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As it is all we have is this blog post, but its becoming out of date.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

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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”

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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.

“Beyond The News”

Variety is reporting that France 24 has dropped the slogan “Everything you are not supposed to know” in favour of “Beyond the news”

According to Damien Amadou the former sounded “a little too conspiratorial”.

Ya think?

It sounded like a cross between the New York Times and the X-Files.

“Beyond The News” is much better, and in light of the new slogan France 24 Watch has offered up some advertising ideas to cycle after the excellent iceburg series:

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The Dailymotion Factor

One of the most interesting facets of France 24’s launch is its “partnership” with video-sharing site Daily Motion.

Daily Motion, bel et bien francaise, is a popular video sharing site in the spirit of the now ubiquitous Youtube.

The site is not well known in the United States outside of the techie community, but it is a well regarded Youtube alternative to those who know it.

Its good to see France 24 parter with Dailymotion becuase it shows the TV news industry begining to engage new media, which is the future of all media.

So far the partnership seems to be limited to Dailymotion providing video viewer participation on certain France 24 talk shows, which is great, but to truly engage new media, France 24 should go one tep further.

Rather than partner with Dailymotion, France 24 should become it.

France 24 should be the first major news orginization to allow their videos to be shared and posted though embedding. France 24 is the upstart underdog in the international news race, it needs an agressive, innovatve distribution strategy to overcome the many obstacles it faces.

“Youtubing” France 24’s content so that it could be viewed away from France 24’s website would make it more available to the online world.

I’m certain there will be all kinds of copyright issues here. (Although today Dailymotion itself is a more prolific copyright violator than even Youtube). And these issues may be intractable in the short-term.

But in the long term, every news orginization will have to find a way to allow videosharing, because the market demands it. If France 24 can find a legal way to be the first news network to enable the embedding of its videos, it would instantly transform France 24 into the darling of the internet, increase the network’s audience, and establish France 24’s future firmly in a new media strategy.

Next on France 24?

Lost in Translation…

“Internaut” n’est pas un mot Anglais.

C’est peut-etre dans le dictionaire, mais personne ne le dit.

“Web users” “Web surfers” sont beaucoup plus courant.

On comprend “Internaut”, mais c’est comme on dit “jadis” au lieu d’ “il y a longtemps” en Francais. Ca a de l’air archaïque et un peu bizarre .

Helpful Hint 01: Web News

Beginning a series of minor suggestions for the France 24 team, France 24 watch offers a helpful hint.

Create a webpage at france24.com that coresponds to the segment “Web News”.

On this page list all the links that were talked about in each on-air segment so people who watched the show and want to visit the sites mentioned can find them easily.

Create a web address, (perhaps “france24.com/webnews”) and mention the address at the end of each “Web News” segment.

This will increase in interactiviy of the site and create a good reason for casual viewers to visit France24.com.

Have a suggestion for France 24? Post it in the comment section!

Analysis: France’s Role in Africa

France 24 has done itself a huge favor in running stories critical of France’s involvement in her former African colonies.

For the better part of four decades, France has been accused of murky dealings in Françafrique including propping up dictatorial regimes, facilitating corruption, and human rights abuses.

Many of France’s actions over the years have come dangerously close to American actions in Iraq, which-for a news network who owes its existence to global outrage over American meddling in the Middle East- could be a thorny conflict of interest. In order to have any credibility whatsoever in the United States and United Kingdom, France 24 must be as critical of France’s actions in places like Chad and Cote d’Ivoire as it is of American actions in Iraq.

Fortunately, it has.

Coverage of the current situations in Chad and Rwanda, where there are legitimate claims of French misbehaviour, has been remarkably evenhanded.

France 24 has even reported Rwandan claims that France was tacitly complicit in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, arming and training its perpetrators.

Such claims are controversial, but well-founded.

By broadcasting them France 24 is building its credibility, vital to its success in the Anglophone world.

France 24 Reacts to the Blogoshpere

France 24’s segment “Web News” featured a quick sample of reaction to the news channel’s launch.

The three posts were markedly more positive than the ones reviewed here on F24 Watch, but they were admittedly from a wider range of countries.

This is a good time to point out that this blog, although the blogger is perfectly bilingue, will focus on the Anglophone world’s view of the English version of France 24.

Why America Needs France 24 Most of All

Three looks at Francophobia in the United States, all humorous in their own way:

France 24- The Blogosphere Reacts

France 24’s launch has drawn mixed reactions from the blogosphere.

On balance, a majority of those who blogged on the subject held a mildly skeptical view of the new network. Although most bloggers found something positive about the new network and remained hopeful that it will improve, a vocal minority looked at France 24 unfavourably. Let’s take a look at a representative sample of blog posts…

__________

In a typical expression of guarded optimism, Charles Bremer– Paris corespondent for the Times of London blogs the following in a post entitled “Now Watch The World A La Franàçaise“.

“Looking at France 24, the first impression confirms that it is a noble effort by serious and very enthusiastic journalists.”

He aggrees that the network’s French flavour was a welcome anecdote to the “Anglo-Saxon” biases of CNN and the BBC. He adds, however, a commonly heard worry:

“I wonder if the service — state funded but editorially independent, like the BBC — may not turn out to be technically unwieldy and a bit of a hybrid. For a start, the technical challenge is immense, especially on the modest 85 million euro budget.”

More specifically he mentions the almost universally panned feature of the new network:

In English, there are too many annoying voice-over translations and French journalists performing in imperfect English.

Bremer discusses the question of editorial independence, concluding that we will only know if France 24 is truly independent when after it has been tested, that is to say the next time something extremely embarrassing to the French government happens.

Bremer closes with high praise for France 24’s decision to stream live over the Internet, lauding that France 24 is now the first Western news channel available in China.

__________

A post on the blog Cyril’s Press Pass called “First Impressions of France 24” had a decidedly more mixed review. In its entirety:

I like:

* the presentation, clear with big titles and large squares
* good integration of video
* separation of sections is very clear
* easy to switch from French to English to Arabic
* great debates of important personalities

I don’t like:

* long loading time (especially for the live broadcast)
* dispatch titles are cut off
* you can’t see other users’ first impressions
* blogs are not visible enough
* the ad seems out of place
* search function doesn’t work well
* the customization did not work and is limited

__________

A more critical tone was taken on Duck News Network:

And our first impression?

“Oh.”

That’s it. “Oh.”

The post continues, criticizing the network’s lack of originality:

The channel promises to deliver “a fresh perspective on news”, but, frankly, it doesn’t. Not on the first day, anyway. It is, sadly much the same as all the other channels with which it aims to compete. Only not quite as good.

It concludes:

Our original warning that France 24 will become a minority business channel in hotel rooms still stands. Things can only get better.

__________

James Cridland in his “A News Channel Without a Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi, and One With” draws a harshly articulated, but commonly-heard unfavourable comparison with France 24’s recently launched competitor Al Jazeera English:

Tremendously unappealing programming; done without any panache or joie de vivre. Technical problems abounded, but so did simple boredom. Really not impressed…

…One channel that is surprisingly excellent is Al Jazeera. An outstandingly professional channel, with a very different outlook on world news.

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Simon Dickson, a new media consultant in the UK offers his opnion in a post entitled France 24: A Poor Start.

Dickson takes issue with the overdubbing, and concludes with the dreaded comparison:

Frankly, it looks amateur – rolling news done on the cheap. And when it’s a single press of the remote control away from the uber-slick Al Jazeera English, it looks even worse.

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Respected British journalism professor, and former TV presenter Adrian Monck adds in his post “France 24- Fromage… Dommage!” another comparison:

side from the pretty dreadful Google translate issues, France 24‘s Anglo version is basically Euronews with cheap anchors and cheap sets interspersed with overly repeated, over-long segments.

Adding more specific critiques:

The circular debate set is cold and everyone’s too far apart. Remote guests are cut in horribly. The framing stinks. The audio sucks. It’s a tough watch.

__________

Liberty Scott, a curiously Republican-sounding Kiwi took a broader view and attacked the very viability of a government subsidised news network:

However, the French government, ever looking for a way to prove how utterly unresponsive government is to what people actually are willing to pay for, has funded and launched France 24, a global TV news channel in French and English. The concern has been that the other channels reflect an Anglo-Saxon view of the world. Well, had the French government not taxed and regulated its own broadcasters into submission, this could have happened spontaneously, but France and entrepreneurial flair are words that don’t go together often.

__________

And finally Gareth Cartman’s “An Evening With France 24” takes an unusual look at France 24, liveblogging its launch minute-by-minute. Some highlights:

8:43 – The first news broadcast seemed to go off without a hitch apart from the odd nervous stumble and “errr” from the reporter in Lebanon

8:44 – Ooh look, the first advert is for a Citroen. Yeah, that’s French. I’m relieved now.

8:48 – Dominique’s blathering on about the French viewpoint being “insolent and cheeky”. Love it. You go, Dom.

9:15 – I didn’t know Javier Solano’s English was so… average. “My own wind took me here”, he says.

9:30 – Well, Iraq is still the headline news on both channels. And I’m off to do something other than watch the news. Conclusions? Well, it’s yet another news channel and the headlines seem to be the same as CNN or BBC World, but it’s almost refreshing – maybe it’s all those light blue graphics or Andrea Sanke’s charming little slip-ups – but I quite like it. Obviously, it’s early days and we haven’t seen any of the programming for real yet, and the bombast from politicians like Dominique de Villepin is a bit painful but if it means we don’t have the war-mongering of CNN to put up with in hotel rooms, then it can only be a good thing. Allez France24.

__________

Summary: The blogosphere is largely skeptical on France 24 so far, with those sympathetic to the project tempered by early shortcomings.

Among the most common complaints are:

1. The programs done entirely in voiceovers on the English channel.
   
2. Over-repetition of segments.
3. Overall technical inferiority to the competition. (graphics, audio, etc.)
   

Although I agree with many of the critiques I’m still bullish on the network’s prospects, if for no other reason than the strong demand for a less American voice in global news.

I ‘ll be adding my own review of France 24’s launch soon.

Stay tuned, and let your own voice be heard.

Add your reactions to France 24 in the comments! : )

Where’s Mélissa?

The American Dream

The blogosphere is abuzz with reaction to France 24’s debut, a topic which I’ll cover more thouroughly later. But for now, a surprising find.

Perhaps the most surprisingly widespread reaction I have come across- especially from Americans- is the following question:

Why didn’t they hire Mélissa Theuriau?

Apparently Americans have a shockingly high awareness of the former LCI anchor, and many assumed the French would put thier prettiest face forward on thier beloved new network. We can presumably thank “Le Youtube” for this phenomenon. Just one video of Mme. Theuriau has been viewed more than 387,000 times.

Even a staunchy conservative blog that posted a francophobic rant that went so far as to call France 24 “The Frog Network” (a reference to American distaste for the precieved French fondness for eating frog legs), had to include a compliment to Mme. Theuriau.

France is notorious for assigning diplomatic value to its beauties (I remember reading once that Sophie Marceau inexplicably accompanied François Mitternand to trade negoiations in Asia.)

But I’m not even sure Mme. Theuriau speaks English, and besides Andrea Sanke looks quite a bit like her.

If Mme. Theuriau happens to be anglophone, however, her popularity abroad would be a very strong asset for a network looking for English-speaking viewers.

The Competition

France 24 is a network destined for a very niche televevision market: the global 24 hour news channel.

A global news channel is distinct from lesser “international” news channels by thier reporting and availiblity on every inhabited continent. This distinguishes them from regional international channels like TeleSUR, EuroNews, or Channel News Asia.

There are really only three truly global competitors to France 24: CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera English.

Watch this blog for upcoming tête à têtes comparing the strengths and weaknesses of each network with France 24.

Antoine Schwarz Calls For Public Media Shake Up

Antoine Schwarz, head of Radio France Internationale, called for a shake-up of France’s internaional public media in an article written in Le Monde.

The article, which largely served to welcome France 24 to the French media scene, also critized the lack of coordination between the five publicly financed French internatoinal media outlets.

“Several orginizatons with similar missions coexist: RFI, TV5, Canal France International and France 24. Each develops on its own without any real coherance, and with reduplication of resources. France is the only country which allows this kind of segmentation in its international broadcasting efforts”

M. Schwarz called for the National Assembly to “lay the groundwork for a new orginization” in order to “define a coherent strategy and optimise our resources.”

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France’s current system of five publicly financed international television and radio broadcasters clearly needs to be refined. There are most certainly cost sharing opportunities to be had, and I believe that France’s services would do better to operate under a universal brand akin to the BBC, rather than the coufusing mix of acroynms one finds today. That said, however, it is probably wise to keep operational contol seperate to allow each broadcaster to focus on what it does best.

France 24 and TV5, however, should at the very least merge thier news divisions.