From 9 am to 8 pm on LeMonde.fr on Wednesday, December 18, join us for a day of articles dedicated to Le Monde's 80th anniversary.
Vast question. The basic rule is that journalists don't decide on the articles they write on their own. A newsroom such as Le Monde has a collective editorial line, in other words, a set of rules that shape the choice of subjects and the way they are treated. In many cases, journalists propose a draft article to their department heads, who may or may not approve it. The reverse is also true: the newspaper's editors may commission articles from writers.
The importance given to different subjects and the way in which they are covered are also discussed at editorial meetings, within the various departments of the newspaper (politics, international, society, economics, to name a few).
It varies a lot. Some articles can be written by a single person, in a matter of hours. For example, a Le Monde special correspondent covering a football World Cup match tries to send their article shortly after the end of the game. Other articles can take a long time to write because you have to interview multiple sources, decipher documents, travel... It can take anywhere from a few days to several months of work. Likewise, some articles require teamwork to move faster, or to add expertise. So there may be two, three, four or more by-lines on a single article.
There are several levels of validation. The first is carried out by the journalist's direct hierarchy. Once the article has been completed, the journalist sends it to their department head, who fact-checks and ensures that it corresponds to Le Monde's editorial standards. If necessary, the article is reworked, as many times as necessary. Some articles, because of their importance or sensitivity, are also proofread by the newspaper's top editors.
Once this stage has been completed, the article is sent to the editing department for further validation. "Our role is to take over from here," explained Anne-Cécile Nguyen-Thanh, copy editor at Le Monde's digital newsroom. "Our role is to put ourselves in the reader's shoes, trying to ensure that the piece is contextualized, understandable, accurate and attractive." In concrete terms, before publishing the article, copy editors create or check the "staging elements": captioned illustration, headline, caption, subheadings, links... And they review form and content, hunting out biased formulas or unverified information. The articles are then proofread, ensuring compliance with syntax, spelling and typographical rules.
Le Monde's editorial team is organized to cover the news in real time 24/7. To ensure this continuity without setting up a night shift in Paris, an office was set up in Los Angeles in 2016. They are in charge every day between 11 pm and 7 am Paris time. The nine-strong team has two main missions: To ensure the continuity of news monitoring and to carry out nightly editing work to be able to publish articles sent during the night.
There are journalists who work day and night for Le Monde. They may be our correspondents in other time zones, or who cover stories at all hours of the day, so that you can read about a court hearing that ended late, get the latest news from the Assemblée Nationale (which sometimes sits at night too), and so on.
It's one of the most important meetings between the newsroom and its readers. It can be found on the last page of every edition of the printed newspaper, and in the Opinions section of the websites, both English and French versions. Le Monde's editorial expresses an analysis and appreciation of a given subject (international event, government decision, social fact). Since 1944, Le Monde's editorials have set out the values and sensitivities of the editorial team: defense of human rights, rejection of racism and xenophobia, commitment to representative democracy...
One of the special features of the editorial, as for this article, is that it's unsigned. Lack of courage? "Obviously not, quite the opposite," said Philippe Bernard, a member of Le Monde's editorial team. "The idea is to reflect what the newspaper's community thinks. It's a special exercise, very different from the column, in which the writer expresses his or her subjectivity." Only speeches by the newspaper's director on special occasions are signed.
The editing process of Le Monde's editorials reflects this collegiality. Every morning, the newspaper's editorial writers meet at 10:30 am to identify one or more possible topics. The choice of editorial is then discussed at the midday editorial meeting, in the presence of the heads of the newspaper's various departments. Once drafted, it is submitted to the paper's top editors for approval.
Sometimes, an event imposes itself on all others, like with the fall of Bashar Al-Assad, on December 8. When this isn't the case, several factors come into play: On what subject can the editorial be relevant? Is there a consensus on the subject? "There's a certain craftsmanship involved," explained Bernard. "Sometimes, we may choose to wait an extra 24 hours to cover a particular event, because we're not covering breaking news, where we absolutely have to react within the next two hours."
War in Ukraine, Israel-Hamas war, political crisis in France... National and international crises are no cause for optimism and weigh heavily on the daily lives of the journalists covering them. Le Monde's digital newsroom is at the crossroads of this turbulence, often covering three, four or even five major events simultaneously. Our live blog format, which mainly appears on the French website, enables us to provide our readers with the latest verified news, in real time, but it is also demanding – and sometimes trying.
"We're at the heart of everything that's wrong in the world, all the time. There are a few happy news stories, like the Olympics, but they're rare," said Manon Rescan, deputy editor-in-chief at Le Monde.fr. While this climate is inherent to the journalism profession, she believes it calls for special attention on a daily basis: "We're a close-knit group, and we try to cultivate that, to talk to each other."
This also means providing breathing space to give journalists the freedom to work on less anxiety-provoking subjects, or making an occupational psychologist available, who can be called upon, particularly during the most trying news events. "In spite of everything, we're lucky enough to have a role to play in these dramatic events, which helps us to get through them," Rescan said.
The proliferation since 2022 of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for the general public, capable of producing text, photos or videos in the blink of an eye, is turning the media world upside down. "The subject of AI arises for us in several ways: As a major technological turning point, as a tool for experimentation and tinkering... and then it's already an everyday reality for certain uses," said Gabriel Coutagne, Le Monde's deputy editor in charge of innovation.
One example is the translation of articles into English for Le Monde in English, using the DeepL translation system. Automation is only partial: Translations are subsequently checked, completed and adapted by professional translators and Le Monde's English-speaking journalists. But it saves precious time. In a similar vein, the audio version of articles on the French app is made possible by using the personalized neural voice system on the Microsoft Azure platform. In March, Le Monde also signed an agreement with OpenAI, enabling the company to draw on Le Monde's content to make its response reliable.
The promise of AI must, however, be accompanied by vigilance with regard to possible pitfalls and abuses. "For the photography department, for example, we have taken a very cautious stance, and more generally refrain from publishing editorial content created by AI," Coutagne explained. This concern has resulted in the drafting of a specific section on AI in Le Monde Group's Charter of Ethics and Deontology, as well as in the publication of the list of uses of generative AI by Le Monde editorial staff.
Like most French media, our newsroom receives public subsidies, but they are not central to our business model. In 2023, Le Monde received €2.3 million in subsidies: 0.8 million for distribution aid, 0.6 million for portage aid, 0.1 million for export aid and 0.7 million in miscellaneous subsidies from the Ministry of Culture. This represents a total of just over 1% of the newspaper's total sales for the year (€176 million in 2023).
The most common route into the newsroom is to graduate from a journalism training program. This is the preferred choice when recruiting interns and work-study students. However, other profiles also exist within the newsroom: Late career returnees, journalists who have had initial experience in other publications, others who have developed technical skills or particular expertise... You can, if you wish, submit your CV and cover letter to Le Monde to the address at this link.
Translation of an original article published in French on lemonde.fr; the publisher may only be liable for the French version.