how Radio France journalists sort information

Many listeners wonder about the organization of work in the franceinfo radio editorial staff. The deputy directors of the branch, Florent Guyotat and Estelle Cognacq answer questions.

On the occasion of Médias en Seine, organized by Radio France and the Les Echos/Le Parisien group, open house operation on news, Wednesday November 22. Journalists explain their working methods by answering questions from listeners. The mediator of Radio France, Emmanuelle Daviet, receives questions from listeners every week on the treatment of current events. The deputy director and deputy director of franceinfo, Florent Guyotat and Estelle Cognacq respond.

Emmanuelle Daviet: There is a question that comes up very frequently: “What justifies one subject being more exposed than another?”

Florent Guyotat: In journalistic jargon, there is an expression that comes up often, it is that of “dominant”. So it’s literally an event that dominates the news of the day. We will take a concrete example: today, what clearly dominates is this agreement validated by Israel. We have been talking about it since the start of the day for an exchange between hostages and prisoners, with the result, perhaps, if it is confirmed, a truce. This is a very important event since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel on October 7 and that is why we chose to talk to you about it all day. Every half hour we offer a long development to decipher this news. But we are also aware of the criticisms that we often hear. We are told : “You offer too many heavy topics, there is only bad news in the news or even a certain form of information fatigue.” This is also why we strive to preserve a certain balance. Today, even if we talk a lot about this agreement, we also talk about the release, for example, of Gaston Lagaffe’s new album. All this for what ? To show that there is simply more than just bad news in life, that we are aware of that, that we can also laugh on the air. It happens sometimes. Although, I grant you, it perhaps doesn’t happen often enough. And that’s also why, for example, we talked about this larynx transplant at the beginning of the week. A first in France, carried out in Lyon. By detailing this event we also want to show that there is good news that we are reporting on.

How do you proceed with the hierarchy of information in newspapers? This is the question of a listener who also wants to know who chooses the subject that will open the newspaper.

It’s simply a discussion between the presenter of the section’s news and the editor-in-chief. At the end of this discussion, a decision is made and the choice to open with this or that subject.

We can also approach the editorial conference which is the nerve center of an editorial team. How many editorial conferences are there each day at franceinfo? Listeners would like to know very concretely how it happens.

There are many editorial conferences every day in the corridors of franceinfo. There are mainly two, one at 9:15 a.m., the other at 3 p.m. The principle is as follows: the various department heads of the station meet with the editors-in-chief. The department heads propose topics in their respective sectors such as politics, economics, general information, culture, sports. They say “this is what we can bring you, this is what we could develop on the air” and the editor-in-chief decides by retaining certain subjects and not others. It is a discussion throughout the day. There are also mini-editorial conferences for each part of the day, for example for the 14/17, to find out what subjects we are going to cover and which guests we are going to keep on air.

Auditors also wonder how and on what criteria you verify your information.

Estelle Cognacq: On franceinfo, we have a fairly precise information verification charter which was established in January 2016, when we launched our internal agency which is responsible for centralizing, collecting and certifying information. For example, we do not give any information that is not verified by franceinfo or by a Radio France media outlet. Moreover, we work a lot with France Bleu to carry out verification in the region. When we spot information from a press agency, information that we do not have beforehand, we launch this verification machine. The source must be clearly identified. The source is very important in journalistic terms. It is the person who brings us, who confirms information to us, it must be clearly identified, it must be relevant to the subject. That is very important: this person must really have the information.

This also means that you can take time to give information, so you can give it after the competition.

We agree to waste this time. And I must say that in a continuous news channel like franceinfo, when we launched this charter and the agency in 2016, it was not always easy because there is competition both other news channels continuously on television and then all the media, social networks… And so taking this time to verify, to say that we are doing our own verification, that was something to integrate. In addition, there are subjects, notably on the deaths of personalities where we have even stricter rules, where the information really must come from a direct source, that is to say from the family , of the lawyer, of the agent, of a spokesperson. And we have to make sure of that. In this type of case, there are times when it may take a long time to verify. I remember the death of Karl Lagerfeld where it took us about an hour. Because sometimes it’s not easy to check them. So, we accept this time and it’s true that it can be a little everywhere else, but we avoid mistakes in any case. And then we take responsibility for our mistakes, that is to say, if we ever make a mistake, if there is a source that does not give us the right information, we will take responsibility for ours.

In your opinion, is the agency likely to strengthen the bond of trust with listeners?

In any case, that’s our goal. We know that there is this distrust towards political and scientific institutions and the media. We saw it with the Covid crisis, we saw it with the Yellow Vests. This distrust has increased, so for us, it is important to answer questions about how we work, what our sources are, what we base ourselves on. We must demonstrate maximum transparency, as we are doing today with this operation where we explain our editorial conference, our choice of subjects, what the fundamentals of journalism are, and also the difference between media and what we find on social networks. So I think that this certification and verification work is one of our objectives to restore this confidence.