A mea culpa after the“industrial accident”. The director of PointEtienne Gernelle, spoke on Monday, June 27, of a “double smoke” to explain the dissemination of false information on deputies Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière. On June 23, the weekly had to remove from its site an article posted the day before, which unduly accused the couple of elected LFI of having exploited an undocumented employee.
Initially there is “speakers still unknown” who have “tried to set up a business that did not exist”detailed Etienne Gernelle, Monday, on Europe 1, in his first detailed explanations on this error which placed his magazine in turmoil. “And then there is the internal smoke, with a journalist who (…) lost his mind, did anything and smoked his hierarchy”he continued, insisting that the claims of the article “were wrong”.
Etienne Gernelle had apologized to the two deputies, who had demanded the dismissal of the author of the article, Aziz Zemouri. He was laid off and called to an interview prior to a possible dismissal. “If he had told the truth about the nature of the documents he had and how he had obtained them, the paper would never have been published”assured the director of the Point. Aziz Zemouri, in particular, had relied on SMS which turned out to be false.
According to his boss, the journalist “probably melted a lead out of indignation” thinking that this case was true. “Who made these text messages, who invented this affair, shaped this story? We are investigating it (…) For the moment, we have no certainty, we have very serious leads. Obviously we will publish all this as soon as that it will be ready”said Etienne Gernelle, according to whom nine journalists from the Pointincluding himself, are working on this counter-investigation.
The false information “had arrived in Aziz Zemouri before the legislative elections” but their publication in Point had “been postponed”added Etienne Gernelle. “There had been a lot of questions before publication.”
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