We have received an abundant mail about the arrival of Lionel Messi at PSG, listeners do not understand that we have talked so much about the player on the air.
Here is a first message : “I am shocked by the way Franceinfo is fueling the collective hysteria around the transfer of Messi. You blow this up to the point of talking about it in every Info Feed and making it the ‘main subject’ of your newspapers. C ‘is incomprehensible. “
Emmanuelle Daviet: Matthieu Mondoloni can we explain this editorial choice to the listeners who wrote to us?
Matthieu Mondoloni: It is an event in fact the arrival of Lionel Messi. I can fully hear this listener’s argument, especially people who are not football fans. But even for those who follow him, this competition and this sport, more distantly, the arrival of a player as emblematic as Lionel Messi in France in the French championship is completely new.
In fact, we have never known that in the history of French football. There was the arrival of Neymar at PSG, a few years ago now. If Maradona had come to play in France, many, many years ago, we remember that it had been envisaged by Bernard Tapie at the Olympique de Marseille, we would have had the same coverage. It is really the new aspect which makes that we gave this magnitude to this information.
We continue with this reflection from several listeners: “I find it deplorable all the time that you attributed to the transfer of Messi when we compare it to the time attributed to the IPCC report. To believe that the future of this man is more important than that of the planet “.
Does Matthieu Mondoloni find this remark admissible?
So there too, I hear the listener’s remarks. It’s because for Lionel Messi, it was a soap opera. So the feeling that can be that of our listeners, is that it lasted a very long time. There were the negotiations, the possible arrival, the probable arrival, the actual arrival, the medical examination, the first match, therefore, it is something that we follow for a very long time.
The IPCC report was indeed the day it came out, when we had a lot of guests on the air on this subject, because it is a major and important subject for Franceinfo. It is obvious, and above all and I understand that the listeners may have perceived it less. But in fact, throughout the summer, we did a lot of topics that were not directly related to the IPCC report, but which were related to this issue of climate change. I am obviously talking about the monstrous fires that there may have been in Greece, which we covered thanks to our special envoys.
I am also talking about those that took place in the south of France. I’m talking about climate change in general, the torrential rains that we are still seeing in the United States at the moment. These topics are very important. We cover them and we have many guests, many reports.
Last weekend, there was a big international and sporting news and a listener wrote to us: “Let me share with you my astonishment considering what is going on in Afghanistan at the moment, you spend half of your newspaper talking about the Reims PSG game.”
Matthieu Mondoloni, How does the information hierarchy operate?
So there again, it is always according to the moment T. The closer we got to the match, the more the news that was going to be that of the moment T was that of Lionel Messi’s first match. Afghanistan, we have done a lot, obviously, since the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, even before that, when they approached the capital. There again, we made a lot of guests, including that weekend.
Besides, I was looking at the franceinfo grid, that is to say the menu, if you will for our listeners on that day. In fact, we have done a lot of subjects on Afghanistan, a lot of guests, a lot of decryption. And indeed, at the time of the match, we talked about the match and this first match of Lionel Messi.
Another listener asks: “How dare you give so much importance to Messi, obviously respectable person but totally devoid of social utility?”
Do you share this point of view, Matthieu Mondoloni?
No, I don’t share it. Because already, football in France is more than two million licensees and only licensees, so people who actively play football. So, it concerns a lot of people. That’s millions of viewers. I will not speak only of the figures for a final of France in the World Cup, for example, which gathers more than 20 million televiewers, I believe. So it’s a sport.
In fact, it is the first sport today in France which is followed by all French people. It interests them. And after Lionel Messi, he is also certainly a football star, but an example for many children who play football today, who identify with this football star, who want to play football because of from him. So it serves as an example and in this sense, I think, has a certain social utility.
–
