“A news story always says something about the society in which we live”, according to its authors

“Le Parisien” explores old criminal cases through this audio content with 350,000 monthly listens. “20, 30 years ago, it was a bit shameful to like news stories,” according to the head of the daily’s police-justice department. From now on, fans of criminal cases are spoiled for choice.

Journalist Clawdia Prolongeau and the head of the police-justice department of Parisian, Damien Delseny, are the voices of “Crime Story”, a podcast from the newspaper dedicated to news items and put online every Saturday in a twice 15-minute format. It’s been a year since they returned to old criminal cases, some forgotten, or supplemented by an update, and they managed to interest 346,000 pairs of ears each month. A good audience in the audiovisual landscape which has no shortage of programs dedicated to current events.

franceinfo: There is I don’t know how much audiovisual content on news items between “Bring in the accused”, “Hondelatte recounts”, “L’heure du crime”, “Criminal chronicle” and so on. For what the Parisian rushed into this ultra-competitive niche?

Clawdia Prolongeau: The treatment of news items is part of the DNA of the Parisian since a long time. The Parisian had already positioned itself on the podcast market with a current affairs podcast, “Code Source”, and so it was quite logical when it came time to create another thematic podcast, to focus on current affairs.

Damien Delseny, you, who work and direct the Justice police department, can’t fit everything into the newspaper?

Damien Delseny: There, the idea was to return to slightly older cases that we dealt with sometimes 20 years ago, 25 years ago and on which we have a lot of archives. What’s interesting is sometimes to dive back into it and discover things that we ourselves had forgotten… So, one thing very often chases the other… And to come back, to rediscover, to reread cases, even if you don’t invent anything, it’s interesting.

How do you differentiate yourself from other shows?

“I don’t think we’re pretending to reinvent history, but the ‘Crime Story’ podcast allows for a slightly different narration.”

Damien Delseny, head of the Parisian police-justice department.

at franceinfo

Damien Delseny: We are often frustrated in the written press and also in the radio press by telling stories in a somewhat short way. We always want to write more and say more. There, it’s true that it still offers us freedom, a field that is more important.

How do you explain that the French are passionate about criminal cases and news items?

Damien Delseny: When I started this job, I think there were already so many people who were fans of news stories but who didn’t say it, it was a bit shameful. And that is what has fundamentally changed. Today, we can say that yes, we are passionate about news stories. I think that a news story that works and works well is a news story that is concerning, when everyone can find themselves in part of a story like the disappearance of a child, that speaks a lot. A news item that is too far from our daily world doesn’t work. What works is when we can say to ourselves: “Hey, what happened to this person, it could be my sister, it could be my neighbor” and in these cases, there is an identification and it That’s how news stories work.

Do journalists treat news stories differently compared to ten or 20 years ago?

Clawdia Prolongeau: I think yes.

Damien Delseny: First of all, there are also more of us doing it. I knew a time when there weren’t that many of us and we were a bit of a pariah in the press, and then it was mostly a small world. At Parisian, we’ve been doing this for decades, but there are plenty of media that have positioned themselves on this vector and indeed, it undoubtedly creates a slightly different way of understanding things.

Are the media, through a sordid story, trying to say what it reveals about our society? Now in the news, there is a societal side that perhaps did not exist a few years ago.

Damien Delseny: A news story always says something about the society in which we live. There has been a lot of talk recently about ultra-violence on a certain number of news items. It says things like that. I don’t think it has fundamentally changed, but for a news item to not remain just a news item, at a given moment, it must go beyond its scope and it must tell something of the era in which we lives. This is why it has become a little more democratized.

Your big brother “Code Source”, the Parisian news podcast with more than 800,000 downloads, sometimes deals with news items and its presenter Jules Lavie, who is also your editor-in-chief, told us that seven of the ten best audiences were on criminal cases. So, are you walking on these flowerbeds?

Clawdia Prolongeau: So no, it’s very clear. We deal with matters that are finished and to which we can bring an end, while he deals with matters that are in progress.

What will the next issue of “Crime Story” be about next Saturday?

Clawdia Prolongeau: Yes, it will be on the Yves Dandonneau affair, also known as the living dead.

Damien Delseny: It’s a very well-known old case and it’s really a subject for a movie. And with characters because what I forgot to say is that the news also works a lot thanks to personalities and characters. When there are no characters, there are no news items.