France: RSF welcomes ARCOM's decision to strengthen media pluralism
France's broadcasting regulator, ARCOM, has issued a decision likely to increase the diversity of thoughts and opinions in French media – a direct result of the "Reporters Without Borders" ruling by France's highest court on 13 February 2024. Reporters Witout Borders (RSF) welcomes this decision, albeit belated and imperfect.
On Thursday 18 July, ARCOM (Autorité de Régulation de la Communication Audiovisuelle et Numérique) proposed new methods for monitoring pluralism in French media that assess diversity using three different indicators: contributors, topics covered, and points of view. This initiative follows the Council of State’s historic decision on 13 February 2024, which was prompted by an appeal by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to overturn ARCOM’s refusal to act against the television channel CNews.
ARCOM's decision to introduce tighter controls for all French broadcast media will be implemented over a period of one month for all 24-hour news channels, compared with three months for general interest channels. It will apply to both classic news programmes and programmes that contribute to news.
The decision comes less than a month before 13 August, the deadline for implementing the Council of State’s decision, which called for ARCOM to revise its control procedures and apply these new methods to asses the content of the TV channel CNews. The decision also comes in the midst of the frequency reallocation process for TV networks, which is due to be completed at the end of July.
"RSF welcomes this decision, which is in line with the demands we made to ARCOM: do not just look at who is speaking, but what subject is being discussed, and how it is being discussed on air. Measuring media pluralism based solely on speaking time is not enough, a point our organisation has been arguing for three years. This decision should make it possible to penalise broadcasters trying to circumvent their pluralism obligations under the 1986 Act, who reduce their programmes to a succession of unanimous opinions on repetitive topics. RSF will be particularly vigilant that ARCOM fills all its duties in this new system. The French people need more media diversity to avoid a disastrous polarisation of opinions. Arcom's decision proves that – far from fears that journalists will be ‘spied on’ – simple, common-sense solutions can be drawn up and implemented. It is, however, regrettable that their decision comes so late in the day, just a month before the Conseil d'Etat's deadline, and in the middle of the process of reallocating DTT’s frequencies, in a post-election context that has demonstrated the need for pluralism.
Absence of editorial independence
RSF is concerned that no decisions seem to be planned concerning the second grounds of the "Reporters Without Borders" decision by the Council of State, namely the need for guarantees for independent reporting. The judge had criticised ARCOM for limiting its intervention to clear-cut breaches on air, during identified sequences, without assessing the overall behaviour of the channel or its management, including off air. The methods used to monitor the independence of news and information should no longer be limited to "a given programme," but should also be assessed "in the light of all its operating conditions and the characteristics of its programming."
Five months after the "Reporters Without Borders" ruling, RSF invites Arcom to issue a decision based on their new plan of action sanctioning the repeated breaches of pluralism and independence of information by the CNews channel.
