From a review of the problems…

 

Criticisms against the media and journalists are common in the media. This constant questioning of their informational and professional legitimacy, is a sign of a profound questioning of the profession and its place in a context of profound changes. To monitor public opinion, newspapers in France publish an annual barometer of the confidence of the French in the media[1]
These criticisms are levelled across several issues. Some question the impact of the processes of concentration of ownership of the media; increased focus on profit; industrialization of the media companies which have changed working conditions of journalists and the subsequent impact of these influences on the messages produced. Others point to the relationship of connivance and dependence of information professionals with political, institutional and economic actors. These critics denounce the logic of commodification of information[2] subject to an imperative for profit at the expense of editorial value. How? By the absence of a plurality of sources, subjects and angles[3]; the resumption of press releases; the absence of source verification; the race for the audience; the emphasis on sports or celebrities (such as the Neymar affair in the summer of 2017) rather than geopolitics; treatment by emotion and not by reflection; lack of neutrality or objectivity; the incessant use of stereotypes instead of field observations[4]. These critics draw a typical portrait of a journalist unaware of the realities of the daily life of the general public, little concerned by his audience, privileged because of their upper middle class background, collaborating with sources, accepting invitations to speak at conferences, trips or gifts; the reproduction of social inequalities within newsrooms[5].

…. to an analysis of the environment and conditions influencing news production

 

These criticisms make dialogue and reflection difficult, referring to the apologies of some and the accusations of others. However, they touch sensitive questions that seem essential to us because information and communication shape the public debate about social problems (Gilbert Claude and Henry Emmanuel, 2012).

Because the profound changes affecting the media today – concentration, focus on profit, internationalization, digitization – are changing the organization of the production of information and the system of relations to which the journalist participates[6]. The identity and action of the sources are transformed. New players are participating in the process, new ways of communicating information are developing, and new opportunities are emerging, notably with social networks. The boundaries between the actors’ territories of activity are changing, particularly on the web, where pure players; online media clearly identified as belonging to the journalistic field coexist with sites producing sporting and cultural content, etc. whose provenance is unknown. These trends are exacerbated by an employment market that further weakens the information professionals through the proliferation of insecure contracts (CDD, freelance), and the use of the status of “intermittent du spectacle” or self-employed, in the web and the audiovisual sectors in particular[7]. The media are thus placed in the midst of various directives; multiple constraints (economic, symbolic, organizational); all the more significant in the context of increased competition, proliferation of both content and methods to consume it[8].

This conference studies how journalists produce televised sports information, namely micro-decisions; successive operations which, interwoven with one another, define and construct the editorial product. In the course of exchanges, it is also necessary to reposition television stations and journalists in an ecosystem, within a production chain and a system of pressure and constraints that transform into editorial choices without being formulated as such. We postulate that journalists are not solely responsible for the information produced, its angles, sources, reported speeches, forms and formats of writing, modes of distribution, presentation, etc.

 

[1] http://www.la-croix.com/France/La-confiance-dans-medias-more-2017-02-02-1300821928

[2]http://www.lepoint.fr/medias/aude-lancelin-l-obs-est-un-petit-poumon-malade-encore-necessaire-a-la- left-13-10-2016-2075574_260.php

[3]http://www.liberation.fr/france/2017/07/14/c-est-les-medias-qui-poste-les-discussions_1583986

[4]http://www.acrimed.org/-Les-medias-and-the-locations-popular

[5]http://www.courrierinternational.com/article/royaume-uni-parite-salariale-la-bbc-mieux-vaut-etre-un-homme and http://www.telerama.fr /television/presence-des-femmes-al-antenne-teles-et-radios-peuvent-encore-et-toujours-mieux-faire,155128.php/

[6] https://www.contrepoints.org / 2017/03/17/284241-industry-media-a-leer-numeric

[7] http://www.lcdpu.fr/livre/?GCOI=27000100722250&fa=description

[8] https://rsf.org/fr/le-journalisme-fragilise-par-lerosion-democratique