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Compared to last year, the print media lost 8% of credibility. Jacques DEMARTHON / AFP

As every year, the La Croix-Kantar 2019 Barometer of French Confidence in the Media reflects on the complex relationship that citizens have with the print media, as well as television, radio and the internet.

Radio retains the position it has had for twenty years, to be the most credible media, even if its score is not excellent. 50% of French people think that radios tell things as they happen. But for other media, it's worse: only 44% of respondents believe the print media credible, for television this figure drops to 38%.

All media lost credibility compared to last year: minus 6% for radio, minus 8% for the print media and minus 10% for television. " We see that confidence is not at the rendezvous ," said Guillaume Goubert, the director of La Croix , " and she even recorded this year a fairly sensitive stall for the media. "

The reasons for this stall? For Guillaume Goubert " that's all we've heard in recent months around" yellow vests ". People feel that it does not happen as they feel. This is where there is a big challenge for our profession: it is to make us understand that we are mediators, that we use a certain number of working techniques. We do not make rough remarks, we operate a sort, but this sorting is not dictated by an ideology. When there are two words, we will take the one that is the clearest, the one that is best expressed. This may lead us to dismiss a point of view that will be expressed in a less precise or more dispersed way. "

According to the barometer, respondents also doubt the independence of journalists. 69% think that the latter do not resist the pressure of political parties and power, and for 62% of respondents, journalists give in to the pressures of money.

The good news: the French are interested in information

The majority of French, 67%, nevertheless follow the news told by the media with interest. For Guillaume Goubert, the director of La Croix , this is the main lesson of this study: " What is important to remember is first and foremost a huge interest in information, which is at a particularly high level this year. . This is particularly related to what happened with the movement of "yellow vests". "

The media do not talk enough about the climate

The barometer also addresses topics "that we have not spoken enough". At the top of these topics: the climate. 54% of respondents believe that they would have liked to know more about the march for climate organized in many cities in autumn 2018. And only 32% believe that the climate change and its consequences are well handled by the media .

For Anne-Sophie Novel, director of the documentary " The media, the world and me ", there is " of course an expectation of the readers, the listeners and the televiewers. Figures show that coverage is considered insufficient. This summer, we had heat waves, droughts, fires and a resignation from a blatant minister. And there is the petition of the Case of the Century . These are elements that prove that this concern is becoming fundamental today. I think there is a concern on the part of the public on these issues of climate, the environment, the disappearance of life and how we adapt in these conditions. And maybe newsrooms should say to themselves : should not our reading of the world from an editorial point of view make it a priority ? I have been convinced for a long time. The world we are in, does not work the same anymore. We can not keep a twentieth-century reading chart to deal with what is happening in the twenty-first century. "

For Anne-Sophie Novel, one thing is certain: climate and ecological concerns must henceforth take center stage.