Month: February 2014

Joseph Ortiz                                        SPA4003                                                         02/17/2014

The article about the French president seems to take a new life in each of the five different newspapers. If we compare the English language papers, The New York Times to The Guardian, we can see some stout differences in terms of the French translations and the general context of the story. The NYT reports Trierweiler’s reaction to the President’s affair as her having an “emotional collapse”, a vague open ended emotional state which can mean literally just about anything. The Guardian on the other hand, translates the French text to mean “Deep Despair”. The differences are most likely caused by opinions of women in the UK and a need for political correctness and tiptoeing in the United States when discussing issues of mental health and hospitalization.

            The biggest distinction you can make about the English and Spanish language articles is the context. The English version articles discuss the political implications of their separation and they’re continued dealings with the global community. The Spanish language articles focus more on the personal aspects of the story more in line with gossip or tabloid columns.  The article from lanacion.com seems focus more on the gossip than anything. They reported that the break up was announced after the president’s press, denied the rumors, a fact which has not been mentioned in the other four articles. It seems that the more local a paper is, the less it discusses politics and reports as if they were reviewing a soap opera. The more prominent or international papers, obviously, have a more global view of the situation with the New York Times leading the charge.

Los cinco artículos tienen una manera propia para discutir del tema de la separación entre François Hollande y Valerie Trierweiler. El periódico llamado “The New York Times” discuten el tema de la separación de Hollande y Trierweiler en su artículo. El artículo discuten la vida privada de Hollande, incluyendo su relacción la actriz que se llama Julie Gayet. También, el artículo discute la visita de Trierweiler a la casa de Gayet y las fotografías de la visita. Discute el comunicado de Hollande a Agence France-Presse. Como The New York Times, el periódico llamado Lanción discute la separación de Hollande y Trierweiler. También, Lanción discute la invasión de la privacidad de los dos. Como The New York Times y Lanción, el periódico llamado “The Guardian” discute la separación de Hollande y Trierweiler y las vidas privadas de Hollande y Trierweiler. Sin embargo, a The Guardian no le importa la invasión de privacidad de las vidas privadas de Hollande y Trierweiler. The Guardian discute sobre el cotilleo. Por otro lado, el periódico llamado La Jornada discute las varias aspectas de su vida tales como la reputación política como el presidente de Francia y el viaje de Hollande a los Estados Unidos para visitar el presidente Obama. Como La Jornada, el periódico llamado El País Internacional discute el viaje de Hollande a Los Estados Unidos para visitar el presidente Obama. También, El País Internacional discute la vida privada de Hollande y los detalles de su relacción amorosa con la actriz Julie Gayet. Los cinco periódicos tienen una manera propia para discutir del tema de la separación porque varias audiencias leen los periódicos. Por eso, los periódicos tienen que incluir detalles especiales para llamar la atención de su audiencia.

Differences

Each of the articles describing the French president’s affair had its own way of telling the story. The NY Times had a rather professional tone to it as it mostly is just stating facts rather than trying to analyze the situation. In addition it also left out the name of the event that Ms. Trierweiler was preparing to leave to attend. Instead, it just called it a “charity” while all the other articles named it and specified what it was for. El Pais also had a professional tone to it but included a little more details of the situation. It touched upon a little of politics when in the last paragraph, they mentioned how Hollande’s presidency is viewed in front of the eyes of the French. La Jornada en Linea, on the other hand, wrote very little of the situation. Rather, it analyzed it in a political way. The newspaper looked how this affair affected him in his presidency and described how it has been plummeting for awhile. This affair was just another event that will destroy his reputation even more. El Mundo, like El Pais, described the situation and was very limited in analyzing its effect on French politics and economy. The Guardian, however, mainly focused on the affair itself. The newspaper cited sources, friends, and even lawyers to get their point of view of the situation. They dug deep into the situation and reported what they have found. Unlike the other articles, The Guardian had a less professional view and more of a “story-telling” view where they tried to get opinions from various sources.

Analysis

All the articles had a different mindset when writing their articles. The NY Times, for example, knew what kind of readers they mostly have: business people. Therefore, they reported facts throughout the article, knowing that business people have limited time to read and just need to know the facts. El Pais and El Mundo did something similar but decided to add a bit of politics into it. They know their readers have a bit more time and decided to add politics to show the impact of this affair. La Jornada en Linea seems to have a completely different class of viewers as it told the story in a completely different manner. This could be due that perhaps most readers of La Jornada might be politicians and people interested in politics rather than the story itself. The Guardian was more interested in the story itself and retold it in a magazine-type manner. The Guardian’s readers might be people who want all the facts and opinions of the matter. Therefore, the story was told in this manner. The main objective of these articles are for people to buy their stories and entertain them. All these articles are from different countries and culture also played a part in its telling. Different people want to hear different things of the same situation and the publishers were well aware of this. Therefore, each of the articles had their own way of reporting the affair of the French president.

El anuncio oficial de Hollande, Presidente de Francia, en el que en pocas palabras informó que ponía fin a su convivencia con su entonces pareja, Valerie Trierweiler causó  revolución a nivel internacional. Muchos diarios de diferentes países escribieron artículos sobre esta noticia y aunque son artículos muy diferentes no solo por el idioma en que está escrito sino también por el tono, transmiten un mismo mensaje: El final de la relación amorosa.

Tomando en cuenta cinco diarios muy famosos no solo en sus países sino a nivel internacional podemos fijarnos en varias diferencias al transmitir el mensaje. Los diarios de los que hablo son el New York Times (E.E.U.U), El País (España), La Jornada (México), La Nación (Argentina), y The Guardian (Inglaterra).

Un punto que me llamó mucho la atención fue la falta de fecha en el diario La Nación de Argentina; así como también la falta de una fuente. En este artículo precisamente no se especifica donde fue escrita la noticia y aún más importante, quien la escribió. Si bien es cierto, nombra al diario semanal Journal du Dimanche en su redacción pero no lo nombra como fuente al  inicio o final del articulo como es debido. En la clase aprendimos que esto es algo muy importante y es muy poco común que un diario famoso no contenga estos detalles.

El artículo de New York Times se centra en el comunicado de prensa del Presidente Hollande y en aclarar el contenido de las fotos que dieron vuelta al mundo como señal de su infidelidad. Así mismo se aclara que el Presidente está soltero y no ha negado ni afirmado su estado de relación con la actriz Julie Gayet . Es una escritura sobria e informativa. Por el otro lado tenemos el artículo de The Guardian, en el que se detalla mucho más la separación, dando fechas en el que Hollan y Gayet se conocieron y el tiempo que su “relación secreta” ha tenido. Las noticias publicadas en El País y La Jornada informan más acerca de la vida del Presidente Hollande y Trierweiler y sus agendas para los días después de la ruptura. Y por último pero no menos importante, el artículo de La Nación nombra en su redacción al seminario Journal du Dimanche (Francia) así también informa de la inferencia de opiniones entre los medios de comunicación franceses, los cuales son conservativos y modernos. También informa las intenciones de la actriz Julie Gayet de demandar a la revista que tomó las fotos.

Aunque el mensaje es uno mismo, cada periódico, periodista, editor y escritor tiene que buscar su originalidad. Si todos los periódicos publicaran la misma historia, los lectores podrían perder el interés. Es por eso que el contexto es importante. Leer varias versiones de una noticia, cada una con diferentes opiniones o detalles nos informa más que un solo mensaje repetido.

When considering the differences of the articles one must consider how the events are presented. We see in La Jornada, the facts are more to the point and contain less detail compared to the other articles. Also, it doesn’t mention how Valerie Trierweiler spent eight days in the hospital due to a mental breakdown and also fails to mention how and why specifically President Hollande and his Ms. Trierweiler decided to end things. By this I mean the publication of the photos by Closer, which also wasn’t mentioned by La Jornada.

I feel that the English-speaking newspapers, The New York Times and The Guardian, went into extreme detail about the events that led to and proceded the separation. Also the way they addressed each person, especially Ms. Trierweiler, varied amongst the articles. The Guardian and The New York Times address Ms. Trierweiler as “first lady”, while the rest of the articles that she “shared a life” with Hollande.

La Nación addresses the situation from a politial point of view instead from an individual standpoint even though Hollande stated that this is part of his private life not one of his political life. The statements about the separation were communicated through the Palace of Elysee.

The first difference I noticed between the New York Times article and the El País one is that the latter mentions that Hollande and Trierweiler have recently met to “agree on the details of their separation,” something the New York Times article doesn’t mention. In addition,  El País mentions that Hollande has four sons from his first girlfriend, and it also claims that an estimated 54% of people living in France disapprove of having a first lady and of granting partners of presidents an official status and economic resources. The New York Times doesn’t mention any of these things. The LaJornada article, on the other hand, emphasizes that the news of their separation have distracted the media from recent economic reforms that Hollande has taken part in and reminds readers that Hollande is the least popular of modern French presidents, in part due to high unemployment rates that he so far has been unable to alleviate. Neither the New York Times article nor the El País one mention this at all. The article in La Nacion mentions that before Hollande confirmed the rumors of his separation with Trierweiler, his office at the Elysée Palace claimed that they were false. None of the other articles have mentioned this interesting (but perhaps not surprising) detail. Finally, the Guardian article is the only one to mention that Trierweiler has had a bad reputation for supporting Ségolène Royal’s (Hollande’s ex) rival on Twitter, which might have contributed to her defeat in the legislative elections and angered a lot of Socialists.

It is hard to say exactly why each particular journal chose to emphasize certain details and leave out others. However, I do think there are good reasons why every article presented the story in a slightly distinct matter. One of the reasons is likely to be each journal’s desire to out-compete its rivals by mentioning details that it perceives to be more interesting and/or appealing to the general public. Perhaps some journals first become acquainted with already existing reports of the story and purposefully add details that the other sources have failed to mention. In addition to mentioning interesting or appealing details, it is likely that every journal is motivated to have something ‘fresh’ to offer instead of simply parroting what all the others have said. Even if the information does not appeal to the general public in any particular way, the fact that the article gives something ‘extra’ is sufficient to maintain the journal’s ratings and subscribers.