Appointed president of the steering committee of the General States of Information (EGI) replacing Bruno Lasserre in January, the president of Arte warns about “a deterioration of public debate with blurred boundaries between fiction, disinformation and reality”. He hopes that the The proposals resulting from the report submitted to the President of the Republic and made public on Thursday, September 12, will be returned. “on the agenda of those who have the legitimacy to make decisions”.
How do you assess EGI’s nine months of work?
Firstly, there is a marginalisation of information compared to many other messages, drowned out by digital platforms, and all this takes place in an information space polarised by social media. There are also active discrediting movements from abroad. Finally, there is an impoverishment of the sector, with companies finding it increasingly difficult to survive economically without direct or indirect subsidies, and of those who work as journalists.
The various working groups made numerous proposals. How did the EGI Steering Committee decide to keep 17?
We have put forward these proposals, but this does not mean that we are discarding all the others, the best proof of this is that they are published in the report. We chose a small number of proposals, because we knew that if we put forward 200 or 400 they would disappear. The proposals are at national, European and also interprofessional level.
For the latter, we call for voluntary and plural labelling of press companies, because we do not want to impose it. This would allow citizens to better distinguish reliable sources of information and would allow public action to be effective.
In addition, related rights [droits d’auteur permettant aux journaux, magazines ou agences de presse d’être rémunérés lorsque leurs contenus sont réutilisés sur Internet par des entreprises comme Google] They are a step forward, but we need to collectivize the negotiations more, because the discussions Over-the-counter drugs create a certain amount of opacity that favors the platforms.
Several proposals seem consensual and unattractive (education of facts, raising public awareness about disinformation, voluntary labelling of media outlets). Is this enough to respond to the emergency?
The General States of Information are neither executive nor legislative nor supra-legislative authorities. We do not consider ourselves decision-makers, legislators, regulators or even interprofessionals, because we are not representative and we accept this. The mission of the EGI is to put on the table a certain number of proposals so that they fit into the agenda of those who have the right to make decisions. We open the debate with strong proposals such as the redistribution of part of advertising revenues to the media by establishing a mandatory contribution from digital platforms to online advertising.
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