Alexandra Renard
The journalist who wanted to be of service

At what point did you first decide to become a journalist? 

I chose to become a journalist at the age of 12, without really knowing why; there were no journalists in my circle of friends and family. Indeed, I hesitated whether to become a teacher, a judge, or a lawyer. All these professions share certain similarities: I was driven by a desire to be useful in some way and to pass something on. However, journalism, which went on to become the obvious choice, appealed to me most, since you get to meet people and, at the time, I believed somewhat naively, that the image and interviews could allow the truth to get out there. As I grew up, I came to understand that the choice of frame, angle, and timing of when to shoot a photo can tell any story you want it to. Life also had a hand in deciding my career path for me. At the age of 12, my mother landed me a work placement at Presse Ocean, a daily local newspaper in the Loire-Atlantique region of France – back then I lived in Les Sables-d’Olonne. During this internship, I was involved in the drafting of articles, going out into the field, and taking photos. This helped to confirm my career choice.  

So, you also developed a passion for filming very early on. 

At the age of 14, during a secondary school internship, I covered the start of the Vendée Globe for Ouest France. At 3a.m, there I was on the largest sailboat, with an incredible wave swell… and it was here that I got to experience a whole other side to this profession: the explorer side. I told myself this truly was what I wanted to do. For this report, I did a write-up and took pictures. Shortly after, whilst conducting research at a documentation and information centre, I learned all about the job of video journalist (VJ). This proved to be a revelation as, thanks to video and sound, I kept thinking this was the closest you could ever get to the truth when out in the field. And yet, I couldn’t see myself enrolling at one of France’s top higher education institutions of journalism, often based in Paris. This seemed out of reach for me, both academically and geographically speaking. I come from a small town, with parents who started work at a young age. And I’m a girl. In our society, all this often leads to the underestimation of one’s abilities.  

I decided to take another route in, through internships and by being self-taught. So, after finishing secondary school, I headed stateside for a year, on an exchange programme. My hosts were retired folk from Minnesota and they decided to take me out of school for a month – I had to enrol at a high school – and take me on road trips across the country. We went on to do this at weekends and during the holidays. In one year, we had driven across some 40 states, it was simply awesome! At times I filmed the places we visited, meeting journalists where we stopped off and I followed their news coverage. My aim was to become bilingual and to travel. Mission accomplished on both fronts.  

When you came back to France, did you pursue higher education? 

Yes, I enrolled on the Applied Foreign Languages (LEA) degree course at the University of Nantes. My chosen languages were German and English. I also studied international law which proved useful to me further down the line. In parallel, I continued to gain further work experience. Specifically, I was taken on by M6 Nantes, where I discovered short-form reporting and was taught how to handle a film camera. My weekends were spent alongside a video journalist who shared their knowledge and expertise with me. I have encountered many guardian angels along the way and these M6 journalists form part of this group. 

I pursued my studies in Applied Foreign Languages to a master’s degree level and it became clear that not having been to journalism school was proving a barrier to my getting hired by a media company.  It was at this point that I opted to enrol on a Master 1 at Audencia SciencesCom, a school allowing me to quickly be operational, to become resilient since we worked hard, – we got to the heart of issues and had to perform well across the board even though we had the right to make mistakes -, and meet some exceptional people. The guest speakers were second to none: I have in mind Bertrand Coq, who was editor-in-chief at France 24, and namely Roland Faure, the founder of France Info. In the space of an hour, I had learned a great deal about the profession. I recall both his professionalism and his generosity. Speaking to the students, he gave his absolute all. A further advantage of the school: it is open all hours. We could go along any hour of the day or night and this proved a great learning experience for the rest of my career. Indeed, at France 24, it is just the same. Finally, the school had set up personal development sessions, fostering open discussions during role-playing activities. Useful exercises to get you out of your comfort zone.  

In fact, the school was instrumental in helping you land your first job as a journalist at the French news channel I-Télévision. 

Yes, not yet graduated from my Master 2, on the polyvalence of journalism, after sending my CV and cover letter in, I landed a fixed-term contract for a period of nine months at I-Télé in Lille. That was back in the year 2000. With I-Télé, you are thrown in at the deep end since you do it all: preparing the reports, the writing, the interviews, the editing, live transmission and so forth. Being based in Lille, I covered the national news items as well as international stories, with reports from England, Belgium, and Luxembourg, etc. After I-Télé, I was hired by M6, still working as a video journalist; for them, it was a case of guaranteed productivity as I could do it all. I was based in Grenoble. I worked there for a year and a half, since I later joined my partner in Paris. I went freelance, working for major media outlets, such as France 2, CNN, the BBC and more. At the time, women video journalists were few and far between but I was lucky. I met the right people at the right time. Besides, when you have a goal, you need to believe in it and cast your fears aside! So, I followed up with a series of jobs until I was eventually hired by France 24 in 2006, the year it was founded, as a senior video journalist. Fast forward five years and I became a special correspondent– I feel just as comfortable in front of the camera as I do behind it. 

At a certain point in your career, you became the presenter of France 24’s tv news programme. Was this a deliberate choice on your behalf? 

Not at all. It so happens that all of that carrying the camera around and wearing outdated bulletproof vests caused me to suffer from severe neck pain, which also impacted on my arm. I was forced to stop reporting for a few months and the management team offered me the job of presenting the news. In my book, this isn’t journalism, since you are merely relaying things you haven’t experienced first hand. However, I did manage to use my expertise and in-field experience to enrich my newscast launches and interviews. Yet, my vocation is being a special correspondent. This became apparent during a news item in Mauritania, where I was covering a music festival. During the night we learned that an attack had just taken place in the heart of the capital. It was the country’s first major attack. I headed over to the scene with another journalist and his fixer without fully taking stock of the danger I was in. However, the journalist’s instinct, a must-have for all special correspondents, kicked in automatically: to take cover first before filming, for instance. I remained in the same spot for a long time, I conducted a painstaking investigation and returned with a great deal of material. This subject got my foot in the stirrup. Following this, in the newsroom, I was identified as a war correspondent. To be precise, this includes conflicts, but also natural disasters, uprisings, attacks, and pandemics, etc. Anything considered high risk. You can be called to take off anywhere, at any time. And when you get to know a particular country well, you regularly return to cover the political news there for example. 

Which news stories have made the biggest impression on you? 

It is hard to choose one of my news reports over another since I put my heart and soul into them all. It’s fair to say that my assignments in Libya and Syria have proved the most challenging. This included incoming mortar shelling falling all around us and constantly having to dodge sniper fire. I distinctly recall one day, during filming on the front line, when a fellow worker was advancing in my footsteps. He clocked the mine wire along the corner of the wall we were hiding behind as we plucked up the courage to take the plunge. We had to sprint across an open yard with all our might and avoid being hit by the snipers. Just as I decided to go for it, he held me back by pulling on the strap of my bulletproof vest. That day, I was so close to treading on a mine… It’s at times like these that you’re not fearful as such but on constant red alert. Moreover, at France 24, we receive military training for this type of terrain: we have a first-aid kit, we know how to apply a tourniquet to ourself or a fellow worker, we know how to spot mines, we learn to be autonomous, etc. Yet, despite all these precautions, we know when we leave but we never know when we will return. I was stuck in Libya for 26 days, a country where journalists had long been banned from working and where I found myself working undercover, with no way out. But these moments are also very poignant as you tell yourself that, for the first time in a long time, having journalists on the ground will finally allow us to say things no one has said before. Another recollection: in Burma, with my colleague, where we pretended to be tourists. We were filming with a camera purchased at the airport on which we’d stuck some Mickey Mouse stickers. We made our way by canoe to the filming locations for our report: where monks targeted by the junta were in hiding. In conflict zones, the relations forged with people get very intense ’cause you never know if you’ll see one another the following day. It is a regular thing that people you deal with lose their life: particularly civilians defending their country. 

You have travelled to some 70 countries in all, around fifty of which you have been to as part of your job. What would you say are the key takeaways? 

My personal observation is that a journalist is not as useful as I would have hoped. Even if during my career, several of my reports have had a real impact on people’s lives. Indeed, I have in mind a couple who were about to adopt a child from Mali; they had the approval and everything was in order… Yet, a regime change in Mali, then at war, put a stop to proceedings. Several French families were facing the same situation. I covered this issue in one of my reports, from the side of the parents waiting for a child in France and in the Mali orphanages where the children were starving to death, and this got things moving. Another example: following an earthquake in Nepal, together with a group of journalists, we managed to reach a place which was a no-go area for the rescue services. While filming on the rubble, we heard voices from below. On viewing our report, they saw that the location was indeed accessible and they arrived to help the population. Then there are times when you feel of no use at all, where our impact is limited. I have never covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, this has been on the TV news since I was old enough to start watching, and nothing ever changes. Quite the opposite. Keeping people informed is vital but it doesn’t resolve everything. News may or may not lead to action being taken. The decision remains in the political realm and is often geopolitical.  

We sense that you really want to be of service.  

Yes, I would like to serve a purpose much more often than I do. Now, you’ll find lots of ego in television… I wonder too about journalism itself. My wish, is to rouse minds, to bring about a change in mentalities, to make people want to act, to contribute towards raising awareness on certain issues… The more we speak about issues, the more we raise people’s awareness, and the more likely it is that things will improve. I travel less now, but I put forward more subjects that I carry close to my heart, issues I’m interested in such as invisible disabilities, drinking water under threat of being contaminated by pesticides, etc. I have this fire in my belly, akin to a doctor of the soul. This comes across in my reporting, that I work a lot on in both structure and content, in my role as a lecturer and educator which enable me to share my expertise with others. 

Could you tell us a little more about your role as a pedagogue? 

Every year, I take part in press week. Educational institutions invite me in to give talks at high schools where I raise awareness amongst young people on the issue of fake news. I enable them to spot it and share with them the tools they need to think and act for themselves. For journalists are not in possession of THE truth. Everyone is at liberty to check a piece of information. Today, I would like to devote myself entirely to this audience – to these French youngsters, as well as the young people living in remote corners since France 24 is accessible right across the globe – by developing a news channel specifically with them in mind, France 24 junior. My idea, is to address young people before their connection with the news deteriorates and they remain susceptible to fake news. I wish to give them the keys to understanding the news, to open them up to the world, to show them the way people live elsewhere, and provide them with appropriate information. I am also a professor at the Sciences Po School of Journalism. In the main, I teach them about television reporting and how to prepare to cover war zones whilst keeping risks to an absolute minimum: by constantly moving from house to house, to look before you leap, to find the right fixers, to sleep, eat, and drink when you get chance. At all times, this constitutes the winning trio wherever you find yourself and is the key to optimal working and keeping a sharp mind.  

But jobwise, you no longer wish to be a war correspondent? 

When I started out as a war correspondent in 2011, I was always heading out. Each morning, I would wake up not knowing where I would be heading next. This puts your head in a spin as all the hotels look alike, you are working in emergency mode, rather like firefighters of the news, and you can very quickly lose yourself… And the more reporting I did, the closer I was to death; I lost one of my fixers and some colleagues and people I had filmed… One day, I came to realise that my family were afraid for me all the time. My body finally said stop when I had issues with my neck. As of 2013, I headed out less often, I prioritised more my private life and my family, and today I am much more reasonable. I think twice before accepting a news report. I am also mother to a little 15-month-old girl whom I breastfeed, and she is my greatest mission in life. It’s worth noting that the risks have increased: there’s a target on our back, we can be sold, taken hostage, or raped, and the pay is just the same.