Juliette Moreau Alvarez
modified to
4:21 p.m., June 29, 2022
Responsibilities must be taken: this is what Antonn Rouget, journalist at Mediapart and guest of the show, believes Media culture on Europe 1 this Thursday. Le Point published Thursday, June 23, then withdrew a false accusation on the couple of Insoumis Raquel Garrido and Alexis Corbière claiming that the deputies exploited a cleaning lady without papers. At the same time, Antonn Rouget conducted a counter-investigation for Mediapart with his colleague David Perrotin which demonstrated the flaws in the paper of the Point. The two men above all raise the importance of the responsibility of the management of the Point in that case.
Gernelle as “Captain of the Costa Concordia”
“For me, a manager and editorial director must assume.” Antonn Rouget deplores the comments made by Etienne Gernelle following this false information. He “unleashed his journalist in the open countryside”, he believes. “I had the impression of hearing the captain of the Costa Concordia taking his boat and leaving quickly, letting the others sink.”
Etienne Gernelle spoke for the first time on this affair on the antenna of Europe 1 Monday, June 27. “There is a double smoke”, estimated the editorial director of the Point. For Gernelle, the journalist Aziz Zemouri, author of the article, “lost his mind and clouded his hierarchy on at least three points: the interviews he had or did not have, the documents he obtained and how they obtained them.”
The director of Point was also justified: “if our journalist had told us the truth about how he obtained these documents, the article would never have been published.” The editorial manager finally denounced “people who tried to set up a business that did not exist”.
Despite these remarks towards the editorial staff of the PointEtienne Gernelle had made his my culpa and apologized on Twitter. “We recognize our mistake and we do our job as journalists vis-à-vis ourselves, as have done in the past The Parisianthe New York Times and The chained Duck“, he added on Europe 1.
“The cowardice” of the editorial staff of “Le Point”
After backpedaling the Point, the Garrido-Corbière couple had notably requested the “immediate dismissal” of Aziz Zemouri. “The harm done is indelible,” tweeted Raquel Garrido.
Antonn Rouget formalizes his support for the journalists of the editorial staff of the weekly, finding himself at the heart of this affair: “I have a sincere thought for the journalists who seriously do their job at the Point. There are some, and it is ultimately them who suffer the consequences both of the actions of certain journalists, who were known well beyond the Garrido-Corbière affair, and also of the cowardice of their own management.
Today, Rouget and Perrotin are waiting to be able to question the first interested parties. They are currently asking Etienne Gernelle for their investigation into the practices of Point.