Since the Hamas attack on October 7, the production of major international media outlets has come under daily scrutiny. Agence France-Presse (AFP) is no exception, even if its production is not intended for the general public but for the media, its customers. In Paris, critics agree to revive the old idea that the acronym AFP actually refers to the France-Palestine Agency. But the French reader may be surprised to learn that the far more widespread criticism of the agency, and not just in the Middle East, casts it as an agent of Israel.
Excessive caution that would hide bias is often criticized by the agency. In Paris we stigmatize the semantic modesty with which Hamas is described as a terrorist group, and it is a shame that the authority has applied this rule to any movement, no matter how terrible, for more than twenty years. In Beirut, people are surprised that it is waiting to have all the evidence to blame Israel for the shooting that seriously injured one of its photographers or attacked its office in Gaza. And it’s a shame because the authority is applying its rules regarding the allocation of responsibilities here.
Or it points to a lack of attention and responsiveness, such as this delay in reporting on a review organized by the Israeli authorities. And it would be a shame if the agency, because it has a permanent team on site, would have described the atrocities of October 7th from the first hours with its own images, with its own words and without concealment. Isolating one issue and focusing your fire on that single piece of the puzzle to discredit the entire coverage is a guarantee of an unequal battle. To the critics’ credit, it’s difficult to get a comprehensive overview of the production given that the agency sends 4,000 dispatches, 3,000 photos and 300 videos every day.
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Under the pressure of real time
The agency listens to all criticism and, like many newsrooms around the world, the debate is lively. The AFP has no problem recognizing that improvements are possible. Stories are updated sometimes several times an hour as the news situation becomes clearer, and these updates transparently reflect the corrections made. She has already publicly acknowledged factual errors and questionable editorial decisions. She sees her special responsibility in Gaza, where the media is often completely dependent on her because they cannot be present there alone. As the complexity of the conflict no longer needs to be demonstrated, it is increasing its vigilance and is not waiting to send reinforcements to its office in Jerusalem and its regional center in Nicosia. And she practices self-criticism every day, because it is the job of her editor-in-chief, who is responsible for ethics and editorial principles, to study the production, clarify the instructions and demand that certain imbalances be corrected. He doesn’t shy away from it.
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