The New York Times and Le Monde: a comparison - Le Monde et le New York Times: une comparaison

The different news categories and the front page - les différentes rubriques et la Une



Brock 04/11/2006.09:45:03
"This is a simple observation, but I'll post it anyway... It seems that Le Monde is more concerned with international events, particularly European affaires, than the The New York Times. The NY Times on the other hand seems to be more concerned with domestic affaires, and not particularly concerned with events in the Americas outside the US."

JinSuk 04/11/2006.11:01:38
"Hi all, So I've been comparing the NY Times to le Monde and they are very similiar yet there are subtle differences. Acutally, the format of the NY Times online just changed last week and it was only the beginning of this year they started to charge people to read certain articles. Anyways, I wanted to say that I couldn't find a weddings and celebrations column. It was just interesting because I just read one of friends weddings online (I actually never read that column though). Would it be considered kind of selfish and self aggrandizing to announce your wedding in France? Jin Kim"

Adriana 04/11/2006.14:16:18
"I was suprised to see that the main article in Le Monde was not about France (CPE in particular), but rather about Italy. I also think it's interesting that in Le Monde, ads are labelled with "publicite"; this is not the case in the New York Times."

Josephine 04/12/2006.23:11:35
"I also noted that the Style category does not appear in Le Monde. Both journals have pages on books, movies, etc (under 'Culture' in Le Monde and 'Arts' in NY Times), but in addition to that the NY Times has 'Wine & Dining', 'Home & Garden', 'Fashion & Style' that could not be found in Le Monde. I also did not find 'Weddings & Celebrations' and obituaries in Le Monde. It seems that the NY Times allocate reviews on people's personal life at home or choice of entertainment."

Ashley 04/14/2006.09:35:25
"I was interested to see that Health and Education both appeared as categories in the New York Times, but neither appeared in Le Monde. Maybe the French aren't as obsessed with Health as Americans are (we are probably both the most health conscious and the most unhealthy people in the world), but why not Education?"

National news - l'actualité nationale


Kathryn 04/12/2006.17:43:23
"I found it interesting to note that on the front page of articles for national news in the New York Times, there was a science/technology-related article ("Seeking ancestry in DNA ties uncovered by tests"), whereas there were no science/technology-related articles in the national news in Le Monde."

Alban 04/12/2006.18:12:24
"Oui personnellement celà ne me choque pas trop, en fait la science ne fait pas vendre en France: il va peut-être te sembler que je me plains un peu mais il est vrai que des parties littérature, histoire, ou débat d'idée... vont intéresser plus de personnes. Cependant tu peux noter que dans le figaro, il y a (enfin il y avait, je ne suis plus sur maintenant) une page ou deux d'actualité scientifique tous les jours masi celà est relégué dans les dernières pages. Après outre le fait que vous soyez pour la plupart des scientifiques, est ce que vous pensez qu'une personne dans la rue va acheter un journal en voyant une grande nouvelle scientifique à la une (autre que les titres racolleurs sur les extra-terrestres)?"

Hashem 04/13/2006.00:37:54
"I found that Le Monde places a lot of focus on news related to ministers whereas the New York Times places a lot of emphasis on congressional affairs. Additionally, I felt like the news in the New York Times was more diversified (political, economic, health, society etc) than Le monde which had a lot more political news."

Lisa 04/13/2006.09:07:36
"I agree with what has been said- NYT is definitely more diverse and also talks a lot about Congress. Also, I was surprised that the news about the CPE was so far down on Le Monde's French news (right now it is #6 in order). This is surprising in the US, that has pretty much been the only thing we have heard about France recently."

Adriana 04/13/2006.21:36:35
"Hi, I found that some articles in Le Monde talked about the opinion of important figures (politicians, experts, etc), but there was no article like this in the New York Times. I think Le Monde focuses more on the people, while the New York Times focuses more on the events."

Ashley 04/14/2006.09:41:46
"It seems that not just the actual news but even the categories of topics in the New York Times and Le Monde are distinct. The recurrent themes in the New York Times articles seem to be the war in Iraq/terrorism (which have "magically," thanks to George Bush, become the same topic when they should not be...), science, and commerce. Le Monde seems to instead focus on other political events, such as elections, legislation bills (not just the CPE), and political party activity and be more homogenous."

Teodora 04/14/2006.19:48:24
"Hey, it was really interesting reading the titles of the US/France sections in each newspaper and seeing what each paper emphasised. I found that Le Monde had a lot more articles about political figures and political events than the NYT did. I felt like the NYT had a much wider range of topics. I also found it interesting that the titles in Le Monde almost always had the actual name of the person/ political figure while the titles in the NYT more described the person rather than actually giving their name. I also found it very intersting that news about the CPE basically disapeared from the headlines. It semmed that within two days almost all mention of the CPE had stopped. There was only one little line about it."

International news - l'actualité international


Hashem 04/12/2006.21:49:11
"I found an article that talks about the bombings in Pakistan. It was surprisingly hard to find an article that spoke about the same subject in both the New York Times and Le Mode. The article had a lot of similarities, which I presume can be attributed to the fact that this a topic that does not relate events that occurred in the US or France and so both paper are impartial. The death tolls were different according to the two articles and I found it interesting that Le Monde had US reaction to the bombing whereas the New York Times did not have that element. Also, on the "international" page of Le Monde, a lot of the news stories covered francophone countries and so these countries were somewhat different than those mentioned in the New York Times."

Adriana 04/13/2006.21:33:23
"Hi, I read an article about a rebel attack to the capital of Chad. I saw that Le Monde focused on two main topics: 1. the accusation that the rebels made to France, accusing it of military intervention, and 2. the accusation the president of Chad made to the president of Sudan, accusing him of aiding the rebels. On the other hand, the New York Times focused mostly on the president of Chad, Mr.Déby, and the political instability of the country. The article in Le Monde had pictures of french and chadian soldiers and the article in the New York Times had a picture of Mr. Déby. Also, the article in the New York times gave some historical background, while the article in Le Monde didn't."

Lisa 04/14/2006.11:58:09
"I too read the same articles as Adriana. It was definitely hard to find similar articles in the two papers. I noticed that the US article was more negative and sarcastic than the French article. The NYT, instead of focusing on the actual event, focused more on the president. They made it seem like he could lose control any day and actually had no extent to be president (mentioning how he gained presidency, how he changed the constitution to stay president longer, etc). They even made him seem like a liar, at one point saying that the president told the reporters the rebels were defeated, while the reporter could still hear shots in the background. Le Monde also tallked a lot about the event- like the details of the attack, how many were dead, etc. that the NYT did not cover in such detail."

Ashley 04/14/2006.15:30:46
"I read two articles about the protests in Nepal ("Young Nepalese Lead Their Nation's Push for Democracy" and "Au Népal, les promesses de réformes démocratiques du roi ne convainquent pas".) The people there have been trying to do away with the monarchy for years, but they have become even more desperate since last February, when the king got rid of the last elected officials and replaced them with his own minions. These recent protests have been going on for several days now and have resulted in violent confrontations with the police, leaving at least 4 people dead and hundreds wounded. In his New Year's address (the Nepalis follow a different calendar), the king did not directly mention the protests, but responded to them indirectly by saying that new elections would be held. The Le Monde article, interestingly, focused on the skepticism of the people with regard to the king's promises. Apparently, no one believes in his sincerity. The New York Times article did not mention anyone's criticisms or reservations about the king's remarks, but only noted that the king had set no date for the elections. The focus of the NYT article was on the lives of individual protesters they had interviewed, noting their motivations for the protests, including the political history leading up to these recent demonstrations. Both articles mentioned that the U.N. has warned the government of Nepal that the continued use of "excessive" force against the protesters might affect the U.N.'s peacekeeping missions, which the NYT article noted is a very good source of income for Nepal..."

Teodora 04/14/2006.19:42:20
"Hey, i read the same two articles as ashley. I was also very surprised at the dificulty of finding two articles that talked about the same event. Both of the international sections were very full and had articles about many different countries but they didn't seem to focus on the same events. In the two articles on nepal, the NYT and Le monde seemed to have very similar takes on the stories. Both talked about the king's address at midnight and how it did very little to reasssure the poeple. However, I agree with ashley in that the NYT focused much more on individual stories and reasons for protests while Le Monde gave a more general overview. I also found it interesting how both papers mentioned the UN reaction to the force that the police had been using. However, I felt that the NYT put more of an emphaisis on the people who had been wounded than Le monde did. Both however, gave the same number dead and the same approximation to the number wounded."