of the press enjoys a constitutional foundation. Today, the shareholder can disregard it with complete impunity.

On June 23, Vincent Bolloré appointed Geoffroy Lejeune, former editorial director of Current Valuesat the head of Sunday newspaper, nomination decried by the quasi-unanimity of the editorial staff. For a month, the employees of the JDD are on strike – voted daily by more than 96% – against this partisan appointment. An unenlightened argument is opposed to the political representatives who support them: the left would hate pluralism and would wage this fight only out of sectarianism against the extreme right.

That Geoffroy Lejeune is of the extreme right, that is not so much the question – except with regard to the condemnation of Current Values under his direction for racist insults. That a billionaire builds a media empire to carry out a reactionary crusade, interferes or even shapes the editorial line of a media against the will of an entire editorial staff, disregards the editorial freedom of journalists and their ethics, this is what we are protesting against!

A cross-party proposal

Last Wednesday, I tabled a cross-partisan bill – bringing together deputies from the benches of the Nupes to those of the majority – aimed at protecting the editorial freedom of the media. This text, resulting from the work of the association Un bout des media, gives journalists a right of approval relating to the appointment of the editorial director, by establishing two incentive mechanisms: the press company which does not recognize such a right to its journalists will be ineligible for public aid to the press (VAT at a reduced rate, for example), as well as the allocation of a terrestrial terrestrial broadcasting channel (TV and radio) – for terrestrial broadcasting media.

If this bill heals a living wound, it does not claim to be exhaustive and will have to be followed by a structural reform of our media regulation model. The concentration of the media in a few hands is taking on more worrying proportions every day. Legislative provisions limiting media concentration are insufficient and outdated. A major overhaul of the model of the 1986 law is essential: the rules in force are no longer adapted to the current situation!

The duty of the Republic

In 1986, the Internet did not exist. However, the audience share of a medium cannot be apprehended solely on its original medium: today, televisions are seen more by excerpts posted and shared on social networks, and the paper press is more read on the web than on print. Beyond the in-depth revision of these rules, civil society is at the origin of many other proposals, in particular the democratic governance of publications by the establishment of a joint body composed of half of employees, or the democratization of aid to the press by the implementation of a redistributive system, each citizen receiving a “voucher” to donate to the media of his choice…

The trade unions, for their part, warn of the growing share of journalists working under precarious status, causing the profession to weigh on precariousness and social fragility, carrying heavy threats to the ability to resist pressure and manipulation that can maintain confusion between information and communication. Solutions exist, let’s implement them!

For “printing and bookshops” to remain “free”, the Republic must fight shareholder influence in 2023 with the same vigor as political censorship in 1881. The opening of the five-year term by weakening the independence of public broadcasting via the abolition of the license fee gave a very bad signal. The weak support for Minister Pap Ndiaye, then his ousting from the government, or the minimalist reactions concerning the JDD by members of the executive does not bode well. Now, the government must come out of its ambiguous inaction, and move forward with determination. The democratic emergency demands it.