Sunday comic & research
On the French Agoravox website, editor quen_tin, ‘tested’ issues of French free dailies Direct Soir and Metro, and put in a comic as an extra.
(Translation “I think free dailies are journalistic prostitiution” “But we are the whores.”)
In Direct Soir the author finds only 4 pages of ‘real’ advertising but a lot of hidden advertising. No news analysis, no critical voice, no background. Metro contains much more ads while in terms of content the author seems somewhat more satisfied with this morning paper.
Contrary to what many would expect in France, where papers are mostly owned by industrial groups, political propaganda is hardly visible in both titles, although the ‘economic propaganda is quite visible.
Non, ces journaux ne sont certainement pas des journaux de propagande politique. Ce sont des journaux de propagande économique, au service des acteurs dominants du marché.
June 9th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
This comic is a reference to the economical model of free newspapers, which is known as “attention economy”, and the fact that surprisingly, we are not the customer of these newspaper (in which case the transaction would really be free) but the supplier (of attention). The editor can be considered as an intermediary that sells our attention to the advertisers.