2023-07-13 09:35:00
“You won’t forget to come back when the cars stop burning, huh?” », launches Mohamed to Manon Mella, journalist for franceinfo. He has just granted him an interview in his neighborhood, in Seine-Saint-Denis, to tell him about his past as a rioter in 2005. His request sounds as if he had already launched it to others, who would not have not listened. She, however, did not wait for the revolts which followed the death of the young Nahel, on June 27, to walk her microphone or her camera in the French working-class districts. But the burden of the lack of representation of their inhabitants trails behind her every time she goes there.
According to the annual report of Arcom (ex-CSA) on the representation of the diversity of society in the media, published this Thursday, July 13, the suburbs occupy just 3% of the media space on television. “This is one point less than the previous year”underlines Laurence Pécaut-Rivolier, president of the working group “Protection of the public and diversity of French society” of Arcom.
However, these large complexes concentrate 5.5 million inhabitants, or about 8% of the French population. The poverty rate there reached, according to INSEE, 42%, against an average of around 15% for the whole territory. “This is a category of the population that appears little on television, where 74% of people are perceived as belonging to a higher socio-professional category, notes Laurence Pécaut-Rivolier. In fact, the French population only has 28% of CSP +”. Arcom also estimates at 1.4% the rate of representation of people perceived as being “in a precarious situation”.
“The only way the suburbs have to enter the media discourse is by breaking and entering”believes Erwan Ruty, author of A history of French suburbs (The Peregrines, 2020). And there was a break-in: mortars and burnt cars attracted the cameras, microphones and notebooks of dozens of journalists.
“My city is all over the media, but I don’t recognize it”
“For once, my city is everywhere in the media. But I don’t recognize her.” deplores Yanis, a 27-year-old from Nanterre. In the opinion of the young man, the focus of attention on the suburbs in crisis situation nourishesmutual distrust “Since the media only come to talk about riots or drug trafficking, people no longer want to talk to them. »
In fact, media coverage of the revolts that have erupted in recent weeks has become difficult, sometimes dangerous. Philippe Corbé, editorial director of BFMTV, takes as an example “a journalist targeted by stone throwing while she was preparing a duplex from the Pablo-Picasso estate, the morning following the first riots”. Like all journalists from the news channel sent to the field to cover this news, she was accompanied by a security guard. ” Andimperative »for Philippe Corbé, whose journalists have been particularly targeted since the yellow vests crisis.
“Moments of tension, no matter what triggers them, are always difficult. But in working-class neighborhoods anger is superimposed on the natural distrust of the inhabitants, because they have always suffered a form of media mistreatment., notes Ilyes Ramdani, journalist for Mediapart. Usually it covers executive news. At the time of the riots, he took to the streets of these neighborhoods which he knows well. “It would be a lie to say that there has been no progress, but there is still a lot to do and confidence to gain”he adds.
Propose another narrative of working-class neighborhoods
According to Erwan Ruty, most residents of working-class neighborhoods “no longer even express the need to be represented by the traditional media: too far from them, too contemptuous. Especially since social networks now offer them a space of expression that they fully control. » Even so. Showing the suburb of lookouts and burning cars – the “media suburb”loose Manon Mella – reinforces the stigmatization and discrimination against all of its inhabitants.
Based in the heart of Seine-Saint-Denis, the Bondy Blog got down to business the day after the 2005 riots in “to offer another story of working-class neighborhoods”, asks its director Sarah Ichou. If she recognizes that “the radio and the written press sometimes produce encouraging things”the journalist nevertheless denounces “a nauseous image culture on the side of television channels, which pushes to broadcast shocking videos rather than dealing with fundamental problems”.
She points the finger in particular at the continuous news channels, whose priorities are sometimes elsewhere. For BFMTV, the challenge is to deal “what is incidental. When the news takes us to the suburbs, we go there, as for all territories, Philippe Corbé defends himself. But we can’t pass all of our editorial content through a sieve of representation. »
Diversity in newsrooms for better representation in the media
Underlying these debates is the issue of diversity within newsrooms themselves. For Marc Epstein, director of “La Chance”, the two are inseparable. Each year, this association, created in 2007, prepares around a hundred scholarship students for competitions in journalism schools. “When a young journalist joins a team, he comes with a view, angles, ideas nourished by his life course and the environment in which he evolved”says Marc Epstein.
He proudly notes that the students who have passed through La Chance, most of whom come from working-class neighborhoods or remote rural areas, represent between 8 and 10% of the promotions from the 14 journalism schools recognized by the profession each year. It highlights the issue “diversities, in the plural”. “The sociology of newsrooms must be as close as possible to that of the population. I am thinking in particular of the social backgrounds of origin, but also of handicaps or regional accents, lists the reporter. It is on this condition that journalistic productions will be able to give an accurate account of the world. »
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Groups Underrepresented in Television Media
Made public this Thursday, July 13, the Arcom report measures the representation of diversity in the television media for the 2022 financial year. Beyond the place given to the suburbs, several salient points emerge:
Overseas populations represent 1% of the total number of people indexed, compared to 3% last year and 10% over the two years preceding the closure of France Ô.
The presence of people perceived as “non-white” appears particularly weak on the continuous news channels (9% versus 15% across all channels).
People over 65 represent only 6% of people indexed, whereas they constitute the largest age group in France (21%).
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