It is the wish of every newspaper to cover the news, not to be the news. So by any measure, this has been an unhappy year for Le Monde, France's best known and weightiest newspaper. Since February, four books have dragged the daily, and particularly its ruling triumvirate, through the mud. And to make things worse, much of the rest of the French press has been enjoying the spectacle. Now, Daniel Schneidermann, Le Monde's longtime television columnist, has been fired for publishing "The Media Nightmare." Devoting 35 pages of the 281-page book to his own employer, the author bemoans...