A Curious Commentator

The New York Sun has recently run a piece trashing France 24’s decision launched an Arablic version. I’m not quite sure what the argument intially was, but the piece boils down into a polemic about anti-semitisim in France.

The strangest thing though is that the author of the highly-critical piece claims to be an assistant editor at France 24.

The conservative blogosphere is all over it.

I don’t know what to make of this.

New Distribution Methods

Amongst 24hr news channels, France 24 has thankfully led the way in internet distibution methods- streaming their content live over the internet for free.

But streaming video is already becoming an also-ran technology of of the Internet age. Although wonderful for those who want to sit down and watch the network from anywhere in the world- streaming video hardly takes advantge of two characterisitics which define Youtube’s success: video-on-demand and the ability to embed videos in blogs, personal webpages, myspace pages, etc.

To truly posper in the new era of social media, TV news networks must embrace the Youtube model by allowing their videos to be cut up and embedded all over the net.

Who wants to wait 20 minutes to hear the headline news? Who wants to watch a great news story once- and then never be able to share it with their friends, family, co-workers, and the public at large?

Slicing and sharing a news channel’s content is the future of news, which is why France 24 Watch welcomes the recent creation of an official France 24 Youtube page. Ultimatly, it would be wise to find a video partner that allows for advertising and the distibution of content from the France 24 website itself. But this is a good first step towards adapting to the future of media.

France 24 Poll: International Opnion of French Election

France 24 has another excellent poll up, in partnership with the International Herald Tribune and Harris Interactive.

This enquete looks at the view of France from abroad, sepcifically the French presidental election.

74 percent of American respondants wanted France’s new president to improve US ties, but only 31 percent had a positive image of thier French allies, and 19 percent wanted her to surrender her seat on the UN Security Council.

Americans, however, were more supportive of European enlargement than the French or the British, with 27%, 20%, and 17% respectively responding favourably to the idea of addimg more members to the union.

Overall, general opnions of France were very favourable in contential Europe- 74% in Germany, 69% in Italy, and 63% in Spain and less favourable in Great Britian (43%) and the United States (31%).

Again, the poll is having a big echo in the media chambers. Even the conservative American news outlets have highlighted the poll- although they’ve chosen to focus on the negative image the French have of themselves.

En Direct De…

 

The biggest complaint against France 24’s content has been that there have been few live reports by corespondents. In thier place the network usually ran stock footage with a voiceover.

No more. France 24 now averages 2 live linkups per 10 minute news segment.

France 24 Interviews Iranian President

On the same day United Nations sanctions against Iran were passed at the UN Security Council, France 24 interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about the current nuclear impasse. The timing of the interview assured that France 24 got a mention in many of the lead stories accross the US. Good to see France 24 getting such high-profile guests.

Another Stellar France 24 Poll

France 24 has released another great poll, this time measuring European attitudes at the 50th anniversry of the EU. In a wise mov, the poll was done in partnership with the Psris-based International Herald Tribune, one of the world’s most influential international newspapers.

Highlights:

-Most Europeans think Turkey’s entry in to the EU is inevitable.

-Most Europeans think that English will be the continent’s primary language by 2050.

-Europeans are incredibly optimistic about renewable energy.

-Europeans believe that Christianity will remain the majority religion of Europe in 2050.

France 24 “Presses Ahead”

After three months on the air, in international news media is becoming less skeptical of France 24’s chances for survival. Paris based International Herald Tribune has an article up praising France 24’s quality and pondering its future in a post-Chirac era.

Arabic Service To Launch April 2

France 24 has anounced that its Arabic language programming will launch April 2. It will be available free-to-air on Middle Eastern satalite services reaching over 25 million people.

Travel: Beyond the News

Time On France 24

Time magizine, the largest American newsweekly, has an article up on France 24.

The interesting bit is the speculation on what the upcoming French election will mean for France 24’s funding. The newschanel is President Chirac’s baby, and between Sarkozy on the right and Royal on the left, Chirac has no natural heir to his cultural hypernationalism  and the expenisve France 24 will have no gauranteed allies in the new government no matter what the outcome of the election.

Considering the current fiscal troubles of the French state and the absurdity of funding two international channels, something has to give.

The question is will France 24 survive?

The implication of the author is that France 24 has precious little time to prove its worth.

France 24’s Biggest Problem

A network that broadcasts in English from France with a special focus on Africa and the Middle East is bound to have lots of voice-over translating to do.

But someone forgot to tell France 24 that when you do a voice over you have to turn down the volume on the original language.

Please. Turn down the volume.

The France 24 Poll

In a very encouraging development, France 24 has commisioned a multi-national poll asking citizens about withdrawal from Iraq.

Perhaps not surprisingly a majority of people in every country polled wanted the American forces to withdraw.

What’s exciting, however, is France 24’s decision to commision the poll in the first place.

Most national cable news orginizations are involved in national polling in some way. CNN partners with Gallop in the United States, for example. But this is the first time I’ve seen a international poll comissioned by an international news channel. Such polls are usually done by orginizatoins like the Pew Center and are fascinating in their own right.

But when a news orginization comissions a poll it naturally gets more coverage. The Internatoinal Herald Tribune, perhaps the most influental English-language daily in the world picked up the story.

With this poll France 24 is partnering with Harris Interactive, a respeted American polling firm who often works with the Wall Street Journal and Le Monde, the largest French daily.

With all this going for it The France 24 Poll looks like a winner.

Lost In Translation: Microsoft’s A She?

 

The new “Beyond Business” segement recently featured a piece that refered to the agro-conglomerate Bunge as “she”. [sic]

Now would be a good time to explain the very, very rare circumstances in the English language where a gender pronoun is used for inanimate things.

1. Ships

2. Countries

That’s it.

It doesn’t work for companies, and even with countries it sounds a bit antiquated.

TV Advert

A very good TV advert for France 24. If you happen to know the name of the song please let us know.

Lost In Translation: Sciences-Po

Please do not pronounce the “science” in “Science-Po” in the English way when talking in English.

It makes no sense to pronounce the first word as if it were English and then use “po” a French abbreviation for “politique”.

If you must just translate it as “The Institute of Political Studies”, but preferably just keep the original pronunciation.

If Andrea Sanke can learn to pronounce one French word right, this needs to be it.

Helpful Hint 03: Post A Schedule

France 24 should put a page somewhere on their website that shows the programing schedule.

As it is all we have is this blog post, but its becoming out of date.

Something like this would work just fine.

Thinking On Its Feet

France 24 was probably launched a few months before it was entirely ready.For that reason several critics have panned the network for inferior production values. These critics neglect France 24’s best atouts, however- low expectations and lots of room for improvement.

This past week France 24 has made many numerous small changes that cumulatively are building a better network.

One of the best examples of this is the new “English Version Back At” banner. The most annoying feature of the English feed is that it cut to its French version without warning in the Parisian afternoon.

Now the viewer is told the French version will be up next, and best of all a little banner tells the viewer when the English feed will be back.

Little things like this make a huge difference, and the fact that France 24 is adding them fast is both encouraging and the reason why I’ve held off writing France24 Watch’s extensive review, which should be finished for this Wednesday, the two week anniversary of the launch.

France 24 Reporter Shot In Palestine

A France 24 reporter has been shot in the leg while covering the violence in Palestine, according to a report by the International Freedom of Expression Exchange.

Didier François, a Liberation reporter who recently joined the network, was hit when covering clashes between Hamas and the members of the Presidential Guard.

He was evacuated to Israel for medical care and his injuries are not life-threatening.

Middle East: Beyond The News

France 24 Launched Too Soon?

The UK’s Press Gazette has an interview with France 24’s managing director Jean-Yves Bonsergent in which he defends criticism that France 24 was launched to soon.

Media critics have noted that France 24’s production values are lower than its competitors, and that a few more months might have made for a smoother launch.

Bonsergent counters that “”We are working on that really quickly in order that it is solved and I think most of our problems have been.”

—–

Personally I think France 24 does have lower prodution values than its competitors, but that’s not surprising given its budget. So long as it continues to improve, what the channel looked like in December of 2006 won’t matter for long.

India: Beyond The News

American Conservatives Review France 24

There are no two things more anathematic to the American conservative than the French and government-funded broadcasting.

Little wonder than that conservative organisation Accuracy In Media has released a scathing, if poorly researched, review of France 24.

Entitled “France Copys Al-Jazeera“, the piece by Andy Selepek , one of AIM’s valiant interns, claims that France 24 is designed to “counter American influence in the world”.

This much is certainly true, and in fact this mission lay at the heart of the network’s creation.

But Selepak continues:

It also seems designed to give us a more sympathetic view of those behind international terrorism. France, of course, was the scene of violent Muslim riots in 2005 and is considered by many to be the base for “Eurabia,” the coming takeover of Europe by Muslim Arabs.

This passage is, of course, a fact-challenged farce.

France’s decline to support the American invasion of Iraq does not mean that it has a sympathetic view of international terrorism.

Indeed, France had been the target of Islamic terrorism for much longer than the United States, and has consequently adopted the toughest anti-terror regime in the Western world.

French anti-terror laws make the Patriot Act look like it was written by Amnesty International. All French mosques are under surveillance for the simple reason that they are mosques. French police have the power to detain anyone suspected of providing even minimal support to terror-affiliated groups indefinitely and without trial.

The French secret services are the only agencies to have penetrated an Al-Quada linked cell. Thier human resources in the Arab and Muslim world are the best in the West and their information is often valuable to the CIA.

The French people themselves are not particularly tolerant of even moderate forms of Islam. Unlike in the United States, the French left does not believe in the virtues of tolerance and multiculturalism at home, but rather their socialist ideals compels them to reject radical religion as the most dangerous form of communautarisim.

In 2004 Interior Minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkosy pushed though a ban on wearing the Muslim veil in public schools, claiming that it was an insult to women. The vote passed 494-36.

Such action or unanimity in the United States would be unthinkable.

And indeed the French view the “Anglo-Saxon” tolerance of Islam in the public shpere as dangerously lax. When the July 2005 bombings hit in London the common reaction in France was “What do you expect? That’s what ‘tolerance’ gets you.”

France clearly is no friend of radical Islam. But what of the second charge that France is in danger of being swamped by hordes of the descendants of the army Charles Martel defeated at Tours?

Hardly.

The 2005 riots showed serious, critical problems with the French state and society.

But these problems have nothing to do with Islam, and everything to do with France’s ruinous, absurd economic policies that have made the French look upon the current 8.8% unemployment as an improvement on the decades in the double digits.

The young unemployed Muslims who rioted in 2005 did so not because they were young and unemployed, not because they were Muslim.

Indeed most French Muslims are Muslims the way most French Catholics are Catholics. They are more likely to quote Homer J. Simpson than the Prophet Mohammad.

Ironically, the malaise of young French Arab is so acute precisely because they aren’t very Muslim at all. They don’t feel either French or Arab. Very few of them speak Arabic. Fewer sill attend mosque. And almost none of them have ever lived anywhere but France. And yet they still aren’t fully part of French society, unable to find the jobs that would propel them out of the immigrant communities they come from and into wider French society.

Hardly radical, French Muslims stand little chance of ever turning France into the “Eurabia” of Bill Kristol’s crack-induced nightmeres.

French demographics are very different from those of the rest of Europe. The French fertility rate stands at 1.9, the highest in Europe and equal to that of the United States (excluding recent immigrants).

The immigration rate, however, is much lower in France and crucially, French births are not concentrated in the immigrant population but encouraged in the general population by government policy.

In the United States, however, the fertility rates for Hispanics is above 3, while the rate for the rest of the population is below replacement.

The US stands a much better chance of being “Amerexico” than France does of being “Eurabia”

—–

Unsurprisingly Selepak’s critique of France 24 is just as faulty as that of France in general.

Aside from wanting to curb the influence of the United States, France 24 and Al-Jeezera have very little in common.

A more appropriate comparison would be with the BBC, which is roundly criticized even in Britian for being rabidly left-wing.

Why don’t American conservatives go after the BBC as being “pro-terrorist”?

Apparently thier only critera when judging European anti-terror policies is the government’s position on the Iraq war.

The need to counter that kind of dangerous, ignorant thinking is the best justification I’ve seen yet for France 24’s existence.

The Daily Show Does France 24

The very popular American comdedy program The Daily Show featured a short piece on France 24 yesterday.

Its great publicity.

Technical Difficulties

France 24 has been marred by many minor technical glitches these past few days.

Nothing much to say here, I’m sure its normal for a new network.

Five years from now they’ll look back on clips like this and smile…

Helpful Hints 02: The Lower Nav Bar

There are a surprising number of people who do not know France 24 can be viewed live online because they can’t find the button.

The problem is the whole nave bar is coloured the same shade of blue as the main area to the left.

Giving it a differnet colour (perhaps a mellow green, as above) would make it stand out more, and make it more accessable.