Le Monde, Writing with Images

What types of photographs do you work with at Le Monde? Like all the international dailies, the wire services—AFP, AP and Reuters in our case—, the biggest suppliers of news images, are the basis without which we couldn’t function. Their responsiveness is essential: correspondents all over the world and images delivered 20 to 60 minutes after an event. It’s the same service as for text dispatches. Other agencies also have content that could be of interest to us, for example for archives. Finally, we have our own photographers work on the stories we decide to produce because we think they’re important. So we choose between what will necessarily exist in wire agencies and what we think we can do better or differently, because obviously we aren’t these agencies’ only clients. Everyone has access to their images.They’re very good, but they’re made to satisfy as many clients as possible: all situations, all people, from all distances, etc. If we choose to send someone, we can focus on one aspect, angle more and have more visual writing.

To what extent does this question of visual writing come into play? It’s essential. The choice of the photographer we send into the field is dictated by two criteria: photographic writing and journalistic writing.This must be a journalist who writes with images, knows how to understand a situation and reproduce it faithfully. In terms of numbers, we use far more wire service photos than produced photos, for the simple reason that the website is a very large consumer of images (100 to 150 per day, all subjects combined). But more than half of the money spent each year on photography is spent on production. Working with photographers like Samuel Gratacap, Guillaume Herbaut and Laurent Van der Stockt is an editorial choice, a desire to stand apart from our competitors by producing our own images and a way of linking photo policy to text policy. To talk about precarity, an editor will, for example, tell the story of Vincent, 24 years old, in Montpellier, who has to leave his flat because he’s lost his student job because of Covid; and to embody it, a photographer shows how he lives, what he has in his wardrobe, his look. It’s also a way of telling the reader that, with us, there’s a complementary relationship between image and text, which gives something more sensitive, intelligent and striking.

This term “impactful” brings to mind “shocking images”. What are your ethics at Le Monde? Although we’re a daily newspaper, writing over time’s important to us. When we cover a news story, we cover it every day, over the course of which we try to relate all aspects of an issue, in the most distanced and balanced way possible, knowing that the neutrality of the journalist on the ground is a question that could be debated for hours. For example, on the current conflict between Israel and Palestine, we show, depending on the day, Palestinian situations or Israeli situations.

In photography, as with words, we also have a whole palette. Le Monde isn’t a hard-hitting newspaper in terms of photography, but if we want to raise awareness on a subject that needs it, I have no problem with that. It’s wanting to clobber readers every day that would be a problem. On the other hand, if one day we feel that being ‘sensationalist’ serves the journalistic purpose and that certain violent images make sense, we publish them and explain why. I’m convinced that anything can be shown, provided it isn’t shown in just any old way.

Do you ever use amateur or citizen journalism images? The answer is no, but there are always exceptions in the reality of a daily newspaper. Being a journalist is a real trade. The source is very important. I need to know the person who takes the pictures because I need to be sure they aren’t misrepresenting what they’ve seen. Depending on the picture, a demonstration of 12 people can look like a mass demonstration. But if the fact of showing is more important to us than the source, I have a very pragmatic approach. When the Arab Spring moved to Syria and a revolution took place, there was a period of time when only images from pro-revolution citizen journalists reached us. We published some of them, after checking and crosschecking as much as possible, and above all by warning the reader. It’s then up to everyone not to take the images at face value.