France 24, the new French 24-hour international satellite news channel has just gone live in two languages: English and French, with an Arabic channel launching soon and a Spanish one later. The channel started broadcasting online yesterday though.
France 24 wants to characterize itself by respect for diversity and attention to political and cultural differences and identities. It’s goal is to offer an in-depth analysis of current events, aiming to uncover what lies beneath the surface and reveal what the public is not used to seeing, knowing or understanding. It will also be giving special attention to culture and lifestyle.
The France 24 website comes in 3 languages (English, French and Arabic) and is really well done. It mostly follows the new simplistic graphic trends we’re seeing in web design these days, and it’s obviously influenced by the world of blogging, especially evident through it’s tag cloud presentation of the hottest topics.
I think it’s great that more world class players are entering the media market, I hope it will help create a balance and counter the monopoly US media has over news, bringing another view of the world events to the viewers.
I’ve just watched France 24 for a few minutes now and my first impression is a really good one; It’s looking very professional and feels quite promising.
Along with a number of other bloggers from around the world, I was invited to Paris last week to visit the channel’s studios, meet some of the staff and record a show about bloggers, but time was a bit tight and it wasn’t enough for me to get a visa to France.
But if that invitation shows anything, it shows the importance France 24 is giving to bloggers, and the recognition that blogs can be a serious source of information and an important player in the global media market.
I agree Mohamad, it’s a good looking channel. I have 24 hour news on for most of the day at home, so I’m a bit of a junky actually.
I’m a bit disappointed with AlJazeera English, as I think it doesn’t reach the level of professionality that it aspires to. It also has an overwhelming feeling of being biased in an odd way, which I actually don’t understand that much, as it’s not particularly in the support of the Islamic/Arab world, just in it’s own special way. I also find it funny when a media company based in Qatar talks about democracy and speech freedom, let’s see them critise the Qatari government and we’ll see! Anyway, I’m an Arabist really and it’s a product that is allowing Westerners a farely good insight into the Arab world, so I give it credit where it’s due.
P.S. I particularly like how the France 24 news-readers announce the channel name, in a very French way indeed.
hier j’ai vu un programme sur France 24 heures ou l’animateur a parl
Guess what?? I was watching France 24 last night, and they mentioned this post on your blog!! I was amazed. They showed three (I think) blogs that had mentioned the channel, and yours was the third & final. Well done.
F
@Luke: Thanks 🙂 And regarding your previous comment about Al Jazeera English, I too share your thoughts on how it feels a bit biased in a weird way, or maybe we expect it to be biased and as it’s not openly biased, we feel it’s weird, I don’t know. Anyway, I do enjoy watching “Witness” on it, I’ve seen it 3 times now, and I find the approach quite interesting.
@Gen Tunezine: No censorship here, I guess my spam filter must’ve thought you were submitting a spam link.
@MoZZ: Thank you 🙂
You’re welcome Mohamed. I’m glad you agree with what I said about AJI. Actually, there are a few good programmes on there, including Witness & Riz Khan etc. I’m sure the channel will grow and adapt as time goes on.