Freeze frame

Principle of the emission

Produced by Alain Taieb, and presented by the journalist Daniel Schneidermann, who Co-presented it at the origin with Pascale Clark, the purpose of it is to analyze the televisual image, to decipher the way in which it influences the televiewers and to include/understand its stakes.

chronicler S and Journalists, around Daniel Schneidermann, successively collaborated by sharing their glance on images published in the previous days on the television channels: Alain Rémond, David Abiker, Judith Bernard, Sebastien Bohler, John Paul Lepers, Maja Neskovic, Christelle Ploquin, Perrine Dutreil, Aurélie Windels, Ioulia Kapoustina, Philippe Vandel, Dove Schneck, Arnaud Viviant…

The emission also utilized the authors of images presented in the emission, as well as specialists in the covered subjects.

Until September 2006, France 5 diffused free the last emission on its Web site, in a not assembled version which could overflow after the credits; it was not rare that one can follow discussions being prolonged when the emission was supposed being finished. In spite of a petition to be opposed to it on behalf of many Net surfers qualifying this choice of censure, it was as from this moment only the assembled version which was put on line. The justification of France 5 was whereas it was a question of standardizing the format of the emissions available on the site of the chain. A blog, held by the “forumancière” of the emission Chloé Delaume, made it possible to discover the slides of the emission and the portraits of the interested parties.

History of the emission

The emission desired and had been supported by the president of the Fifth, Jean-Marie Cavada, like educational tools answering perfectly the educational role fixed at its chain by SCUMS. It had been maintained by its successor, Jerome Clément, then by the various managing directors of the chain after the entry in the group France Televisions, Jean-Pierre Cottet, Daniel Goudineau and Claude-Yves Robin. For this reason, it was the only emission of the Fifth still diffused on France 5 for season 2006/2007.

June 18th, 2007, the direction of the chain France 5 announces that it will not renew six of its magazines for the re-entry 2007, of which Freeze frame . The chain announces that another emission of decoding would be envisaged with a possibly different schedule. It will be finally about Revu and corrected , emission presented in a style " Infotainment " by Paul Amar, diffused starting from September 15th, 2007. It made as of the first emission the object of criticism on the site of Freeze frame .

End of Freeze frame

At the end of season 2005/2006 of information had circulated on a possible stop of the emission. After a few weeks of indecision the direction of France 5 announces that it maintains the emission for the following season. However in September 2006, this one decides the suppression of the repeat broadcast of the integral version not assembled on the site of France 5, replaced by the version assembled for television.

In June 2007, Daniel Schneidermann makes it clear on his blog, that the emission could not be taken back by France 5 with the re-entry of September. He then invites the televiewers of Freeze frame to mobilize himself and make hear their fears near Patrick de Carolis, the chairman of France Televisions.

Daniel Schneidermann is interviewed in the Sunday newspaper of the June 17th (before the official notification by the chain of the stop of the emission). With the following question: On your blog, you are caught some violently with your direction, Patrick de Carolis (chairman of FranceTélévisions) and Patrice Duhamel (directing of the programs). Don't you seek the stick to make you beat? He answers: Not, it should not be seen like that. But they should be stirred up. For all to say, the direction is null, it is tout. And in an article of sound blog, on June 18th, he comments: Lastly, I think of them, (leaders of the Chain and France Televisions) obviously, with the quartet of the trembling assassins. All these months to corrode their brake, to wait the hour, before carrying the stab finally. All these months, or all these years. Ah, Carolis, since when did you secretly dream to pronounce the words which you have just pronounced? Since we had clarified your small bidonnage on France 3, when you had sold images of reconstitution of a mountain-rescue, like those of a real rescue? Since it was necessary for you piteously to come to explain to you in front of the televiewers of the mediator of France 3? Which made effect that, Carolis, to carry your revenge so a long time? It appears that Vilamitjana had already required the stop of the emission of Carolis last year (last year, i.e. after we ayions treated in the emission of the problem of Mrs. Borloo, presenter of newspaper, and that Arlette Chabot was extremely irritated some). I do not know anything of it. To tell the truth, that is equal for me. Claude-Yves Robin (managing director of France 5), Philippe Vilamitjana (directing of the antenna), Patrice Duhamel (managing director of France Televisions), Patrick de Carolis (chairman): I do not know, in the quartet, which held the dagger, which tried to retain the hand of which, which hid behind which. To tell the truth, that is equal for me. All four are in my eyes responsables.

Indirect answer of Claude-Yves Robin, managing director of France 5. We renew in a general way of a little growing old emissions or which did not meet to them public the magazine of decoding of the media of Daniel Schneidermann knew a light fall of audience since 2003 over the 15 years and more: 7,3% (in 2003/2004), 7,3% (in 2004/2005), 7% (in 2005/2006), 6,6% (in 2006/2007). Sunday, June 17, according to the Point , the last emission of the season of Daniel Schneidermann recorded 5,9% of share of audience over the 4 years and more, that is to say 736.840 televiewers. However wire-drawer one on the side of Freeze frame , these figures of audience do not take into account the increasing visionnages of the emission available on Internet. Moreover, all the emissions of the public channels knew a decrease of their audience with the appearance of the TNT. Lastly, Daniel Schneidermann underlines on his blog that the emission has a percentage of audience higher than the average of France 5. The end of the emission Freeze frame also presented legal problems, since an emission with critical glances on the media was required in the schedule of conditions of France 5 by the State, but by announcing that another emission would replace Freeze frame , the direction of France 5 fulfilled its obligations.

In the registered letter which it received Saturday June 30th the direction of France 5 announces in Daniel Schneidermann that it is laid off for " fault grave". It is in particular reproached to him for having carried out " in a way deliberated a denigration campaign against the leaders on the chain and group (France televisions) going until personal attacks towards its president Monsieur Patrick de Carolis with an aim of making pression" and to have " insinuated that the decision of the stop of the emission resulted from a will of vengeance".

In an interview where it reconsidered its career, Daniel Schneidermann had declared " One intends much to say people of TV, and it is true for much of them, that if their emission is removed to them they are nothing any more. I think that it is true for 90% of them. Personally I never felt ça". Pierre Carles used this interview in its film Enfin taken (2002), in which the psychoanalyst Jean-Paul Abribat says that he speaks as if he were an exception but confirms the rule consequently. It acts according to him of " narcissism of small the différence" , i.e. " small something which one thinks of having in plus". In front of the agitation orchestrated by Daniel Schneidermann after his reference of France 5, and its will to continue its emission in some manner that it is, one can say that this analysis was right.

Divided reactions

The stop of the emission caused criticisms on behalf of dissatisfied televiewers, who in reaction launched a petition for the maintenance of the emission. The main trade union of teaching in France, the unit Trade union federation, invited to sign the petition. During the month during which the petition was accessible, it collected 185.069 signatures. The emission also received the support of ATTAC and the CFDT media defending “the existence of a critical emission of the media”. The political community also reacted to the suppression of the emission: Claude Bartolone (PS), Marielle de Sarnez and Francois Bayrou (Modem) and Lionnel Luca (UMP), then Arnaud Montebourg (PS) and the Socialist party, as well as the Communist party and the Greens. SCAM then claims also the maintenance of the emission and proposes a public debate with the direction of France Television.

To note however that these criticisms of the suppression of the emission are not unanimous. Thus, the inter-union one of France 5, CGT - CFDT - CGC - FO, far from supporting Daniel Schneidermann, is indignant especially at the “denigration campaign orchestrated by Daniel Schneidermann who seriously carries damage to the chain of the knowledge and the knowledge like to the professional integrity of his employees”. She recalls that the direction envisaged the replacement of Freeze frame by another emission. “It appears advised to await this new emission and to judge its relevance of it before shouting with a hunting for the witches for the only benefit of a person”, the trade unions continue. For its part, CFDT media, if she “regrets the end of Freeze frame , does not regret the departure of Daniel Schneidermann”. “Contrary to what could be included/understood, continues the trade union, Daniel Schneidermann is not victim of any hunting for the witches. It practiced in person the brutal dismissal within its team. Large donor of audio-visual lessons, it also practiced hypocrisy consisting in multiplying collaborations near several media to lead to the mixture of the kinds and the confusion of interests”.

Critical of television by television

In the field of the written press, Freeze frame account like ancestor Press-Topicality , diffused in the Années 1960 by Bayard presses, which analyzed in a critical way the various presentations of the same information by newspapers or different magazines. Nearer, the emission TVS Sunday , animated by Michel Denisot, also has it, in its time, brought its lighting on the media.

Freeze frame made following the analyzes of the televisual image which its creator Daniel Schneidermann in the newspaper Le Monde had exerted for several years. The emission preceded, even inspired, other emissions in which television tries to carry a glance criticizes on itself: thus + Clair (Canal+) tries “to decipher” the furnished informations by television and the other media, while the mediator of France 2 answers each week criticisms of the televiewers relating to the data processing by the chain.

The emission however made the object of criticism which blamed its own impartiality, even its capacity to really criticize the televisual system of which it forms part. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, had come on the plate from Freeze frame in 1996, to give his analysis of the report on television strikes of November - December 1995 against the government Juppe. But it had estimated not to have been able to be expressed because of the ceaseless interruptions of Jean-Marie Cavada which reproduced during its own emission, the Walk of the Century . Pierre Bourdieu, thereafter, developed an overall criticism of the operation of television. Sometimes the choice of the guests left doubt on the impartiality of the emission, and indicated a party taken political, which harmed the image and serious of the emission, in the direction where this one would have the most neutral possible being.

In February 2006, Daniel Schneidermann diffuses in Freeze frame the images censured by the chain M6 in an investigation of the magazine Capital into the Frenchwoman of the plays, by fear of losing this important advertiser. Its emission appears in this business like the guarantor of the Freedom of expression of the Reporter S.

In April 2006, Daniel Schneidermann transcribed on his blog a conversation with Arlette Chabot, furious of an emission of Freeze frame where the impartiality of the information exempted by the presenter of the Tv news of France 2 was questioned, Béatrice Schönberg, following her marriage with the minister in exercise Jean-Louis Borloo. The fact that Arlette Chabot entered in possession of the recording of an emission which had not been diffused yet, had led Daniel Schneidermann to consider that an yellow line had been crossed being connected with a blog. Daniel Schneidermann and some of the chroniclers who took part in the television program continue their work of journalists on Internet, while being based on visible video reports on the site.

The true restarting is planned for the beginning 2008. While waiting, the team launched out in a campaign of subscriptions. Daniel Schneidermann indeed refuses the financing by publicity: " When one makes pretense give something free to people, one always sells a share of their brain available to annonceurs".

Although Daniel Schneidermann complaining about an almost null press coverage in France, the site records very many subscriptions, 20.000 at dated October 7th, 2007.

See too

Daniel Schneidermann
Big Bang Blog, old blog of Daniel Schneidermann and some of his collaborators
Finally taken , film of Pierre Carles of 2002 which constitutes a Pamphlet against the " Schneidermann" method;
Critical of Wikipédia.

External bonds

Site of Freeze frame

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