The figures are compelling. They even make you dizzy. The Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the first since the COVID crisis, promise to be the most covered in history by the international media. The COJO announces 26.000 accredited journalists, including 6.000 for the written press.
To this contingent, we must add the reporters, photographers and technicians who were unable to obtain accreditation, but who wanted to treat the event from a less sporting angle. The City of Paris will install an unaccredited media center for them at Carreau du Temple. It could receive up to 7.000, according to estimates.
For the host cities of the Games, the Olympic and Paralympic event is both an Everest and a pole of plenty. A summit of dizzying altitude. But how and where to approach it? A unique opportunity to talk about your territory and its assets. But with what arguments and what strategy? Not easy.
Four months before the opening of the Olympic Games, the Territoires d’Evénements Sportifs (TES) association opened the file. It brought together for a day of discussions representatives of the host cities (Paris, Saint-Denis, Versailles, Lille, Marseille, etc.) and the media (France Télévisions, Radio France, Le Parisien, RTL, Le Monde). In total, around sixty people.
Objective of the seminar: to explain to the former how the latter will work before and during the Olympic and Paralympic event. And thus allow the cities most directly affected by the Games to better understand a media context that they have never experienced before, and will certainly not experience again soon.
First lesson: the Olympic Games have long gone beyond, in their size, their impact and their influence, the framework of a purely sporting event. But, once the flame is lit, sport dominates, and even overwhelms, the rest of the decor. The host cities became aware of this after listening to the presentations and testimonies of the media invited by TES: the last weeks before the opening ceremony are the best media window. Afterwards, it is often too late. The passage of the flame, in particular, offers a great opportunity.
How to benefit from it? By a strategy prepared in advance. A range of topics highlighting local initiatives linked to the Games, sports practice and Olympic values. In a word, anticipate media expectations. The main witness of the day, Laurent Eric Lelay, sports director of France Télévisions, presented the national broadcaster's system for all of the group's channels.
A golden rule: know your target. Laurie Delhostal, who came to talk about the Paris 2024 operation for Radio France, explained it: the public group will rely largely on the France Bleu network and its 44 regional stations, before and during the Games, for its coverage of the event. Same thing for France Télévisions. For host cities, anticipating on their own territory can therefore prove to be a profitable strategy.
Another course of action: identify your own resources. In the coming weeks, TES will compile Olympic and Paralympic contacts in each of the host cities in a directory intended for the French and international media. The document will notably allow foreign journalists to know the interlocutors capable of answering their questions in a language other than French.
Second lesson of the seminar: the French media will offer the host cities, through their number and their approach to the event, the best opportunities for spin-offs. Rose Blondel, the CNOSF representative, explained it: the IOC allocated 400 accreditations to France for the written press and photographers. A record number, but still insufficient: the national Olympic committee received 1.800 requests from 250 national media.
Unlike the vast majority of their foreign colleagues, French journalists will not only focus on sport once the parade of delegations on the Seine is completed on Friday July 26. Le Parisien, in particular, whose team will have more than 30 accredited people, plans to also provide local coverage, even during competitions. Same approach for RTL. The radio aims to apply one of the watchwords of the COJO Paris 2024 since the application phase: speaking to the whole of France, not just to Paris and its region. In short, cover the French Games.
