Paris
CNN
—
Hugo Travers could not consider himself as a journalist, however he may very well be the preferred one in France.
Travers, 26, is the founder and face of HugoDecrypte, a French media start-up that delivers information aimed primarily at younger audiences. What started eight years in the past as a college pupil’s YouTube channel now boasts 14 million followers throughout its social media accounts, 200 million month-to-month views on TikTok and one other 35 million on YouTube.
HugoDecrypte’s Instagram account has extra followers than Le Monde, the French each day extensively thought-about the nation’s newspaper of report, in addition to BFMTV and France24, arguably the 2 hottest 24-hour information networks in France. And its each day information replace is essentially the most downloaded podcast within the nation, according to media monitor ACPM.
“What’s very particular is the truth that I actually began as a YouTuber and I contemplate myself actually as a YouTuber,” Travers instructed CNN in an interview final month.
No matter you name him, there’s no denying that Travers has created one thing that resonates with younger audiences shunning conventional media in France, the place mistrust of the news industry runs deeper than in much of the rest of Europe.
“He’s seen as a really dependable supply for information,” mentioned Alice Antheaume, vice-dean on the Sciences Po Journalism Faculty.
Given the YouTube channel’s dominance among the many coveted age 15 to 34 demographic, most main politicians in France, together with President Emmanuel Macron, have sat down with Travers to achieve a youthful viewers. Travers hosted almost all the candidates operating for president in 2022.
Whereas Macron went on to win re-election, he has struggled to keep up help amongst youthful voters as his agenda has develop into extra conservative. In January, Macron appointed 34-year-old Gabriel Attal because the nation’s youngest-ever prime minister and tasked him with revitalizing his authorities.
HugoDecrypte’s 10-minute information digest is posted weekdays on YouTube and audio platforms. It usually options the Franco-British Travers, usually casually dressed, delivering explainer-style summaries from behind a desk, alongside animations or inventory video.
Francois Jost, an emeritus professor at Sorbonne Nouvelle College in Paris and professional on the French media, mentioned the channel’s “nice use of photographs” appealed to younger individuals.
Although the HugoDecrypte group doesn’t shrink back from the largest information of the day, it usually appears to its audiences for steerage in selecting the lead story. Psychological well being points are regularly the primary story lined, as are conflicts much less usually within the media highlight, akin to these in Sudan or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
“What we’re constructing, since day one, is one thing severe when it comes to information, when it comes to its journalistic strategy,” Travers mentioned. “In fact, the format is completely different.”
A Chromebook and an concept
When Travers launched the channel eight years in the past, all he had was a Chromebook with out modifying software program.
He had gumption and expertise, although. As a precocious center college pupil, Travers began an internet site with pals, for which he lined native sports activities and information within the suburb he grew up in, west of Paris.
By 2015, Travers was learning at Sciences Po, a prestigious college in Paris. The concept for his YouTube channel got here from two realizations.
The primary involved the state of political protection in French media. Travers had been taken with politics for years — but when he and his pals turned on political debates on tv, they may barely perceive what was being mentioned, he recalled.
Travers additionally thought of how he consumed content material: like a lot of Gen Z, he was spending hours on YouTube. He had go-to channels for historical past and science however no most popular supply for journalism in French.
The HugoDecrypte channel launched with the mission to offer younger French audiences a quick, digestible technique to perceive the information. Travers’ aim was to create accessible, in-depth movies that wouldn’t pander to youthful audiences nor assume an excessive amount of prior data. Then he’d publish them on to social media.
“My technology spends a lot time on YouTube,” he mentioned. “You’ve obtained to create content material the place individuals are … If I spend time on YouTube or Instagram, why would I not get knowledgeable on YouTube or Instagram?”
Looking for progress, Travers determined to rent staffers. Benjamin Aleberteau, a current graduate, turned HugoDecrypte’s first worker in January 2019; as we speak he’s editor-in-chief. HugoDecrypte has expanded to a group of about 25 workers understanding of a contemporary workplace on the finish of a cobblestone alley within the eleventh arrondissement of Paris. Their newsroom displays their target market — there’s a online game console within the kitchen, a canine roams the halls and everybody seems to be of their 20s.
Past the world of politics, Travers’ in-depth interviews have additionally develop into a valued cease for anybody selling a movie, ebook or TV collection to the Francophone world. He hosted Christopher Nolan over the summer season to debate then-Oscar frontrunner “Oppenheimer” and Timothee Chalamet and Zendaya forward of the “Dune” sequel’s release. Travers has additionally counted Francophone celebrities like Angele, Omar Sy, Tahar Rahim and Virginie Efira amongst his visitors.
HugoDecrypte’s success is notable contemplating the awful state of the French information media panorama. Like their English-language counterparts, French information retailers face declining promoting income, the unfold of misinformation and rising distrust within the media.
Many anglophone retailers have turned to subscription-based income fashions to outlive. However in France, simply 11% of individuals surveyed pay for information, according to the Reuters Institute.
Each Jost at Sorbonne Nouvelle College and Antheaume on the Sciences Po Journalism Faculty identified that HugoDecrypte usually hews towards explanatory journalism, content material that’s cheaper and faster to create than unique reporting.
Travers sees the 2 as complementary, saying that HugoDecrypte is trying into partnerships with conventional information or investigative retailers. In the meantime, HugoDecrypte makes cash through promoting, partnerships and sponsored content material.
Travers attributes the model’s success to the channel’s unique mission: producing accessible content material. Which means no paywall and interacting immediately with youthful audiences on social media.
To achieve Gen Z, HugoDecrypte launched on TikTok sooner than most French media.
“TikTok was, at the least in France, seen as this factor for youngsters … principally with dancing and challenges,” Travers mentioned. “However it’s nonetheless a platform the place there’s hundreds of thousands of younger individuals, and people younger individuals, I’m satisfied that they’re taken with information and in politics.”
Belief can also be a key issue. The French public has grown more and more skeptical of newspapers and tv stations owned by billionaires like Xavier Niel or Vincent Bollore, whose conservative media empire is commonly in comparison with that of Rupert Murdoch.
Travers instructed CNN he determined early in opposition to elevating capital, a call he believes has allowed the operation to develop at a sustainable tempo.
Then there’s personification. Tying the model to Travers’ title and likeness has, some specialists say, allowed him to encourage a level of confidence amongst younger audiences who don’t eat conventional media.
“Audiences usually tend to belief people than media manufacturers, particularly on social media. HugoDecrypte suits completely with this want,” mentioned Antheaume.
And, in contrast to many high-profile anglophone information personalities, Travers has labored laborious to maintain his opinions out of the general public view.
HugoDecrypte has been in a position to capitalize on a number of traits within the French information trade. Whereas the model is beginning to department out into English- and Spanish-language content material, it’s not clear if the mannequin itself will translate efficiently.
Travers acknowledges the challenges inherent in constructing a cross-cultural model. However he and editor-in-chief Aleberteau imagine that, wherever there may be social media, their mannequin is viable.
“In any nation there’s a necessity for data. And in any nation, there are younger individuals who need to be told,” Aleberteau mentioned.