FRANCAISReporters sans frontières - Comments
1) The mission
-Influenced by the experience of Amnesty International, RSF has changed the definition of its mission. Its original aim of producing “alternative journalism” moved to the defence of human rights and press freedom. Today, RSF looks more like a kind of lobby for journalists, if not a trade union. To defend the press, the association actually took the risk of minimizing its criticisms on the ethical drifts of the media. It is precisely on these issues that both Rony Brauman and Jean-Claude Guillebaud disagreed with Robert Ménard.
-To be specific, RSF defends the freedom of expression whatever journalists might say. Robert Ménard explains the philosophy of the association by quoting Voltaire: “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”. Such a position earns RSF many criticisms since it can support journalists who write extremist and even revisionist articles. During the summer 2007, for instance, Robert Ménard voiced the opinion of Albert Soral, who writes for the leader of the National Front Party (Front national), Jean-Marie Le Pen. Before the court, the director of RSF also took the defence of Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, an humorist who was accused of anti-Semitism during one of his shows. In his book published in 2001, however, Robert Ménard claims that he denounces both the governmental violations of press freedom, on one side, and the ethical abuses of journalists, on the other.
