by Why the French have switched off political views
‘In a country that still offers the most agreeable everyday life on earth, why depress yourself with the news?’
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So the French have switched off. Little more than 1 per cent of them buy a national newspaper each day. The French (jointly with the Irish) are the Europeans least likely to read news online, says Eurostat. And they watch 50 minutes less TV a day than Americans. Just as the election campaign gets going, Canal+ is canning its prime-time TV news show Le Grand Journal because of collapsing ratings. Movies will fill the slot.
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Most French people find the media-political nexus off-putting. Even those who follow the news rarely believe what they read, says Kantar. In this climate, it was unsurprising that rioters in the Parisian suburb of Bobigny assaulted two radio trucks and a journalist last weekend. French politicians understand that they are in a sort of “ugly contest” with journalists as to who is despised most. When Fillon’s dubious payments to his wife and children were exposed, he predictably blamed the media for a “political assassination”.
Some French people read France’s less political regional newspapers, especially Ouest-France. They also have relatively high trust in radio, which is largely state owned. Few people here attach their identity to any particular partisan media. There is nothing here on the scale of Fox News, or Britain’s traditional dabblers in fake news, the tabloids. Whereas most American voters identify strongly as either “liberals” or “conservatives”, in France no labels now have such power to mobilise.
I can understand this.
The media has itself to blame with it's 'headline-grabbing' approach to news, trying to get sales up and outdo the competition with little regard (in some cases) to the 'truth' behind the story.
Perhaps the UK populace should adopt this approach.
The danger, though, is that important news might get pushed under the carpet and not exposed until it is too late.
