Voici mon exposé de ce matin, si ça peut être utile à quelqu'un !

The American Press
The American press is one of the most impressive press in the world in terms of output and of spreading, even though of course the internet has made its circulation decrease for a few years. It plays an important role in the US, as press does in many other countries, but it is more criticized than elsewhere. Indeed it is accused of being excessively republican, but paradoxically, every time it dares criticize the Bush administration, it is accused of being unpatriotic. We’ll study this controversy through 4 examples : The NYT, USA Today, The WS Journal and the Washington Post, which happen to be the most read and the most influential daily papers in the US.
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I. The New York Times
The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. and distributed internationally. The New York Times was founded on September 18, 1851 by Henry Jarvis Raymond and George Jones (as the New-York Daily Times). It is owned by The New York Times Company, which publishes 47 other newspapers, including the International Herald Tribune and the Boston Globe. Nicknamed the "Gray Lady" for its staid appearance and style, it is regarded as a newspaper of record in the United States. The name is often abbreviated to the Times, but should not be confused with The Times, which is published in the United Kingdom.

The New York Times is one of the most prominent American daily newspapers, although it trails USA Today and the Wall Street Journal in circulation. It has traditionally printed full transcripts of major speeches and debates. Since winning its first Pulitzer Prize, in 1918 for its World War I reporting, the Times has won 94 Pulitzer Prizes, including a record seven in 2002. In 1971 it broke the Pentagon Papers story, publishing leaked documents revealing that the U.S. government had been painting an unrealistically rosy picture of the progress of the Vietnam War.

Allegations of bias
The Times, like many major news organizations, has often been accused of giving too little or too much play to various events for reasons not related to objective journalism.
One of these allegations is that before and during World War II, the New York Times downplayed accusations that the Third Reich had targeted Jews for expulsion and genocide, at least in part because the publisher, who was Jewish, feared the taint of taking on any 'Jewish cause'.
Another serious charge is the accusation that the Times, through its coverage of the Soviet Union by correspondent Walter Duranty helped to cover up the Ukrainian genocide perpetrated by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s.

Corporate influence bias
In the book Manufacturing Consent, noted left-wing intellectuals Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky analyze a variety of major U.S. media outlets, with an emphasis on the Times, and conclude that a bias does exist. This bias, they claim, is neither liberal nor conservative in nature, but rather aligned towards the interests of corporate conglomerates, such as those who now own most of these media. Chomsky has explained that this bias functions in all sorts of ways:
"...by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns, by emphasis and framing of issues, by filtering of information, by bounding of debate within certain limits. They determine, they select, they shape, they control, they restrict -- in order to serve the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society."
Chomsky also touches on the specific importance that this bias has in the New York Times:
"...history is what appears in The New York Times archives; the place where people will go to find out what happened is The New York Times. Therefore it's extremely important if history is going to be shaped in an appropriate way, that certain things appear, certain things not appear, certain questions be asked, other questions be ignored, and that issues be framed in a particular fashion."
Times self-examination of bias
In summer 2004, the Times' then public editor, Daniel Okrent, wrote a piece on the Times' alleged liberal bias. He concluded that the Times did have a liberal bias in coverage of certain social issues, gay marriage being the example he used. He claimed that this bias reflected the paper's cosmopolitanism, which arose naturally from its roots as a hometown paper of New York City.
Okrent did not comment at length on the issue of bias in coverage of "hard news", such as fiscal policy, foreign policy, or civil liberties. However, he noted that the paper's coverage of the Iraq war was, among other things, insufficiently critical of the George W. Bush administration
Recent controversies
In 2003, The Times admitted that Jayson Blair, one of its reporters, had committed repeated journalistic fraud over a span of several years. The general professionalism of the paper was questioned, though Blair immediately resigned following the incident. Questions of affirmative action in journalism were also raised, since Blair was black. The paper's top two editors – Howell Raines, the executive editor, and Gerald Boyd, managing editor – resigned their posts following the incident
In an article in June 2006, the Times revealed a Treasury Department program, intended to detect terrorist financiers, that involved searches of international money transfer records stored in the SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) database in Belgium. The Administration again urged the Times to not publish the article, alleging national security concerns. Much of this information had already been made public, strangely by the Administration itself which now was criticizing the disclosures. The report was controversial with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page criticizing it, notwithstanding that its own news pages had published virtually the same information.

II. USA Today
USA Today is a national American newspaper published by the Gannett Corporation. It was founded by Allen 'Al' Neuharth. The paper has the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States (averaging over 2.25 million copies every weekday), and among English-language broadsheets, it comes second world-wide, behind The Times of India. Its circulation figures are a matter of some dispute, however, as USA Today has many contracts ensuring distribution in hotels, often to customers unaware they are paying for the newspaper. USA Today is distributed in all 50 states.
Colourful and bold, with many large diagrams, charts, and photographs, USA Today was founded in 1982 with the goal of providing an alternative to the relatively colourless, wordy, grey papers of the time such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. USA Today is also well-known for its national polls on public sentiment.
Journalistic Incidents
• In March 2004, the newspaper was hit by a major scandal when it was revealed that Jack Kelley, a long-time USA Today correspondent and nominee for the Pulitzer Prize, had been fabricating stories. The newspaper did an extensive review of Kelley's stories, including sending investigators to Cuba, Israel and Jordan, and sifting through stacks of hotel records to determine if Kelley was in the locations he claimed to be filing stories from. Kelley resigned, but denied the charges. The USA Today publisher, Craig Moon, issued a public apology on the front page of the newspaper. Many remarked on the similarity of this scandal to that of the Jayson Blair situation at the New York Times, although it received less national attention.

III. The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an influential international daily newspaper published in New York City, with a worldwide average daily circulation of more than 2.6 million as of 2005. For many years it had the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, although it is currently second to USA Today with the Journal having a U.S. circulation of 1.8 million in November 2003. The Journal also publishes Asian and European editions. Its main rival as a daily financial newspaper is the London-based Financial Times, which also publishes several international editions. The Wall Street Journal is owned by Dow Jones & Company.
The Journal newspaper primarily covers U.S. and international business and financial news and issues—the paper's name comes from Wall Street, the street in New York City which is the heart of the financial district. It has been printed continuously since its founding on July 8, 1889 by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The newspaper has won the Pulitzer Prize twenty-nine times.
Editorial line
The editorial page of the Journal summarizes its philosophy as being in favor of free markets and free people. It is typically viewed as adhering to American conservatism and economic liberalism. The page takes a free-market view of economic issues and an often neoconservative view of American foreign policy. The editorial board has long argued for a less-restrictive immigration policy. In a July 3, 1984 editorial, the board wrote: If Washington still wants to 'do something' about immigration, we propose a five-word constitutional amendment: There shall be open borders.' The editorial page commonly publishes pieces by U.S. and world leaders in government, politics and business.
The Journal's editorial and news page staffs are completely independent from each other. "The Journal has had a long-standing separation between its conservative editorial pages and its liberal news pages." Paul Sperry, in an article titled the "Myth of the Conservative Wall Street Journal," notes that the news division of the Journal sometimes calls the editorial division "Nazis." "Fact is," Sperry writes, "the Journal's news and editorial departments are as politically polarized as North and South Korea."
During the Reagan administration the newspaper's editorial page was particularly influential as the leading voice for supply-side economics. Under the editorship of Robert Bartley, it expounded at length on such economic concepts such as the Laffer curve and how a decrease in taxes can in many cases increase overall tax revenue by generating more economic activity, many of which have now entered the mainstream of economic academia.
Its views are somewhat similar to those of the British magazine The Economist with its emphasis on free markets. However, the Journal does have important differences with respect to European business newspapers, most particularly with regard to the relative significance of, and causes of, the American budget deficit. (The Journal generally blames the lack of foreign growth and other related things while most business journals in Europe and Asia blame the very low savings rate and concordant high borrowing rate in the United States).
In the economic argument of exchange rate regimes (one of the most divisive issues among economists), the Journal has a tendency to support fixed exchange rates over floating exchange rates in spite of its support for the free market in other respects. For example, the Journal was a major supporter of the Chinese yuan's peg to the dollar, and strongly opposed the American politicians who were criticising the Chinese government about the peg. It opposed the moves by China to let the yuan gradually float, arguing that the fixed rate benefited both the U.S. and China.


IV. The Washington Post
The Washington Post is the largest newspaper in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It is also one of the city's oldest papers, having been founded in 1877.
Political leanings
The Post takes the position that its news coverage is politically neutral or strives to be. Conservatives, however, often cite the Post, along with The New York Times, as exemplars of "liberal media bias." Some liberals, on the other hand, view the Post as "culturally and politically conservative" and supportive of the Washington Establishment and the status quo.
• When the paper makes a political endorsement, the endorsements have historically been for Democratic candidates. In 2004, indeed, the Post endorsed John Kerry.
• Its editorial positions are frequently liberal-to-moderate, yet it has taken some conservative stances: it has steadfastly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, warmed to President George W. Bush's proposal to partially privatize Social Security.
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So we can say that, in a way, the freedom of the press is restrained by the Bush administration and has all the more been restrained since 9/11. Indeed the president of the US considers that the country is in a war situation and that therefore press must be cautious and controlled. I’ll give you a last example to conclude, taken from an editorial of The New York Times in July :

“Over the last year, The NYT has twice published reports about secret antiterrorism programs being run by the Bush administration. Both times, critics have claimed that the paper was being unpatriotic or even aiding the terrorists. Some have even suggested that it should be indicted under the Espionage Act. There have been a handful of times in American history when the government has indeed tried to prosecute journalists for publishing things it preferred to keep quiet. None of them turned out well.”

Hundreds of people have called the NHS Direct hotline following the death of Russian ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko on Thursday.
The Health Protection Agency has urged anyone else who visited the same London hotel or sushi bar on 1 November, when he met his contacts, to get in touch.
Mr Litvinenko's death has been linked to the presence of a "major dose" of radioactive polonium-210 in his body.
Radioactive traces have been found at the Itsu restaurant in Piccadilly and the Millennium Hotel's Pine Bar. But the HPA says the risk of contamination to other people is low.
Home Secretary John Reid said the government was doing all it could to keep people informed about the situation.
"We're trying to put as much information into the public domain as we can."
Mr Reid said this included alerting people about the health hazard and offering advice through various means, including NHS Direct. He added that police were now treating Mr Litvinenko's death as suspicious, rather than "unexplained". "As at this stage, they're saying to me that they now regard the death as suspicious. That wasn't the case yesterday [Saturday], for instance," Mr Reid said.
In other developments:
• Police forensic searches at Itsu are now complete and the premises are being decontaminated
• Officers have also been searching a bedroom at the Millennium Hotel
• A post-mortem examination on Mr Litvinenko has been delayed over health implications for those present at the examination
Friends have said Mr Litvinenko was poisoned because of his criticism of Russia. In a statement dictated before he died at University College Hospital on Thursday, the 43-year-old accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of involvement in his death. He was known to be a fierce critic of him. Mr Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated the Kremlin's earlier dismissal of allegations of involvement in the poisoning as "sheer nonsense". The president himself has said Mr Litvinenko's death was a tragedy, but he saw no "definitive proof" it was a "violent death". Russian newspapers - many of which are controlled by the Kremlin - have also reacted angrily to implications that Moscow was involved in Mr Litvinenko's death.
Shadow home secretary, David Davis, intends to raise the matter when MPs return to Westminster on Monday. Mr Davis is expected to question ministers about the safety of Russian dissidents in the UK and to ask how polonium-210 was brought to the UK. He also said it was important that there was full co-operation from anyone who may be able to help the police - including the Russian authorities. "It is essential that other dissidents living in Britain are reassured about their safety and there are also questions about how polonium-210 came to be used in Britain," he said.
Mr Reid has rejected calls for a Commons statement, saying he would keep the situation under review. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said if the Kremlin was found to be behind Mr Litvinenko's death then Britain should "consider very carefully" its future relationship with Russia.







Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he feels "deep sorrow" for Britain's role in the slave trade.
In an article for the New Nation newspaper, the prime minister said it had been "profoundly shameful".
But Mr Blair stopped short of issuing a full apology, which some commentators have demanded.
The government is reportedly setting out its plans for next year's bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.
'Crime against humanity'
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has been drawing up ideas for the 25 March anniversary, including the possibility of a "statement of regret" for Britain's involvement.
He has already ruled out a formal apology.
In comments reported by The Observer, Mr Blair said: "It is hard to believe what would now be a crime against humanity was legal at the time.
"I believe the bicentenary offers us a chance not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was - how we condemn its existence utterly and praise those who fought for its abolition - but also to express our deep sorrow that it could ever have happened and rejoice at the better times we live in today."
The statement is due to appear in New Nation, a newspaper aimed at the black community, on Monday.
Activist Paul Stephenson told "The prime minister could have gone further, but nevertheless it is a step in the right direction."
A written ministerial statement to Parliament is expected this week, setting out the government's commemoration plans.
In February, the Church of England General Synod voted to apologise to the descendants of victims of the slave trade.

International event

Factories, banks and many shops in Lebanon have remained closed as a mark of protest at the killing of the industry minister, Pierre Gemayel. The two-day strike has been called by business leaders amid fears that the political crisis in Lebanon could throw the country into turmoil.
Mr Gemayel was the fourth opponent of the Syrian government to be killed since the murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri last year.
The attack on Mr Gemayel's motorcade was a brazen one. It came in broad daylight and the killers got away.
People there are frightened; several cabinet ministers have now moved into the well-fortified prime minister's offices just down the road.
Mr Gemayel's killing was not a total surprise though. For weeks now, politicians have been trading all sorts of accusations and one journalist told the atmosphere was similar to that which preceded the death of Mr Hariri.
The Christian politician was the youngest minister and legislator and not particularly high profile even if his family is a well-known one here: his grandfather founded the Christian right-wing Phalange party, in 1937, modelling it on the Nazi youth movement.
And the group's military wing was one of the most powerful militias during the Lebanese civil war in the 1970s and 1980s.
One person whose family suffered at the hands of the Phalangists told it was sad to see several hundred thousand people turn up on Thursday to mourn a man whose family is associated with some of the worst violence in Lebanese history.
But many of the country's political leaders have a tainted past. Others are sons, or widows, or sisters of politicians; the same people have held power for decades.
So the divide now seems not so much sectarian, but a question of politics: supporters of Syria, a country which has long wielded influence in Lebanon, against its opponents, with Christians and Muslims on both sides.
But religious sensitivities are still easy to exploit here and whoever killed Mr Gemayel may have hoped it would provoke the Christian community.
After the funeral, Shia Muslims from the pro-Syrian Hezbollah movement briefly took to the streets and blocked roads.
They said they were angry because some mourners had accused Hezbollah of being involved in the killing.
The question is : who killed Pierre Gemayel ? Was it the Syrians? Or the Americans, the Israelis, al-Qaeda, political rivals, disgruntled businessmen? Who knows?
What is sure is that the killing may have crystallised the divisions between the rival camps to a point of no return.
And the Lebanese can only hope that the final battle will be a political one.

Personne ne viendra lire ça mais bon, on sait jamais après tout !

Labour’s Scottish problem

This article from The Economist raises a major issue for the UK’s future. You may not be aware, but there’s a possibility that the UK should no longer be united in the years to come. Indeed relationships between England and Scotland have been deteriorating for a little while, and the voice of the nationalists in Scotland is becoming louder and louder, which could lead Scotland towards its independence. This is what this article is all about. The question is : why do Scots want their independence now whereas they have been part of the United K for 3 centuries ? And what would their independence change ?
Next year, in 2007, it will be the 300th anniversary of the Union Act which united Scotland to England. It should be a reason for great exhibitions, but it won’t. Indeed people won’t celebrate a Union they don’t agree with anymore. Moreover, at the same period elections will take place in Scotland “that could pave the way to the break-up of the UK”. 2 weeks ago, a poll revealed that the SNP, the separatist Scottish Nationalist Party, was 5 points ahead of the Labour party. Alex Salmond, the SNP’s leader, would thus become Scotland’s first minister. He reckons that Scotland is a rich country, especially because of oil, that doesn’t need England. “The choice for Scotland is clear – those revenues either flow south to London or they can be invested for the people of Scotland”. If the SNP wins the elections in May, “it is no longer beyond the bounds of possibility that Scots could decide to quit the union”. Moreover about half of the Scots are pro-independence. This idea that Scotland should become independent is terrifying for Labour which would lose 41 Westminster seats. But Scots are not the only ones who want Scotland to be independent : English people begin to consider that there’s no reason why Scottish MPs should be allowed to vote for English laws, and a poll revealed that “59 °/ of voters south of the border also like the idea of Scotland going its own way”. I shall read the last 2 § which seem to me to be particularly significant of the situation.
I shall now try to analyse the arguments for and the arguments against Scotland’s independence. First, many of the issues such as health, education and crime, that the London-based parties trumpet, are irrelevant to Scotland. Therefore turnout in Scotland is very low - below 50% - as Scots feel unconcerned, and Labour will suffer from it because the Scots who will vote will be for the SNP. As far as I can see, only the SNP have focused on anything relevant to Scotland - the SNP have consistently stood up for Scotland's regiments for example. The SNP has been shown to be the most trusted party to defend Scotland's interests - the Govan shipyards were saved by a high SNP vote. It seems thus that Scotland needs SNP MPs at Westminster fighting its causes.


But on the other hand, one shouldn’t neglect the history of Scotland. Scotland was a failure as an independent country and had to be bailed out by England after the Darien project. The Union has kept Scotland strong, has allowed Scots the freedom to move to England (if they wish) and has allowed them to develop as a people. Leaving the United Kingdom would damage Scotland greatly and cause it to simply fade away in history. What is needed is continued devolution combined with a strong union. The SNP are living in the past and are risking Scotland's future, if Scotland leaves the union, then it is leaving one the greatest countries in the world.
Should the UK be split up?
What you have to know is that, even if Scotland is not independent, it already benefits from some devolution. In Scotland, 74.3 °/ of the electorate voted in favour of a Scottish Parliament. The first elections to the new Parliament took place in May 1999, with Labour winning 56 seats out of 129, and the Scottish nationalists not far behind with 35 seats. However, 4 years later, the second Scottish elections were marked by a setback for the SNP, which lost 8 seats and is down to 27. The Scottish Parliament enjoys fairly extensive powers over Scottish home affairs, including the power to legislate in matters of health, education and justice, as well as limited tax-raising powers. Scotland now has its own government headed by a Chief Minister – currently Jack McConnell. In EU negotiations, Scottish ministers are allowed to sit alongside their British counterparts, whenever Scottish interests are affected. In the light of the 2003 elections results, devolution thus didn’t appear to be a prelude to independence. But things have changed.
Most voters in England and Scotland now want their countries to be independent from each other, according to a new survey. 52% of Scots want a separate state. 48% of English people want to break away from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The government's Scottish Chancellor Gordon Brown says there should be a debate about the future of the United Kingdom but thinks they are stronger together and weaker apart.
Should countries in the UK become independent of each other? Or is there too much shared history and values? Should the United Kingdom be broken up? The question is open. In my opinion if Scotland was to break free, it would probably be quite weak on its own. The break up of the United Kingdom would be a disaster for all those involved- The four dominions of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are far stronger, securer, and better off together. Over the years the United Kingdom has built up influence, economic prosperity and a culture that would all be in jeopardy if it was broken up.