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Written by

Owen Huchon

May 30, 2024

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AJAR: A Year in Retrospect

Rémi-Kenzo Pagès, one of the spokespersons for AJAR, takes stock of a year marked by rapid scaling for the young association and several major media episodes.

Last year, after several months of behind-the-scenes work, the Association of Antiracist and Racialized Journalists (AJAR) publicly announced its launch. Since then, the young group has been active in journalism schools and media outlets — at least those willing to engage — providing training and dialogue with management. A year on, the association has grown and now has over 200 members. Despite still-limited resources, it continues to denounce racist discourse and remarks that still plague the press, both independent and mainstream, and alerts newsrooms to their often unrepresentative composition relative to society. The association also encourages schools to change their practices, to open up siloed training programmes that confine newsrooms to an insular dynamic detrimental to their readers. It now hopes to have greater influence in public debate and to guide other media outlets and schools toward a more inclusive model.

Interview with Remi-Kenzo Pagès, journalist and member of AJAR, one of its spokespersons.

The launch of AJAR took place in several stages. Can you tell us about the project's genesis?

On March 21, 2023, on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, we published an op-ed in Libération signed by more than 170 journalists as well as five journalists' associations and the two main unions in the profession. This text marked our "going public," which we had actually been preparing for a very long time. It took us time to prepare, because we wanted to do things right. We needed to structure the association internally, start organizing ourselves, and agree on what we wanted to do. We were a very small core group, and today we have about 200 journalists who are members of the association.

For us, the objective is twofold. On one hand, it's about building solidarity among us, among people who have experienced racism in journalism and in newsrooms. On the other hand, the idea is to be able to take a different look at the media coverage that is dominant in our profession and that is regularly racist. We want to change things through training and discussions with newsrooms about how to practice our profession without conveying racist messages. We also want to come together because we realized we were often very isolated in our newsrooms. What we experience, as journalists, was very difficult to share, because most of our colleagues didn't understand what we were talking about. The fact of meeting each other gave us strength. There's something liberating, a moral support in being able to speak and listen to each other.

These two objectives you're talking about—you champion them especially within journalism schools. Is that where the work begins?

We do work with certain schools, but others aren't interested. We also have a partnership with La Chance, an organization that helps scholarship journalists from working-class backgrounds enter the profession. We believe journalism is a profession with very strong insularity. It's therefore extremely difficult for young people from working-class neighborhoods, for people of color, to enter the field, and this starts with how journalism schools select students. We want to discuss with them how they recruit and, ultimately, change this process to open up the profession. While what La Chance does is beneficial, we see today that it's not enough. Even now, people of color in cohorts, often from La Chance, are few in number. These can also be people of color from rather privileged, bourgeois backgrounds, who socially reproduce the insularity we denounce and want to break. We're talking about social selection that prevents journalists from working-class neighborhoods, journalists of color, from massively entering this profession.

"We realize that in reality these young people aren't taking the step to become journalists, even though they dream of it. They won't apply because they tell themselves that anyway, there's no one who looks like them".

With AJAR, we also go to high schools and middle schools to provide training. And for good reason: when you don't see anyone on television or radio who looks like you, you also think that this world isn't for you. For example, we've visited high schools in Nanterre, in the neighborhood where the young man Nahel was killed, and we go a lot to Seine-Saint-Denis. We tell young people: "Don't censor yourselves, don't hesitate to apply. We also need people with profiles like yours to try to get in en masse". We realize that they won't apply because they think that anyway, there's no one who looks like them.

Do you approach schools directly, or do they reach out to you?

This is the first academic year in which these training programs are being offered, so we're taking it one step at a time, but we're beginning to reach out to those who haven't come to us. For now, we're not forcing our way in, but we are making it clear that we're available. With the others, we started discussions very quickly and that led to initial interventions during the September 2023 academic term.

Right now, it's competition season, with the first oral exams in May. So we're preparing a document for all schools, particularly the 14 recognized ones, to tell them to watch out for racism among students during jury evaluations. We're noticing that many students have had very negative experiences.

Do schools acknowledge these racial biases, or are they still struggling to name clearly what some students are going through?

It will depend. With those we've worked with easily, we've seen that there was genuine listening, that they were very interested in what we had to say, and that there was, perhaps, a willingness to change things. As for schools that don't want to work with us right now, I can't say anything for certain, precisely because dialogue doesn't exist.

You don't work only in schools—your training programs also extend to newsrooms. As with schools, are there still some that are hesitant?

With certain editorial offices, we engage with human resources on certain practices, particularly in recruitment. Ensuring that job postings are public is, for example, one of our main demands because it allows different profiles to have their chances and to make themselves known to editorial offices, especially for those who aren't part of professional networks. But we realize this is a very difficult demand to push for. Many people working in human resources don't understand it because they're used to co-optation. In other places we're able to train the teams; that's even better.

"Making sure job offers are public is for example one of our main demands because it allows people with different profiles to have their chance and make themselves known to newsrooms, particularly those who aren't part of professional networks"

But that's not the only subject where we observe different reactions. At the beginning of AJAR, we shared a Twitter watch list aimed at cataloguing highly problematic media coverage. For lack of time, we've done it less recently because we realized there are too many to do it systematically. We would call out the editorial team in question, telling them to come see us and discuss it.

We've had cases where the media apologizes, removes the content, and corrects the error in their article or deletes the photo if it's racist. However, we've also encountered situations where the editorial team doesn't understand and tries to justify itself when we point out a real problem in the writing or iconography that amounts to racist media coverage. And the third case, which is the most common, is simply to ignore our concerns.

Precisely, you have to rely somewhat on the good faith of these editorial teams to listen to you and take action. There is ARCOM to file complaints regarding audiovisual media, but is that sufficient and effective?

We've already reported certain cases to ARCOM, but that hasn't yielded anything so far. We operate on a presumption of good faith and try to keep the door open, giving editorial management the opportunity to discuss these issues with us. It's very frustrating to see a lack of response, or responses made in bad faith. But what's encouraging is that there have been a few cases—rare ones—where corrections were made. Once, a very large national media outlet publicly apologized on its social network following our intervention. In that moment, we felt we'd achieved a victory.

In what you observe through your monitoring, there is the way media covers racist offenses or crimes. Do some media outlets struggle to characterize them clearly?

We noticed that when the media describe something as racist, they often put it in quotation marks. For example, when a National Rally deputy in the National Assembly said to another deputy "Let them go home!" — I don't remember the exact wording — (the official record of the session states it as: "Let him go back to Africa!", Editor's note) we found in our media review that the media spoke of "racist remarks" in quotation marks, as if they weren't able to assert it themselves. Yet there's no reason for quotation marks here because the law defines very clearly what constitutes racist remarks.

The question of recruitment in newsrooms and the way these topics are covered go hand in hand?

Editorial treatment is a consequence of working conditions and newsroom composition. The fact that there are so few racialized journalists in newsrooms has an impact on editorial output. This is also why we explain that when there is an overwhelming minority of racialized journalists in editorial meetings, it is very difficult for us to defend a viewpoint on a story. That viewpoint will be so minority and marginal that it will be perceived as illegitimate by colleagues. Our social background determines us editorially, and this is why we say that guaranteeing good working conditions within newsrooms is very important. We have realized that in newsrooms, racialized people are often in precarious situations. Being a freelancer makes it even more complicated to defend your point of view.

So first of all, there's the question of recruitment for young journalists, but also their access to management positions afterward?

Absolutely, and it starts with making job openings public so that it benefits different profiles that are underrepresented in newsrooms. This is an antiracist, feminist demand, and one in favor of profiles of people with disabilities or from very rural working-class backgrounds. I'll take the example of the agricultural crisis. We saw that it was complicated to cover, partly because there are very few journalists in newsrooms from very rural working-class backgrounds. The same goes for children of workers who would also benefit from newsrooms opening up to profiles other than those from very urban, upper-class, white middle-class backgrounds like Paris.

You mention a wide diversity of profiles. Do you exchange with other organizations working on these topics?

We discuss almost every day with other associations. Since AJAR was created, we've built very close partnerships with some of them like AJL, Prenons la Une … They are in some ways the models on which we built ourselves. There's also Profession Pigiste, with whom we work a lot, as well as Femmes journalistes de sport with whom we are building our partnership. Finally, there's also La Chance as well as the two main unions, the SNJ and the SNJ-CGT.

Among the most notable media episodes of the past twelve months, there is Vincent Bolloré's takeover of the JDD and Geoffrey Lejeune's arrival. How did you perceive this?

We participated in the General Assembly of Independent Press, notably during an event held in Paris, as well as locally in Marseille for example. On that occasion, we told newsrooms that the question of media concentration was crucial because it contributes to the normalization of far-right discourse, particularly when someone like Vincent Bolloré has such influence over newsrooms.

"We observe, including in independent newsrooms and in left-leaning media outlets, racist media coverage and issues with newsroom composition."

But we must also be careful because the normalization of certain racist discourse in newsrooms does not happen only through this type of media. We observe, including in independent newsrooms or in media classified as left-wing, racist media treatments and problems in newsroom composition. The problem is not only CNews and billionaires' media.

The change has been brutal at JDD. Beyond the shift in editorial direction for readers, is there also a consequence for the journalists working in the newsroom?

We worked with SNJ-CGT, which is producing a survey on racism in newsrooms, on the question of psychosocial risks caused by racist media coverage. Racism obviously operates through the way you are treated within a newsroom or the way our managers treat us, but it also operates largely through information production. When you are producing inaccurate information and you are aware of it, you experience it very badly.

This year you also organized a roundtable discussion: "Media Coverage of Israel/Palestine, the Impossible Objectivity?". What did you observe in the editorial treatment of this conflict?

We received reports from a number of journalists who felt stigmatized in their newsrooms at that time because they are Jewish, Arab, or Muslim. Some people who were not Muslim were suspected of being Muslim because they were Arab. Islamophobia also expresses itself in this way. We also heard from Jewish journalists who told us: "because we're Jewish, we were immediately assumed to agree with the Israeli government's policies". This is also an expression of antisemitism. This resulted, for example, in these journalists being excluded from editorial coverage of events in Israel and Palestine. Some journalists were called in by their management to determine whether they would do the work and how they would do it, based on suspicion, because of their origin or religion.

Regarding media coverage, we observe an extremely strong form of dehumanization when discussing what is currently happening in Gaza. This has been the case with Gazans. We have observed that this has been expressed extensively through iconography. For example, a Charlie Hebdo cartoon, shortly after October 7th, depicted Israelis with hooked noses, relying on antisemitic stereotypes.

This year saw the launch of two initiatives, the States General of Information and the States General of Independent Press. You even participated in the latter. Do you expect anything to come from it?

For the official General Assembly we were not invited. We were extremely surprised because we are one of the main associations in terms of membership numbers in the profession. We participated in a joint letter with other associations and received no response regarding our concerns. It's difficult to expect something from an organization that didn't offer to hear us. And yet, we cannot separate the question of racism from timeshare ownership, media concentration… All these issues intersect and concern us too.

When we participated in the General Assembly of Independent Press, we were quite pleased about it because it allowed us to speak with independent newsrooms. But this initiative doesn't carry the official weight that the other General Assemblies have. Its scope will be different since, as far as we know, there won't be any legislation resulting from it. We would have liked to be received at the General Assembly at the Élysée.

You mention independent media. Is that an important area of action?

All newsrooms are important. We've had meetings with very large national newsrooms, public service newsrooms, private newsrooms, and so on. But we've also met with independent media outlets.

Have you noticed a difference between independent media and more traditional media?

Honestly, I didn't get the impression that we were better welcomed in independent media because, let's be honest, those newsrooms are still very white.

Are you satisfied with the action taken over the past twelve months?

There are a certain number of things we weren't able to do or that don't correspond exactly to what we would have wanted. But we're quite satisfied because we've set up projects and structured an association that brings together 200 people, which is a lot in one year.

There are also other projects underway that are coming and we will be making announcements soon. There is also a festival that we are putting together which will take place in Marseille. We also have a kit that will be published soon and will be sent to journalism schools as well as newsrooms to explain to journalists how to handle certain topics. There will be different chapters on sports, ecology, antisemitism and anti-Romani racism. We have a lot of initiatives going on and I think we can still be pleased with all the work we've accomplished in one year.

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