Equity in Television Coverage - Part 1: The Regulation.

In this article from the newspaper Le Point, Marine Le Pen accuses the media of advantaging Emmanuel Macron's campaign in terms of coverage. She claims: "It is urgent that the media stops treating the presidential campaign unfairly, and sticks to the ethic rules and democratic principles. ("Il est urgent que le traitement médiatique de la campagne cesse d'être aussi peu conforme aux règles fondamentales de la déontologie et aux principes démocratiques. Ce sont des millions d'électeurs qui sont ainsi victimes de cette absence totale de neutralité"). Today, I want to take a look at what these rules are, and who controls them. 

The CSA (Superior Council of Audiovisual Content (Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel)) regulates the media in France since its creation in 1989 (similar to Ofcom in the UK).

The Superior Council of Audiovisual Content Logo

According to the regulations on the CSA website, there are three regulation stages that must be respected during these 2017 presidential elections (based on the freedom of communication law of September 1986). 

This is a visual explanation from their website:

First stage until 1st February 2017:  Equity for the speaking time and the time on air- The candidates and their supports are allowed a certain amount of time dependent on two factors: the weight that they represent (usually determined by how the party/candidate did at the last elections he participated in) and their campaign activity (meetings, participation in debates etc.)

Second stage from 20th/21st March: Same Equity principle - Publication of the official presidential candidates by the French Constitutional Council. The equity principle remains.

Third stage from the 10th April until the 7th May: Equality - The candidates are allocated an equal amount of time on air when the official presidential race has started (2001-213 article 15, 8th March 2001).

The CSA published a white paper on 10th September 2015, advising some changes to be made to the regulation of television after the 2012 (presidential) and 2014 (municipal) elections. One of the major differences applies to the second stage. Before 2017 elections, the speaking time was based on a equality principle instead of an equity one. The television channels, worried that they wouldn't be able to respect this equality, gave less time to all of the candidates, which led to a strong decrease in the overall speaking time for politicians.

Regulating politics on television is essential, but as we can see, it can also become detrimental if the rules interfere with the purpose of television, which is to inform the public by broadcasting the candidates' interventions in the fairest way possible.

Sources:
http://www.csa.fr/
http://www.csa.fr/Television/Le-suivi-des-programmes/Le-pluralisme-politique-et-les-campagnes-electorales/Le-pluralisme-en-periode-electorale
http://www.lepoint.fr/politique/medias-emmanuel-macron-est-enormement-avantage-denonce-le-pen-22-02-2017-2106771_20.php
http://www.csa.fr/Espace-Presse/Communiques-de-presse/Propositions-du-Conseil-superieur-de-l-audiovisuel-relatives-au-principe-de-pluralisme-politique-dans-les-medias-audiovisuels-en-periode-electorale

Survey: Our Experience of Politics in the Media.

I conducted a survey on people's opinion when it comes to television and politics. It has a total of 33 participants, with 54% male and 46% female. The majority of the survey participants live in France (21 participants out of 330. Although the age range is quite varied: 14 individuals between 18 and 25, 14 over 50, it would have benefited from answers in-between those two age categories. I decided to also include individuals who live in the UK, as their answers show current trend in politics happening worldwide. Here are the answers translated in English when necessary.

What is your opinion on how politics is covered by television in the country you live in?

• Has improved over the past few years as journalists are less subservient than they used to be and ask pertinent questions. France tends to be obsessed with politics but we tend to only hear about the big parties: PS, LR, FN. I only found out recently that there are about 50 presidential candidates - and that was on the Internet not on television. 
• Biased, focus on one main party, not across the political spectrum.
• Medias are forced by the law during electoral period to give each candidate an equal speaking time. But appart from political elections time, medias are always covering the biggest and not small political parties which is not allowing them to make their ways.
• Not enough debate, too much gossip on important politics, too bias
• Television in the UK is overtly right wing...there is obvious bias in favour of the right on programmes like Question time, C4 News. Laura Kuensberg's constant attack on Jeremy Corbyn is another indicator of where the BBC stands politically. Any reporting on foreign wars/conflict also toes the government and particularly US line. Whatever happened to investigative journalists like John Pilger. We give publicity to the Syrian Obseervatory of Human Rights (one man in Coventry) and the White Helmets...a US funded organisation, for who strong doubts exist regarding the authenticity of its reports from Syria.

How often do you watch politics on television?

What do you use other than television to inform yourself about politics?

What are the main reasons for your answer?

France

• Easy access at all times of the day. You have to know when television programmes are scheduled, at what time in order to watch. Otherwise, you have to remember to catch them on Pluzz before they disappear.
• I don't own a tv (my parents do) and I'm always on my computer and on social media
• On the internet, you can see a lot of different opinions, whereas on TV, I think you can't.

UK

• I have news apps, but I try to keep updated through any means necessary
• More in depth, more time to read.
• I like to get at the truth, which means gathering evidence from various sources and making my own mind up

Factchecking Politics from the Parties.

L'Emission Politique is a political program directed by Didier Froehly, and broadcast on France 2 twice a month since September 2016. The format is as follow: the politician is asked questions by the two presenters, David Pujadas and Léa Salamé. The guest then has to engage in a debate with politicians who don't share the same ideas. Yesterday's guest was Marine Le Pen, head of the Front National (The National Front), the far-right party (leading in the first round according to the polls).

The party decided to use for the first time a concept called factchecking (that originates from the US). They set up a live section on their website (marine2017.fr/verites) called Alerte Fausses Infos (False Information Caution). This is here to point out what the National Front considers a false fact from the people she is interacting with (presenters included). Here are some of the posts published on the website:

translation: L'Emission Politique (10:39pm): David Pujadas on the french debt and the exiting the European Union

David Pujadas doesn't understand anything: the French debt won't be more consequent by exiting the EU. A study from the OFCE of 2016 shows that the debt...

translation: L'Emission Politique (10:42pm): Najat Vallaud-Belkacem (Current Education Minister) doesn't consider the students who want to go in the professional sector.

She considers that starting training at 14 years old was a sorting out process, just like you sort out your garbage!

Ironically, Jean-Luc Melanchon, from the Front de Gauche (far-left party) also invited his followers on Twitter to factcheck the programme. He encouraged poeple to join him for "this big night of detoxification" on observatoire.jlm2017.fr :

/ 

Ce soir, suivez la grande soirée désintox pour l'émission politique de France 2 avec Marine Le Pen sur https://t.co/2SCniCBTBa #ObsInsoumis pic.twitter.com/PuzqqKSuSA

— JLM 2017 (@jlm_2017) 9 February 2017

What does this say about television? Factchecking is an example of the debate moving away from television towards websites and social media.  The concept is attractive for an audience to separate the true from false. I often here this format on the radio, were a presenter comes back on what was said impartially to verify it with statistics. I don't believe parties adopting this is as effective, because they might correct the facts which are beneficial to what they support, and leave out the rest. Moreover, the statistics can be interpreted differently depending on your political opinion.     

Sources: 

http://www.lefigaro.fr/elections/presidentielles/2017/02/09/35003-20170209ARTFIG00148-marine-le-pen-sur-france-2-le-fn-fera-du-factchecking-sur-le-web.php

http://www.20minutes.fr/politique/2011863-20170210-marine-pen-emission-politique-match-fact-checking-entre-pro-melenchon-pro-fn 

http://www.liberation.fr/desintox/2017/02/10/quand-le-fn-s-essaie-au-fact-checking-c-est-assez-rate_1547634

Penelope Gate: Entertaining Politics Format.

The Penelope Gate is causing quite a stir in the presidential race. Francois Fillon, the right-wing candidate, built his campaign on the image of a sleaze-free Mr Clean. However, in January, the Canard Enchainé, a satirical newspaper, revealed that Fillion's wife Penelope, was paid 680 000 euros of parliamentary funds for working as an assistant for him over a period of 15 years. But she claimed in an interview with the Daily Telegraph in 2007 that she had never worked for her husband. Since then, Francois Fillon claims to be the victim of the media. According to him, this affair is a political assassination that paints him as a villain and jeopardises his election chances.

I want to concentrate on how this affair is covered on television, by looking at a particular format. Le Quotidien is an infotainment show, similar to Late Night shows in the UK and US, presented by Yann Barthes and broadcast every Friday evening from 7:20 pm to 9:00 pm on TMC. It uses comedic elements to tackle issues in politics. On 10th February, they broadcast a sensitive report on the attitude of some of Fillon's supporters towards the journalists, a degrading relationship because of how the candidate is portrayed in the media. Unfortunately, the video is protected and can't be subtitled. I invite you to watch it at this address to get a feeling of how the programme is constructed: http://www.lci.fr/medias/video-quotidien-hugo-clement-le-derapage-incontrole-d-un-militant-pro-fillon-qui-compare-les-medias-aux-nazis-a-auschwitz-2025574.html

Le Quotidien aims for transparency and does so mainly through editing. When a supporter says that the Canard Enchaine is left-wing and doesn't publish scandals from left-wing politicians, the show takes archive to demonstrate otherwise. When a man says that bringing this newspaper in a meeting for Fillon is like bringing the Koran in a church and that it's disrespectful, Le Quotidien shows the interview of a priest saying that it's okay to do so.

This key element of this television format is that it's tackled with humour. Jones describes this in his book Entertaining Politics: new political television and civic culture. He argues that these programmes are a response to fakery in television's traditional representation of politics. "The comedians express a desire for honesty in public life [...]resulting most often in a take-it-or-leave-it criticism of the political and social landscape that they encounter and respond to in the course of each day or week" (Jones, 2010, p.53). Moreover, the presence of the audience in the studio enhances the impact of Yann Barthes' arguments. When the public laughs, they acknowledge that the situation is funny and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Sources:

• Jones, J. (2010). Entertaining politics. 1st ed. Lanham: Rowman.
• http://www.lci.fr/medias/video-quotidien-hugo-clement-le-derapage-incontrole-d-un-militant-pro-fillon-qui-compare-les-medias-aux-nazis-a-auschwitz-2025574.html
• http://www.tf1.fr/tmc/quotidien-avec-yann-barthes/videos/quotidien-deuxieme-partie-10-fevrier-2017.html