ADVERTISEMENTA popular French rolling news channel has been fined for broadcasting climate scepticism unchallenged.
CNews, controlled by billionaire business magnate Vincent Bolloré, provides 24-hour national and global news coverage and is the second most watched news network in France, after BFMTV.
It was accused of allowing one of its guests to defend a controversial thesis on the human origin of climate change - without providing any rebuttal.
Since a relaunch in 2017, the Groupe Canal+ channel has taken a conservative editorial stance. It is often compared to the right-wing American TV channel Fox News - and has been repeatedly warned by French regulators for its failure to honestly and rigorously report news.
It’s in extra hot water this week, though, with the Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) fining the channel €20,000 for broadcasting controversial climate scepticism without balanced reporting.
“This is the first time in France and internationally that Arcom or a regulatory authority has issued a financial sanction for a breach concerning an environmental subject,” QuotaClimat, an association that campaigns for better media coverage of ecological issues, said in response.
Why was CNews fined for climate scepticism?
On 8 August 2023, QuotaClimat reached out to Arcom concerning a CNews on-air feature called ‘Punchline Eté’, which was devoted to the month of July 2023 being the hottest ever recorded.
During the programme, prominent economist Philippe Herlin shared personal climate scepticism - but was not contradicted by anybody else in the TV studio, including the hosts.
“Anthropogenic global warming is a lie, a scam… Explaining to us that it is because of Man, no, that is a conspiracy, and why does that have so much weight?”, Herlin said. “Because it justifies the intervention of the State in our lives, and it absolves the State from having to reduce its public spending… It is a form of totalitarianism.”
His rant apparently provoked no reaction from the other people present on the set - or those behind the scenes.
After investigation, Arcom found that CNews’ lack of reaction was a “failure” to meet the obligations of the channel which “is required to ensure an honest presentation of controversial issues, in particular by ensuring the expression of different points of view”.
“The speaker was able to express a controversial thesis that was not verified by the acquired scientific data without the position he was defending being put into perspective and without a contradiction on this subject being expressed following these remarks,” Arcom added in its report, confirming a fine for CNews of €20,000.
Is unchecked climate scepticism a growing problem in French media?
CNews’s issue comes just weeks after a warning by Arcom towards Sud Radio, a French privately owned radio station, founded in 1958.
On 29 May, the regulatory body released a report that criticised the station over an edition of its Bercoff programme broadcast during COP28 in December 2023.
During the segment, journalist and host André Bercoff conducted an interview with physicist François Gervais, known for his controversial views and tendency to mock the dangers of climate change.
ADVERTISEMENTIn the interview, Gervais spoke of an apparent “climate scam" and said global warming "is a good thing".
"At the end of the reign of Louis XIV, it was cold, there were bad harvests - and the cold kills more surely than a little heat," he went on, referring to the melting of the ice as a minor problem: "That's not what's going to swallow us up.”
Arcom found that the views shared “contradicted or minimised” the scientific consensus on climate change “through a treatment lacking rigour and without contradiction”.
It also criticised the lack of balance provided by the broadcaster and said that, if climate disinformation were to continue, Sud Radio would be exposed to a formal notice, then to a financial penalty.
ADVERTISEMENTWhile QuotaClimat has made reports targeting different media on a lack of accountability on climate change denial views on numerous occasions since 2023, the picture may not be as bleak as it seems.
While much progress remains to be made in dealing with environmental issues in the media and government in France, Climat Médias - an organisation that promotes the increase of climate reporting - says such climate denying rhetoric on air has, on the whole, been historically low over the past weeks.