Mooks in Francophone Belgium: Finding your own journalistic identity in a small market
(2018) First Brazil-France-Francophone Belgium Journalism Research Conference — Location: Sao Paulo (Brazil) (12.November.2018)
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- Authors
Vanoost, Marie 
- Abstract
- This paper aims to explore the particular situation of mooks in Francophone Belgium. Although relatively recent in Francophone media landscapes, mooks have quickly attracted scholarly attention in France. Belgian mooks—both younger and smaller than their French cousins— have been less studied. Yet, developing in a more limited market that shares the language of its bigger neighbor, they face different challenges than French mooks. The goal of this paper is to investigate how these challenges influence both the identity and the journalistic practices of Francophone Belgian mooks. Since 2008 and the creation of XXI, dozens of mooks have been launched in France. In many regards, these publications take the opposite course to most media. As most news media focus on developing online, they proudly insist on being printed media. While many newspapers and news websites are struggling with advertising-based business models, mooks bet that readers are ready to pay for quality information. Whereas journalism tends to get faster and shorter, they advocate for slow and longform journalism—whatever topic it may focus on and whatever form it may take. In its very first editorial, XXI—the first and most successful of these new media outlets—even claimed hybridity as one of its main defining features—along with longform and reportage: “Wagering on the mixing of approaches. Journalists, novelists, photojournalists, comic strip artists, documentary makers… Talent is a universal passport.” Soon mooks were also created in Francophone Belgium. The first Belgian mook, 24h01, was launched in 2013. The project started among a group of friends inspired by Albert Londres, The New Yorker and XXI, who wanted to “open slowly their eyes again on Belgium and on the world. […] Soon professional journalists, authors, photographers, illustrators and graphic designers came and enriched the idea.” Médor, which defines itself as a Belgian cooperative quarterly magazine focusing on investigation and narrative, was born in 2015 thanks to a crowdfunding campaign. Another crowdfunding campaign helped create Wilfried two years later, in 2017. Wilfried’s ambition is to tell Belgian politics “like a novel”—echoeing Tom Wolfe’s famous definition of the American New Journalism of the 1960s and 1970s. But the mook also suggests more recent influences, hoping to make Belgian politics provoke “as much thrill as an episode of Narcos, True Detective or House of Cards.” Three new projects are currently being launched: Speculoos, a lifestyle mook, Courts, dedicated to racket sports, and Edith, which purports to be at the crossroads of research, reflection, and education. In France, even the most successful mooks remain niche publications. A number of French mooks have already faced financial difficulties leading to their disappearance (Alibi, Hobo, Desports…) or profound redesign (Usbek et Rica). For Belgian mooks, surviving on the smaller Francophone Belgian market seems even more difficult—as the seize of the market influences the resources available to media. Last summer almost saw the end of 24h01. The mook had repeatedly sold under its breakeven point—selling around 2,000 issues instead of 2,500-3,000. In July, the editorial team posted a cry for help on social networks: they needed 30,000 euros to be able to publish the next issue and 50,000 euros to continue further. They ended up collecting 79,500 euros. Though part of that sum came from readers buying old issues, they insisted that their first investment would be to improve their communication and help them find and connect with their readership. Indeed while the total readership they can possibly reach remains very limited, Belgian mooks have to compete with a growing number of homeland publications, as well as with the many French mooks that are distributed in Francophone Belgium. Defining their own unique identity—in terms of content, approach, format, tone, etc.—thus appears to be a major issue for Belgian mooks. This identity largely determines the kind of journalism they practice. Yet their practices also depend on their resources and business model. It is the complex network between publication identity, journalistic practices and the particular context of Francophone Belgium that this paper intends to explore. It is based on a series of interviews with the founders and/or the chief editors of Francophone Belgian mooks. These interviews mostly focus on the economic situation, business model and readership; the preparation process of an issue, especially the distribution of work among the editorial team and the relationships with writers, photographers, illustrators and graphic designers; the global editorial project—and its evolution since the mook was created.
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Citations
Vanoost, M. (2018). Mooks in Francophone Belgium: Finding your own journalistic identity in a small market. First Brazil-France-Francophone Belgium Journalism Research Conference, Sao Paulo (Brazil). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/63763