The founder of Le Monde, the venerable Hubert Beuve-Mery didn’t like long meetings and he favored news meetings in his office “a la Japanese” with all the editors standing up.

A good way to keep them short and not boring.

Well, The Guardian in London is better  and more funky with these yellow sofas.

Send me please more pictures of real news meeting rooms, and traditions.

It’s a “fake” picture.

A real one but with fake figures of the world leaders.

But it shows very well the reality of this no-news pseudo event.

With 3,000 journalists.

Cost of the G8 meeting: 120 million euros.

Too many.

Too much.

For too little.

Le Monde covers the coverage and arrives at the same conclussion.

(Picture by AP/Frank Hormann)

The “Societe des Redacteurs” of Le Monde has rejected the re-election of its publisher, Jean Marie Colombani.

51% of them said no to a third term for Colombani.

Last year Le Monde had a loss of §17 million, or $18.5 million, following a loss of §12 million in 2001.

Colombani could be supported by the board by directors, but it would be a declaration of war.

And Le Monde’s crisis could be a repeat of the one at Liberation.

Management and shareholders against the newsroom.

The paper “lost” the last presidential election and many of its journalists think that Colombai is too liberal (conservative in Europe).

The paper has better design than ever.

But the problem of Le Monde is not just a question of visual journalism.

Le Monde is under attack from inside.

Its newsroom is killing the paper.

Period.