France 24: Beyond The News

24hr International News ChannelFrance 24, the new French 24-hour international satellite news channel has just gone live in two languages: English and French, with an Arabic channel launching soon and a Spanish one later. The channel started broadcasting online yesterday though.

France 24 wants to characterize itself by respect for diversity and attention to political and cultural differences and identities. It’s goal is to offer an in-depth analysis of current events, aiming to uncover what lies beneath the surface and reveal what the public is not used to seeing, knowing or understanding. It will also be giving special attention to culture and lifestyle.

The France 24 website comes in 3 languages (English, French and Arabic) and is really well done. It mostly follows the new simplistic graphic trends we’re seeing in web design these days, and it’s obviously influenced by the world of blogging, especially evident through it’s tag cloud presentation of the hottest topics.

I think it’s great that more world class players are entering the media market, I hope it will help create a balance and counter the monopoly US media has over news, bringing another view of the world events to the viewers.

I’ve just watched France 24 for a few minutes now and my first impression is a really good one; It’s looking very professional and feels quite promising.

Along with a number of other bloggers from around the world, I was invited to Paris last week to visit the channel’s studios, meet some of the staff and record a show about bloggers, but time was a bit tight and it wasn’t enough for me to get a visa to France.
But if that invitation shows anything, it shows the importance France 24 is giving to bloggers, and the recognition that blogs can be a serious source of information and an important player in the global media market.