Euro­pean jour­nal­ists are not part of the deci­sion mak­ing process of the Euro­pean Union. They work to explain Euro­pean affairs and they try to dig into Euro­pean con­struc­tion, but they are not as close to the Euro­pean deci­sions as it is often said. They have no impact on those deci­sions and they do not spend hol­i­days with José Manuel Bar­roso or Jerzy Buzek.

Sure, they are spe­cial­ists in Euro­pean affairs so they know a lot about Europe. They spend time in Brus­sels or Stras­bourg. And they try to make things as easy to under­stand as pos­si­ble for com­mon peo­ple. When Jean-Sébastien Lefeb­vre writes an arti­cle, he tries to assess whether his mother would under­stand it; because he is too close to Euro­pean affairs to be sure that his arti­cle is under­stand­able enough for people.

Fur­ther­more, as you have Euro­pean jour­nal­ists, you also have sport spe­cial­ists or spe­cial­ists on polit­i­cal affairs and those are not told they go on hol­i­days with Lionel Messi or Barack Obama.

Euro­pean jour­nal­ists know the Euro­pean lan­guage, which peo­ple find so dif­fi­cult to under­stand. But they need to explain the Euro­pean issues in an eas­ier way in order to let every­body under­stand Europe.

Read the full arti­cle in French here.

Related posts:

1. Euro­pean jour­nal­ist? Why?
2. Anne Del­vaux: “Jour­nal­ists must put Euro­pean affairs on the agenda”
3. Why do they study Euro­pean jour­nal­ism? ‘We are all con­cerned by Euro­pean matters’
4. Euro­pean jour­nal­ists fight for statute and revaluation
5. How to recon­nect jour­nal­ists to Strasbourg?