A firefly journal. A manifesto

Cheon gang ji gok, movable bronze characters (1447).

Inventing journalism for the 21st century.

The founding editorial of les humanités (May 2021).

“It is entirely up to us to prevent the fireflies from disappearing. To do so, we must ourselves embrace the freedom of movement, the withdrawal that is not retreat, the diagonal strength, the ability to bring forth fragments of humanity, the indestructible desire. We ourselves must therefore—withdrawn from the realm of reign and glory, in the breach opened between the past and the future—become fireflies and thereby reform a community of desire, a community of emitted glimmers, of dances in spite of everything,

of thoughts to be transmitted. We must say yes in the night traversed by glimmers, and not be content

with merely describing the no of the light that blinds us.”

Georges Didi-Huberman, Survival of the Fireflies (Survivance des lucioles), Éditions de Minuit, 2009.

It's time. It's high time

For a long time it simmered, in all sorts of underground galleries, and then one day, it hatched.

Today is now.

In the maelstrom of wars, poverty, and shrinking horizons, humanity is sorely mistreated; it is high time it became indignant, revolted, awakened, and reclaimed its right to exist, a right it has been utterly deprived of. Must humanity wait until it is further annihilated before rising up and reclaiming the power of life, which is not an algorithm? This is a path. Humanity, our humanity, is yet to come; this must be acknowledged.

Although blinded and considerably diminished by the multiple forms of pollution that also plague our lives (Pasolini), fireflies have not completely disappeared. They owe this resistance and resilience to their ability to develop collective strategies (for example, some species can blink in groups, synchronously). In Japan, fireflies have been declared a "cultural treasure," that is to say, an asset of exceptional value and universal significance.

You read correctly, fireflies are a cultural phenomenon. And look around you, look within yourself, there are still some alive, survivors (Didi-Huberman). Perhaps all it takes is giving them enough space so they can reproduce again.

For example, the space of a newspaper, even an online one. In newspapers of yesteryear, printed on paper, there were also lines. They were made of lead, and the printing workers arranged them on the typewriter. Linotypists, photogravure engravers, typographers, and so on, died out shortly after the dinosaurs; they did not survive the abrupt change in atmosphere brought about by the arrival of the internet.

Nellie Bly, the first female investigative journalist (1864-1922)

The internet has already killed some newspapers, but it hasn't killed journalism. Ah, journalism! Whether investigative or crime-related, sports or critical, this is a profession that has been badly battered in recent decades. Certainly, a few literary fireflies remain, but where are Albert Londres and Jack London, Albert Camus (in Combat ), Nellie Bly (1864-1922, the first female investigative journalist), and even Françoise Giroud (co-founder of L'Express in 1953)? These are great names. So what? Should greatness be frightening?

What killed journalism wasn't the internet, it was capitalism. Newspapers ceased to belong to those who created them; they became the property of financiers and industrialists eager to make money and profit from information, just as they would from battery-farmed chickens. They seized control of the very soul of journalism; now we no longer talk about articles or photographs, but about "content" suitable for being fed into "pipes." As in all areas of human activity, distribution , in the hands of a few oligarchs, is draining the true producers.

That being said, in recent years journalists have been asked to "adapt to the internet" and become mass -producers of "content" (24/7 news). The exact opposite is what should have been done: adapt the internet to journalism. It's time, high time, to shatter all of this.

Les humanités are an online journal, a media outlet if you will, of a radically new kind.

What does it mean to call it an alternative media outlet?

First of all, this is not an alternative media outlet, absolutely not. Certainly, our reporting will often delve into the margins, because without margins, a page is unreadable. But if it's just to be relegated to the fringe underground category, no thanks.

"Alter" simply means "differently," because we're going to do things differently. And who knows, maybe we'll even manage to create an alternative journal that could quench the thirst of the mind?

Active simply means active. Just as there are climate activists, Femen activists, and activists of all kinds, we will be information activists. In every sense of the word.

Les humanités are a journal without borders. This means that from the Colombian Cauca to Gaza, from Cennes-Monestiés, a village in the Aude region of France, to Dalandzadgad in Mongolia; from Uganda (soon) to Indonesia, and so on, no territory will be beyond its reach. In any case, since humanity is a whole, no one is a stranger.

But without borders, it also means without the usual compartmentalized sections. Our sections are titled , "On the Spot", "Ephemeris", "Ecologies", "Citizenships", "A Tour of the day in 80 worlds", "Affinities", "Ammunition", etc. That says it all.

Without borders, this ultimately means that different forms of writing will happily coexist. We are in the 21st century. Are there, on the one hand, the "media," inherently noble, and on the other, the "social networks," inherently suspect? We must put an end to this dichotomy. In Colombia today, social networks provide more and better information than newspapers. Yet, this divide persists. Right here, a media outlet that claims to be independent maintains a strict separation between its editorial staff and blogs. Journalists are paid to write, while bloggers must pay (at the very least, a subscription to the media outlet).

To allow different registers of writing to coexist. Thus, within les humanités, contemporary poetry will necessarily have its place, and not in the obituary section. But many other forms of writing will also be included, such as a "journal of observation," a "source of sounds," etc.

Anyone can write, photograph, film, speak, sing, etc. With a humanities education , you don't need to be a card-carrying journalist to engage in informal journalism. "Citizen journalism," then? Let's not get carried away with buzzwords. Shared journalism, if you will.

Les humanités journal will be like a melting pot, but be warned, even in melting pots, someone has to prepare the menu. For a journal, a menu is called a table of contents. And the humanities editorial board will be there to editorialize, that is, to lay out the pages, to design the layout, to give it depth. Not everything is of equal value; the wheat must be separated from the chaff, distinctions created. "Without distinction, there is no democracy," writes Jacques Rancière. Otherwise, it's not a journal, but a casual conversation at a café (which, incidentally, has its merits).

Young protesters in Cali, Colombia, May 2021.

Towards 21st Century Journalism

We will tell stories—in words, images, and sounds—to show that the world is more beautiful than we say. No more playing cat and mouse. No more leaving storytelling to the advertising propaganda of narrative. We may have lost the battle of language, but not yet the war. As Camille de Toledo writes in an essential Manifesto of Potential Art , “Are we narrow or broad entities? What power do we have to expand ourselves? What is this power we call potential ? Is this potentiality already a material fact? And if hypothesis is an act, what about the potentialities that we are? It is about reopening the future to new potentialities, to possible hopes. ”

Telling stories, often getting excited, and sometimes getting angry when necessary. Les humanités claim to have no qualms about speaking their mind.

To put it as simply as possible, les humanités aim to invent a new kind of journalism, 21st-century journalism. It's about time, it's high time; we're already 21 years behind the millennium. Okay, granted, it took time to grow up.

Isn't inventing 21st-century journalism a bit ambitious ? Yes, so what? As the late Pierre Dac said, "He was a former basset hound who, through hard work, energy, ambition, willpower, and civic-mindedness, had managed to become a very respectable Saint Bernard."

But will we have the resources to achieve this ambition? In other words, what exactly is this so-called "business model" ? What we're going to do is priceless. Les humanités online journal will be completely free, from top to bottom. There's absolutely no valid reason why a homeless person in Aubusson, or a penniless young student in Madagascar or Burkina Faso, shouldn't have the right to access humanities education. But we too often forget that what's free sometimes has great value. And the people who will write, photograph, film, etc., for the humanities must be paid fairly. We also want to be able to invest in real reporting, with the necessary time.

Everyone will be free to subscribe to les humanités for a reasonable price of €5 per month. No more, no less. With a few small perks in return: the right to post comments, invitations to shows, exhibitions, etc.

You are our "business model".

Together, we go further.

Jean-Marc Adolphe,

May 21, 2021 (updated on 15 December 2025)

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