Bias in European journalism

From personal friends of President Nicolas Sarkozy owning French newspapers to Vatican City news outlets defending nearly every action of the pope, conflicts of interest abound in European journalism. Instead of the verification-based journalism the American press espouses, in Europe we more often encountered a journalism of assertion – the press served as a conduit for the ideas of public officials, sometimes allowing fairness and accuracy to fall by the wayside. In France and Italy, bias in journalism was not only present, but flagrant. By contrast, Czech journalists appeared to be making progress toward objectivity.

At Sciences Po in Paris, we learned from Vice Dean of Journalism Bernard Volker that most of the well-known French newspapers lean clearly to the left or to the right. Furthermore, both of the widely watched TV news stations we visited were owned by people with political agendas: TF1 is under the control of a construction billionaire who is a personal friend of Sarkozy, and France 24, started in 2006 by then President Jacques Chirac, is now publicly run by Sarkozy appointees.

In France, there is a long tradition of intermingling between journalists and politicians, Volker told us. Billionaire Serge Dassault, who is close to the president and his political party, owns one of the biggest daily newspapers in France, Le Figaro. As a result, the paper leans noticeably to the right and is known for never criticizing Sarkozy or his political allies. Le Monde, another widely read daily newspaper, is known for being on the left side of the political spectrum. Founded after World War II, Le Monde has distinguished itself by being a harsh critic of the government, particularly Charles de Gaulle, who was France’s president in the 1960s. In an effort to cut costs and re-organize, it recently sold to three leftist billionaires, two of whom have connections to France’s Socialist Party. According to Volker, Le Monde is as unlikely to praise the president as Le Figaro is to attack him. As a result, readers of two of the largest French daily newspapers are receiving a version of events colored by a political agenda. Both newspapers obstruct democracy by allowing politics to shape their news coverage, doing a disservice to the citizens of France.

Even newspapers without overt political bias have conflicts of interest related to their ownership. For example, we visited the business daily Les Echos, which is owned by Bernard Arnault, chief executive of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton. The problem of business conglomerates owning news companies is certainly not unique to France; its ramifications (holding journalists accountable to an entity other than the truth, standing in the way of an informed public) deserve consideration because they are spreading in the United States as well.

The newsroom at Les Echos in Paris, France.

France 24, a multi-language TV station that began broadcasting in 2006, could be seen as a government mouthpiece because of its funding and leadership. However, the station differed from other outlets we visited in that journalists said they were constantly working toward impartiality. In the future, it is possible that more French news outlets will move closer to this model of objective journalism to more accurately inform their citizens.

Zach McGowan and Travis Zimpfer at France 24 in Paris.

The fusion of religion and journalism in Roman Catholic media makes their employees more papal public relations people than envoys of the truth. At the communications school at the pontifical university we visited, as well as at Vatican Radio, we were told that the pope is infallible on moral teachings. Thus, journalists at Roman Catholic news outlets work to defend his words rather than put them in a global context.

In November 2010, after the pope began to shift away from his controversial stance against condoms as a way to combat the spread of AIDS, Vatican Radio’s website published several “clarification[s]” of the pope’s comments, defending the comments he made on both sides of the issue and citing only one source each time: a Holy See spokesman. As public relations staff for the Pope, such coverage would be perfect. But to truly call themselves journalists, Vatican Radio should also explain why the pope’s original stance incited backlash worldwide and provide context about scientific knowledge about condom use and the spread of AIDS.

Outside Vatican Radio in Rome, Italy.

Also during our visit to Rome, a Catholic News Agency reporter told us his employer aims for evangelization, because it is the pope’s goal to re-evangelize former Catholic people and nations. Journalists who align themselves with the interests of authority at all times are no longer journalists; they are mouthpieces.

In the Czech Republic, journalism is still recovering from the Cold War. At Charles University in Prague, media studies professor Jan Jirák told us that before 1989, objectivity was seen as bourgeois: upholding the interests of capitalism, not communism. After the Velvet Revolution, news outlets started over, firing everyone on staff to remove those too deeply entrenched in Soviet policy. Today, that means many working journalists are young and inexperienced. Furthermore, Jirák told us, Czech Parliament determines the rate of funding for public broadcasting and sometimes tries to influence the public media’s message. However, Czech journalists are establishing professional standards and ethics that will lay the foundation for an objective method in the future.

For several decades, citizens had to sort fact from opinion for themselves when they read or listened to the news, Jirák told us. But today, Czech news outlets are very careful to avoid being captured by political interests and typically rank high on Reporters Sans Frontières’ annual Press Freedom Index, a 2007 report by the Association of European Journalists stated. The Czech Republic has also developed a Freedom of Information Act and several other laws promoting freedom of the press, pressing constantly toward independence of mind. In this, they have surpassed the other European nations we visited, none of which were ever behind the Iron Curtain.

In France and Italy, conflicts of interest in journalism are clearly recognizable. What is not so easy to pin down is whether the citizens and journalists of those countries will ever begin to push toward greater accountability, objectivity and independence of mind. Until they do, democracy cannot fully function.


-Celia Ampel