Francophone narrative journalism as both a reaction to recent changes in journalism and the result of a complex heritage

Vanoost, Marie [UCL]

For some years now, traditional news outlets, and especially newspapers, have been struggling to adapt to the new digital environment and to find new profit-making business models. However, in the mean time, some quite original new written media have recently been launched in Francophone European countries. Called mooks, a contraction of the words magazine and book, they count 100 to 200 pages, come out only two or four times a year, contain no advertisement, and cost between 15 and 20 euros. As most news media develop apps, mobile and tablet versions, mooks opt for a thick printed magazine with a refined lay out. While newspapers and news websites wrestle with both advertising and cost reduction, mooks bet that readers are ready to pay for quality information. Whereas online and, to a large extent, print journalism tends to get faster and shorter, mooks advocate slow and long journalism. Taking the opposite course to most media, mooks appear to be re-inventing journalism in their own very particular way. Even if they are niche products, mooks are being successful. XXI, the first and most famous one, sells around 50.000 copies and Rollin Publications, XXI’s publishing company, had a turnover of 1.631.000 euros in 2013. Other publications rapidly followed XXI’s path and new mooks have regularly been launched since XXI’s creation in 2008: 6 mois, Feuilleton, Desports, Alibi, Long cours, 24h01, etc. Beyond the similarities of their business model and even of their lay out, most mooks opt for the same broad journalistic model: narrative journalism. Narrative journalism, however, is not new. The term comes from the United States where it coexists with several other designations: literary journalism, literary reportage, creative nonfiction, New New Journalism, etc. (Boynton 2005; Forché et Gerard 2001; Gutkind 2005; Hartsock 2011; Sims 2008). This particular kind of journalism can be broadly defined as “the genre that takes the techniques of fiction and applies them to nonfiction. The narrative form requires deep and sophisticated reporting, an appreciation for storytelling, a departure from the structural conventions of daily news, and an imaginative use of language” (Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard 2014; see also Hart 2011; Kramer et Call 2007; Lallemand 2011; Vanoost 2013). In the United States, narrative journalism can be traced back to the end of the nineteenth century with reporters like Stephen Crane and Lincoln Steffens – even if its origins are even more remote. It was then revived in the literary reportage of the 1930’s, in the New Journalism of the 1960-1970’s and then in what is sometimes referred to as the New New Journalism, at the end of the twentieth century (Boynton 2005; Connery 1992; Hartsock 2000; Sims 2007). Nowadays Francophone mooks explicitly refer to this long American tradition as one of their sources of inspiration. Mooks also find models in their own journalism history, mostly in the genre of the grand reportage and its mythical figures, such as Albert Londres and Joseph Kessel (Boucharenc et Deluche 2001; Boucharenc 2004; Martin 2005) – even if the history of the relation between narrative and French journalism is older and more complex than this reference to grand reportage (Kalifa et al. 2012; Thérenty 2007; 2008; Thérenty et Vaillant 2001). The narrative journalism now developing in mooks seems thus to be making the synthesis of two different lineages. Current Francophone narrative journalism constitutes thus a new original journalistic model flourishing in reaction to contemporary changes in the media world and within a complex history. It appears interesting then to better characterize this model, particularly in comparison to the American model. This is the aim of this paper. It is based on an analysis of 64 texts considered by practitioners as representatives of what narrative journalism is, both in the United States and in Francophone European countries, and on 25 interviews carried on with the authors or editors of the analyzed texts, both Americans and French or Swiss. The results indicate that there exist two different versions of a same narrative model. In the United States as in Francophone Europe, narrative journalism presents the same central defining trait: it offers stories organized according to a temporal – though not necessarily chronological – progression, while “classic” factual journalism is organized according to the news value of the events that are told, following the inverted pyramid model. This shared characteristic appears thus to be what defines narrative journalism in comparison to other journalistic models. But American and European practitioners nonetheless differ on the precise text structure they adopt. American reporters massively opt for a narrative arc featuring a well-defined complication and, at the end of the text, its resolution. Francophone journalists tend to prefer a simple progression from a starting point to an ending point, without stating a specific problem at the beginning, which would guide the story progression towards an answer at the end. A second important difference concerns the way the story is told. In the United States, journalistic narratives purposely create a kind of vicarious experience for the reader, based on the felt experience of the subjects whose story is being told by the journalist. In Francophone European countries, the experience of the subjects is less central, while journalists are more overtly present in their narratives. It can thus be argued that American narrative journalism favors the showing while Francophone narrative journalism favors the telling. In conclusion, this paper ends with a discussion of different historical and cultural factors that could explain the differences between the American and Francophone versions of the narrative journalistic model. It particularly notes the importance of opinion in the history of French journalism and the weight of the mythical figure of the grand reporter, who wrote using the first person, telling readers everything he saw, perceived, felt and thought. The paper also discusses the place of ego, as well as the place of notions such as tension and suspense, in American and French literature respectively.