The banlieuebloggers go national

The way the media cover the banlieues in France - the troubled outskirts of big cities - "remains sensational and punctual", says Mohamed Hamidi, the editor-in-chief of the BondyBlog. "Their coverage is still very much driven by insecurity and burning cars". Mohamed and his team want to change that, and exploit the presidential campaign (which is just starting: the election will take place in April and May) as a jumping-off point to give young people from the banlieues a voice. To "let them tell their own story and finally find a place in the country's social and political debate", he says.

Regular readers of this blog have already met the BondyBlog, and know that I consider it one of the best examples of "citizen media" and a case study on the future of journalism. I've written two stories on it, for the IHT/NYT and for Foreign Policy, and several posts. Now the BondyBlog is going national, creating a network of correspondents in fifteen or so French cities, teaming up with a major Internet portal, and trying to create the first national media produced from the banlieues.

First, a one-graph refresher: When riots erupted in the banlieues last autumn, the Swiss newsmagazine L'Hebdo decided that the issue deserved more than a quick news article; it started sending almost all of its reporters on a 7-to-10 days rotation to the town of Bondy, near Paris; they worked out of a spartan room borrowed from the local football club; on top of writing weekly stories for the magazine, they blogged intensely about local people and life; the blog attracted thousands of readers and hundreds of comments; three four months later, when they ran out of reporters to send to Bondy, the editors called for local volunteers, offered them journalistic and blogging training, and in March passed on the blog. (Disclosure: I was invited to teach them a class on blogging, and I'm a contributor to L'Hebdo). Part of the contents (posts and comments) have been turned into a book. End of summary.

The young "Bondynois" (some of them in the picture by Paolo Woods - Mohamed is the first from left) have embraced the tool and done a great job: they've posted - text, pictures, audio - on politics and culture, profiled educators, youngsters, workers, jobseekers, mothers, the daughter of a polygamist family, the shopowners that were closing down, sent one of the team to the chic neighborhoods in Paris in a sort of "reverse reporting", interviewed Segolène Royal - the possible socialist frontrunner for the presidency - and scooped the national press on the declaration of another candidate, Stéphane Pocrain of the Green Party. They currently get almost 6000 readers a day on average, and dozens of comments on each post, and arguably they've done more to reposition the debate about the banlieues than years of sociology essays and "nouveaux philosophes" television appearances.

One year is gone since the riots, and despite the government's promises not much has changed in the banlieues. Not much has changed in the national press' attitude either: "journalists call asking us to be their fixers in the neighborhood, to guide them around: spending 24 hours with a banlieueblogger seems to be the latest fashion in the Parisian newsrooms", says Mohamed only half-jokingly.

So the BondyBlog is gearing up to become a national media by itself, setting itself up as an association and creating a network of correspondents in the banlieues of about fifteen French cities. This is a volunteers' blog, with no deep pockets. So they will do it creatively, through a cooperation with local colleges that have a convention with Sciences-Po, the great Paris school of political science, to send their best students there. Some of these students already attend media classes, and they have been offered to expand that by joining the BondyBlog as correspondents. One of L'Hebdo's top journalists, Alain Rebetez, is touring France these weeks to offer them training.

The BondyBlog (which is currently in its third incarnation - see screnshots) has also started a collaboration with Yahoo.fr, the French portal of Yahoo, which will give them technical and financial support to cover the presidential campaign. "Starting next week, we will use Yahoo's servers and platform, and this will give us increased technical capacity and flexibility, particularly when it comes to audio and video; Yahoo also brings a significant new potential audience", says Mohamed.

Indeed, Yahoo.fr - which has committed not to meddle in the freedom of the banlieuebloggers to write what they want - will carry the blog in a prominent position in its news section's campaign coverage. Yahoo.fr will put money behind this, but just a little: the banlieuebloggers will remain volunteers, their expenses will be covered but for now that's pretty much it.

Other partnerships are in discussion. With a major mobile phone operator to send blog posts to cell phones; with a local radio; and others.

The BondyBlog has proven that it is an authentic and articulate voice of Bondy and the Paris suburbs; now they have a chance to bring that to the national stage. The problems of the banlieues will be a central theme of the presidential campaign. Mohamed: "We want to make sure that the next president is elected not on the banlieues but with the banlieues".