People's Tribunal of the Media

Column Demonstrative France
waits in vain for a demo against television: For media criticism there are
it was not a mass audience. It was on a Wednesday afternoon, and
everyone was there live. The interrogation of a judge by name was announced
Fabrice Burgaud. Burgaud is considered - not entirely unjustifiably - to be one of the
The government has been held responsible for the biggest judicial scandals of recent years. At
that afternoon last February, new thresholds of shame in media society were undercut: a new form of
TV court became the people's tribunal - the medieval pillory
is a weak comparison for this.

It's about a bad case of child molestation that took place under the
Outreau" has gone down in the annals of history. Outreau is the name
northern French village where the drama began. The incidents occurred
In the fall of 2000 - in the wake of the affair of the child murderer Marc
Dutroux. This also had a hysterical climate in France
created. It formed the breeding ground for the judicial and media scandal
Outreau.

That there was actually sexual abuse of children at that time
must, in view of the development since then, be taken with all due
The situation can be clearly stated. Parents and neighbors were involved:
They were arrested and are in prison. But in the maelstrom of the investigation, numerous blameless citizens have been
interrogated and arrested. In the process, more than a dozen people were
sentenced to prison terms - only on appeal two years
after which the indictment collapsed like a house of cards. One of the
Victim had committed suicide in prison. Families were destroyed,
Existences have been destroyed. Last December apologized
President Chirac and the minister in charge with the victims. A
renewed wave of moral outrage went through the country. Only it had
now a different thrust.

In view of the outrageous condemnations, a
Parliamentary commission of inquiry convened. The
Parliamentary television was allowed to broadcast the sessions as an exception. But
the questioning of the victims was so impressive that even the
news programs turned on and kept the negotiations out of
program broadcast live. The "Tagesschau" provided long reports and
Special broadcasts. It was the moment of truth. At last the
innocent convicts tell what injustice they had suffered.

Last February came the interrogation of Judge Burgaud. This time
TF 1 and all other stations were already there an hour before the start.
Pale, Burgaud sat between his lawyers. The oppressive images
gave the impression of a Stalinist show trial. It was about
about sodomy and fellatio, about the erections of a father and his son. But with the interrogation of the judge
the dramaturgical climax was reached. Since then interested
hardly anyone for the work of the Parliamentary Investigation Commission. Since mid-March
it sheds light on the role of the media. The reporters from Paris and the
Local reporters speak out with astonishing openness
Response. The investigation virtually produces an object lesson.

It was known that the media's willingness to be self-critical was not
is greater than that of the judiciary. Consequently, they have started with the Hatz
on Judge Burgaud distracted from their own shared responsibility.
After all, well-founded articles also appeared in the serious newspapers,
who were critical of the media. But more recent cases show,
that the media have not learned any lessons from Outreau.

Yet another insight suggests itself after the Outreau case: For
Media criticism does not have a mass audience. Citizens do go against
the government and also against the church on the street - even more so
to combat pederasty. But viewers obviously want
do not know how they are being manipulated. Above all, they want to
under no circumstances take their satisfaction from their moral
Let outrageous declarations be muckraking. On a demo against the
Even in demonstration-friendly France, television is still waiting for the
still.

> Jürg Altwegg is the cultural correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Newspaper in Geneva.