French TV Chief: We Censored Riot Coverage to Avoid Helping 'Far Right'

November 22nd, 2005 1:39 AM

Left-wing media bias certainly isn't a problem restricted only to the United States. According to the London Guardian, one of France's top TV bosses admitted earlier this month that his network deliberately refrained from showing burning cars in its coverage of France's domestic rioting for fear that doing so would help "right-wing" political parties.

One of France's leading TV news executives has admitted censoring his coverage of the riots in the country for fear of encouraging support for far-right politicians.

Jean-Claude Dassier, the director general of the rolling news service LCI, said the prominence given to the rioters on international news networks had been "excessive" and could even be fanning the flames of the violence. [...]

"Politics in France is heading to the right and I don't want rightwing politicians back in second, or even first place because we showed burning cars on television," Mr Dassier told an audience of broadcasters at the News Xchange conference in Amsterdam today.

"Having satellites trained on towns across France 24 hours a day showing the violence would have been wrong and totally disproportionate ... Journalism is not simply a matter of switching on the cameras and letting them roll. You have to think about what you're broadcasting," he said.