as well is that there is a demand for news about europe in english from a non british perspective. and if they can tap into that, it could be very, very successful. but various people have tried this over the years with mixed success. yeah, i was going to ask, has it been tried before? what s happened ? i mean, for example, we ve got der spiegel, which has had an online english language edition from germany for a number of years now, and spiegel is germany s leading news magazine and is incredibly well regarded in germany. but the english language edition has had some great successes, but also been hamstrung by poor translation, misunderstanding the kind of editorial line that they need to take, cultivating subscribers, all the things that you need to do to really make it viable as anything other than a status symbol. right. elvire, i m sure you don t plan to make any of those mistakes, but any reaction to what dominic has said? well, i think what s the most important thing is, you sai
by making it more reliant on tax money, which can be easily cut, and less able to guarantee its funding and to carry out independent journalism. so, you know, macron may be doing this as a vote winner, but actually, whenever politicians say we need to replace the licence fee with something else, we need to be very wary about what their intentions actually are. chris curtis from broadcast, if i bring you back in, i saw that broadcast was reporting this afternoon that one of the big french tv bosses has claimed that a le pen victory would mean french state tv assets being sold to a billionaire. yeah. i mean, dominic summed it up quite well there is a period of reckoning coming for public service broadcasters around the world, and it s going to be challenging, but i suspect that one of the things that those organisations need to do is kind of grasp the nettle and start to have proper, progressive conversations about alternatives. the bbc traditionally has been very defensive, and unders
really careful to have a good english level. i mean, to try and have a place up there next to the new york times, the washington post, the guardian and all those big newspapers. we need to be able to compare ourselves to them, and so we need to be able to publish stories that an english speaking person can read easily and not stumble on the second word and close the tab and go somewhere else. so, this is where we re really concentrating on making something readable and good in english. as well as, i mean, because we already have the good journalism part, we have a very good newsroom, we have amazing journalists, so that i m very confident about, and so quality english is the other thing. i want to come back in a bit to where we get the perspective from which we get our news, which is something, dominic, you were talking about.
dominic, just to bring you back in because you froze, unfortunately, at a crucial moment when you were talking about notjust france, finland and sweden, but also, you know, the anglophone bias of ourjournalism. i think it s partly because of the way foreign journalism has grown up over the years, and it was never intended to be for a global audience. but also, i think that if you spend any time working as a foreign correspondent for the us or the british media, you get constantly told again and again that you need to speak to an american or a british audience, and that s very true. but what we re seeing now, and this is why the le monde experiment is so interesting, is a transnational, english speaking public that is very, very curious to hear different lines from what they usually would and is really interested in qualityjournalism. so, you know, it s slightly utopian, but i like to believe that it s actually a growth market there. i guess, you know, dominic, we started the programme
relationship with france, with the eu. what would it mean for brexit? what would it mean for the northern ireland protocol? and in terms of france broadcasting in english or, you know, reporting in english, there s a soft power element to it. that s what you re saying. there is totally a soft power element to it, and that is often, in my experience, undervalued, whether it s by the uk itself, at a time when the uk s shrinking its embassies, does it value the bbc world service and bbc world enough? france 24 has a very tight budget, i would argue that we need more, and that actually, leaders do not understand how important it is for that culture. it attracts people, it attracts investment, it attracts people to come and study, to come and have tourism in your countries. it is absolutely a plus. it enriches the world, and i think it promotes understanding, and i think that is absolutely essential. 0k, dominic, just to bring you back in, you ve reported from around the world.