The non-governmental organization complains to the regulatory authority its “refusal” to act against the failures of the channel information chain of the Canal + group to its legal obligations.
By
On November 30, 2021, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) wrote to the Audiovisual Superior Council to solicit “the commitment of a formal procedure to the CNEWS television channel”, on the grounds that the chain Canal + group information did not respect “its legal, regulatory and conventional obligations”. It seems that the response of the proceeding, meanwhile become the regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication (ARCOM), did not convince the non-governmental organization (NGOs). Wednesday, April 13, she seized the state council of an appeal “to challenge the refusal of ARCOM to act against the shortcomings of CNEWS to its obligations”. “From our point of view, on the basis of existing law, ARCOM can do more than it does today, justifies Christophe DeLoire, the Secretary-General of RSF. We want her to be up to his role. “
The first of the arguments defended by the NGO is reminiscent of the debate on the sex of the angels: it asks the ARCOM to notice that CNEWS is no longer an information medium, but a chain of opinion (what French law does not allow). In support of its demonstration, a multitude of press articles which have drawn up the observation, but also a study conducted ad hoc by the semiologist François Jost, based on the analysis of a week of diffusion of the chain, at the beginning of February. During his request for a formal notice of the end 2021, RSF already mentioned the “massive dissemination of subjective opinions oriented”, in defiance “of the independence, honesty and pluralism of the information” to which CNEWS is outfit.
In his response to the Association, sent on April 5, the ARCOM retorts that the Convention (the Contractual Text) signed by the Chain “does not set a quantitative or qualitative obligation” to the dissemination of information “Reactualized in real time”. In other words: without obligation to reach any landing, there is no countervidence that holds. “If the ARCOM is no longer clear in the drafting of a convention, whereas it is the one who ensures its application, it is as if it formulated incantations or wishful vows”, Mustige Christophe DeLoire. In this letter, far from convincing its effectiveness despite the details of the different decisions it has taken to the chain, the Authority “justifies its inaction,” said the former journalist.
a law ” confused, wave and gap “
This is not the first time the NGO asks the regulatory instance to seize the CNEWS case. In 2015 already, she had, hand in hand with the collective informing is not a crime, claimed the opening of a survey on Vincent Bolloré, the first shareholder of Vivendi, owner of Canal +. At the time, it was a question of demonstrating that documentaries had been censored by the businessman. “We had not been successful,” reminds Mr. Deloire. Canal + had set up an ethics committee, and had an ethical charter in 2017, in accordance with its obligations. A large joke, still regrets RSF, since the text “authorizes short-language failure”, as the possibility given to journalists to lend themselves to “households” – paid external collaborations serving the communication of a person or an organization.
You have 28.52% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.