Philosophers take control of Libération, journalism and philosophy coalesce

         IN A SMALL theatre space underneath basement level of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, surrounded by videos of surreal contemporary 'dance,' the contributors to 'Libé des philosophes,' the November 19th, 2009 edition of Libération in which philosophers wrote all of the newspaper's content, gathered to ostensibly discuss the theme of 'philosophy and journalism'. We all filed in solemnly, the few young people avoiding eye contact with each other, pretending to be serious; the attitude was similar to the whole 'I'm going to go read Proust in the corner café with my notebook and black coat and coffee at 23:30 on a Saturday' kind of thing.

            The French word that is often used for 'moderated' is animé, which to my mind always means someone who 'animates' the gathering, someone who breathes life into a room of socially awkward academics, old people who have nothing better to do and young idealistic Bac or first-year Fac students. Marianne Alphant, the Centre Pompidou's lady-in-charge of expositions, and Robert Maggiori, a philosophy teacher and a regular writer for Libération, did their best as animateurs, although Maggiori was clearly in command. Probably because he seemed to be the one who organized the whole thing.

            After finding a seat, scoping the sparse audience, deciding that I was out of place then turning on the recorder (download the recording), I realized I had no actual idea what the talk was to be about. I was told to come, presumably, because I have a modest philosophy degree and an intermediate command of French; neither of which were much help when one only knows the title of the talk and have never really read Libération. Luckily for you I will draw out the interesting bits from the discussion, but it's a bit like pulling gum out of your hair; you don't get much to show for your efforts and will have to cut it in the end anyway.

            Present at the table, complete with mini bottles of water and much hand wringing underneath it, was Barbara Cassin, a philologist and sophist expert (my favorite of the speakers, 'animated' and interesting); Denis Kambouchner, a Descartes and ethics expert with big white hair; Frédéric Worms (who looks a little like Clay Shirky and managed to creep me out by staring at me for half the time), a Bergson specialist with an uncomfortable laugh; and Ruwen Ogien, who was slightly bitter about not being able to write about chemical castration.

            At first they focused on the technical and administrative details of getting 60 philosophers together to write an entire newspaper, cover to cover, including the weather and sports sections. This is the third year Libération has put together an edition written by a certain academic class, this year's philosophers having been preceded by historians and writers. Since a good portion of every newspaper that is ever published is pre-prepared as opposed to the quickly written actual 'news' parts, this posed quite a challenge for the philosophers.

            Philosophy takes a long time. The most seemingly straightforward of questions can take days or weeks to answer to one's own satisfaction, and sometimes you find at the end that you didn't even answer it or that it ends up being irrelevant to what you're working on. This is pretty much diametrically opposite to journalistic writing, and the philosophy vs. journalism, prepared vs. news theme was definitely the most interesting subject discussed by the panel, however briefly touched upon. In a nutshell, the philosophers were all competing for the pre-prepared parts during their editorial meetings, but since a good percentage of the contributors were abroad they got first dibs.

            The journalists at Libé apparently love having the philosophers there, and it's a good mix; lively discussions take place in the hallways, the pleasantness and solicitude of the philosophers enliven the journalists and together they form a community neither philosophical nor journalistic. Maybe today's struggling newspapers could learn a lesson from this and take an injection of fresh insight from 'outsiders' helping the editorial process.

            Maggiori discussed in depth these kinds practical issues, particularly the issues of dividing duties and the massive editing cuts as all the proposed articles went over the allowed length. After this Maggiori did manage to get in some nuggets that piqued my attention; he mentioned that he once met a German journalist who was taken aback by the 'Libé des philosophes' idea, and the total editorial freedom the philosophers have.

            "In Germany, it would never be possible. No newspaper would give their editing over to philosophers to write the entire edition," the German reportedly said. Maggiori thinks Libé is the only newspaper in the world that has done so, and was able to, because of the status of philosophers in France.

            In France, he said, "we are used to public and televised debates featuring philosophers, among others." Philosophers are consulted and listened to; their opinions are sought out and valued. This, in my opinion, is one of the best things about French society and a real problem in North America where it is clearly lacking.

            According to Maggiori, having a philosopher's edition allows the newspaper to have an 'organic link' with intellectuals and to facilitate the valuable 'long, slow thinking' that philosophers do. He continued to say that newspapers need to have such a link with the 'production of thought' as a way to save themselves; Libération went in the opposite direction of 'green' reporting (with short, online articles) to promote and publish the long, reflective and analytical articles of the philosophers. This is exactly the kind of quality reporting and content that has been and must continue to be newspaper's strong points if they are to survive.

            Barbara Cassin went on to detail her experience with writing about national identity and the questionnaire that accompanied that task, which was loaded with assumptions (as most non-philosophical texts are) thus required a good deal of interpretation and analysis; not quite what the writers intended but it ended up being a good article by virtue of this. Here the opposition (a concept philosophers revel in) between philosophy and journalism was seriously treated. She said "the 'time/pace' (temps) of philosophy is completely contrary to the 'time/pace' of journalism," that "while philosophers are of the 're-taking', 're-thinking', the cogitation of national identity, here in this case we had to go 'on site', find things and make phone calls" which is not really philosophers are used to doing.

            The talk continued, mostly with everyone else described what they wrote about and the process of finding a topic and writing on it. Interestingly enough, Denis Kambouchner said he knows Placebo, the alt rock/metal group, and would have liked to do a piece on them. He went on to describe the process or 'exercise' of writing journalistically as one of writing in a language of effectuation and 'in the last degree,' an 'extremely simple process for ourselves' that regardless is interesting for both the reader and writer, and valuable for society in bringing philosophical dialogue to the mainstream.

            Throughout, Maggiori controlled the talk, saving us from awkward pauses and topic drop-offs. He personally stayed the most on topic and had some good opinions.

            He thinks that rigorous philosophical critique must be defended in order to both save newspapers, which can be its home and promoter, and philosophical discussion itself. On TV, the radio, and in many newspapers journalists and writers are told to write things quickly and simply, even just mentioning a keyword. Critiques and comments are just mindless summaries, only saying whether something is good or bad with little reflection, like looking up ratings for a hair drier on the internet.

            Maggiori was clearly upset at this kind of journalism (as he outlined it), saying it has a serious negative impact on quality, and called it a 'real menace', something that as a 'stupefied avoidance of the difficult' would be 'death for us' if it appeared in Libé.  

            The speakers finished up by affirming the importance of the union of philosophy and journalism, both critiques and reflections on news and culture. Unfortunately I could not understand everything at this point because the speakers were talking quite fast, and, getting rather excited, began using a level of vocabulary and grammar I could not easily follow. Nevertheless, they all seemed in agreement that such a marriage of philosophy and journalism was important to society, and even a part of the intellectual's responsibility to reflect upon the events that shape our world, rather than just transmit 'what happened'.

            It was too bad that the questions asked seemed to rather miss the point and focused things that could have answered themselves if the inquirers had read the articles on the subjects they were asking about.  The panel seemed rather miffed by this point and eager to leave, as was I since I didn't get to ask my question.

            Actually, if had I gotten hold - from the cold, wrinkly hands of the old lady who Bogarted it - of the microphone, I'm now not sure what I was going to ask. It was surely something along the lines of the 'opposition' in the kind of work philosophers do and what journalists do that was mentioned, and the entente that they all seemed to have when thrown together to make a newspaper. I would have imagined them getting into various kinds of (potentially amusing) disagreements making publication quite difficult, but then I remembered that this is France and philosophers are respected and respectful here. This is not to pose any kind of elitist or Francophile argument about the relations and status of intellectuals in society, but it is indeed difficult, as the German reporter said to Maggiori, to imagine such a thing happening in many other countries.

            Even so, this kind of initiative of the 'special edition' type is certainly a great way for newspapers to help save themselves. Rather than focusing on online content and its instant-access, tiny summaries and gross glossing over of issues, maybe it would be a good idea for papers to play their strengths; quality reporting, respectability and accountability, high intellectual standards and intelligent critique and reflection. However those who stick to the paper format are still running a business after all, and unfortunately quality and intellect doesn't always sell.

WMA recording of the panel