- MANAGEMENT (Médianes) — Our advice for launching or growing your media outlet: take a break. Faced with a mounting pile of challenges and urgent tasks, it can be tempting to plow ahead headlong—at the expense of your health—forgetting that free time isn’t a waste of time: on the contrary, it actually helps you save time. Marine Doux, co-founder of [publication name]Médianes, is taking advantage of the start of the new season to share her advice with you.
- VIDEO (Médianes) — Video has made its way into newsrooms of all kinds, driven by changes in audience habits and the desire to attract younger audiences. But incorporating video requires asking the right questions (who are you talking to, and where?) as well as a significant financial and human investment. To help you develop an effective strategy tailored to your newsroom, check out the third episode of our case study series.
- COLLABORATION (We’ve Already Tried) — Several independent and local media outlets are launching “We’ve Already Tried,” a joint investigative newsletter on the far right. Supported by the Fund for a Free Press, they’ve given themselves “one year to observe, at the local level, what happens to radical rhetoric when it translates into actual decisions,” leading up to the 2027 presidential election.
- PLATFORMS (The Conversation) — Facebook’s News Feed has just celebrated its 20th anniversary. When it launched in 2006, it sparked outrage among users and protests outside the company’s offices. Now at the center of several lawsuits, this feature marked a turning point for platforms that are now governed by algorithmic recommendations, where user data has become the product.
- MODEL (Hearing Things) — It’s been a tough summer for the music press, which is feeling the impact of decisions by major corporations that are gradually consolidating the specialized media. BrooklynVegan, Alternative Press, Revolver, and Goldmine have seen a large portion of their editorial staff laid off. What they have in common: they are owned by Veeps, a concert streaming platform 51% owned by Live Nation, a company known for its monopolistic practices in the music industry.
- AI (MIT Technology Review) — When it comes to deepfakes, are we fighting the wrong battle? For years, the response has often been to develop tools to label AI-generated content or debunk it. However, as this MIT Technology Review article reports, viewers of a manipulated video remain influenced even when they know it’s fake.
- DESIGN (Casual Archivist) — Graphic designer Elizabeth Goodspeed also writes the Casual Archivist newsletter, in which she explores design practices from the past, with a different theme for each issue: Belgian pharmaceutical labels, Japanese ice cream wrappers… Recently, she examined issues of the American tech magazine WIRED from the 1990s and their illustrations, which sought to represent a concept that was still vague and intangible: the Internet.
- JOB POSTING (Médor) — We don’t usually share job postings, but we’re making an exception for this one—if only because of its title. The Belgian magazine Médor is hiring a “saute-ruisseau,” a term that once referred to people tasked with delivering messages by crossing—among other things—streams. Médor, which is no longer on X, Facebook, or Instagram, is looking for new ways to share its work.
- TOOLS (ZDNET) — Tor is a system—particularly useful for journalists and their sources—that anonymizes Internet use by routing the connection through multiple relays rather than connecting the user directly to the website being visited. This app lets you turn your phone into one of these relays and help fight censorship—simply by turning on your device.
- ARCHIVES (911 Real Time) — This site lets you follow the events of September 11 in real time, using the interface of an “old” Macintosh: you can switch between TV channels, read CNN in Internet Explorer… just as someone would have done in 2001 while sitting at their computer. This experience serves as a reminder that September 11 was also one of the first major media events to be covered and followed live on the web.
💡 ANNOUNCEMENT: Is digital sovereignty in the media possible? Marine Doux will be in Nantes on September 24 for a panel discussion at the Local News Festival. And we’re offering you 10% off your ticket with the code FIL26_medianes.
