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Publishing a journal was a popular undertaking for political authors at the end of the eighteenth century. Taking as an example Karel Broeckaert’s Dagelyks Nieuws van Vader Roeland (1792-1793), the current study sheds light on how authors of the eighteenth-century Southern Netherlands tried to give a voice to the common man. The journal not only derived its effectiveness from the use of the Flemish vernacular, but also from embedding its political reporting in a conversational scenography. While the democratizing potential of het Dagelyks Nieuws should not be exaggerated, it did become a locus for the development of public opinion. By thus analyzing Broeckaert’s editorial strategies, we gain insight into his motivations – as well as those of other writers of the Southern Netherlands – for publishing a Dutch-language journal in a French-dominated cultural context.