Back to the puzzle of the counting of speaking time on the audiovisual media during the official campaign and its discrepancy with the reality of the French.
Some call it the charm of the official campaign period. Others see it as a device that encourages disinterest in politics, and perhaps even abstention. In any case, the two weeks that are ending are distinguished by very strict rules of equal speaking and airtime for the twelve candidates, as for their official clips. This means that, for a fortnight, the lowest in the polls benefits from the same airtime, at the same times, as the highest. And even that the comments of meeting, the editorials, the chronicles like this one, must grant the same place to each one, except to leave to others the care of catching up one or more delays.
We will therefore not say the name of this candidate who finds it absurd to benefit in fifteen days from as much media time as in five years. Do we just venture to mention the existence of a president who did not see his last major meeting at La Défense relayed on the first news channel, BFM TV, because it was impossible for her to reply? eleven times the same media coverage.
A count absent in the press and on digital
The most surprising thing is that this device only concerns radio and television – it is the counterpart of public frequencies – and not the press or digital. This is how the speech of the said president was followed, commented on the BFMTV site and the last interview granted by this same president was to Brut, a digital media where we also find Thomas Snégaroff, journalist who officiates on France Télévisions. Brut is not counted in the speaking time count and he has already been able to collect 7 million video views on vaccines with Emmanuel Macron.
Admittedly, this strict count is the only system which makes it possible to speak or to make speak of the small candidates, even though the campaign was marked by the absence of debates and the will of the outgoing president not to throw himself into the arena. . But, it must be said, in the midst of the war in Ukraine, this accounting also encourages the audiovisual media to underexpose French politics during a period when we should only be talking about that, so to speak.
In addition, this official time follows a period before January 1 when major inequalities were observed, in particular in favor of a populist candidate. Of course, after January 1, we entered the period of fairness which requires that speaking times be distributed over comparable hours. But between the absence of rules before fairness and an overflow of rules with equality, there is no doubt a balance to be found… over time.