Quartiers Connectés (Connected Neighbourhoods)

In some areas of Strasbourg, journalists are often assimilated with local powers, such as city government, police or public housing. With "Quartiers connectés", the journalists of Rue89 Strasbourg meet with people from popular neighborhoods and discuss their issues, without pressure, outside of any actual news agenda.

With the help of partners, flyers, posters, door to door, and gatherings in these neighborhoods, Rue89 Strasbourg is explaining what local journalism is about, mainly : a service for the people. Once this is understood, journalists hear about ultra-local issues, most of the time topics that are completely ignored by mainstream medias, due to lack of experience and alerts from these areas. And then regular journalism is being produced, but directly inspired by the experience, issues or testimonies from these areas.

As a result, popular neighborhoods' residents understand their voice can be heard, that their issues can make front-page stories, that journalists are not “part of the system” but much more on their side. They gain trust in local independent journalism and have a voice in the local public debate.

Target group

Quartiers Connectés is an engaged journalism operation aimed at popular neighborhoods of Strasbourg. In these areas, there are no journalists available unless a crisis is ongoing, in which case the same place is swarmed with journalists at the same time... That's why the people living there often see journalists as "part of the system", another kind of police. Strasbourg is not a news desert, but certains areas of Strasbourg certainly are : there is absolutely no access to journalists there and no media ever go inside these neighborhoods unless something serious happened. The coverage of these areas from mainstream media is purely theoretical - it does not exist at all.

Goals of the project

Participants in the program get a sense of usefulness, a grip on things, a public voice, a new look on journalism and a direct access to professionnal journalists... All participants with the operation gain actual many of their civil rights back. Quartiers connectés is narrowing the democratic gap between popular neighborhoods and other areas of the city, it is an operation that brings popular residents voices back into the local democratic system.

About the media outlet

Rue89 Strasbourg is a local independant online media based in Strasbourg. Since 2012, we cover all general interest topics such as environment, transport, education, and politics with a focus on investigation and field report. We employ five fulltime journalists and work with a several freelances to publish a daily edition. Our main revenue source is our 2000 subscribers base.