On Saturday, November 16th, the Brittany Press Club was celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a festival in Rennes. I had the pleasure of taking part in their round table discussion on the role of humor in journalism alongside Sébastien Liebus, founder of Gorafi, Marine Baousson, humorist on France Inter, and the drag queen duo Freak Adelfe and Marie Babette. Against all expectations, we were quite serious, and the richness of our discussion inspired me to explore the question more deeply. A few thoughts on the place of humor in this peculiar profession.
Context and landmarks
Humor in journalism is almost as old as journalism itself. From the creation of the printed press, which is dated to the early 17th century, satirical newspapers appeared in England. In France, we had to wait until the July Monarchy. Le Charivari is considered the first illustrated satirical newspaper, founded by Charles Philipon. He made extensive use of caricature to mock King Louis-Philippe and the bourgeoisie. Humor was therefore primarily visual, and became a way for the people to identify with ideas of protest. That said, it wasn't all just laughs: censorship was never far away, and some caricaturists were occasionally imprisoned for their work.
Satirical press can be considered to have become established from 1915 onwards, with Canard enchaîné being created in the midst of war. In the 1960s, newspapers like Hara-Kiri pushed irreverence even further, with radical and provocative humour, and paved the way for Charlie Hebdo. On television, Les Guignols de l'info and Groland continued this tradition in the 1980s and 90s.
Digital media, from the 2010s onward, transforms this landscape. In 2012, Le Gorafi launches and offers absurd parodic humor inspired by the serious tone of traditional media. At the same time, radio and television welcome comedians: Guillaume Meurice on France Inter and then at Nova, Bertrand Chameroy on C à Vous… A way to blend current events with mockery to broaden the audience and make news more accessible. Finally, on TikTok, journalists use humor to address complex topics with a younger audience less accustomed to traditional media.
Question of confidence
Let's start by asking ourselves a simple question: what's the difference between journalists and comedians? Comedians can use current events to make people laugh. Journalists, for their part, can use humor to inform. If laughter doesn't serve information, then there's no point in striving to use it, at the risk of betraying the journalistic mission. "The fact that I'm being confused with a journalist is extremely troubling," noted Guillaume Meurice to Salomé Saqué, on Blast, on April 16, 2024. The role of a journalist is first and foremost to convey information. With wit, why not if they have a talent for humor, but that's not the heart of the matter.
Once everyone's boundaries are defined, that's not the end of it. In this Nieman Lab article, researchers Sara Ödmark and Nicolaï Jonas point out: "During Donald Trump's first term, audiences began to see journalistic objectivity as a problem when it came to covering all the absurdities that were happening. People found comedians better at covering his politics because they could call out the absurdities more directly, unlike journalists." If audiences prefer to get their news through comedians, then how do we move forward?
According to this FT Strategies report on how new generations expect to receive information, the answer lies in three criteria: transparency, credibility, and affinity. For each of these, laughter, or at least showing a more human side, can provide meaningful support. Far from being a cure-all, humor can thus help create emotional connections and break down the distance that can exist between journalists and readers.
During its fundraising campaign to support the production of a film about the Sarkozy-Kadhafi affair, Mediapart demonstrated, for example, a clever (and unexpected!) use of humor to draw attention and mobilize support. By offering perks such as toilet brushes in the site's colors (a reference to the fact that Sarkozy supporters call them "mud-slingers") or guided tours of Neuilly-sur-Seine, the site builds a bond of complicity with its audiences while strengthening its image as an independent and committed media outlet.
Arrêt sur images, known for its critical perspective on media, uses touches of humor to humanize its teams. By adding comic notes to its journalists' biographies and adopting a relaxed tone during the media's monthly Q&A sessions, the site builds a closer connection with its audience. A good way to defuse sensitive topics, to make a media sometimes perceived as distant or preachy seem more human, and to foster open and inclusive dialogue around media issues.
None of these media outlets are specifically satirical or parodic. Yet far from muddying the waters, each one challenges the image of out-of-touch journalists clinging to their pedestal. This strengthens their community and community engagement. A strategy all the more valuable as the media business model increasingly relies on direct engagement from readers and subscribers.
When humor becomes exclusionary
Where laughter shows its limits is when it's always used by the same people: men, white, heterosexual, in their thirties, from Paris… The media that employ them often use the terms
In trying to stand out through offbeat humor, we often display a surface-level irreverence that, rather than fundamentally questioning society, settles for jabs and ironic commentary that don't shake the status quo. Often, this quasi-cynical humor relies on cultural references widely shared in privileged circles, inadvertently marginalizing the perspectives of minorities or other audiences. This type of irreverence can paradoxically reinforce the insularity of the environment, maintaining an image of intellectual elitism instead of broadening content accessibility.
To avoid completely missing someone's jokes or being exclusionary, even unintentionally, the solution lies in changing perspective. In bringing more women and people of color and minorities into newsrooms. An approach that not only sharpens humor, but improves every aspect of journalistic work: investigating, explaining, telling stories, presenting.
⟶ The Association of Anti-racist and Racialized Journalists (AJAR), the Association of LGBTI Journalists (AJL), the Prenons la Une association, and the Association of Women Sports Journalists offer numerous resources for newsrooms to support more inclusive journalism.
More playful than funny
Today, direct humor tends (in our view) to fade in favor of more playful and accessible forms. One might suppose that the crisis of trust, the highly volatile context of any content shared on social networks, the risk of backlash (and perhaps the episode of the Ligue du Lol, a private group composed — partly — of journalists whose toxic humor mixed mockery, sarcasm, and
Noticing a decline in its teenage readership, Alternatives Économiques chose to hire journalist Rudy Pupin to run its TikTok account. The magazine now has nearly 120,000 followers on the platform, and its videos regularly exceed hundreds of thousands of views. This success stems in particular from the creativity in how the content is illustrated: Rudy Pupin regularly uses Playmobils, modelling clay, fake sand, or rice to explain their topics. These everyday objects and DIY tricks allow the audience to engage with the subjects and stay informed almost without realizing it.
▻ « I spend a lot of time choosing the right accessories and editing pieces to make sure I'm speaking to everyone while maintaining journalistic rigor. » — Rudy Pupin ; La Revue des médias.
In 2021, the daily newspaper Le Parisien enlisted Mathieu Hennequin, a journalist who was twenty-five years old at the time, to create and produce video content for the TikTok platform. The account now has nearly one million followers. Unusual reportage, street interviews, explainer formats with voice-over narration… From its launch, the account distinguished itself through its ability to captivate audiences by leveraging comedy devices such as jokes, self-deprecation, and references to internet trends. The entire balancing act consists in finding the right dosage to avoid wearing out viewers.
▻« At first, my editors thought I was too timid. They'd tell me "loosen up, it needs to be funny." I always ask myself how much a particular joke serves the publication and aligns with the newspaper's interests. If I perform a character, it's not out of ego.» — Mathieu Hennequin; La Revue des médias.
⟶ Excerpts from our overview of video content for social media.
Humor as Editorial Signature
For emerging media outlets, often run by small teams and supported by engaged communities, laughter likewise becomes a marker of identity. It serves as a bridge, a way to forge a strong and complicit bond with their audience. The adoption of an informal, spontaneous, and sometimes bold tone is a direct response to their business model: operating at a human scale, these outlets speak to audiences they know well, in a setting that resembles conversation more than top-down information delivery.
An engaged media outlet launched in Canada in 2003 and arrived in France in 2020, Urbania has built its identity on a resolutely personal approach: "The idea is to come with your personality, your commitment and your sense of humor. The whole challenge is to be both impeccable on the facts and manage to make people laugh," explains on the air at The Media Workshop Florent Peiffer, president of the group in France. The goal is to speak to a community that shares the media's values and curiosity. This closeness allows editorial boldness that larger, more institutional media outlets would have more difficulty adopting.
Other independent media outlets, like Invendable, Climax, and Trash Talk, operate on similar principles, with a guaranteed no-nonsense approach designed to resonate with an already engaged community. Free from the editorial and hierarchical constraints of large media groups, small teams can experiment, test, fail, and try again without compromising their connection with their audience. It's actually what makes them so authentic: humor isn't formatted or calibrated to please everyone. Far from cynical jabs and the detached tone we mentioned earlier, these emerging media outlets adopt a warmer, more inclusive tone instead. And in a landscape saturated with continuous news, it's also nice to have a good laugh.
To go further
- Incarnation, recruitment of young people, adaptation of existing content… Here's how several French and international media outlets embraced video on social networks.
- In our podcast Chemins, we welcomed Lauren Boudard, co-founder of the edgy newsletter TechTrash and of Climax, a climate change news newsletter launched in May 2021. A year later, Climax moved from inboxes to mailboxes with a zine titled "hotter than the climate". Is it really easier to monetize a print product than a newsletter? How do you engage your community?
- Biographies allow readers to learn more about the journalists behind the articles. Mediapart and the New York Times explain to Médianes how this tool is a way to strengthen trust and engagement.
- What if you opened your newsroom doors by involving your readers in your editorial processes? An idea tested by HugoDécrypte, Aude Favre from the YouTube channel WTFake and the magazine Tortoise.
