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PaperclipPerfector  6hr ago (text post)   79 thread views

Transnational Thursday for June 18, 2026

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Reuters:

French watchdog orders conservative news channel CNews to comply with pluralism rules

France's media regulator on Monday ordered rolling news channel CNews to comply with rules on pluralism and diversity of opinion, putting the ultra-conservative channel owned by billionaire Vincent Bollore one step away from disciplinary action.

The channel, which critics have likened to the US's Fox News for its opinion-driven format and polarising tone, has been accused by media watchdogs and opponents of near-constant coverage of immigration and security, which they say fuels far-right narratives.

Media regulator Arcom issued the order after reviewing hours of airtime last year in a probe triggered by a complaint from international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which praised the decision in a statement.

Speaking to reporters on Monday, Arcom head Martin Ajdari said its review of coverage in March 2025 showed "structurally unbalanced", one-sided output that left little room for opposing viewpoints.

He stressed that the regulator's role was not to police opinions, but to ensure media outlets showed viewers a diversity of views on each topic.

CNews contested the decision and said in a statement it planned to challenge it in the courts.

"Committed to freedom of expression, pluralism of debate, and the independence of its editorial line, CNews considers this decision to be an unjustified infringement of these fundamental democratic principles," it said in a statement.

The move comes less than a year before a presidential election in which far-right candidates are frontrunners.

France's 1986 broadcasting law requires television and radio outlets to ensure "honest, independent and pluralistic" coverage, including a diversity of viewpoints, particularly in news and current affairs programmes.

Almost uniquely in Europe, French broadcasters are required to count politicians' speaking time and ensure it broadly reflects recent election results and opinion polls.

The French media regulator also served a formal notice to public broadcaster Radio France last week, saying it had underrepresented the far-right National Rally in its programmes. It can impose fines and ultimately strip a channel of its broadcasting licence.

See also the US's former "fairness doctrine". In the words of the Supreme Court:

The Federal Communications Commission has for many years imposed on radio and television broadcasters the requirement that discussion of public issues be presented on broadcast stations, and that each side of those issues must be given fair coverage. This is known as the fairness doctrine, which originated very early in the history of broadcasting and has maintained its present outlines for some time. It is an obligation whose content has been defined in a long series of FCC rulings in particular cases, and which is distinct from the statutory equirement of § 315 of the Communications Act that equal time be allotted all qualified candidates for public office. Two aspects of the fairness doctrine, relating to personal attacks in the context of controversial public issues and to political editorializing, were codified more precisely in the form of FCC regulations in 1967.

There is a twofold duty laid down by the FCC's decisions and described by the 1949 Report on Editorializing by Broadcast Licensees. The broadcaster must give adequate coverage to public issues, and coverage must be fair in that it accurately reflects the opposing views. This must be done at the broadcaster's own expense if sponsorship is unavailable. Moreover, the duty must be met by programming obtained at the licensee's own initiative if available from no other source.

imposed on radio and television broadcasters

One thing that's often missed about the Fairness Doctrine is that it only ever applied to broadcasters licensing RF spectrum on the basis that it truly is a limited resource. We can't all start FM stations in the normal band or we'll just interfere with each other and nobody gets radio. Location, carrier frequency, and ranges/power of transmitters matters a lot for a usable network, and so are already regulated. If the maximum number of radio stations in a city is maybe a dozen, it makes sense to apply some bounds on the general public interest to what those are transmitting.

The rules do not, and as far as I'm aware, never have applied to point-to-point connections. Cable TV isn't a limited resource: not only are there more channels on cable, you can just run a second set of wires everywhere and get even more channels. Fox News and CNN don't have government-issued semi-monopoly status, and you can comparatively easily start your own. The Internet is also point-to-point routed: everyone gets their own packets, and you can just start your own website. Not that the economic case for either here is trivial, but the stated reason for non-content-neutral rules on broadcast in the US exists purely because of the monopoly status, and probably don't pass a 1A bar otherwise.

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