In France, is Dominique Strauss-Kahn “presumed innocent” until proven guilty? In fact, he is presumed guilty until proven innocent. Or worse, he is presumed guilty, until confirmed guilty since the French media usually expect courts to confirm their own “enlightened” judgment and can be extraordinarily vindictive when they don’t. Thus, a petition signed by thousands of journalists “condemning” the court that condemned the national French TV Channel Antenne II for broadcasting unsubstantiated allegations. This post is about the media treatment of the presumption of innocence.

Consider a driver who deliberately speeds and runs over a policeman in front of a crowd of witnesses in order to avoid being checked at a road block. The driver is described in the news as the “presumed” author of the policeman’s coma. The word “presumed” here is a language automatism, an adornment, a legal curlicue. There is not a shadow of a doubt that this driver‘s car hit the policeman. No matter how grotesque, the word “presumed” tends to be repeated in such situations “ad nauseaum.”

With DSK, we are in a situation where the presumption of innocence matters because the facts are not established. Despite various forms of lip service, this presumption is resolutely trampled. In a recent talk show about the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair, stand-up comedian Michel Boujenah expressed uneasiness about the fact that most of the journalists around him started from the premise that DSK was guilty. He reminded them that DSK had to be considered innocent until proven guilty. “Yes, yes,” said the journalists. Then they went on with their debate. To them, the presumption of innocence was an annoying contrivance, something akin to the presence of a vocal anti-racist at certain dinner parties; a presence that proves annoying since it prevents guests from cracking race jokes. The stand-up comedian reiterated his remark. He was definitely spoiling the fun. “OK,” replied one journalist, just add an “if” to everything I say. Just put my words in the conditional!” Then he resumed the discussion as if the guilt of DSK was beyond any doubt.

Ferry’s bomb

Such a contempt for the presumption of innocence serves as a background for a “public-sphere-bomb” that has just been thrown in the ongoing debate about Dominique Strauss-Kahn by the philosopher and former Minister of Education Luc Ferry.

In another talk-show watched by millions, Luc Ferry denounced a striking example of the silence observed by the French media when it comes to high political personnel, a silence that is now fashionably described as akin to Omertà, Ferry noted that no French newspaper had reported on the fact that one former French minister had been caught with young boys in a pedophilic party in Marrakesh, Morocco. Ferry added he had no proof of what he asserted. He also stated that had learned of such a scandal from a reliable source, a top-level government member whose name he did not provide.

The first and obvious response to this statement consists in seeing Ferry’s disclosure as detestable. Ferry might have spoken out of personal antagonism, out of spite, or as a form of revenge. Or, in compliance with the current mood among the members of the French journalistic establishment, Ferry would be combating the risk of Omertà by starting an inquisitorial process through an act of denunciation. If such a scenario were correct, I would unhesitatingly condemn Ferry. I know that any accused former minister could be identified in a matter of minutes. I also know that his life would be destroyed, whether the allegation is true or false. Submitted to an almost unanimous barrage of critiques, Ferry would also be required to justify his assertions in court.

Yet, this scenario does not seem convincing to me. Not only would I like to give the philosopher the benefit of the doubt, but, I have serious doubts about the meaning of his disclosure. Ferry’s carefully worded disclosure looks as if it had been supervised by a team of lawyers. Ferry does not give a name for the supposed pedophile. The high official he describes as his source remains anonymous. He insists that he has no evidence and no proof of what happened in Marrakesh. In other terms, Luc Ferry has entirely staged his public appearance as that of a rumor-mongerer. No name, no source, no proof. What game is he playing?

A fiction and a breakfast

I propose that Ferry’s “disclosure” could be a pedagogical exercise: a demonstration by a philosopher of the way the media routinely takes short-cuts and obstructs the process of justice. Ferry provides all the elements of a tragically recurring scenario. Here is a rumor without proof; a source that is not disclosed, an innuendo that precludes any possibility of refutation. In a way, Ferry’s charade expresses in a polemical form the uneasiness of the stand-up comedian.

Of course, this is my reading of Ferry’s gesture. Ferry has become a character in a story of fiction I am making up. But perhaps my fiction is not so far-fetched. Let me spell out what this fiction means. It means answering spectacle with spectacle. It means answering media traps with other media traps. It means holding in front of the media the irresistible bait of an unproven scandal. It means turning the table on a new form of inquisition that passes itself as journalism. It means pointing to the emperor’s new clothes. Ferry is using his clout as a minister and his prestige as a philosopher to hold a mirror to the French media. “You think what I just did is disgusting? How come you do it everyday? How come you do it right now?” Ferry is starting a guerrilla war. Humor can turn into a weapon. Let me conclude by appropriating an old joke.

Ferry enters a breakfast room and calls the waiter.

Ferry: “Please give me a cup of coffee, but tepid; two rolls, but stale; please also bring me a watery omelet and burned toast. Oh, and could you manage to be very, very slow?”

Waiter: “But, sir, how can you ask that? We have no such things in this hotel!”

Ferry: Oh really? Why then do you serve them everyday?”

From Flower Wreaths to Live Behabitives

Presidential gestures are often boring. Presidents must carry flower wreaths, listen to anthems, hoist flags, light eternal flames.  In J.L. Austin’s terms, one could say that these routine tasks enact  the “behabitive dimension.”  This gestural dimension is steadily growing. It also is changing by becoming less routine, even risky.

Today’s gestures are meant to respond to unexpected situations. They take place in real time. There is nothing routine when Bush responds poorly to Katrina victims, or when Sarkozy calls young people who insult him “scumbags” (racailles).  Of course, presidential jobs still consist of what Austin would call “exercitives.” Yet, the “exercitives,” speech acts making decisions such as orders and grants, increasingly give way to a vast array of “behabitives” such as offering condolences, “apologizing,” asking forgiveness, dissociating from, displaying solidarity .

Why the Importance of Behabitives?  The Question of Visibility

While at the heart of governmental action, processes of deliberation, moments of decision are not really visible. They only become visible through announcements, or, much later, through their results. Yet the multiplicity and variety of media available allow for an almost continuous visibility of the political personnel.This visibility is expected to consist in presentations of self, which are anticipated, deliberately performed and controlled by those who choose to appear in public.

This visibility also consists in situations where those who “appear in public” lose  control over their appearances.  Suddenly thrown in the public eye, political actors are submitted to impromptu ordeals, and lightning judgments. Their “behabitives” are recorded by the media.  Often, they are provoked behaviors.

Politics, Reality Shows and the Question of Reactivity

Take the case of an Iraqi journalist taking his shoe off and throwing it at George Bush.  This is, of course, an insult.  But, there is more.   The flying shoe begs for a reaction. How will the President react? Will he throw back his own shoe?  Will he maintain his composure and ignore the insult?  Will he duck to avoid the shoe, or get it in the face?

One of the first things actors learn is that knowing the part, acting according to script, is just a beginning.  An actor is expected to constantly take notice of the performance of other actors; to respond to their performance, no matter how unexpected or disconcerting. Reacting is often more important than acting.  Crucially, my central point, this is particularly true of today’s politics.

Political rhetoric used to be dominated by the model of the “speech” (parliaments). Then came the interview (radio); then came the “media-event” (television).   Today, a new type of political dramaturgy has emerged. It resembles reality-TV.

Ordeal Journalism

Like candidates for a reality show, political actors are meant to be assessed, judged, chosen or dumped on the basis of unexpected ordeals.  Like these candidates, they will be assessed on the basis of a spontaneous reactivity.  Reacting has moved to the center of the political stage.  Unlike the producers of reality shows, the media are usually not in charge of scripting the ordeals. Yet they have the choice of endorsing them by broadcasting them, or not.

When they do – which is often – one can speak of “ordeal journalism.” Ordeal journalism does not merely concern political personnel.  Sometimes the ordeal is that of a whole state. Think of the Turkish flotilla sailing towards Gaza to challenge the Israeli blockade.   In terms of visibility, Israel cannot avoid reacting to the publicized challenge.  Either it does nothing, and this will be read as gesture of giving up, of condoning the “fait accompli,” or it does something, and this will be read as a gesture of insensitivity, and perhaps of cruelty.  Whether it is one or the other, Israeli behavior becomes a gesture. The ship challenging the blockade, the “Mavi Marmara,” carries a geopolitical reality show. It is a floating television studio.

As opposed to “investigative journalism,” which confers retrospective visibility, revealing the obscure face of well known situations, “ordeal journalism” triggers unexpected forms of visibility.

The WikiLeaks episode participates in both.  On the one hand, it discloses, unveils, unmasks, or means to. On the other hand, it sets up an ordeal situation that makes it impossible for the U.S. not to respond, since both action and inaction will be read as meaningful gestures.  The leaks constitute a dramaturgic performance.  Answering or not answering this performance is also a dramaturgic performance.  Not answering means condoning.  As put by The Economist on December, 11, 2010: “Calibrating the response raises questions of principle, practice and priority… The big danger is that America is provoked into bending or breaking its own rules…” Doing so would, of course, allow WikiLeaks  to implement  a self fulfilling prophecy.

Hostile Visibility: The Destroyers of Front Regions

The public sphere of gesturing has now developed its own rituals and mythologies. On the ritual side, “ordeal journalism” proposes a dramaturgy of losing face.  On the mythological side, the gestures of “unveiling,” of “outing,” of “exposing,” characterize a new type of hero: the investigative Parsifal.  Both “ordeal journalism” and “investigative journalism” are conceived as attacks on what Goffman called the “front region.”

The front region is the main casualty of “ordeal journalism.”  It is also the main target of an “investigative journalism” that thrives on the trope of unveiling (as demonstrated in Rafael Narvaez’s post yesterday).  Investigative journalism is essentially based on what Barthes used to call “the hermeneutic code.”  Appearances are lies. Official narratives are alibis; Thus, Le Monde no longer speaks of “investigation,” but of “counter-investigation” (contr’enquêtes).  Instead of “analyses,” it offers “decipherings” (décryptages).  A paranoid universe that used to be found in thrillers (Robert Ludlum, Dan Brown) has migrated to elite newspapers.

Of course, what is revealed is sometimes substantial.  Yet, the alleged scandal may involve no more than the mere gesture of pointing to a scandal.  If reality is measured by consequences, crying wolf is a relatively efficient way of constructing reality.  One step further, pointing to a scandal is not even required.  All you need is the mere gesture of pointing. Thus a news-segment on an international meeting in which a journalist decides to film Sarkozy’s and Obama’s back. This discloses, the futile attempts by, the ordeal of the shorter man, to gain a few centimetres by standing on his toes; his futile yearning for a front region.

This is the first of a series of posts by Daniel Dayan exploring the significance of WikiLeaks.

Is WikiLeaks a form of spying? Transferring information to an alien power can induce harm. This is why spying constitutes a crime. In the case of WikiLeaks, the transfer concerns hundreds thousands of documents.  The recipients include hundreds of countries, some of which are openly hostile. In a way WikiLeaks is a gigantic spying operation with a gigantic  number of potential users. Yet, is it really “spying?”

Spying (in its classical form ) involves a specific sponsor in need of specific information to be used for a specific purpose, and obtained from an invisible provider.  WikiLeaks “spies” eagerly seek to be identified (Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder and editor in chief,  has been voted Le Monde’s “man of the year”). Information covers every possible domain, and there is no privileged recipient. Anyone qualifies as a potential beneficiary of Wiki-largesses and most of those who gain access to the leaked information have no use for it. Spying has become a stage performance.

On 9/11 a group of Latin American architects hailed the destruction of The Twin Towers as a sublime event. The pleasure of seeing Rome burning had been made available for the man of the street. It was –suggested the builders – a democratization of Neronism.  In a way, WikiLeaks, could also be described as a democratization of spying.  It offers a form of  “public spying.” Distinct from mere spying (a pragmatic activity), it proposes “spying as a gesture.”  This gesture concerns other gestures. What WikiLeaks discloses is less (already available) facts than the tone in which they are expressed.

Content or gestures?

If the Assange leaks reveal nothing that we did not know already, what counts is less their  propositional content than the enacted speech acts.  The vocabulary of WikiLeaks gestures starts with the noble gestures of war.  Many commentators tell the WikiLeaks saga in military terms. For the Umberto Eco, it is a“ blow:” “To think that a mere hacker could access the best kept secrets  of the world’s most powerful states is in fact a considerable blow to the state department.”  For David Brooks it is a declaration of war: “the group celebrated the release of internal State Department documents with a triumphalist statement claiming that the documents expose the corruption, hypocrisy and venality of U.S. diplomats.”

The journalism of investigation, the journalism of  disclosure, and the journalism of intrusion

By inflicting enforced visibility, WikiLeaks adopts a family of gestures that characterize contemporary trends in journalism.  In a way WikiLeaks is “investigative journalism” pushed one step further. Yet “investigative journalism” is a misnomer, since, in principle, every sort of journalism should involve investigation.  If sources and facts were not checked, journalism would be no more than gossip or propaganda.  The real name for what is usually called “the journalism of investigation” should be the “journalism of disclosure.”  In a way, then, WikiLeaks “enforced visibility” is a new step in the journalism of disclosure.

Like a journalism of disclosure, it displays a paradoxical virtue. WikiLeaks can cause a scandal without revealing anything new.  The journalism of disclosure, can astonishingly survive without disclosing anything at all. At that point it turns into a journalism of mere intrusion. “Intrusive journalism” may wish to become a journalism of investigation, a journalism of denunciation. Yet, the process fails because the offered revelation just doesn’t occur. What is left, is the trappings of denunciation; the denouncing gesture without an actual content.

Thus Michael Moore bursts into the building of a large corporation, finds no one to challenge, and harangues a closed door.  Or, to take a French example, Sarkozy is being filmed, without knowing it while he awaits the beginning of an interview to be aired  on channel FR 3. Sarkozy is waiting for his turn to get on the air; he exchanges small talk with people around him, muses about new subjects for TV shows.  The video is mildly boring. Apart from its intrusive nature (and the dogma of Sarkozy’s detestability), it reveals nothing of interest. All it has to offer is the gesture of filming someone who is not aware of being filmed.  Yet the video turns into a trophy circulating on websites.   It reveals nothing about Sarkozy, but says a lot about  the use of visibility, about a new form of “surveillance” that denies the president the right to a “back region.”  All it really displays is its own intrusive nature.  What is mostly interesting about this example of “intrusive journalism,” is that it is has provoked heated controversies, and turned the cameraman who recorded the non-event into a hero. Like Assange, this hero is a crusader for  a new visibility ( which I plan to address in future posts), a “transparentizer.”