4 ms·
This is a curious move. I don't know if the board expect Americans to be really that interested into the depth of local french politics (I supposed late night c
by phtrivier 5y ago
This is a curious move. I don't know if the board expect Americans to be really that interested into the depth of local french politics (I supposed late night comedians would have a ball commenting on Jean Lassale's speeches, but would it really get an audience ?) ; or if they think they can provide a different take on world events - but I honestly don't see any difference between their editorial line and that of The Guardian, The Economist or the NYT. (And I don't have any particular problem with those lines, they're legitimate and debatable and not exactly subtle or contrary to the reader's interests.)
I wonder if they'll translate the "Décodeurs" section, which kinda brought the "fact checking" thing to France, for better or for worse. The original editor in chief for this section burnt out after one too many twitter mob shitstorm, and wrote a very nice "report from the trenches" book about social networks madness [1]
[1] https://livre.fnac.com/a15174266/Samuel-Laurent-J-ai-vu-naitre-le-monstre-Twitter-va-t-il-tuer-la-democratie https://livre.fnac.com/a15174266/Samuel-Laurent-J-ai-vu-nait...
- ramayac 5y agoI'm not American, and I'm part of their target :)
- asutekku 5y agoEnglish is the lingua franca, just because something is published in english does not mean it's necessarily targeted towards only Americans.
- some-human 5y agoWhy the assumption that it's for an American audience? It's probably more for a boarder European market, rather than Americans. The great thing about the French, British, Germans, Italians, Spanish, Polish, etc, is that most of them understand English. This way they don't have to translate it into several languages, when just one will suffice.
- phtrivier 5y agoAs I stated elsewhere, I agree that the assumption of American audience was misplaced. My bad. That being said, I'm going to counter on the idea that _most_ Germans, Italians ... understand English. It's certainly true that the _subset_ of Europeans targeted by Le Monde (affluent, educated, europhile, pro-business-yet-socialy-left-of-center) does. So the move is less strange if you assume they're trying to compete with "The Guardian" or "The Economist". I still wonder if they hope to compete with the New York Times or Washington Post. Also, it's a bit disheartening that they decided to react to accusations like "you're too Parisians, you're out of touch with the real country, you're globalist who don't understand the troubles of real people" with such a "hold my overpriced wine, I'm going starting a world domination plan" move. We already have a media concentration problem in France ; if all national papers start catering to the exact same globish audience, it will just make sense to stop having them altogether and just assume everyone will read the NYT, maybe with an adapted sport section (maybe not.) Not good for local news.
- cmrdporcupine 5y agoNot sure why you're assuming Americans are the market. It just seems in keeping with other European press organizations like Deutsche Welle, BBC, (or, ugh, RT) etc. that offer an internationally focused version of their brand which also happens to be in English... because most of the world speaks that. (I very much enjoy Deutsche Welle's content, myself. But could be because I'm a bit of a Deutsch-o-phile on account of my father being a German immigrant to Canada)
- phtrivier 5y agoFair enough, US is obviously not the _only_ international target (I guess I was primed by reading about their team in LA.)
- b3orn 5y agoThe french version of those are France24 and RFI, they're already available in english. I think Le Monde in english is more comparable to Spiegel International.
- rapht 5y agoNot sure I'd put Le Monde's quite biased left-moralist editorial choices in the same league as The Economist...
- iamsaitam 5y agoAmerica, the protagonist.