“Thousands of people may die in the Sahel,” said the late François-Henri de Virieu, “if there is no journalist to see it, it is not news.” The former editor-in-chief of Le Matin explained that among the four powers of a journalist, the most “exorbitant” one remains the choice of which information, among those at their disposal, they decide to publish. He also noted that raw information would increasingly weigh less against the colossal resources deployed to make it known. According to him, the medium would sooner or later prevail over the raw material. The framework would eventually take precedence over the content. This great professional saw clearly. His vision has largely prevailed.
To this significant shift that has impeded the journalism profession, two other factors are now added: speed and cost. The first determines who buys the newspaper, the second concerns those who produce it. Taking the time to discover an article that presents a fact, places it in context, and illuminates it with analysis becomes an impossible mission for a modern reader. For the journalist tasked with writing it, a challenge. Thus, TV images have triumphed over newspaper print. At the risk, as seen in Afghanistan, where the involvement of a few German soldiers in unspeakable acts may or may not discredit the excellent work done by the entire Bundeswehr on numerous foreign operation theaters.
The major British daily “Financial Times,” echoed by the weekly “Le Point,” says that the Internet has, for the first time, surpassed newspapers and magazines on paper as the primary source of information in the five countries of Western Europe. This phenomenon is accentuated by “free sheets” that also deliver information, often reduced to just headlines, occasionally accompanied by a brief comment. These “small” dailies, distributed at train station exits, metro stops, or in front of schools, first appeared in Nordic countries. They are now available in more than forty countries around the world. Drastic cost reductions, the accepted versatility of writers, and mastery of computer technology explain their considerable development. Even if the economic argument benefits them, it is highly probable that the time savings they offer readers is their main success advantage. This edge aligns with the contemporary man’s desire for immediacy. It even goes beyond this desire with an offer of “flash” consumption. Raw information is consumed with the same eagerness and efficiency concern as an espresso at the counter: the latter ensures a morning order, the former an instant update on current events.
However, the explanation might prove imperfect. Possibly even embarrassing for political leaders. They should particularly question what this satisfaction of readers with such synthetic information means. If they ultimately show this lesser interest in learning and knowing, it is probably due to their feeling—justified or not—of the limited power they believe they hold to exert any influence on the running of a country and, a fortiori, on the global course of events. This trend towards superficiality, masked by urgency, is but a sad reflection of an existence that seems to many disconnected. The virtuality of daily life is aptly named: it is “only in potential,” “without current effect.” This position of retreat, of folding in on oneself, undoubtedly illustrates the last human chain of resistance to the globalization process.
Yet, the press has never found itself as much at the heart of society’s issues. Never has it appeared so much as this essential link, which seems lacking, between those who govern and those who execute, between those who act and those who submit. Or revolt. The almost solemn call from the political class for the “responsibility” of the media one year after the “banlieues crisis” bears extraordinary witness to it. The delinquents who set fire to buses in Marseille and Lille said they acted out of mimicry. The one directly inspired by the television images. The one from the written press, had they been able to read it, would have likely led them to more reflection.
