Students

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If names could predict a profession, Erwin Canard, journalist, would be the perfect embodiment. This young journalist at AEF Info (a media outlet specialising in education) boasts his unique surname on his Twitter account and on his former freelance blog, soberly entitled "Le Canard de l'Education". A sense of humour and good humour, attested to by one of his friends who describes him as "a joker, very funny". A temperament that may have helped him cope with the tragic events that plunged the world of education into mourning in October 2023 and 2020. The deaths of Dominique Bernard and Samuel Patty, teachers murdered by religious extremists, which Erwin had to cover for his media, left a deep impression on him. Gathering the testimonies of those involved "the anguish, the sadness, the fear... it was very hard", he confides.

When the personality questions come up during the interview, a silence and then a chuckle escape from the phone. You can tell there's an awkwardness that Erwin's best friend, Eddy, confirms: "He doesn't really like talking about himself. But once you've managed to break through his shell, he's someone who always has something to say, who takes care of others [...] it's good to have him around". Erwin Canard, now 34 years old, has no problem talking about the origins of his vocation as a journalist, a profession he has been considering since he was a child. An initial short article about his football club in the local weekly Le Patriote Beaujolais in Villefranche-sur-Saône, during his third-year work placement, confirmed his desire to become a sports journalist. A sportsman as a child, he also wanted to be a professional footballer, but he admits, laughing, that he soon realised that "his abilities weren't going to allow it". But his dream was not entirely dashed, as he ended up captaining of the EJCM (now EJCAM) football team in 2012, during his second year of the master's degree in journalism.

Before joining the Marseille-based school in 2010, Erwin did a degree in political science in Lyon. In his own words, it was an experience that "politicised" him, even though he was perhaps already a little politicised at home. "I come from a working class background and my family were quite keen to defend the working class, the poorest people". His interest in politics gradually outstripped his interest in sport. This transition also took place during his Masters at EJCAM, where in his first year he did a placement in the communications department of Olympique Lyonnais. "We were encouraged to do a placement in communications to see how things worked and who we'd be dealing with during our careers" he explains. At the end of his Master's degree, he took up an internship at L'Humanité in May 2012. The presidential election in particular gave him a great deal of responsibility: "It was great, I did some big articles that my trainee status shouldn't have allowed me to do", he recalls.

Originally from the north of Lyon, Erwin has fond memories of his life in Marseille and his training at EJCAM. He was more impressed by the practical courses than the theory: "I really loved radio, I did a special radio course, and I have fond memories of the quality of the courses and the speakers. On the other hand, I hated TV, both in front of and behind the camera, I found it very difficult technically". After school, it wasn't in TV or radio that Erwin pursued his career, but in the print and web media. This makes sense for someone who spends a great deal of his spare time - apart from hiking in the fresh air or visiting Parisian exhibitions - writing and, above all, reading. According to his friend Eddy, he knows Victor Hugo's bibliography "almost by heart".

When he left school, he had a "traumatic experience" working for nine months in the news department of Le Progrès in Lyon, "it wasn't for me, doing the rounds every morning gave me a lot of anxiety". It even led him to turn down a permanent contract. He then went freelance and chose a speciality to make a name for himself: education. It was a strategy that paid off, as small specialist magazines quickly put their trust in him, and opened the doors to large editorial offices such as L'Etudiant and Le Monde. "It was a very fulfilling time professionally, but financially it was complicated," he admits.

After three years of freelance work, he finally signed a permanent contract in 2018 in Paris with AEF, a news agency for professionals, where he still thrives today. This is a media company whose first subscriber, the Ministry of Education, is also its first contact. This is a particularity that Erwin keeps in mind, even though he says he "never shies away from writing critical articles" about the Ministry. It's a job that's not so far removed from the politics that made him such a dreamer: "It's very political, with the reform aspect of national education. I talk to the main players in this field, to people in high places, it's very interesting. What he misses: "reporting from the field with 'normal' people. As the media is aimed at decision-makers, we only get the decision-makers to talk. We'd gain a lot by getting everyone to talk".

Eléonore Richard

Photo credit: Maxime Montabord

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"After a preparatory school in the literary section, I naturally headed for the Info-Communication degree offered by EJCAM in Aix-en-Provence, with the ambition of becoming a journalist. This year was a rich learning experience, as I discovered the world of the media and advertising, all the more so with the end-of-year internship I chose to do at the local Marseilles office of the newspaper La Provence.

Following this experience, I moved on to Made in Marseille, the region's leading pure player, where I was in charge of articles, videos and social networks. I then returned to La Provence, where I'm now an editor.

What I remember most about my time at EJCAM was the dynamic impetus provided by some of the teachers, who didn't hesitate to get us to go off the beaten track and work on our creative side. That still helps me every day.

Crédit photo : Frédéric Speich

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Solène Leroux: "Since the beginning, I've taken the side roads", is the title of the portrait created by Manoa Debande, a Master degree journalism/alternance 1st year student, as part of the course taught by David Courbet, Journalist - AFP Editor at the Marseille office.
Since September 2023, Solène Leroux has been working for the "RMC s'engage avec vous". Portrait of a determined journalist who has been in love with radio since she was a child.

"If someone had told me a year ago that I would be working at RMC, I would have laughed. And yet, here Solène Leroux is, five days a week since September, in the offices of RMC.
The journalist works for "RMC s'engage avec vous". Every morning at 6:30, the journalist highlights a problem encountered by listeners, and Solène Leroux finds solutions. "It's a long-term project, which is quite rare in the audiovisual media", she admits.
 

Behind the three-minute on-air chronicle lies a great deal of investigative work. "Listeners contact us to present their personal problems, or they present themselves as alert launcher. We select the stories, make in-depth enquiries, get in touch with them, and set up the filming and editing," she explains. "Not forgetting the work on the contradictory statements, the file we build on the case. At the very least, it lasts a week, but I've been known to stay on a case for a month."
 

This was the case for his investigation into the evangelical church Assemblée chrétienne pour l'évangélisation et le réveil (ACER), his "greatest pride". This work enabled her to uncover the testimonies of former members of the congregation who spoke of sectarian aberrations, and thus to reveal these facts to Miviludes, the state body responsible for combating sects, which subsequently brought the case to court.

A PRIVILEGED RELATIONSHIP WITH THE AUDIENCE

It's a long-term job, but one that is proving highly stimulating for this journalist from Palaiseau, in the Essonne region. Her top priority? Contact with listeners, whom she meets every day alongside Amélie Rosique, who is none other than her former teacher at the Marseille School of Journalism and communication.
 

"I know people who have given up journalism because, generally speaking, there's a loss of meaning. I don't have that feeling, because I'm in contact with listeners, I can see directly the impact of my work on their daily lives and, in a way, I'm fighting for them, to solve their problems." As she points out, it's quite unusual, in a national media outlet, to enjoy such proximity with the public.
But there's something else. Something to do with her temperament. A self-described conscientious person, she doesn't "do things by halves", and certainly not by chance. In the two years since leaving school, she has plunged headlong into
 

RADIO, HER FIRST LOVE

Her first job was freelancing for FranceInfo, a way of life that was good for her freedom, but also double-edged: "They give you work, so you think I can't say no, so I do too much. Navigating between the web and radio, her lifelong love, she was spotted by Europe 1, "my radio station of choice, as Pauline Amiel [director of the Marseille School of Journalism, editor's note] can attest!
 

At the same time, she got back in touch with RFI, the radio station that had taken her on as an intern. It was at this point that she decided to earn her living entirely from her voice. I think that school prepared us a little too much for precariousness: I thought that it was inaccessible to do radio exclusively on leaving school," she sighs, "I have the impression that the possibilities were somewhat reduced, and, on our side, there was a form of self-censorship."
 

After her intershipt at RFI, where she presented the world news, she knocked on every radio door: RTL, RMC... And in the end, her stubbornness paid off.

" SEEK OUT INFORMATION, WHATEVER THE COST".

For her, "everything is planned: from the start, I've taken the side roads! Ever since she was a little girl, journalism has been an obvious choice. "The first thing that struck me about journalism was the 9/11 attacks," she recalls. At the age of seven, she was confronted by her mother, who forbade her to watch television because "something serious had happened".
It was on that fateful and famous date that she understood: "I love knowing everything, understanding everything, I love looking for information and finding it, whatever the cost". Years later, the self-described "far from studious" undertook five years of history studies at the Sorbonne, before being parachuted in 2018 for two years of journalism studies in her "second home", Marseille.
She still has vivid memories of her arrival: "That day, OM were in the Champions League, there was noise all night... in short, a mess! And the next day was competition day," she smiles, with a touch of nostalgia.