Majority of Le Monde editorial staff quit in row with management

“Back in 10-20 years ago, it was a center-left paper. Now Le Monde is taking a position that even US press would not take on certain issues. It is taking a very Western stance on Ukraine crisis and, kind of, readers are not quite happy with it, so you presume that editorial staff are not happy with it either,” McPartland added.

Majority of Le Monde editorial staff quit in row with management

The first crack.

The TPTB has to be aware of the real situation in western societies: people have enough time to think.

Why forcing it?

a reply to: maghun

Well, this is one of the great newspapers of the world, and not only of Europe. So the staff, which came to a principled newspaper, apparently has seen some of its main principles eroded. Hopefully this mass quitting will result in a turn-around.

a reply to: maghun

I didnt know Borat was a news anchor

a reply to: Aleister

I heard from my parents about Soviet propaganda machine and lies of that regime, but now I'm realising the same things watching Euronews. I'm not pro-western, nor pro-russian, only pro-human, and yesterday the news showed me first Putin calling for table-talks, after that the becoming president of Ukraine:

Billionaire chocolate magnate Petro Poroshenko told reporters ahead of a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin that while he was willing to hear and ease the grievances of Ukrainians in the country's heavily Russian-speaking east, restoring law and order was a key priority. "We should speak to the people living in the east - speak and understand them," said Poroshenko. "For those people who are terrorists, we should find out the right language they understand - and that would be the language of force."

Why don't he asks those girls in Odessa with chocolate language not to fill bottles with gasoline?

a reply to: Aleister

A turnaround you say? Fat chance say I! When a person emigrates for political reasons from the land of his birth, one does not do so expecting things to change for the better once one has turned ones back, but to decline yet further, else one would stay.

Similarly, if a turnaround were possible, then I very much doubt that these well paid ladies and gentlemen would have left their gainful employment. It is far more likely, in my view, that they left because the rot has overtaken their ability to put up with it, and reached a point where the only direction the paper has left to go, is further down the route which so displeased its former editorial staff members.

They left for the sake of principle, because of an understandable lack of desire on their part, to be associated with political bias of the nature being exemplified by the current direction of the publication. However, the management are the driving force, evidently, behind this paper at this time. By that, of course, I mean the driving force behind the new political bias which has crept into the paper.

I can well understand the actions taken by the editorial staff in this matter, but they have also removed any opposing influence from the content that will be presented in time to come by the publication, so although I understand and appreciate their candour, I also believe that this action will harm the quality and perhaps the popularity of the paper. Of course, it may just start to access a different readership than the one it has previously enjoyed.

God knows there are enough rabid right wing goose steppers dotted about in France at the moment to make the paper sell copies. The rise of fascist groups in Europe on the whole is a ghastly echo of the past, and this does not look like an indicator of any positive step away from that trend.

a reply to: maghun

Thing is The French know who they are, but at the moment they have a president who doesn't know what he is.
François Hollande as a socialist is selling out on the French workers big time, and giving huge tax breaks to corporations in the €billions, someone's got to pay and there is no guessing who. At the same time France is a big trading partner with Russia, as is Germany. So there is the impasse, where the workers who make stuff have to take the cut, while the corps get a bonus, and all the while Hollande is rattling the sabre, as if with no clue. He is being stupid, and it would be no surprise if the Le Monde problem is down to him. I guess the French smell a rat already.

originally posted by: Aleister
Hopefully this mass quitting will result in a turn-around.

Indeed. I suspect the management will turn around and hire new employees who are more enthusiastic about Le Monde's new editorial direction.