“What guarantees a healthy public space is pluralism,” insists Théophile Kouamoo, current editor-in-chief of the Media. Launched in January 2018 by people close to La France insoumise, the far-left web TV landed – discreetly – on the small screen this Friday, becoming a television channel in its own right. It is now accessible on channel 350 of the Freebox. The three other private French operators (Orange, Bouygues and SFR) are dragging their feet to offer it a place, despite the green light from Arcom (formerly CSA), the audiovisual regulatory authority. The two most reluctant being Bouygues and SFR, themselves respectively owners of LCI and BFMTV.
Rising to the level of the behemoths of continuous news is not so simple, especially with around fifteen journalists. But Le Média is delighted to make its dream come true. It is “a victory for the independent press”, writes the channel to accompany its crowdfunding campaign on the platform KissKissBankBank. “We are calling for strengthening the number of members to be able to produce enough. At each time of the day, representing an alternative is a lot of money,” concedes Théophile Kouamouo.
A committed media
The stakes are high: two thirds of French people watch television on boxes, he recalls. To be able to reach these viewers, Le Média engaged in a battle of opinion via a petition, entitled “For pluralism on television” which had 12,700 signatures this Tuesday. He intends to make the most reluctant operators give in to finding a distribution channel for him. “Today, the audiovisual ecosystem has been formatted so that BFMTV and CNews set the pace for the prioritization of information,” continues the former correspondent of the World in Ivory Coast. We don’t have the means of these big chains, but we want to go on the same ground. We believe that on the evening of a demonstration, political crisis or election, citizens should be able to switch between the different news channels. » Like daily newspapers in the past, they format, according to him, opinion.
On this point, François Jost, semiologist and media specialist, is a little surprised. “While initially, Le Média claimed a certain ethics of journalism which should break with the practice of the major channels, it is moving to opinion television. What justifies its existence is almost CNews. His enemy is no longer the public service as was the case, but Vincent Bolloré’s television. » However, Le Média denies being an activist channel. “We are not going to give the floor to personalities with whom we agree, but we are a committed media which starts from a point of view”, specifies Théophile Kouamouo. For him, talking about neutrality is hypocritical. It is “impossible to achieve due to natural biases and because media companies are controlled by private interests”.
Maintaining a neutral view of the facts should not be a dirty word, for François Jost. On the contrary. “When we support ethics, we generally hate it when we confuse comments and facts,” notes the media sociologist. “Pluralism must be internal to a channel, it is not a right-wing channel against a left-wing channel,” he criticizes. The notion of pluralism is also in the specifications of the continuous news channel. “It ensures the pluralistic expression of currents of thought and opinion and as such constitutes a place for the exercise and dissemination of democracy”, we can read in the decree published in 2002. The Media wishes to give space “to minoritized words”, but there will be room for the contradictory.
The hot topic of media concentration
Will the arrival of an “independent” and very left-leaning news channel overthrow the PAF? “The impact will be effective the day when in this country we are able to pass laws that protect concentration and monopoly,” judges Noël Mamère, who collaborated with Le Média on its creation in 2018 before leaving it a few months later. late at the time of the dismissal of presenter Aude Rossigneux. We are faced with governments, in particular this one, which are very permissive with a certain number of captains of industry who invest in the media to strengthen their capacity for influence. »
The question of media concentration emerged as a hot topic last June. THE Sunday Newspaper was shaken by a historic editorial strike, lasting for forty days, against the appointment at its head at the end of June of Geoffroy Lejeune, former editorial director of Current Values, marked on the far right. This arrival has been attributed by many observers to Vincent Bolloré, a billionaire with reputed ultra-conservative opinions.
His Vivendi group, which owns Canal+ and its channels (including CNews and C8), is in the process of absorbing Lagardère, owner of JDDof Paris Match and Europe 1. The three titles are each in the process of making a marked editorial shift to the right. Will the Media change the game pluralism? It would still have to recover a channel on all the boxes.