Play your cards right

No. 115 — OCTOBER 2, 2025

Play your cards right

Hello, everyone,

In this issue, we take a closer look at how newsrooms use maps—whether digital or physical—to report in new ways, engage their readers, and embody their values. Today, we’re taking a closer look at examples from La Déferlante, The New York Times, and StreetPress. For StreetPress, we spoke with its founder, Johan Weisz-Myara, to understand the ins and outs of their new map dedicated to the municipal elections.

Also on the agenda: the successful launch of Petaouchnok, the travel magazine supported by our studio (more than 1,100 copies ordered in less than a week!), resources for creating your own maps, and a discussion on how maps are used as tools in times of conflict.

Do you have a media project in mind? That's great news—our "Creating a Media Outlet" course is back for a new session in December!

Enjoy the read,

OWEN HUCHON, JOURNALIST FOR MÉDIANES

The Strategy

Ideas for Your Media

Discover how media outlets use mapping to assert their values, engage their readers and distribute their content in innovative ways with the cases of La Déferlante, StreetPress and the New York Times.

A value marker

To mark the launch of its latest issue "Informing as Feminists," La Déferlante has created a map of feminist media worldwide. A visually attractive format that embodies its values and commitment to free, independent and engaged journalism. It also serves as a retention tool, with the map offered free with any subscription to the magazine as part of its new campaign.

Engaging your readers

In 2022, the New York Times launched a participatory project: through an interactive map of New York, readers settled a local debate — the names and boundaries of neighborhoods. Each person could then draw the outlines of their own "neighborhood," resulting, a year later, in the publication of a map based on over 37,000 contributions, reflecting residents' perceptions and their relationship to their community.

Share your journalism

For several years now, StreetPress has been using maps as a medium for its content. Recently, the editorial team launched “The Battle for the Municipal Elections,” a map of municipalities at risk of swinging toward the far right. The tool also offers region-specific editorial content: users can subscribe directly to local newsletters via the map.

Want to learn more? Get a behind-the-scenes look at this project in our interview with Johan Weisz-Myara, founder of StreetPress.

From the studio's perspective

A GLANCE AT A SUPPORTED PROJECT

Together with Petaouchnok, we helped launch a unique travel magazine: 184 pages—half book, half magazine—designed to be an adventure. Each issue follows an itinerary—from Paris to Valparaíso for the first one—filled with encounters, feature stories, XXL photos, artists’ journals, and even playful surprises.

We worked with Antoine Delaplace and Raphaël de Casabianca on key stages of the project—defining the campaign’s scope, designing, and integrating the crowdfunding page—to turn a great idea into a published work. The result: a community that rallied behind the project and more than 1,100 copies ordered in less than a week.

You can learn more about our expertise in financing on our studio's website.

CHRISTELLE PERRIN — Medianes, The Studio

On Our Radar

What We're Reading Right Now

How do you make cards?

GIJN/ALASTAIR OTTER

Are you looking for tools to make your own maps? GIJN has compiled a list of several technical solutions that you can draw from depending on your needs (and your level of expertise in cartography).

Mapping is not neutral

THE CONVERSATION/DOUG SPECHT

In times of conflict, maps can be exploited and contribute to dehumanization. While complex and dramatic situations are sometimes reduced to abstract symbols intended to facilitate understanding, the use of such symbols helps erase the human element while creating a psychological distance from violence.

On medianes.org

It's homemade

StreetPress on the Campaign Trail

OWEN HUCHON / MIDFIELDERS

With the municipal elections approaching, StreetPress is mapping the risk of a political shift town by town. A map designed to investigate, segment, and mobilize: access by registration, newsletters by department, and local partners. Already more than 30,000 people have signed up in just a few days. Get a behind-the-scenes look at this project in our interview with the media outlet’s founder, Johan Weisz-Myara.

In Brief

THAT WAY, YOU'LL KNOW

1. Les Autres Possibles, Contexte, Slate: These media outlets are hiring. Check out their job openings.

2. Innovation in data visualization: Is creativity taking a back seat to overused formats?

3. Vinofutur, an annual print magazine dedicated to the future of wine, has launched a pre-order campaign for its next issue.

4. Vert, a media outlet focused on environmental issues, and UFC Que-Choisir are teaming up for a series on consumer issues and health.

5. An extension covers your tabs with a layer of fake dust after a period of inactivity. How do you clean them? Blow into the microphone… or close them

See you on October 16!

for the next edition

Thank you for your messages, which have helped us enrich this newsletter. We’d also like to take this opportunity to welcome the teams from *Le Nouvel Obs*, *Arty Farty*, and *Reporterre*, as well as everyone who has recently joined us.

See you on October 16. Until then, take care of yourselves and your social media accounts.

This newsletter was prepared by Marine Doux and Owen Huchon, together with the team at Médianes.

Médianes

We are a nonprofit media organization, a strategy, marketing, and design studio, and a network for independent journalism.