What Ségolène Royal Failed to See: The Political and Economic Realisms of the AFP

Special Report: Journalistic Practices
By Éric Lagneau
English

In this article the author examines the public controversy triggered by the AFP's announcement on the evening of the 17 June 2007 French legislative elections, of the 'conjugal'? split between one of the candidates, S?gol?ne Royal, and the first secretary of the Socialist Party, François Hollande. His analysis sheds light on the difficulties experienced by the agency's journalists in finding the right distance in relation to their political sources. It shows the need to be wary of three types of reductionism. Interpretations focused too much on personal connivance or on the excesses of a form of economic or political realism, miss the essential. For journalists faced with a range of potentially contradictory expectations, the right distance from their sources is not set once and for all; it stems from a dynamic, situated approach; one which is consequently filled with pitfalls.

Keywords

Go to the article on Cairn-int.info