Page 118 - Comparing Media Systems THREE MODELS OF MEDIA AND POLITICS

P1: GCV/INL P2: GCV
0521835356agg.xml Hallin 0 521 83535 6 January 20, 2004 17:24

The Three Models

consistent differences between the two decades we studied, the 1960s
and 1990s.
Here is a fairly typical example of commentary-oriented political re-
porting in the French press. On June 21, 1991, the lead story in Le Monde
concerneda“polemiconimmigration”betweenSocialistPrimeMinister
Edith Cresson and conservative President Jacques Chirac. Under the
headlinewasa “chapeau”or“hat,”aparagraphreportingwhatAmerican
journalists would call the “peg” for the story, a statement the previous
day by Cresson criticizing Chirac. Below it was a story by Bruno Frappat,
one of the paper’s top political editors, which began like this (insofar as
a translation can do justice to the typically literary French style!):

Yes, immigration poses a problem for France. No, over thirty years,
governments have neither seen it coming nor been able to prepare
themselves properly [n’ont rien vu venir ni rien su maˆtriser]. Yes,
ı
ineffectiveness is general and imagination failed, except at the base
[i.e., at lower levels of society]. Yes, economic gloom augments the
bitterness of the tensions.
Against a background of impotence two discourses confront one
another: denial and hysteria. The angelic left cannot hide its dis-
comfort with the stubborn facts. Right wing extremists are gaining
ground every day with their simplistic local-bar-style “send’em
back where they came from” solutions.
What’s new: the right, its eye fixed on ballot box, is falling
into line behind a common message. The 19th of June, in
Orl´ eans, Jacques Chirac spoke of an “overdose” and complained
of the “French worker,” same-floor neighbor of immigrants,
driven “crazy” by the “noise and the smell.” Michel Poiniatowski
[a conservative politician] flatters himself, in [an interview in] Le
Figaro,tohavegone “further” than Jean Marie Le Pen [leader of
the anti-immigrant National Front].
Thereare wordswhichemitafoul odor.

In Italy – as also in France – earlier traditions of a politicized press
were reinforced by the experience of Fascist dictatorship and the Lib-
eration. Under Fascism, of course, the media were expected to serve
political ends – Mussolini was a journalist. And with the Liberation
the first newspaper licenses went to anti-Fascist political forces. As we
have seen, the party press was extremely important in the immedi-
ate post liberation period. As commercial papers reemerged, they too
would have political orientations, for reasons we will explore a bit later.

100