With all our best wishes for 2020, on the way to the twelve years of B2
(B2) B2 begins this year 2020 by soon celebrating (in July) its twelve years of existence and preparing a new (small) evolution. If someone had told me that by starting this adventure with an unpretentious blog, where I was then experimenting with a new form of journalism, largely for the pleasure of doing this job, it would turn into a more professional form, I would never have really believed it.
Make an epistolary blog is quite easy. Transforming it into a financially independent and profitable information site is another adventure. This was done in successive layers, not on a business plan, planned, but trial and error, essentially under the impulse and the friendly 'pressure' of the readers. It is you who, on the one hand, liked the subject, then adhered to it (including financially), accompanied this transformation, by giving us comments, suggestions, opinions, which we sometimes followed, even often.
Trumpeting from the rooftops that we are the best is not our style. But it's a fact: B2 has settled into the landscape in recent years. We have become one of the leading French-language online media on diplomatic and defense aspects. And we don't have to blush in front of our Anglo-Saxon 'competitors'. Despite all the quality of their journalists, our dear colleagues, like Defense News ou Politico Europe, with much greater resources than ours, are unable to cover certain European subjects as well as we do. Like what being a little thumb and daring to write in French is not a handicap, quite the contrary...
About our topics, we are often ahead of a phase, more precise and more complete. We do not intend to revolutionize the planet 'Europe', do not trumpet all the time how many readers we have or the number of journalists who form our team. We prefer to be faithful to the definition given by one of our distinguished readers: influence, discretion.
As a diplomat said, another faithful reader, with the irony befitting this function: you are " well rude, you could say it another way ". Yes indeed. Our role is not to be polite, but to be exact. And, to be exact, to report facts and remarks, to dissect them, we sometimes have to press where it hurts, where there is a problem. We are not systematically looking for negative facts, we also want to highlight what marks, what progresses. Our concern is not to destroy, but to build. However, to build, all builders know, you have to dig to find the foundations.
B2, today, besides my modest person, it is all the same a small team of five people (two at 3/4 time + two very precious freelancers and 1 trainee), without forgetting the 'backstage' (webmaster, lawyer, an accountant). We have no other means than the resources of our readers. This obliges me to transform my role of 'writer' into 'animator' and manager. This role of one-man band is not easy every day. But this is clear: I don't want to give up writing, getting my hands dirty with information. This forces me to juggle constantly, in a schedule that is often complicated by current events. But how can you complain.
The transformation of B2 is not over... We are renovating our site, with a new 'theme' (or 'layout'), little tips (like reading time), the switch to a new blog alert system (the former is now outdated)... and a little novelty (coming soon): the launch of the English version of this blog. Yes, while Brexit is coming to an end, we are going to the other side. A revolution for us, ardent defenders of the Francophonie. To be continued...
In the meantime, all our best wishes, dear readers, for this year 2020 which started with a bang, to the sound of cannon and diplomacy.
(Nicolas Gros-Verheyde)
Image credit: Russian Presidency, European Commission, White House - assembly and imagery © B2 / Leo Chevallier