French journos bring employment plea to president

Posted by Lisette García on November 6, 2009 at 8:03 AM

French journalists on Tuesday penned an open letter to their nation's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, seeking relief from what they see as an attack on the press industry from all sides, Le Monde yesterday reported.

Calling the situation "extremely troubling," The National Journalists' Union (SNJ, by its initials in French) linked the ongoing economic collapse of traditional news media to the onset of Sarkozy's term of office in May 2007, according to the letter published on the organisation's Web site.

The journalists complain that even free tabloids - which were long hailed the answer to disaffected readers - are operating in the red while paid dailies suffer enormous declines in ad revenues.

In response, the journalists say they cannot be counted on to deliver the news effectively to the public without the government's concession to the following demands:

enactment of legislative reforms that recognise the legal independence of reporting organisations in whatever medium and of whatever size;
assurance that public bailouts will not serve merely to enrich shareholders nor replenish corporate treasuries, but will support voluntary policies favouring quality reporting and job security;
establishment of guaranteed resources in perpetuity to public radio and television that they may amply fulfill their essential missions; and,
confirmation to the outside world of the mission of public media in all its breadth and diversity.

Although the missive references The International Federation of Journalists' Day in Defense of the Rights of Journalists, celebrated in places such as Spain with minor street protests, the French journalists' letter did not suggest a national strike of media professionals.