• After his chronicle of bad taste at the opening of the Nice attack trial, Alexandre Pizzagalli will not return to "Télématin" on France 2. However, she will continue his weekly column on France Inter, confirms the program director.

  • If her eviction seems unprecedented, she is not the first to have to suffer a controversy after a passage in a news program.

    To guard against a bad buzz, the channels use various methods, taking care to preserve the freedom of expression of comedians.

  • The choice of personalities taking the microphone to tell jokes is a clever mix between their humor and their texts adapted to an audience and when a data gets stuck, it can make sparks because mixing humor and info is a "perilous exercise".

Fired for a bad joke.

This is in a few words how we can summarize the flash passage of comedian Alexandra Pizzagalli in

Télématin

, on France 2. Follower of black humor, his appearance on the small screen will have been only ephemeral after his chronicle awkward about the Nice attack that forced France Télévisions to apologize.

If the sequence, much commented on social networks, may seem anecdotal, it questions the way in which comedians are framed when they are integrated into information programs.

Formalizing her departure in an interview with

Le Parisien

, the young woman testified that she had sent her column the night before her appearance on the show "to five people including the producer".

It is the latter who would have validated the text.

Alexandra Pizzagalli still confides that the context was not necessarily favorable to her humor, which was sometimes scathing.

“I should have adapted more to the context”, she assures, believing that her jokes were not necessarily adapted to the public and the schedule of the show, broadcast every morning between 6:30 and 9:30 am.

All this makes you think about the methods of casting and framing humorous chronicles, parachuted into current affairs shows.

So how do the channels and producers organize the arrival of comedians in their programs?

20 Minutes

tries to answer.

A “perilous” exercise

Mixing information and humor is a cocktail that you have to know how to dose carefully.

If many comedians have tried it, many failures have already occurred, both on television and on the radio.

If Alexandra Pizzagalli's bad joke is the most recent example, we also remember Nicolas Canteloup's comments on Europe 1 in 2017. The imitator had been accused of homophobia after a joke in the worst taste on the violent arrest of Théo in Aulnay-sous-Bois.

Jean-Marc Dumontet, his producer, then apologized on behalf of the comedian and his team.

“It was a very big skid this morning, obviously involuntary.

[…] We thought it was trash, it was just not funny and vulgar.

Very sincerely sorry “, he then declared on the antenna of Europe 1.

Same thing on France Inter on January 10, 2020 when comedian and singer Frédéric Fromet in a song called “Jesus is faggot”, to the tune of

Jesus returns

, live on the show

Par Jupiter

.

Public as public figures will be indignant at the same time of the homophobic character of its service and the attack on Christians.

A week later, it is via the mediation service of the public radio that he will present his apologies.

“I see that my column has failed.

It was only intended to denounce homophobia.

I was so misunderstood that I even hit an LGBT association, ”he wrote, assuming responsibility and apologizing.

“while claiming my right to make mistakes in an exercise that remains very perilous”.

These examples like that of Alexandra Pizzagalli are all examples of the balancing act that makes up the profession of comedian.

Even more when it comes to chronicles, often on a regular basis, and based on current events.

But this non-exhaustive list of slippages does not call into question the value of a dose of humor in news broadcasts.

"Just in time"

In an interview with

20 Minutes

in 2021, host Yann Barthès at the helm of Daily on TMC justified the number of humorous chronicles on his show by a tense context, between the Covid and the post-attack years.

“We have always tried never to lose humor despite what we have experienced over the past ten years, even in the most complicated moments.

This season, I think we need it even more, so we added a little bit.

»

With nearly 25 comedians on its airwaves, France Inter can pride itself on being the news channel that leaves the most room for humour.

And each year brings its share of new humorous columnists.

Alexandra Pizzagalli is also one of the new recruits for the season unveiled in September 2022. "We were looking for people who criticize the news to conclude Matthieu Noël's program and his humor matched the program perfectly", comments Yann Chouquet, director France Inter programs.

He confirms that the young woman will remain on the airwaves of public service radio, ensuring that no comedian is "interchangeable".

The tone of each corresponds to a place in the grid and to the audience targeted by the program.

Yann Chouquet says that every time a comedian sets foot on a show,

Because the exercise of the chronicle is far from obvious for the comedians who stick to it.

Getting started in a current affairs program requires that we refer to… the news.

The pace of writing is therefore sustained and the work cannot be largely anticipated.

“These chronicles, they are written in a tight flow.

[…] At times we lack lucidity.

[…] In the production of its press review, where it is necessary to be constantly listening to the news”, explained Jean-Marc Dumontet.

Freedom of expression

Added to this sustained pace is the ignorance of comedians of the public who listen to the programs in which their jokes will be broadcast.

For this reason, France Inter oversees the arrival of newcomers.

“When we welcome a new columnist, we explain to him that he will speak mainly to such type of public, such age group, etc.

If children can be behind their radio when the chronicle is broadcast, we also tell them, ”explains Yann Chouquet.

He explains that the texts are proofread before the first passages on the antenna but once the chronicle is on track, there is no more proofreading at all, in the name of freedom of expression.

“We don't reread the columns of each of our journalists and it would be untenable if we did, so I don't see why we should do it for comedians.

»

After Nicolas Canteloup's bad buzz live on Europe 1, his producer also expressed his gratitude to the channel, offering the comedian "great freedom of tone".

“It's a great chance that we have and this great freedom, it goes both ways.

Jean-Marc Dumontet had recounted the writing process, specifying that the channel no longer operated a priori right of inspection.

The comedian's team was therefore in charge of the final look at the chronicle.

“We don't always have time to go over the texts, to see them well.

»

Variable penalties

The program director of France Inter specifies, however, that overflows have “many times” occurred during chronicles led by comedians.

He adds that when a slippage occurs during a chronicle, “a little reframing” can ensue.

“If the author maintained, tooth and nail, without a critical eye, his opinion contrary to that of the shocked listeners, it would be a breach of the contract of trust with us, but that has never happened.

“After having repeatedly apologized to the listeners of France Inter, Frédéric Fromet has always been able to resume the course of his weekly column.

Same observation for Europe 1 where Canteloup had directly referred to his column of the day before, briefly apologizing to listeners before starting a new burst of jokes at the microphone of the radio where he will remain until July 2021.

If France Télévisions did not respond to our requests within the deadlines set by the writing of this article, Alexandra Pizzagali nevertheless testifies to the Ile-de-France media that “everything was done very quickly”.

She still says that she expressed some reservations about the temporality of her text and the tone of her jokes while the opening of the Nice attack trial was treated with poignant testimonies from victims.

"The producer replied: 'We're not going to ask you to rewrite it now, so we're going like that.'

She went there… but won't come back.

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