2023-06-01 13:31:53
They decipher the news without always claiming to be journalists. Stage themselves, facing the camera, on YouTube, Instagram, Twitch or even TikTok. For the past ten years, new news players have been sprouting up on social networks. Sometimes with great success.
Some content themselves with summarizing the news, others investigate, or produce reports and interviews. “They borrow from the codes of TV and radio, but adapt them to the Web, with more dynamic, less formatted, more embodied videos”, emphasizes Nathalie Pignard-Cheynel, teacher-researcher at the University of Neuchâtel.
HugoDécrypte, the pioneer of the genre
Teenagers and young adults are their primary audience. The sign of a “weariness with traditional media, which are too rigid and distant”analyzes Arnaud Mercier, professor of information sciences at Panthéon-Assas University.
The first to have invested in this niche was Hugo Travers, 26 years old. Better known as HugoDécrypte – the name of his YouTube channel created in 2015 and which has more than 960,000 subscribers, and his Instagram account which has 2.5 million. “He managed to create a new news meeting for young people, by picking them up where they are”, notes Arnaud Mercier.
To finance his content and remunerate his team, Hugo Travers relies on YouTube monetization and establishes partnerships with brands or institutions. This is also the case of its peers who, for some, seek the generosity of their listeners, replacing or in addition to advertising partnerships.
Open the black box of information
Quickly, others followed suit. Rémy Buisine and his live video for Brut; Luca Lescop and Thomas Beker, at the head of the FastInfos Instagram account; Salomé Saqué, journalist for the online media Blast; Gaspard G on his YouTube channel; Jean Massiet on Twitch… All have in common to have thousands of subscribers, even millions.
Their recipe? Embodiment, proximity and interaction. “They have taken over the comment space for their content, neglected by the traditional media”, raises Nathalie Pignard-Cheynel. This participatory culture specific to the Web allows them “to open the black box of information, showing behind the scenes of its production. The confidence they inspire is based on this transparency”.
Without him, his medium does not exist. Gaspard Guermonprez, known as Gaspard G, may delegate the writing of the texts of his videos, his channel has his face and bears his name. On YouTube, the young Franco-Canadian offers videos of around thirty minutes with dynamic editing. He delivers, as if they were the fruit of his own research, the results of investigations sometimes on a social phenomenon, sometimes on a political or media figure.
Behind the up-and-coming channel with some 500,000 subscribers, there are a dozen small hands – journalists, editors, salespeople and production managers – gathered on the top floor of a Parisian building. “We discuss together the subjects we want to deal with, even if it is I who have the last word”, explains Gaspard Guermonprez, with the aplomb of the publishing director that he is, at just 25 years old. Then, he supervises and makes the very last modifications before the reading in front of the camera.
Public reactions, monitoring tool
He maintains a close bond with his subscribers. “Comments and reactions are a valuable indicator, he exposes, mBut you have to know how to take some distance: if a subject that seems important to me, like abortion or Charlie Hebdomakes me lose subscribers, is that this audience did not correspond to my editorial project “, details the entrepreneur.
If he claims a closeness with his generation, carried by the ambition of him “give the keys to reading a complex world by making it interesting”Gaspard Guermonprez does not define himself as a journalist. “I see myself as a media entrepreneur”, he suggests. Moreover, in addition to his YouTube channel, he created and has since 2021 directed the “Intello” agency, which manages the commercial activity of other content creators specializing in culture and education.
The economic model is the same in both cases, based mainly on advertising partnerships. “Monetization by YouTube weighs very little in the balance”, he justifies. So the videographer works with brands, which he promotes. “It’s a form of advertising insert lasting a few minutes, he specifies. But its subject is systematically decorrelated from that of the video so as not to create confusion between the editorial content and what is requested by the brand. »
Her job, Salomé Saqué fantasized all her adolescence. Like a “unattainable ideal”from the small landlocked village in which she grew up. Finally, after studying political science and a few internships in radio and then at France 24, the 27-year-old Ardéchoise gradually imposed herself. Until becoming one of the faces of Blast, online media marked on the left for which she follows the economy, in addition to being a columnist on France 5 and Franceinfo.
She is not the only one to embody the media founded by journalist Denis Robert. He himself is well known to the public of the Youtube channel to some 800,000 subscribers, which uses crowdfunding. But the statistics are formal: the audience for the video varies according to the face associated with it. “In the videos that I present, the audience is younger – between 20 and 30 years old – and more feminine than in those of Denis who is 65 years old, for example”, emphasizes Salomé Saqué. They each have between 100 and 500,000 views.
Assume one’s biases without derogating from ethics
“The incarnation is a tool, she asks straight away. I speak in front of the camera because that’s how attention is captured today. » This is its objective: to disseminate to the greatest number of subjects that it deems to be of public interest, such as the climate crisis or social inequalities.
She noted the interest of young people for these subjects while working on her book which has just been published by Éditions Payot, Be young and shut up. “Our generation is looking for information carriers who speak about what concerns them, she raises in a suddenly convinced tone, the same one she takes in the Blast videos. For example, they are more sensitive to the ecological cause, which I regularly address, not out of activism, but because it seems to me to be a crucial issue. »
Positions that earned the journalist the qualifier of “committed”, which she neither denies nor claims. “Everything I produce as a journalist is sourced, investigated, contradicted. I am not listed anywhere. My compass is the Munich charter (the code of ethics for journalists, Editor’s note). But I don’t hide behind hypocritical objectivity, she nuances. I have biases, which notably influence my choice of subjects. I don’t think that’s incompatible with strong journalistic rigour. »
Journalist, Jean Massiet? “Only you ask me this question, he laughs. Me, I don’t care and I think my community doesn’t care either. I only define myself by the object that I propose: streaming of popularization and political information. » Every Thursday, for nearly three hours, the 34-year-old “streamer” hosts his political news program live on Twitch« Backseat ».
A program “in jeans and sneakers, with swear words, a grammar that suits me and sticks to my audience, he describes. I’m the good friend who knows a little about city life and who explains to them, as if we were over a beer, what 49.3 is and why we’re talking about it.
The former political collaborator started in 2015. Every Wednesday, with his team made up of more or less regular columnists, production managers and a part-time journalist, he determines the program. “It’s the news that decides, says Jean Massiet. The idea is also to choose subjects and/or guests who have marked the community and who are of interest to them. » Undoubtedly editorial work, directed by the person who is simultaneously presenter, producer and broadcaster.
Horizontality, a pledge of confidence
Her community is her closest collaborator. With this entity made up of more than 220,000 souls, he exchanges directly. The very set of his show gives him pride of place: behind him, on vast screens placed vertically and installed on either side of the central table, scrolls an uninterrupted flow of messages that the members of the “chat” exchange among themselves or contact Jean Massiet.
At the same time as he listens to his guest’s response or the words of his columnists, he consults it with a glance, sometimes picks a question, jots down a remark, picks up a joke and shares it with those who don’t. weren’t quick enough to see her before she disappeared from the screen.
With his twenty-something audience, the streamer shares everything. The backstage of his show, which he debriefs with them the next day, the editorial conferences… “I want to be as transparent as possible, to involve them in the project, three-quarters of which they finance – the rest comes from the CNC and commercial partnerships, he presses. I’m never ashamed to say I don’t know, to assume that I screwed up. It is this horizontality and this honesty, I believe, that my generation is looking for. »
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