BondyBlog: covering the French election via videophone

Regular readers of LunchOverIP are familiar with the BondyBlog, the blog launched at the end of 2005 in the Paris banlieue (suburb) of Bondy by a group of Swiss journalists seeking a better way to cover riots that lasted several weeks, and which they later (using the proceeds of a book to finance their training) passed on to a group of local youngsters. These turned it into the first French "citizen media" outlet covering the banlieues from the banlieues, creating a national network of correspondents (mostly students), scooping the national press, and generally doing a great job (yes, I believe the BondyBlog's is a great story and offers an interesting metaphor for the future of journalism in a p2p world: it is not about either/or but rather about complementarity and hybridization-- follow the previous links to get the details).

Of course, many of the BondyBlog's posts and discussions in the last months revolved around the French presidential election: the banlieues were a key theme. And the team -- composed by amateur journalists (students, workers, etc) led by a teacher -- has been very present also this past Sunday, when the French cast their votes. Teaming up with CanalObs, the online television channel of a national magazine, and with Yahoo!France (which has been carrying the blog on their portal for a few months now), the banlieuebloggers have offered a rare alternative to the stiff and predictable roundtables on public and private TV channels, where top-ranking politicians and would-be ministers supporting one or the other of the top candidates were playing the usual standardized script (the campaign is not over: the two frontrunners, Segolène Royal for the left and Nicolas Sarkozy for the right, will face off on May 6th for the Presidency). The bloggers promoted their initiative through a leaflet (picture) illustrated with a burning car (reminder of the riots that got the BondyBlog started, but also of the still tense social situation in the banlieues) with the slogan "If you want to change things, turn on your computer and don't let anyone think for you". They moved into the tiny CanalObs studio, invited local politicians and lesser-known representatives of associations and other groupings and even the editor of Elle magazine to comment on the election (picture left).  They set up their computers in a corner of the studio so they could keep blogging (also visible in the picture at left), put their correspondents at work and dispatched "special envoys" to key locations -- who reported live using video cell phones (picture right), and compensating with ingenuity ("débrouille", as the French say) their lack of technical and financial resources they did a great job. I like these guys.