Regain control of your audience

No. 131 — OCTOBER 29, 2026

Regain control of your audience

Hello,

As the year draws to a close, the fundraising season is in full swing. For media outlets that rely on the support of their readers, maintaining direct and lasting contact with their audience is crucial. However, the practices and policies of major tech companies are undermining this relationship. AI, social media, search engines… How can media outlets share their journalism and grow their community without becoming dependent on them?

In this issue, we offer some possible answers with the latest installment in our case study series! In it, we analyze how certain media outlets are using newsletters, RSS feeds, print, and decentralized networks to regain control over their relationship with their audience.

To further this discussion, we will also address Wikipedia’s strategy in response to its decline in traffic, as well as our manifesto for the technological independence of the media.

Staying connected also means meeting in person: Join us on December 3 in Brussels for the Sphera Media Lab, our annual event to work together to strengthen media independence. See below for the program and registration!

Enjoy the read,

OWEN HUCHON, JOURNALIST AT MÉDIANES

The Strategy

Ideas for Your Media

Distributing Journalism Outside the GAFAM Ecosystem

Declining traffic, media blockades, AI-generated summaries: The media have time and again seen platforms change their rules overnight. This dynamic disrupts their strategies, forces them to adapt blindly, and complicates access to a community that no longer belongs to them. How can journalism be distributed differently?

Develop Your Own Channels

Newsletters, RSS feeds, and PDFs: these time-tested, low-cost, and still-relevant methods are making a comeback at some media outlets. They’re a way to reach your readers directly—without an algorithm deciding who reads your content, and without a change in a platform’s rules cutting you off from your audience.

Explore Paper

Print media is read off-screen and passed from hand to hand. Whether it’s online or offline, you can start small: a zine, a folded sheet of paper, or postcards. You don’t need to launch a magazine to create a physical, distributable point of contact that reaches your target audience directly.

Decentralize

In recent years, so-called “decentralized” platforms have gained popularity, such as Mastodon: just like with email, you can switch platforms without losing your contacts and still interact with users on other social networks. The system is still new and has room for improvement, but it may be worth exploring depending on your audience’s profile.

This issue continues our monthly series of case studies on the independent European press. You can find the first four installments on our website.

Over in Médianes

Come see us in Brussels

Sphera Media Lab: A Day to Connect and Take Action

Since 2024, Sphera has been coordinatingMédianes a network of independent European media outlets that promotes editorial collaboration across Europe. Every year, we organize our major event: the Sphera Media Lab. This year, it will take place on December 3 at LaVallée (Brussels) and will focus on one question: How can we practically strengthen media independence? With major elections on the horizon, the rise of anti-democratic forces, and AI challenging traditional media models, dialogue and cooperation are essential to building resilience together.

The day of masterclasses, keynote speeches, and workshops will conclude with the premiere of the documentary *Sphera*, which explores attacks on press freedom in Europe and focuses on four journalists in Greece, Poland, France, and Italy.

Are we on the same page?

You’ll also meet some of the team there!Médianes Sixtine Yung, Project Manager for Support and Training, will present our project to map independent media in Europe. You’ll also have the chance to learn about Socle Dons, our tool for managing, collecting, and securing donations, with Baptiste Thevelein, co-founder of Médianes. Agathe Kupfer, Head of Impact, will moderate a discussion on building communities beyond the digital realm.

Check out the lineup!

On Our Radar

What We're Reading Right Now

Muse, the Not-So-Cute Assistant

Sarah Perez / TechCrunch

Meta recently launched Muse, an AI agent that promises to carry out its users’ tasks by browsing the web and connecting to their calendars and even their email inboxes. In short: a web where we click less and less, and where newsletters could be read or summarized by a robot rather than by their readers.

Where can I find magazines?

JOHN HARRIS / THE GUARDIAN

How can you discover new magazines when the retail outlets that display them are disappearing? In the United Kingdom, the announcement of the closure of 150 WH Smith stores threatens a key link in the distribution of periodicals. For John Harris, former editor-in-chief of the music magazine Select, it also marks the end of an experience: that of discovering new publications while browsing the aisles.

Our Publications

It's homemade

Tech Independence: Our Manifesto

Marine Doux and Baptiste Thevelein / MÉDIANES

Following our guides on technological independence, we published our manifesto for media tech independence. Open source, sovereignty, and collaborative development are the principles we believe are necessary for media organizations to regain control over their tools. This line of thinking led to the creation of Socle, our suite of open-source and European tools. Discover our principles and convictions!

The Wikipedia Example

OWEN HUCHON / MIDFIELDERS

With the arrival of AI Overviews in France and the growing role of AI in news distribution, some media outlets are figuring out how to adapt. What if you looked to… Wikipedia for inspiration? Earlier this year, we reported on how the free (donation-funded) encyclopedia was adjusting its strategy in the face of AI and declining traffic—a case that will resonate with newsrooms operating under a similar model.

In Brief

THAT WAY, YOU'LL KNOW

1. Alternatives économiques, Arte Info, and Brief.me: These media outlets are hiring. Check out their job openings.

2. Several media outlets that have gone through our training programs have launched their own crowdfunding campaigns, such as Greenletter, which focuses on the environment, and Jeux & Stratégie, which is dedicated to games.

3. Meta wanted to use content from websites linked to its business accounts to train its AI models: the company is changing course and amending its terms and conditions.

4. Major vulnerabilities have been discovered in the PHP programming language, which is used by many websites: be sure to install the updates.

5. Journalists Assaulted at the RN Convention: More than forty journalism organizations, including Mediapart and Politis, have condemned the violence.

See you in two weeks!

for the next edition

Thank you for your messages, which have helped us enrich this newsletter. We’ll be back on Monday, November 9, with our latest edition of our industry watch newsletter, Les 10 Liens, and on November 19 with our latest edition of Coulisses. Not yet subscribed to all our publications? Update your preferences so you don’t miss them!

This newsletter was prepared by Owen Huchon and Agathe Kupfer, along with the team at Médianes.

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