College of Liberal Arts
cla@umn.edu
612-624-9839

Getting to the Source of the Matter

When the time came to choose the topic for my French studies major research thesis, I knew I wanted somehow to incorporate my other lifelong passion: journalism. Inspired by my media law courses, I chose do a comparative analysis on French and American press law.

It is an interesting time for the latter, as members of the U.S. press fight for a federal shield law to protect journalists from having to name their sources in open court. Not all journalists are in favor of such a law, however, because it would require defining who a journalist is, introducing an additional and potentially undemocratic degree of government control over the journalism profession.

My initial research surprised me. I discovered that France already affords its journalists a degree of immunity from revealing their sources. But as I dug deeper and learned more about the nature of French journalism, I found a real lack of investigative reporting in the French press, especially when compared to what is found in American newspapers. It seemed paradoxical that French journalists were allowed more protection than their American counterparts. If French journalists didn’t do the kind of reporting that requires the use of anonymous sources, why would they go to great lengths to have secured their right to use them without government interference?

This question drove me to explore the historical, economic, political, literary, and linguistic reasons why investigative reporting never gained footing in France, and I attempted to explain why the French have nonetheless given their reporters more protection. I discovered that French journalists have an extremely close relationship with their sources—so much so that they are more likely to get information off the record than on, even on run-of-the-mill budget stories. Therefore, it’s really in those officials’ best interest that reporters be allowed to keep their sources secret.

You, too, can translate ancient documents!

University of Minnesota researchers are employing technology and the discerning eyes of tens of thousands of volunteers around the world to decipher ancient texts. Learn more

Find CLA Experts on Topics in These Stories

Related Courses

Can you say "Internet" in Ojibwe?

The new online Ojibwe People's Dictionary, created by the Department of American Indian Studies and the Minnesota Historical Society, sets a world standard for how indigenous languages will be preserved in the future.
Continue reading...

40 years old and getting better

Emerging 40 years ago during the Civil Rights Movement, the Department of Chicano Studies was a manifestation of the nation's 20th-century struggle to end racism, sexism, homophobia, and other inequalities. Continue reading...

What got lost along the way

Economics—it's more than elegant mathematical models. The early economists understood that their discipline was "about understanding human problems and providing ideas to address those problems.... This is something that was lost along the way." Continue reading...

A handbook for peace?

"Stopping the madness" and improving intercultural relations have been the aims of Rosita Albert, an associate professor in CLA's Department of Communication Studies who leads the University's pioneering Intercultural Communication program. Continue reading...

Detectives in the dirt

Twelve undergraduates spent the summer at an archeology field school in Hastings. The first school of its kind near the Twin Cities, it's organized by Department of Anthropology Assistant Professor Gilliane Monnier and Ed Fleming (Ph.D. '09), the curator of archeology at the Science Museum of Minnesota. Continue reading...