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This article was originally published in Medians' 10 Links newsletter, sent every other Monday at 2pm. Sign up here!
- TRACKING (Médianes) — What if better understanding your audience meant collecting less data, not more? Behind the free tools that media outlets adopt reflexively, publishers amass vast quantities of data, at the cost of legal, ethical, and even environmental risks. Enough to erode, at a time of distrust toward big tech companies, the connection with your community.
- MODEL (Columbia Journalism Review) — On the American Prospect website, programmatic advertising has disappeared. No more weight loss ads where tip #4 will shock doctors: the American progressive news outlet has broken with a system that displays anything, collects reader data, and funnels most of it to Google and Meta. One month later, time spent on the site had nearly doubled.
- DESIGN (Medians) — Far more than a matter of aesthetics, design signals an editorial identity before you've read a single line, drives subscriptions, makes an article a pleasure to read… but it can also be turned against readers through infinite scrolls or dark patterns. Our art director, Christelle Perrin, details in images, with Maxime Loisel, the many ways design can serve or undermine a media outlet.
- DESIGN (The Cut) — What if we deliberately made consuming information more laborious? Facing a generation shaped by social media and streaming, the antidote would be frictionmaxxing: the art of encouraging inefficiency to promote reflection and active rather than passive consumption.
- PAPER (Japan Today) — In Japan, book and magazine sales now account for just 40% of their 1996 peak. But paper isn't finished yet. Self-publishing and zines are experiencing a remarkable resurgence, driven especially by young people: the self-publishing market has doubled compared to figures from four years ago.
- TRAFFIC (Digiday) — "Google Zero": a buzzword that sums up media outlets' current fears that Google will no longer send them any traffic. Is this possible? Some newsrooms are already preparing for it. Better to have reduced dependence on Google even if it continues to send traffic than to have done nothing and lose everything. How? Build your brand beyond your website.
- AI (Reporterre) — The online media outlet announced it would stop using generative AI across all its activities and formats: articles, images, social media posts, research… A consistency choice for the editorial team of this environmental media outlet, which is taking the opportunity to lay out its arguments and highlight its own work on the subject.
- LOCAL (Arrêt sur images) — Foreign interference, redacted articles, manipulation… There was plenty to report about the Toulouse municipal campaign during the first public broadcast of Arrêt sur images outside of Paris. A timely reminder of the importance of media criticism at the local level.
- VIDEO (Vogue) — “Authenticity.” That’s the watchword in many creative fields, and the media is no exception. Except that the pressure to be visible also wears down those who are subjected to it: anonymity and discretion are appealing, and faceless influencers are becoming increasingly popular. In the age of social media, disappearing has become a true luxury.
- EDITORIAL (The Pudding) — Mouth as dry as… the desert? Ouch, a bit too predictable. What if you preferred toast, flour, or a mummy instead? The Pudding analyzed 200,000 comparisons drawn from popular novels to map the most common ones, and the rarest. It's in English but it's a good source of ideas for varying your phrasing and avoiding tired imagery.
