The French translator of the book
Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson
discusses her views about
the celebrity news industry
In an exclusive interview, the independent website publisher and translator, Thelys, agreed to share some of her thoughts about the subject of professionalism in the media. Thelys's qualifications as a media critic are: she publishes and edits a leading, independent website dedicated to Michael Jackson's fans in France; she has an interest in studying how the media treats celebrities as news subjects, and she translated into French the book, Michael Jackson Conspiracy by American author, Aphrodite Jones. The French title of the book is, Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson.
Q. What did you learn from Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson about what motivates the American media?
A. I don't think there is a huge difference between what motivates the American media and the other media around the world. In my opinion, the worldwide media are more driven by financial motives than by the wish to inform people and spread the culture. A switching happened between "culture" and "promotion" when big companies realized that the media’s ability to reach thousands of people could serve economic interests. It then became a sort of "stock exchange" where the journalists can discredit or enhance the image of an individual depending on the profits it can yield.
Q. What impact do you wish that the French publication of Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson will have on the media (either in America or in France)?
A. I would like the book to originate a debate about the relationship between media and celebrities. I’m not ambitious and utopist enough to ask them to reconsider the way they treat celebrities...but I would like the journalists and the public to engage in a global reflection about how they report/receive the news about famous people, about the reliability of information when it comes to celebrities.
Q. How do you feel having translated a book that criticizes the American media? Do you see that you have a special role in society now, to be able to ask the media to be responsible?
A. I think we all have a "special role in society," as we all buy newspapers and/or watch the news on TV. I don’t see the book as a pamphlet against the American media. It points out certain issues that question the objectivity of journalists and it leads the readers to wonder which role they play in the spreading of information: do we have to be passive or active?
In my opinion, it is a "three-level matter:"
- The first level is the information itself: is everything "mediatizable?" How to choose what to report? The media are responsible, they are the first to decide if something has to be made public.
- The second level is "how to report:" it seems that most journalists are exaggerating some facts or using some techniques to make their articles even more credible. These are precisely the same techniques that are used in the advertising field:
• The expert’s point of view: the journalist quotes the words of an expert. You’ll read something like, "According to A.B., a renowned law expert from A.B.C. University, Michael Jackson will be found guilty." In advertising, same story: we often see – at least in France! - ads featuring an expert who tries to convince the viewers that the promoted product is definitely the best they can find on the market...
• The "anonymous and powerful" source: the journalist quotes the words of someone who is not an expert but whose point of view can be considered as very reliable. For example, "A source close to Michael Jackson’s family/A friend who wants to remain anonymous reveals that the singer is fighting against a drug addiction."
• The "everybody-but-you-is-already-aware" technique: the journalist generalizes the news and makes you believe that everybody is aware. It makes you feel stupid not to be informed and leads you to adhere to its opinion. For example: "You already knew as most of people on the planet that Michael Jackson was crazy. Now...this is going to convince you even more: he was seen wearing a strange mask...."
Just a few examples. You add some good writing skills to the techniques described above...and it gives you the perfect tabloid recipe.... Once again, I think each journalist is responsible of the way he/she is writing and reporting the facts.
- The third level is "how to receive the news." How to exercise one’s critical faculties? How to teach people to not consider the media as gospel? That’s the most complicated problem, as no one seems to take responsibility for it. I feel the public should be "educated" to the media, but who can assume that function?
Q. Do you believe that average Internet users can change the way the media reports the news?
A. I believe they can. Millions of people use Internet. Some of them can influence others through blogs or websites. They generate public debates...and I think bridges exist between the virtual world and the real world. I’ll give you an example: a few years ago, record companies perceived the Web as a threat because of illegal downloads. Now they start to realize it can also help them to discover new artists (Myspace Music is a good example.) and decrease the risk of doing a bad investment. They select people who are already having success on the Internet. It could be the same for the news. If Internet users emphasize an accurate and honest reporting of the news, TV and newspapers will come to realize that it is important not to distort the truth.
Q. Do you think if you criticize the media that people can take you seriously? When you criticize the media, who do you expect will listen to your concerns?
A. I think it is possible to be taken seriously when criticizing the media on one condition: not holding them responsible for everything. I think the public also has a part of responsibility in how the news are reported. If people didn’t buy tabloids, if they stopped watching sensationalized reports on TV, it would make the whole tabloid industry die. In fine, we come back to the old question: "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" Is it because people buy tabloids that tabloids exist? Or is it because tabloids exist that people buy them?
Q. Specifically about Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson, do you agree with the author that the news filters what it reports based on considerations such as ratings?
A. Of course.
Q. Do you sometimes think that the media specifically selects news that it can promote as a "drama" that has a soap opera quality about it?
A. As I once wrote in an article, "It’s more interesting to talk about a guy who killed his wife than to talk about a happily married couple." We can’t deny the "voyeurism" that exists: a lot of people are interested in bad news (murders, suicides, drug abuse, celebrities’ self-destruction, etc.)...and the more horrible it is, the more people are reading and buying it. Not surprising that the journalists feel the need to exaggerate or distort the facts.
Q. What newspapers do you read, what television news programs do you watch, and what news websites do you visit?
A. I read newspapers like 20 minutes and Metro, I visit Yahoo News , Fluctuat.net (news about culture: music, books, movies, etc.), some newspapers websites (LeFigaro.fr, LeMonde.fr).
Q. Do you think that to really understand the media, people have to read or watch more than one program and find an "average" of the news?
A. I don’t believe in "average" because if you select three or four different sources, there’s a possibility that those sources report the same wrong information. It is particularly true on the Internet: most of the time, there is one main source, a journalist who reports something...and a hundred websites that re-write the same thing in a different way. It is the same in the French tabloid press. Most of the "news" about celebrities published in France are translated and re-written from American tabloids. This giant "recycling" of information can decrease the quality of the news.
Q. Do you ever visit the Google news page?
A. No, but I do visit the Yahoo news page on a daily basis.
Q. But what happens when all the media has one mentality?
A. If they report something inaccurate about a person, it can give a wrong image of this person and have dramatic consequences on his/her life.
In general, it leads to an impoverishment of culture and by extension, to an impoverishment of critical thinking: if the media offer a single way of seeing the world, it doesn’t encourage people to think differently and to be creative....
Q. Do you think the media tries to match the way it broadcasts or prints the news with the biases of its customers?
A. As I said in one of my answers above... I don’t know exactly who came first between the chicken and the egg ;-)
Maybe a third party created both the chicken and the egg. In your question, it would mean that a third factor is responsible for the interest of the customers in scandal AND for the bad reporting of some journalists. Maybe – but this is just a hypothesis – people try to elude some more important problems they don’t want to face by focusing on insignificant facts.
Q. Whose responsibility is it (or should be) to monitor the professionalism and ethics of the media?
A. Justice. Definitely justice. In France, we have strong laws about the respect of people’s private life. Some magazines are playing with the limits by publishing tabloid stories...but it can’t go too far as the law is protecting people’s rights. I don’t believe in "ethic committees" if they don’t have the possibility to engage in legal action.
For more information about Le Complot Contre Michael Jackson, please visit the Elusive Shadow website.
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