8 ms·

Except that Le Monde is not really quality journalism. It is owned by the wealthiest French people, gets government subsidies, and has advertising on it. All

Except that Le Monde is not really quality journalism. It is owned by the wealthiest French people, gets government subsidies, and has advertising on it. All of these are fighting against the independence and objectivity of the content. Mediapart, who doesn't have these problems, also has content in English, if you're desperate for a French point of view. Le Monde will only serve you more liberal, globalist propaganda. https://www.mediapart.fr/en/english https://www.mediapart.fr/en/english

stefanve 5y ago
yeah do a way with liberalism let us go to populism history teaches us that this is a much better system
- fguerraz 5y ago
  And these are the only two choices, right?
  - stefanve 5y ago
    communism, stalinism, totalitarianism, feudalism and some others. afc depending on where you live (eg USA) people from EU are living in a communist society ;) Not saying that things can't be improved but most politicians that are railing against liberalism are very much populists
ur-whale 5y ago
> Except tha le Monde is not really quality journalism. Agreed, but the other source you mention (Mediapart) is not what I would call quality journalism either, their political bias is intense. I'm likely naive, but in my book, quality journalism is supposed to report facts, as much as they can be established without tainting them with a selection bias and must steer clear of injecting one's opinion in the content produced unless it comes with a truly clear warning ("this is an opinion piece"). Mediapart is profoundly not that.
- fguerraz 5y ago
  They definitely have a bias for the left. But they are, objective enough to be the first to report on, for example, embarrassing campaign funding issues from Mélenchon's last campaign, a few weeks before the election taking place these days.
- Jallal 5y ago
  Actually, every newspaper has some bias regarding the information they publish, and it's unavoidable. The most honest ones acknowledge that, contrarily to "Le Monde" and all the others main french newspapers ("Le Figaro", "Libération") claim. Regarding Mediapart, it is indeed strongly opinionated newspaper, but you know that beforehand. They have significant issues, but I'll never say it's not quality journalism (part of it actually). I've been a subscriber for years because of the quality of their investigations. For the record, none of these are pursued by big newspapers in France anymore: "Le Monde" and all major newspaper just relay the general information/propaganda, with no strong analysis. When they talk about scandals, they are never at their origin, and mostly relay the work done by others. And when you know that most of them are owned by billionaires who have their own agenda, and that a significant chunk of their money (several millions per year) comes from the French state, you understand why. You cannot be independent if your owners are billionaires, and if your income don't exclusively come from people who are paying for you to be independent (ie. subscribers). Everyone that argue against that is a liar. And you have in France 2 newspapers matching this criteria : Mediapart, and of course "Le Canard Enchainé". The main issue I had with Mediapart (which led to cancel my subscription) was indeed the fact that on some subjects (mostly the "woke' things), they twist the facts to match their agenda. Some would say it's another view on the same facts but my opinion was that sometimes, they tried to make allegations on something not strong enough. Regarding the other subjects, I had nothing but praise for them.
  - athrun 5y ago
    > The main issue I had with Mediapart (which led to cancel my subscription) was indeed the fact that on some subjects (mostly the "woke' things), they twist the facts to match their agenda. > Regarding the other subjects, I had nothing but praise for them. It’s weird how you noticed they are twisting facts to match their agenda on a specific topic, and somehow still think they’re not doing the same elsewhere. Mediapart is a very unreliable source.
StevePerkins 5y ago
Possibly the most respected periodical that I hear discussed on HN is "The Economist". Which is not classically-liberal and globalist due to conspiracy theories involving malevolent overloards. That's just legitimately what it is. Your definitions of "quality" vs. "propaganda" are wildly ideological. Whatever one's personal subjective beliefs and perspectives may be, they should at least be self-aware about them. "Anything that doesn't confirm my biases is biased!" is not a healthy way to frame your world.
- iorrus 5y ago
  I'm curious why you consider a periodical that you admit is heavily biased and has a certain agenda, the "most respected". I read the Economist occasionally with exactly the caveat that you mention, it is an extremely biased periodical that only presents a certain world view. To be frank I feel this takes away from the quality and definitely verges on propaganda so the two are related.
  - StevePerkins 5y ago
    It has a worldview, and is fairly open about it. Most everyone reading it is aware of that worldview, and seek it out either because it matches their own or because it counterbalances their own. Within its worldview, the articles are generally well-researched and well-written and increase the knowledge of readers. Everything has a bias. Period. It's not a matter of things being "respectable" for confirming your own bias, it's a matter of not lazily labeling as "propaganda" things that don't.
    - darkteflon 5y ago
      I think of the Guardian in those terms, too - “advocacy journalism”. Things were a bit different under Rusbridger but now it’s got a strong, almost singular focus on a climate change agenda. Which, frankly, I think is fantastic. We need a paper like that. I also tend to think it’s much more productive to categorise news sources as either “bona fide” - an earnest attempt to thoroughly research and report what you observe, as you observe it - versus “mala fides” - everything else. As you say, there’s no such thing as unbiased reporting. Every paper has a world view - I’ll quite happily nail my colours to the humanist mast of a paper like the Guardian.
thriftwy 5y ago
I've checked Mediapart and every single piece on that page is about France, even Russia-Ukraine coverage is all about what Macron said. Just saying :)
Jyaif 5y ago
> Except that Le Monde is not really quality journalism. Yeah. They are living off their prestigious name, but nowadays I find that a good chunk of their articles are essentially opinion pieces. On the other hand they now publish some high quality and well researched youtube videos.
- libraryatnight 5y ago
  This seems to be a problem with some of our press institutions in the US too. The NYT is inundated with horrible opinion pieces. They still do some decent reporting but you have to sift through a lot of garbage to get to it. It's still better than, and not at all comparable to, the news from an alternate dimension on Fox or the (somehow) crazier smaller nationalist networks, but extremely disheartening.
hemreldop 5y ago
Propaganda is a strange word to use when the alternative you’re implying is literally batshit insane blood libel level conservative drivel.
- sidibe 5y ago
  These days hearing something called liberal globalist sounds like an endorsement to me. Not that I consider myself a liberal globalist but I usually find my opinions to be opposite of those who use that term.
  - rahen 5y ago
    I find it pretty hard here in France to find a media with a pro-market, small-governement stance. Basically the whole press is statist. L'Opinion and Les Echos are somewhat the least worst.
- speedgoose 5y ago
  These adjectives are wrong, mediapart has done really useful investigations and have a good reputation. I’m not reading their work everyday, I prefer LeMonde which has a lot more interesting articles to me.
TacticalCoder 5y ago
> Le Monde will only serve you more liberal, globalist propaganda. > All of these are fighting against the independence and objectivity of the content. Totally. It's, hidden behind nice typography (for the print version at least) and hardly ever a spelling mistake, the french version of "Pravda".
zouhair 5y ago
Le Monde Diplomatique though is high quality.
jillesvangurp 5y ago
As opposed to Rupert Murdoch, Jef Bezos (washington post), and other billionaires. who own and control a lot of English news properties and use this to spoon feed you right wing and left wing populist drivel? I tend to sample across different media to get an impression of what is going on. Lately, I've been using Al Jazeera, the Times of Israel, BBC News and a few others. They each have their biases. But, if you have Al Jazeera and the Times of Israel agreeing with each other, you are dealing with solid information probably. Often the subtleties in wording, emphasis, etc. is also very telling. Adding le Monde to that list will help me understand how the French look at this world. Der Spiegel International sadly pulled the plug a few years ago but used to be similarly helpful with understanding the German perspective. If you only read stuff that confirms your own biases, you are probably not getting informed very well.
rospaya 5y ago
> globalist propaganda Using the term "globalist" undermines your arguments, the history of its usage is deeply tied to various conspiracy theories. It's polarizing, so the people you're pointing your comment to won't consider it serious because of it. Imagine if I started quoting Mao - the rest of the comment fades.

stefanve 5y ago

yeah do a way with liberalism let us go to populism history teaches us that this is a much better system

fguerraz 5y ago
And these are the only two choices, right?
- stefanve 5y ago
  communism, stalinism, totalitarianism, feudalism and some others. afc depending on where you live (eg USA) people from EU are living in a communist society ;) Not saying that things can't be improved but most politicians that are railing against liberalism are very much populists

ur-whale 5y ago

> Except tha le Monde is not really quality journalism. Agreed, but the other source you mention (Mediapart) is not what I would call quality journalism either, their political bias is intense. I'm likely naive, but in my book, quality journalism is supposed to report facts, as much as they can be established without tainting them with a selection bias and must steer clear of injecting one's opinion in the content produced unless it comes with a truly clear warning ("this is an opinion piece"). Mediapart is profoundly not that.

fguerraz 5y ago
They definitely have a bias for the left. But they are, objective enough to be the first to report on, for example, embarrassing campaign funding issues from Mélenchon's last campaign, a few weeks before the election taking place these days.
Jallal 5y ago
Actually, every newspaper has some bias regarding the information they publish, and it's unavoidable. The most honest ones acknowledge that, contrarily to "Le Monde" and all the others main french newspapers ("Le Figaro", "Libération") claim. Regarding Mediapart, it is indeed strongly opinionated newspaper, but you know that beforehand. They have significant issues, but I'll never say it's not quality journalism (part of it actually). I've been a subscriber for years because of the quality of their investigations. For the record, none of these are pursued by big newspapers in France anymore: "Le Monde" and all major newspaper just relay the general information/propaganda, with no strong analysis. When they talk about scandals, they are never at their origin, and mostly relay the work done by others. And when you know that most of them are owned by billionaires who have their own agenda, and that a significant chunk of their money (several millions per year) comes from the French state, you understand why. You cannot be independent if your owners are billionaires, and if your income don't exclusively come from people who are paying for you to be independent (ie. subscribers). Everyone that argue against that is a liar. And you have in France 2 newspapers matching this criteria : Mediapart, and of course "Le Canard Enchainé". The main issue I had with Mediapart (which led to cancel my subscription) was indeed the fact that on some subjects (mostly the "woke' things), they twist the facts to match their agenda. Some would say it's another view on the same facts but my opinion was that sometimes, they tried to make allegations on something not strong enough. Regarding the other subjects, I had nothing but praise for them.
- athrun 5y ago
  > The main issue I had with Mediapart (which led to cancel my subscription) was indeed the fact that on some subjects (mostly the "woke' things), they twist the facts to match their agenda. > Regarding the other subjects, I had nothing but praise for them. It’s weird how you noticed they are twisting facts to match their agenda on a specific topic, and somehow still think they’re not doing the same elsewhere. Mediapart is a very unreliable source.

StevePerkins 5y ago

Possibly the most respected periodical that I hear discussed on HN is "The Economist". Which is not classically-liberal and globalist due to conspiracy theories involving malevolent overloards. That's just legitimately what it is. Your definitions of "quality" vs. "propaganda" are wildly ideological. Whatever one's personal subjective beliefs and perspectives may be, they should at least be self-aware about them. "Anything that doesn't confirm my biases is biased!" is not a healthy way to frame your world.

iorrus 5y ago
I'm curious why you consider a periodical that you admit is heavily biased and has a certain agenda, the "most respected". I read the Economist occasionally with exactly the caveat that you mention, it is an extremely biased periodical that only presents a certain world view. To be frank I feel this takes away from the quality and definitely verges on propaganda so the two are related.
- StevePerkins 5y ago
  It has a worldview, and is fairly open about it. Most everyone reading it is aware of that worldview, and seek it out either because it matches their own or because it counterbalances their own. Within its worldview, the articles are generally well-researched and well-written and increase the knowledge of readers. Everything has a bias. Period. It's not a matter of things being "respectable" for confirming your own bias, it's a matter of not lazily labeling as "propaganda" things that don't.
  - darkteflon 5y ago
    I think of the Guardian in those terms, too - “advocacy journalism”. Things were a bit different under Rusbridger but now it’s got a strong, almost singular focus on a climate change agenda. Which, frankly, I think is fantastic. We need a paper like that. I also tend to think it’s much more productive to categorise news sources as either “bona fide” - an earnest attempt to thoroughly research and report what you observe, as you observe it - versus “mala fides” - everything else. As you say, there’s no such thing as unbiased reporting. Every paper has a world view - I’ll quite happily nail my colours to the humanist mast of a paper like the Guardian.

thriftwy 5y ago

I've checked Mediapart and every single piece on that page is about France, even Russia-Ukraine coverage is all about what Macron said. Just saying :)

Jyaif 5y ago

> Except that Le Monde is not really quality journalism. Yeah. They are living off their prestigious name, but nowadays I find that a good chunk of their articles are essentially opinion pieces. On the other hand they now publish some high quality and well researched youtube videos.

libraryatnight 5y ago
This seems to be a problem with some of our press institutions in the US too. The NYT is inundated with horrible opinion pieces. They still do some decent reporting but you have to sift through a lot of garbage to get to it. It's still better than, and not at all comparable to, the news from an alternate dimension on Fox or the (somehow) crazier smaller nationalist networks, but extremely disheartening.

hemreldop 5y ago

Propaganda is a strange word to use when the alternative you’re implying is literally batshit insane blood libel level conservative drivel.

sidibe 5y ago
These days hearing something called liberal globalist sounds like an endorsement to me. Not that I consider myself a liberal globalist but I usually find my opinions to be opposite of those who use that term.
- rahen 5y ago
  I find it pretty hard here in France to find a media with a pro-market, small-governement stance. Basically the whole press is statist. L'Opinion and Les Echos are somewhat the least worst.
speedgoose 5y ago
These adjectives are wrong, mediapart has done really useful investigations and have a good reputation. I’m not reading their work everyday, I prefer LeMonde which has a lot more interesting articles to me.

TacticalCoder 5y ago

> Le Monde will only serve you more liberal, globalist propaganda. > All of these are fighting against the independence and objectivity of the content. Totally. It's, hidden behind nice typography (for the print version at least) and hardly ever a spelling mistake, the french version of "Pravda".

zouhair 5y ago

Le Monde Diplomatique though is high quality.

jillesvangurp 5y ago

As opposed to Rupert Murdoch, Jef Bezos (washington post), and other billionaires. who own and control a lot of English news properties and use this to spoon feed you right wing and left wing populist drivel? I tend to sample across different media to get an impression of what is going on. Lately, I've been using Al Jazeera, the Times of Israel, BBC News and a few others. They each have their biases. But, if you have Al Jazeera and the Times of Israel agreeing with each other, you are dealing with solid information probably. Often the subtleties in wording, emphasis, etc. is also very telling. Adding le Monde to that list will help me understand how the French look at this world. Der Spiegel International sadly pulled the plug a few years ago but used to be similarly helpful with understanding the German perspective. If you only read stuff that confirms your own biases, you are probably not getting informed very well.

rospaya 5y ago

> globalist propaganda Using the term "globalist" undermines your arguments, the history of its usage is deeply tied to various conspiracy theories. It's polarizing, so the people you're pointing your comment to won't consider it serious because of it. Imagine if I started quoting Mao - the rest of the comment fades.