Merci beaucoup for the warm welcome!
https://arab.news/gxhe5
Anyone assessing the attention, column inches and buzz dedicated to our latest international digital edition must find it difficult to believe that we have been around for only a week.
Don’t get me wrong, we are more than thrilled — and rather humbled — with all the attention from not just our friends in francophone countries, but also such influential French titles as Le Monde, Marianne, Courrier International and others. We must also thank media outlets better known for opposing all things Saudi — such as the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera and the Lebanese Hezbollah-backing news channel Al Mayadeen — for the free publicity, however hard they tried to give it a negative spin.
Of course, it is understandable for Al Jazeera and Al Mayadeen to be nervous about the successful launch of Arab News en Français; neither has a French edition, fortunately for French readers noted for their intelligence, taste and judgment. Sadly, what was more surprising was a level of reporting in those respected French publications — Le Monde, Marianne, and Courrier International — that can only be described as lazy, outdated and misinformed.
It is a truism, in journalism as in life, that we are all entitled to our own opinions, but not to our own facts. This adage does not seem to have penetrated the upper echelons of French media. The full litany of factual errors, misjudgments and tired old stereotypes in their reporting of our launch is too long (and, frankly, tedious) to repeat here. Among the more egregious mistakes was the assertion that flogging still takes place in the Kingdom — when a brief check on our own website would have revealed not only that this is untrue, but precisely when it ceased. Le Monde, France’s “newspaper of record,” even managed to misreport the ownership of Arab News. They corrected the error later, but by that time the mistake had been plagiarized by other media outlets either too lazy or too incompetent to conduct their own reporting. It would appear that, for the French media at least, the revolutionary virtues of “liberté, égalité, fraternité” have not been supplemented by “vérité.”
If anything, the misreporting of our launch proves the need for a credible Arab voice in French, and Arab News en Français is determined to be that voice.
Faisal J. Abbas
Let us be clear: This is not about our rejection of criticism. We have broad shoulders, we can take it. And it is hardly surprising to see legacy outlets targeting a newcomer to francophone media. Indeed, at the digital launch of Arab News en Français last week, I said we would welcome both criticism and praise for our work, and would labor tirelessly to enhance our performance.
If anything, the misreporting of our launch proves the need for a credible Arab voice in French, and Arab News en Français is determined to be that voice. Meanwhile here are some facts that may help our francophone readers better understand what we are trying to do.
First, our new edition is aimed not only at France, but at the whole Francophone world; second, more importantly, we hope to be a bridge connecting all French-speaking Arabs and Muslims; third, we have no tolerance for intolerance, so what you will find in our news reporting, our investigations and our Opinion section is unqualified opposition to any form of extremism or terrorist ideology. There is no need to take my word for it; visit our website and see for yourself.
Finally, I wish to thank everyone who has written about us so extensively over the past week — particularly those who got it right, but even those august publications who got it so disastrously wrong. There is another adage in journalism, which says that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Appropriately, Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet and playwright whose favorite city was Paris and whose remains are buried there, put that sentiment rather more elegantly: “There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
• Faisal J. Abbas is the Editor in Chief of Arab News
Twitter: @FaisalJAbbas