From the sky high
Column CNN made the start. Al-Jazeera is now also available in English, and the French are following suit with France 24: A look at the battle of news images on the TV screen.
Column CNN made the start. Al-Jazeera is now also available in English, and the French are following suit with France 24: A look at the battle of the news images on the TV screen: "It's civil war here," says the reporter. He is reporting live from Baghdad and seems almost a little pleased: "Only the Americans don't want to admit it." For France, at any rate, it is a day of triumph: after a long back and forth, France 24 finally goes on air - the French news channel for the world, the Grande Nation's belated answer to CNN. The launch could not have been better programmed. The day before - truly a divine coincidence - the Baker Report was published in the USA, criticizing the Bush administration. Chirac had been proved right in his policy of opposing the invasion of Iraq - and the French now had the opportunity to make this known. Around the clock and around the world. In French - and in English.a big party was held on the Champs-Elysées. The Canadian former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was flown in. He emphasized the importance of France 24 for the French-speaking world. Javier Solana represented European diplomacy. Chirac was beaming as he gave the starting signal: "France's voice in the world will be impartial", he declared.
Since the first Gulf War in 1991, when the world discovered CNN and the Americans thus had a monopoly on images and information, Paris has wanted its own news channel. The project was relaunched with every international conflict. Chirac felt completely misunderstood and left alone when he detonated a few nuclear bombs on Mururoa in 1995 and became the bogeyman of the world. His campaign against the war in Iraq made him popular again - except in the USA, where hostility towards France manifested itself. "French CNN" was launched. The editorial team includes 170 journalists, some of them very young, and the 2007 budget is a rather modest 80 million euros.
You can easily watch France 24 on the Internet. The offer is by no means bad. Lots of blue - it's the national color - attractive news anchors, culture and lifestyle. Stock market and politics. Sport too. Exclusive reporters report from Brussels and Beirut. Reporters from the state news agency AFP are called in from Gaza and Moscow. From Jerusalem, the correspondent from France 2 comes into the picture. The journalistic contingent is quite impressive.
Two months on, and already those responsible claim that France 24 has succeeded in taking a "different and new" look at international current affairs. This is difficult to judge from Europe. But it is worth taking a look from here at al-Jazeera, the Arab channel that became famous for its videos of Bin Laden and recently entered the battle of images in the war of civilizations with an English-language programme. Al-Jazeera is as professional as CNN. Israeli and US statements are also systematically obtained. And the facts are soberly presented. It is astonishing, for example, that al-Jazeera really does present a different picture of Africa than we are served up by our national programs. It is not limited to the bellies of starving children, AIDS and child soldiers. Lawyers, bankers, diplomats, politicians, intellectuals have their say - there is an African public that we as TV consumers never hear about.
Nevertheless, al-Jazeera remains as Arab as CNN is American. Even at second glance, they are not propaganda channels - nobody would voluntarily switch them on today. This is even more true of BBC World and Deutsche Welle. Nevertheless, it is their diversity that creates a form of pluralism. Now the Japanese also want a global news channel. Does globalization only exist if you broadcast your images from space around the globe? Certainly not, and perhaps the Internet will make news channels obsolete anyway.
Nevertheless, Switzerland should also take the question of its international presence a little more seriously. It would be fatal if Swissinfo were to be dismantled further. The information channel of German-speaking Swiss television is free to air on satellite, but is hardly suitable as the "voice of Switzerland". Generally speaking, the French-speaking part of Switzerland is better represented via francophone cooperation, for example on TV 5. On France 24, however, we have only ever seen Switzerland when it came to Johnny Hallyday's tax exile in Gstaad. Otherwise, it only appears regularly in the weather report and stock market prices.
Jürg Altwegg is a correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine in Geneva
.
Since the first Gulf War in 1991, when the world discovered CNN and the Americans thus had a monopoly on images and information, Paris has wanted its own news channel. The project was relaunched with every international conflict. Chirac felt completely misunderstood and left alone when he detonated a few nuclear bombs on Mururoa in 1995 and became the bogeyman of the world. His campaign against the war in Iraq made him popular again - except in the USA, where hostility towards France manifested itself. "French CNN" was launched. The editorial team includes 170 journalists, some of them very young, and the 2007 budget is a rather modest 80 million euros.
You can easily watch France 24 on the Internet. The offer is by no means bad. Lots of blue - it's the national color - attractive news anchors, culture and lifestyle. Stock market and politics. Sport too. Exclusive reporters report from Brussels and Beirut. Reporters from the state news agency AFP are called in from Gaza and Moscow. From Jerusalem, the correspondent from France 2 comes into the picture. The journalistic contingent is quite impressive.
Two months on, and already those responsible claim that France 24 has succeeded in taking a "different and new" look at international current affairs. This is difficult to judge from Europe. But it is worth taking a look from here at al-Jazeera, the Arab channel that became famous for its videos of Bin Laden and recently entered the battle of images in the war of civilizations with an English-language programme. Al-Jazeera is as professional as CNN. Israeli and US statements are also systematically obtained. And the facts are soberly presented. It is astonishing, for example, that al-Jazeera really does present a different picture of Africa than we are served up by our national programs. It is not limited to the bellies of starving children, AIDS and child soldiers. Lawyers, bankers, diplomats, politicians, intellectuals have their say - there is an African public that we as TV consumers never hear about.
Nevertheless, al-Jazeera remains as Arab as CNN is American. Even at second glance, they are not propaganda channels - nobody would voluntarily switch them on today. This is even more true of BBC World and Deutsche Welle. Nevertheless, it is their diversity that creates a form of pluralism. Now the Japanese also want a global news channel. Does globalization only exist if you broadcast your images from space around the globe? Certainly not, and perhaps the Internet will make news channels obsolete anyway.
Nevertheless, Switzerland should also take the question of its international presence a little more seriously. It would be fatal if Swissinfo were to be dismantled further. The information channel of German-speaking Swiss television is free to air on satellite, but is hardly suitable as the "voice of Switzerland". Generally speaking, the French-speaking part of Switzerland is better represented via francophone cooperation, for example on TV 5. On France 24, however, we have only ever seen Switzerland when it came to Johnny Hallyday's tax exile in Gstaad. Otherwise, it only appears regularly in the weather report and stock market prices.
Jürg Altwegg is a correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine in Geneva
.
