Journalist makes fun of Green Party candidate Eva Joly's accent

Today in Media Watch, French papers take a good look at Tepco’s latest promotional video. They also dissect a report published on Friday in Japan, which says Fukushima reactors 3 and 4 would likely not have exploded had firemen and other emergency workers not cut off the plant’s electric supply.

Who’s afraid of making fun of French Green Party candidate Eva Joly? Not Patrick Besson, a journalist at Le Point, who wrote a fake acceptance speech on her behalf – and in her accent. But Besson isn’t the first to make fun of Joly’s accent. Another former journalist, Luc Rosenzweig talked of sending the half-French, half-Norwegian candidate to a speech therapist on his blog and – no surprise, here – Jean-Marie Le Pen, the far-right politician, was caught imitating Joly’s accent on video.

Twitter has compiled what it believes are the best tweets of 2011, writes French center-left daily Le Monde. The Pulitzer Committee is also reportedly changing some of its rules for awarding journalists who give up-to-date information as a situation unfolds – which sounds a whole lot like live tweeting.

Tweets can be especially useful when no cameras or photos are allowed. French TV talk show host Jean-Luc Delarue held a closed press conference today announcing he has stomach cancer.

Finally, UMP Party secretary Jean-François Copé stirred up a storm on Twitter, once again, over his wedding list. Gifts include a 116 euro kettle and a 95 euro cocktail shaker – to the anger of many struggling French citizens hit by the economic crisis.