The News: Angers, France (BB)

 For this blog post, I focused mainly on national news outlets, with a greater focus on articles posted on the internet. This was more of a personal choice, as there are newspapers available around town. Most if not all of the newspapers that are available in town cost at least a few Euro, so I turned to the web to receive the sames news for free. I also did not really watch the news on television because I did not have the time in my schedule. The news tends to be on around the same time I eat dinner with my host family, around seven at night, so it was not really a practical choice for me.

I looked at three different newspapers for my blog post. The first was Le Monde, a French newspaper published in French. I also looked at a paper called The Local, which is a French newspaper published in English. The third paper I looked at was actually just the French version of the Huffington Post, Le Huffington Post in French.

With Le Monde and The Local, I have noticed that much of the high profile news is very similar to what would be posted in an American newspaper. Public safety is a big issue in France, especially after the Paris attacks several months ago. One article that I read on The Local discussed that it is likely that security guards in high traffic areas like concert halls and tourist locations will soon be permitted to carry guns. Reading this, I was actually surprised that security guards in most places were not armed already. I think that I was so surprised by this because of how lax gun laws are in the United States, and I think that this article highlights an interesting contrast between life in France and life in the United States. This same article was also posted between two other articles about emergency situations that occurred in France, one dealing with an armed man attempting to force his way onto a public train, and the other about an American student being assaulted on public transportation in the middle of the day.

I found the article about the American student's attack to be handled in an interesting way because I only saw one mention of it on The Local. I found myself wondering if it was making headlines in the United States, because it seems like any time an American college student has any sort of issue abroad, it makes the news back home. I searched for the story on Google and found that more American papers had published piece on it that I had seen in French papers. I also found the issue of immigration to be handled very differently in French newspapers when compared with what I am used to seeing in American papers. Refugees and immigration are both hot button issues in France and the United States, but France seems to focus more on the issue and less on what certain politicians have to say on the matter. I found more information of substance in French articles addressing these issues whereas I am used to American papers using the issue to play a game of “He said, She said” by quoting politicians.

While I have occasionally skimmed through French newspapers before this assignment, I found the way French publications handle news to be interesting and different from what I have experienced with American newspapers. I can definitely see myself continuing to follow the news while I am here. I feel that the United State and France both cover similar stories in their newspapers, each country has a very different way of reporting the information. French papers seem to give more factual information whereas I feel that American news tends to thrive on drama and shocking quotes from public figures.