This article examines the origin and characteristics of the French modern journalism in some ways. Firstly, the French journalism has developed independently through the genre of literature and politics that had kept in the French press. Secondly, along with the industrialization of the press promoted from the period of the Second Empire, the French journalism based on the journals of opinion was transformed into the that of information at readers’s request, and the group of professional journalists was formed as well. Generally put it in these ways, because politicians were just journalists, the French press had been used by politicians as their instrument of propaganda, and then, Journalist’s article always had an emphasis on supporting specific interest whose political groups. However, the political inclination of the French press made a journal of opinion rather than a that of information. On the other hand, a literary disposition of French journalism increased the number of readers and served journalists to form various styles of articles.
Even if the number of journalists began to increase rapidly, those people who entered into journalism coming from various classes gave rise to many side effects. Then, under the necessity from self-cleaning on journalists themselves, the association of journalists was founded. As association movement was developed, professional journalists had achieved the independence on its field, which came to be appeared as the form of French style-modern journalism, and this association began to control qualification of journalists. When the Dreyfus affair broke out, the professional morality, public sense of responsibility, and professional autonomy of journalist, all of which had kept in the traditional journalism of France, had been displayed in its fullness. Therefore, one may say that the Dreyfus affair was a watershed of the French journalism. Finally, as the Dreyfus affair brought journalists to a great risk of political debate at the first time, the French press got to be de-politicized. And then French press was free from political and economic repressions and moved to reinforcement of autonomy and professional independence. On the basis of these historical backgrounds, the French modern journalism came to be born.