Albert Kahn, patron of the press

In order to publish these publications, Kahn created his own printing house on the rue du Port. The whole ended up representing 336 volumes of 300 pages.

In its second post-war incarnation, the CNESP continued to inform the French elite on major current issues through contrasting perspectives. However, the vector differed, taking on a journalistic angle, a precursor to a genre still in the process of gestation at this time, excluding large agencies like Havas or Reuters: the press review.

No less than 10 titles with 2 supplements, were published at different intervals between 1918 and 1929. Some were general in nature like Les Réalités, while others were specialized like Les Faits sociaux et ouvriers (Social and Labor-Related Facts) or were a supplement to La Journée planétaire dedicated to the African press.

Some were compiled without any notation (“Main headlines from the main newspapers of the main countries,”) while others were commented on with a foreword (L’Orientation nouvelle) or took a more prospective approach (Les Possibilités).

The activity took over Albert Kahn’s townhouse and personally involved him on a daily basis: awake at 5 AM, he scrutinized 20 to 30 newspapers, annotated them, chose the event of the day, tackled evening publications that he had processed the night before. Around 7:30 AM, he would suddenly appear, in his dressing gown, in the sitting room next to his bedroom, which had become the newsroom. There, he held a press conference with a dozen colleagues, representing different perspectives. “We worked under the gruff, astonishing, sometimes brilliant and prophetic, other times ludicrous directives of Albert Kahn (André Arnyvelde, writer).”