DOCUMENTARY
The first day
Soraia and I arrived in the hall of the Publishing Society of Le Monde where we met Stéphanie Le Bars. She is a journalist in the religion and secularism section. We began with a visit of the company. We met the journalists of others sections: international, politics, economy, education... We visited the third floor where there are the direction and the staff who take care of the website. For that purpose, Soraia and I went to see Elvire Camus and Elise Barthet. Their work is to find articles, to organize them into a hierarchy according to their importance. They discuss with the editors to sort out and assess all the current events in order to communicate as much information as possible and to not miss any news. Furthermore, they are watchful on others newspaper like The Guardian, The New York Times or Le Figaro. They testify here of a concern for efficiency in their work. They want to inform the readers of all the news in the world. Close to us, Céline who takes care of the layout, checks the state of articles and the standard size. Finally, for this visit on the third floor, Soraia and I met Martin Untersinger. He manages the social networks to know what are the most looked at articles. On that basis, he selects and broadcasts the news which are the most viewed by the internet users. We then took part in a meeting with the Editor-in-chief and the Swedish Ambassador in France. They talked about the publication of articles in the newspaper for the next day. We participated also in another meeting which took place on the fifth floor. Each journalist of section exposes the subjects of the week and the important facts to be published quickly (affair of the recordings of Nicolas Sarkozy, the plane crash in the direction of Malaysia, the actions of the Ukrainian army, the illegal immigration in Thailand, young graduates who leave France to study in other countries, votes of the European Parliament, anniversary of the Fukushima disaster, fights against plagiarism by special software, discussion around Italian luxury and chocolate sale, the Olympic...).
Portrait of a daily paper
Le Monde is a French daily newspaper founded by Hubert Beuve Méry and continuously published in Paris since its first edition on 19 December, 1944. It is one of the most important and widely respected newspapers in the world. It reports an average circulation of 300,000 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which are sold abroad. Le Monde has a website since December 19th, 1995: www.lemonde.fr which deals with the whole range of problems affecting
My overview
This work placement from 11 to 13 March 2013, allowed me to develop knowledge and to understand several points, important for the practice of a job within the company.
The first point which all the journalists showed me during this training course is the love which they carry in the exercise of their job. It's what give them liveliness, speed and cooperation. The research, the press inquiries, the investigations, the meetings enrich their newspaper. All of this works make the Le Monde a newspaper of record in France and in the world. This ‘competition’ requires journalists to cooperate constantly. For example, the current events to be published on the headlines of the newspaper, brought them to a debate where all remarks and criticisms were accepted.
It's what testifies of a real coordination between these journalists. All the subjects are tackled, whatever their complexity. There is no taboo. Even if some remarks can affect some of them, all of this is made with lucidity. Indeed, they must refrain itself from any weakness within Le Monde but ‘to rise itself above the fray’ to remain the international reference as originally intended ‘The founding father’, Général de Gaulle.
It's this competition which remains the essential point in this Publishing Society of Le Monde. Martin Untersinger expressed it clearly: ‘the challenge is to stay one step ahead or develop new and more things that our competitors don't have, to do better according to what we had, to change, to add...’. He summarizes here the important points of a company, completed then by Ela Giret: ‘give a mark to Le Monde, preserve its prestige’.
This portrait of this training course is the portrait of this daily paper: pages full of curiosity, uniqueness, a collective intelligence to answer to a wide audience in search of ‘compasses’ more than of intellectual guides, explanations more than incantations
The second day
Our second day in the company began with Elise Vincent. She takes care of the management of formatting. She lays out articles written by journalists or which come from AFP (Agence France Presse). She evokes "a thankless but interesting and important job". The layout, the titles, the typographies are very important. They have to grab the reader from the first glimpse. After this interview, Soraia and I read different newspapers (Le Figaro, France Aujourd'hui, Le Parisien, Liberation, La Croix, Paris Match). Stéphanie Le Bars asked us about our impressions, comments, critics... Afterwards, Tidia, journalist's assistant in the company, took us to the Central. It's the place where the big Writers Editors make the last modifications for the publication of the newspaper. Lucien, an editor, agreed to show us the activities which liven up the Central. He takes care of the grammar and the spelling. He said during the reading of an article: ‘It's possible that the journalists make faults thus it's necessary to verify quickly the incorrect spelling and the understanding too’. He works with a dictionary next to him to make sure of the use of this term in the developed context. He also ensures that their readers have all the necessary information.
The third day
The third day, we met Alexis Duval and Ela Giret who showed us the meticulous work in the layout and production of website. Shortly after, we went to see Marie-José Gallard, Assistant Editor-in-chief. We talked about ‘The publishing company of Le Monde’. She presented us the hierarchy of this one, salaries and the importance of seniority in a company. For our last day, we tried to know the studies done to reach the job of journalist (more often by a school of journalism) and got to know the feelings of the journalists in this job: ‘rich experience and full of liveliness, it is necessary to be curious, without judging and very open-minded’. Finally, we met Mathieu Polak, Photo Editor who talked to us about the importance of the choice of the photo (aesthetic aspect, summarizes the text and comments, place and pose in the photo.)
The newspaper had to be ready for 10h30. Within the team, Mathieu takes care of photos and Catherine checks the layouts. They decide together with Vincent Giret, Deputy Director of Editorial Staffs, the current event to be put on the front page of the newspaper. As Lucien said: ‘we agree most of the time and sometimes not but everything is made in a completely friendly climate with a lot of humor and complicity.’
At 12h00, there was a conference with the director of editors: Nathalie Nougayrède and Vincent Giret. All the journalists were called to discuss projects and concerns of the past years. But also, to discuss upcoming project and address outstanding facilities management. Repeatedly, two expressions were pronounced: ‘a demanding challenge that we must immortalize’, ‘target specific common-interest objectives’. Further to this meeting, we returned in the afternoon to participate in another meeting of the journalists. No subject is taboo, they approach everything with a lot of lucidity and complexity. They use their knowledge and work: ‘I suggest I keep investigating’
France and the world. It is the only French newspaper easily obtainable in non-French-speaking countries.
Le Monde was created because the « founding father », the General De Gaulle wanted France to have a newspaper able to record important news all over the world. Beuve-Mery, René Courtin and Franck Brentano were the directors of the newspaper. The current chief editor is Nathalie Nougayrède, who in March 2013 was elected to succeed Erik Izraelewicz following his death in November 2012.
Le Monde is an important actor of the political and social life. In an article, Eric Fottorino underlined the wish of the daily paper to maintain a demanding challenge by its analysis, investigations, curiosity and precisions. Every day the journalists describe all the current events in the world and put forward their hidden motivations. It attempts to gain the upper hand by competing with others foreign daily papers.