Media and Justice: Franco-American Misunderstandings

Anti-Americanism and cultural divide? Across the Atlantic, editorialists question the reaction of the French media when the Strauss-Kahn case began.

“French See Case Against Strauss-Kahn as American Folly”; the New York Times correspondent in Paris is clearly concerned about the return of anti-Americanism and “bitter jubilation” from the French in light of Strauss-Kahn’s case collapsing. Steven Erlanger believes that the French press is getting revenge for media coverage of the arrest of Strauss-Kahn by haphazardly criticizing the “uncivilized, brutal and carnival nature of American society, democracy and justice.” To support his comments, he cites particular socialist hierarchs like Robert Badinter and Lionel Jospin who said that Strauss-Kahn was “thrown to the wolves” by U.S. media. The American journalist stresses that “there was confusion and criticism over the glee with which the New York tabloids in particular highlighted every humiliation and turned to clichés about the French. These cultural differences, highlighted by the brashness of the American news media coverage, prompted the indulgence in cultural clichés on both sides of the Atlantic.”

The misunderstanding seems to be the fundamental trend that was running through the U.S. press on July 4, Independence Day. The Washington Post boasted when explaining that he must not take what is written in the tabloids literally: “France is not entirely naive to tabloid culture […] but theirs is nothing like the tabloid wars in New York,” the newspaper states. “When police removed Strauss-Kahn from a plane at Kennedy airport, New York won ownership of the season’s biggest tabloid story. And the papers ran with it.” Jason Horowitz explains. “Simply put, Strauss-Kahn was a gift from the [francophobic] tabloid gods.” The journalist seems to be saying that it is nothing to fly off the handle about. He wants to show that “the tabloids did what they always do [sic], but their readership changed.” With a cutting remark for the French press, who “cited the New York Post as if it were the New York Times,” treating the rift between a trashy newspaper and a prestigious newspaper with disdain.

The Tabloids are Turncoats

The case was of extreme interest to the Wall Street Journal, the business newspaper that published a long article on “The Amazing Strauss-Kahn Case.” New developments, money, sex; the very serious daily newspaper clearly relishes in the police investigation that would make a good summer television series. He acknowledged that Strauss-Kahn was “handled roughly,” all the while sweeping away the procrastination of the French press on the American media with the back of his hand: “In the modern media age, nothing of this sort is ever ‘small’ for people in public life, which — hard as it is to recall — brings with it public responsibilities. People like Dominique Strauss-Kahn or Anthony Weiner*, who want to skate along the edge of responsibility to the public they serve and the excitements of private temptation, should probably retire to private life where they can take their chances with nothing more than private reputation.” The article concludes, “The case of Dominique Strauss-Kahn has turned out to be a useful if rugged lesson for prosecutors, the media, politicians, gawkers and the famous man at the center of it all.”

What about the tabloids in all this? For them the front page changes as fast as the wind turns. In the New York Post, who headlined with “Le Perv” in French**, the case now appears to have collapsed: Nafissatou is a “hooker” and Strauss-Kahn did “not pay her for services” that she had provided him. In any event, an anonymous source confirmed this to the two journalists.

* Anthony Weiner is a member of the House of Representatives who resigned in June after a photo of him in underwear was released that was sent to women via social networks.

** The Daily News ran this headline, not the New York Post. The quotes, however, are from the New York Post.