France’s international news channel France 24 says four reporters were taken off-air to ‘protect the integrity of the work’ due to antisemitism allegations.
France’s state-funded news channel France 24 has suspended four journalists working for its Arabic service over allegations of antisemitism, reports the Politico.
In a press release published on March 13, the international channel said that the journalists had been taken off-air and would remain so until the internal investigation proves the allegations wrong. The claims were made by the media watchdog Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).
“After the publication of an article on the CAMERA website […], implicating a journalist and three Arabic-language correspondents of France 24 regarding certain comments they allegedly posted on their personal pages on social networks, the channel’s management has immediately opened an audit on these alleged posts,” claims France 24.
According to the accusations, the journalists have been referencing the Holocaust and have been biased in their reporting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on social media.
France 24’s Society of Journalists, a body representing the interests of the channel’s journalists, warned that “all the facts haven’t been established” and that the nature of the allegations against each journalist were “very different.”
“We also state forcefully that our coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in no way partisan, that we abhor antisemitism and that the France 24 newsroom will not be associated with such accusations,” the statement of the Society of Journalists read. They also claim that an independent consulting firm leads the internal investigation.
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