Friday 12 December 2008

Janine di Giovanni embelishes her story about France and the French with arsenic and lies

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SuperFrenchie reports a bad reporting, a case of writing in bad faith by an American French-bashing journalist, who it seems, if the Wiki blurb were to be believed, is a 'decorated' war correspondent.

I read the purported beastly article in question and true enough, Janine di Giovanni's arsenic-laced piece of journalism is an exercise in frustration and it does "take the cake for bad faith reporting."

Giovanni's piece nearly had me flummoxed. I mean, some of the garbage she said about France are just completely false. An example: zero credit card. She writes, "No one lives on credit in France because banks don’t allow overdrafts and zero percent credit cards do not exist."

Where did she get that piece of rubbish? So blatantly misleading is she that klancymiller, one of the commenters in her site, was prompted to ask quite rightly: "Where do you do your research?" and went on to point Giovanni's spins.

No one lives on credit in France and don't allow overdrafts, etc., etc.? Utter falsehood. My brother, who is a student in an Ecole de commerce in Paris, survives virtually on his credit card overdrafts. I can tell you right here and now that my parents have just (very recently matter of fact) paid off his 1500-euro overdraft after his bank threatened to do something drastic about his burgeoning debt.

Giovanni pushed her reporting too far when she wrote, “Last week Lanvin, the French couture house favored by Hollywood celebrities, gave a private sale and I stood in the midst of hysterical women clamoring for fur coats. Fur coats? In the midst of the global meltdown?”
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I Googled the Lanvin sale and found what she might have been talking about in L'Express which is a pretty reputable French weekly (by the way, I am familiar with these Faubourg-Saint Honoré soldes):

Lanvin- 40% sur le prêt-à-porter automne-hiver, les chaussures, les sacs et les ceintures sauf manteaux en fourrure et certains bijoux cristaux, colliers plastron et perles. La bonne affaire: la sublime robe longue du soir en jersey gris chiné retenue par de fines bretelles, avec sur le devant un nœud de velours noir à 925 € au lieu de 1 540 €. Ou bien, petit «must-have» de la collection, les ballerines plates à 330 € soldées 198 €. 15, rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, VIIIe. 01-44-71-33-33.

Translation of those in bold: 40% on ready to wear Fall-Winter collection, shoes, bags, belts except fur coats and some crystal jewelry, plastron and pearl necklaces. °

In other words, Lanvin fur coats were not part of the private sale, hence the women shoppers couldn't have been clamouring for fur coats in that private sale precisely because they weren't included in the private sale!

So, is Giovanni (shown right in picture) LYING?
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Well, what's clear to me is that she has embelished her story to shock and awe her readers but why did she have to make up, i.e., lie about, some of the things she was reporting on? Of course, there are more anneries in her artitcle but this is just one spin too many so I will leave it at that. Go, read it and try not to puke!
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No matter how you turn her article around, you see it dripping with disdain, contempt, scorn for the French etc. That article contains a historical record of her thoughts about the French and there's no doubt about it, she hates the French.
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Why Janine de Giovanni baise français (fucks a Frenchman) boggles the mind but maybe, just maybe, elle souffre de la malbaise! (she's fucked badly!)

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Mrs di Giovanni should leave France and go back to the states or to Italy!
Why the hell does she want her son to finish his French education if France is such a despicable country?
Next time she wants to write an article about anything, she'd better check her facts since 'The fall of France" is full of errors, not to say lies.

R Boucher (Another uneducated Frenchman who can neither unserstand nor speak a single word of English.)

annetravel said...

I was not impressed with the article. I live in the US where the super rich pay no taxes and the middle class & the poor struggles. Taxes are higher and it is hard for people to get by!. Now regarding the word entrepreneur you repeat what president Bush said when he was in power ( the French don't know the word " entrepreneurs), France has a lot of entrepreneurs , they handle it a different way!. If there is turmoil in this world, then the US has as much as France and is definitely not better off. People are not happy here because it is about the rich. Please don't be arrogant, China owns the US.