'Guilty
Excitement' in French Media Over Turn in DSK Affair
"By
giving the floor almost exclusively to friends of DSK, France 2's 20 hours
mutilated the news. If you were watching, you might have believed that an
acquittal had already been handed down! Never mind that at the same time, the
channel felt no embarrassment replaying the painful sequence of a handcuffed
DSK, in contempt of all the proclaimed ethics of French media."
Jack Lang, Socialist Party lawmaker, former culture minister and friend of Dominique-Strauss Kahn was pilloried for minimizing the charges against DSK. Is there anything 'disturbing' about the certainty of he and other DSK friends?
In New
York, the new day yesterday that France experienced leaves behind a
disagreeable sensation of uneasiness. Let's face it: we no longer know what to
think about this case, the central fact of which - a sexual assault in a hotel
room - is slowly being obscured behind the mist of personal convictions.
Media
is taking such pains to recognize its own state of disorientation that it is freely indulging in the intense string of disorderly outbursts coming out
of the DSK soap opera. These are unquestionably a matter of hearsay. Yesterday,
even if reporters remained somewhat cautious, the tone of TV and radio virtually cleared
the former director of the IMF. They suggested a mechanical link between the lies
of his accuser and his innocence - and to such a degree that the judge's
decision to lift the house arrest of the Frenchmen seemed like the last word: All
day on the airwaves, wasn't the suspense ratcheted up by evoking the potential
of a complete dismissal of the charges asserted against him?
By
giving the floor almost exclusively to friends of DSK, France 2's 20 hours
mutilated the news. If you were watching at the time, you might have believed
that an acquittal had already been handed down! Never mind that at the same
time, the channel felt no embarrassment replaying the painful sequence of a handcuffed
DSK, in contempt of all the proclaimed ethics of French media. It was a triumph
of the catch-all of presumed innocence. This overrides, to be sure, the
previous presumption of guilt - and is even a mark of a high degree of civilization -
which is certainly a core value. But this elementary concept of justice can not
be distorted by such dangerous oversimplification. The truth never surrenders itself
easily. It can be complex and contradictory, to the point of being indecipherable.
Even the most honorable man cannot be exonerated of all suspicion when the
facts seem so overwhelming. How can he claim to be totally safe from his own
behavior?
If
the loyalty of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's friends - who are suddenly so much more
numerous - is estimable, their certainty is disturbing. It's as if they would
now deny NafissatouDiallo
the right to complain because she lied. As if the irreproachable young woman
who was so spontaneously defended a month and a half ago by Sofitel management
and her Bronx neighbors had never been anything but an odious manipulator. And
now they even mock feminists, necessarily enraged, who took up her cause!
Hop-la - and then a swipe of the eraser! And now, why
shouldn't DSK return to the presidential primary race when he should be,
according to the evidence, disqualified? By almost completely eliminating the
distance that we reporters must always force ourselves to maintain in relation to
events, this guilty excitement causes yet more deterioration to the image of
journalists.
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