Charlie Hebdo staff vow to print 1m copies as French media support grows | Media | The GuardianCharlie Hebdo staff vow to print 1m copies as French media support grows | Media | The Guardian










Close






Skip to main content

 









sign in








subscribe









search




jobs






more


from the guardian:


jobs


change edition:



switch to the UK edition


switch to the AU edition







US edition




switch to the UK edition




switch to the Australia edition













The Guardian


Winner of the Pulitzer prize











home


›
media










home




US




world




opinion




sports




soccer




tech




arts




lifestyle




fashion




business




money




travel




environment







browse all sections
close







 











Charlie Hebdo



Charlie Hebdo staff vow to print 1m copies as French media support grows









Writer for satirical magazine says ‘stupidity will not win’, as about €250,000 lined up from Google-backed fund to support publication

















French media has pledged to help Charlie Hebdo as staff at the magazine have vowed to publish next week with a print run of 1m. Photograph: Antoine Antoniol/Getty Images




Jane Martinson and 
Mark Sweney


Thursday 8 January 2015 08.47 EST







Share on Facebook







Share on Twitter







Share via Email







Share on LinkedIn







Share on Google+







Share on WhatsApp
















Surviving staff members of Charlie Hebdo have vowed to publish the satirical weekly next Wednesday, despite the murder of most of its senior journalists – with a much larger than usual print run of 1m copies.
Within 24 hours of the massacre of 12 people – including eight journalists – some €250,000 (£195,000) had been earmarked to support Charlie Hebdo by the Digital Press Fund, paid for by Google, to support the French press. French media groups including Le Monde, France Télévisions and Radio France, are also understood to be working on a plan to contribute a similar amount, urging other media outlets to join in offering humanitarian and financial support. 
This money is expected to be taken from a donation tax, according to a report in Les Echos. In a further sign of the French media uniting to save the weekly, the two groups involved in the distribution of the papers will take no fee for next week’s issue.
Ludovic Blecher, the director of Google IPWA Fund for Digital Innovation, told the Guardian that many diverse, largely uncoordinated efforts were being made to support the left-leaning weekly following the attack. “We are a fund for the press. We must enable them to be able to write, even if we don’t agree, it’s a question of diversity of speech.”
He added: “The fund is trying to figure out a way to provide a financial support to Charlie Hebdo. We’re working on a process in order to find an exceptional answer to an exceptional situation. The role of the fund is to help the press. We’re playing our role. But we are still working on the technical process.”
The press innovation fund was set up in February 2013 to settle the dispute between Google and the French government over whether the internet group should pay to display news content in its search results. Financed but not managed by Google, that money will go to support the survival of the weekly. The other money might be used for other “humanitarian” but as yet unannnounced support.
Richard Malka, the magazine’s lawyer, told Les Echos that the remaining staff aim to print 1m copies of the satirical weekly, which has a typical print run of 60,000.
In an emotional interview with French TV channel i>Télé, a free-to-air news channel, a visibly upset Patrick Pelloux, a casualty doctor who also contributed to the weekly, spoke of his efforts to save his colleagues as one of the first on the scene and vowed to publish next week’s issue. With tears running down his fac, he said Charlie Hebdo would continue as otherwise the killers would win die and the victims would have “died for nothing”. “Le journal va continuer, ils n’ont pas gagné.” 
Describing what he found in the 11th arrondissement offices after being called by a colleague, the emergency doctor said: “It was horrible, many had passed away, they were shot execution-style. We were able to save the others who are feeling better this morning.”
The staff at the magazine were very aware of the threat that faced them, Pelloux added. Stéphane Charbonnier, the magazine’s editor-in-chief who lived under a fatwa and known as Charb, knew that in all rallies held by fundamentalists all over the world, Charlie Hebdo was “mentioned and targeted”.
“These were such good men,” he said. “These were people who were so generous. Of course disrespectful, irreverent [...] They were great humanists.”
He talked of upholding French values of justice and equality, a call that is being echoed by others in the industry. “There is no hatred to have against Muslims and everyone, each one of us … every day must keep the values of the French Republic alive.” Asked how, he said it would be difficult but that the death of his editors could not be “for nothing”. “It’s very hard. We are all suffering, with grief, with fear, but we will do it anyway because stupidity will not win,” he said.
As the international media considered their own responses to the tragedy, Martin Rowson, a Guardian cartoonist and chairman of the British Cartoonists’ Association, called on his fellow cartoonists to join him in “donating a free drawing” to help ensure that publication can go ahead.
Following the deaths at a paper run by its tiny committed staff, the Charlie Hebdo website was amended to read Je Suis Charlie, translated into many other languages, including Arabic. Several witnesses reported hearing shouts of “Allahu Akbar”, as well as “We’ve killed Charlie Hebdo” from the gunmen, who also killed two policemen, a visitor and a maintenance worker.
Eight of the 12 people killed by the masked gunmen were journalists who had gathered for the weekly staff editorial meeting. Among those massacred at the mid-morning meeting were four of the magazine’s most famous names: the cartoonists Cabu, Wolinski and Tignous, as well as Charb.
Among the survivors is understood to be the weekly’s chief executive and a senior editor who was in London when the attack happened. Instead of its usual 16 pages, the group aim to publish eight next Wednesday. 
Among many tributes was one from Karim Talbi, AFP’s deputy bureau chief in Moscow, who spoke of the generosity of the now dead men when he worked at the magazine. “They were all there, sat round a big table, doodling away as they munched on chunky chocolate bars and Petit Ecolier biscuits … I have often thought of Charb, of Cabu, as I stood before insurgents, soldiers, or at the Kremlin, trying to imagine what their sharp, witty eye would spot that I hadn’t. And tonight, despite the gaping hole they leave behind, I would like to believe there was chocolate and Petit Ecolier biscuits on the big table at Charlie Hebdo when they stopped drawing.”
Out of respect and support for Charlie Hebdo, many people around the world held a minute’s silence on Thursday.


— Marie Giffard (@mariegiffard)
January 8, 2015
Stylos brandis en l'air devant Notre Dame à midi #AFP pic.twitter.com/gDIQUWNIhq



International support for the left-leaning magazine which relaunched in its current form in 1992 also came on the website reddit’s RIP Hebdo staff. You are all heroes.
With its origins in a 1969 title Hara-Kiri Hebdo, which was banned after mocking the death of former French president Charles de Gaulle, the relaunch team which included Charbonnier pooled their money and set up a foundation to run Charlie Hebdo. According to a 2008 story in Le Monde the foundation was called “Kalashnikov Editions”.



Topics



Charlie Hebdo




Magazines




Charlie Hebdo attack




Newspapers & magazines




Journalist safety



More…



France




Europe








Share on Facebook







Share on Twitter







Share via Email







Share on LinkedIn







Share on Google+







Share on WhatsApp



















 






more on this story














Cherif Kouachi during 2008 terror trial: 'I've been set up' - video

File footage of one of the Paris gunmen, Cherif Kouachi, arriving at court in 2008 on charges of helping to funnel fighters to Iraq's insurgency



Published: 13 Jan 2015




Cherif Kouachi during 2008 terror trial: 'I've been set up' - video












Analysis Charlie Hebdo attackers: born, raised and radicalised in Paris

The radicalisation of the Kouachi brothers began in a picturesque park in the capital while Amédy Coulibaly took the first steps towards terrorism in prison, but what the three had in common was growing up on the margins of French society



Published: 12 Jan 2015




Charlie Hebdo attackers: born, raised and radicalised in Paris












Paris shootings: investigation launched into where gunmen got GoPro cameras

Officials try to pinpoint when and where cameras found in possession of Kouachi brothers and Amédy Coulibaly were obtained



Published: 12 Jan 2015




Paris shootings: investigation launched into where gunmen got GoPro cameras












Paris attacks: 10,000 troops deployed as France hunts for accomplices

Mobilisation of 10,000 troops to guard potentially vulnerable locations comes as prime minister warns that ‘threat still present’



Published: 12 Jan 2015




Paris attacks: 10,000 troops deployed as France hunts for accomplices














Paris shootings: Jewish school ‘likely target’ of gunman Coulibaly




Published: 12 Jan 2015




Paris shootings: Jewish school ‘likely target’ of gunman Coulibaly








Analysis Mentor of Charlie Hebdo gunmen has been UK-based




Published: 11 Jan 2015




Mentor of Charlie Hebdo gunmen has been UK-based








Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly declared allegiance to Isis




Published: 11 Jan 2015




Paris gunman Amedy Coulibaly declared allegiance to Isis








Charlie Hebdo: a letter to my British friends

Olivier Tonneau




Published: 13 Jan 2015




Charlie Hebdo: a letter to my British friends
















popular












 








The Guardian






back to top














home




US




world




opinion




sports




soccer




tech




arts




lifestyle




fashion




business




money




travel




environment







all sections
close







home




US




world




UK




europe




americas




asia




middle east




africa




australia






opinion




sports




soccer




MLS




NFL




MLB




NBA




NHL






soccer




live scores




tables




competitions




results




fixtures




clubs






tech




games






arts




movies




tv & radio




music




books




art & design




stage




classical






lifestyle




food




health




love & sex




family




women




home & garden






fashion




business




markets




companies






money




travel




USA




europe




UK






environment




development




cities






science




media
selected




crosswords




video











Media




›
Charlie Hebdo








jobs

subscribe
all topics
all contributors

info and resources

contact us

feedback

complaints & corrections
terms & conditions
privacy policy
cookie policy
securedrop


© 2015 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.






















 
