Launching and Growing Your Media Outlet in the Age of the Ecological Crisis

On Saturday, May 28, Médi­anes organized a roundtable discussion on the topic: “Launching and Developing Your Media Outlet in the Age of the Ecological Emergency.” What factors should be taken into account? We discussed this with Dan Geiselhart and Lauren Boudard from Climax and Thomas Firh from Les Autres. Here’s a recap of our event at La Recyclerie, featuring four ideas you can apply to your media outlet.

Some media outlets cover environmental issues in dedicated sections; others plan to frame their reporting through an ecological lens. This is an important distinction, and for good reason: making environmentalism a theme is not a sufficient commitment for those who view it as an editorial priority. While it is clear that the environment is a vital cause, it must still be addressed from editorial, technical, and strategic perspectives. And that isn’t always easy. Through our discussions with our guests, we’ve identified some tips to follow and tools to implement for launching or developing a media outlet focused on environmental issues.

Climax: Ecology at the Heart of the Editorial Vision

Dan and Lauren are the founders of the *Climax* newsletter, which was launched in 2021 and has more than 2,000 paying subscribers. To set themselves apart, Dan and Lauren chose to set the tone: exposing political inaction on environmental issues through sarcastic humor. We actually discussed this with them in an article from the “Testing Your Project” series. The two journalists already have experience with TechTrash, a tech newsletter with 30,000 subscribers. What’s the connection between the two? “ “The common thread stems from an observation: the dominance of techno-enthusiastic discourse,” explains Lauren. But talking about the climate emergency remains a challenge.

To launch Cli­max, the journal­ists asked them­selves three questions. The first: How do existing media outlets cover it? It seems that a good starting point would be to draw on our own experience as news consumers. “There’s often a very anxiety-inducing angle and a great deal of complexity, and as readers, we didn’t feel like reading the articles in their entirety.”

Second question: How can we talk effectively about environmental issues? “There are a thousand ways to talk about environmental issues. Talking about small actions doesn’t resonate with us. Nor does framing it through the lens of heroes and heroines saving the world.” In response, Climax has chosen to address environmental policy with a biting tone—a way to raise awareness differently and call out inaction.

Finally: Which channel is the most appropriate? The newsletter format seemed most relevant to them because “it’s a flexible, lightweight format that allows us to break free from the major platforms and create a genuine dialogue with our readers .” The newsletter also helps foster a special connection with its community. For Climax, most readers come from TechTrash without necessarily being aware of environmental issues. Furthermore, the email enables a constructive dialogue between Dan, Lauren, and their community, as readers take the time to provide written feedback.

The Others: Taking the Turn, Naturally

Thomas Firh is the co-founder of Les Others, an outdoor-inspired media outlet that covers hiking, biking, rock climbing, and a love of nature. When it launched in 2012, it was a blog. Today, it’s a bi-annual print magazine, online articles, the “Les Baladeurs” podcast, an Instagram account with 185,000 followers, and a creative studio. Most recently, there was the Recto Verso project, which we’ve already told you about: a guide to planning your own trips in France. The crowdfunding campaign that launched Rec­to Ver­so was a resounding success: a total of 10,000 pre-orders were sold, even though the initial goal was set at 1,000. In fact, the idea behind Rec­to Ver­so was to relieve pressure on natural areas. More broadly, the team at Les Autres is com­mit­ted to en­cour­aging its com­muni­ty to travel diffe­rently—in a more re­s­pon­sible way and with re­spect for the environment. Thomas Firh has also explained his approach in a manifesto.

Precisely: the concept of community and sharing is a cornerstone of the media outlet’s editorial vision. Thomas also draws a distinction between the audience and the community: “With an audience, you give them information, and they fit into a top-down model. A community co-creates the project with you.” And for good reason: independent media outlets like Les Autres rely on their readers for funding: listening to them is not an option, and involving them in a concrete way in the editorial process is a brilliant idea.

Pour veiller à une cer­taine cohérence édi­to­ri­ale et stratégique, Thomas met un point d’honneur à appli­quer au quo­ti­di­en dans la ges­tion de son média, les valeurs défendues par Les Oth­ers : « On fait le choix d’avancer moins vite, d’avoir d’autres ambi­tions que la crois­sance ou la créa­tion d’une grosse équipe. » Et parce que tra­vailler sur un mag­a­zine implique de tra­vailler avec des matières pre­mières, des choix s’im­posent pour qu’il y ait une har­monie entre le fond et la forme. « On n’a jamais mis un mag­a­zine à la poubelle, pour­suite Thomas. On n’est jamais passé·es par la dis­tri­b­u­tion clas­sique ; on choisit des papiers fab­riqués en France et des encres respon­s­ables et on tra­vaille actuelle­ment à une charte des valeurs, pour nous, mais qu’on pub­liera, pour essay­er de don­ner l’exemple ». Affaire à suiv­re, mais une chose est sûre : on a hâte.

Four Ways to Launch or Grow Your Media Outlet with a Focus on the Environment

We also included examples from media outlets that were not represented at our roundtable discussion.

Establish or join a charter

The environmental media outlet Vert has partnered with journalists, scientists, and citizens to establish a charter addressing issues related to the environment and media coverage. Loup Espargilière, the founder of Vert, appeared on the “Club indé” segment of “Arrêt sur images” on May 25 and outlined the details of this project. The goal of the charter is “to bring citizens and journalists together around climate information and to ensure better coverage of environmental news ,” Loup explained on the show’s set. This charter aims to reach the mainstream media and those who are not directly involved in environmental issues because “these are eminently cross-cutting topics.”

The charter is presented as 12 principles to be followed. Among these are specifically: addressing climate, biodiversity, and social justice in an integrated manner, placing greater emphasis on education, ensuring transparency regarding the sources used and the experts interviewed, examining the vocabulary and imagery used, exposing the strategies designed to sow doubt in the public’s mind and delay action (greenwashing), provide information on how to address the crisis, and promote journalists’ right to ongoing training throughout their careers. The goal is to establish a document that will stand the test of time. This charter is intended to be signed by numerous media outlets and journalists’ associations “to create a snowball effect and reach larger newsrooms.”

Cli­max is col­la­borating on the de­velop­ment of this charter. Joining forces to act on a larger scale is also the idea behind this charter, as Lauren Boudard explained during our roundtable discussion: “We’re currently working with them to create a guide, a charter. The idea is to establish a common foundation that can set out best practices for media organizations to follow. Meetings among smaller media outlets are essential for bringing these issues to the attention of larger ones.”

Select Advertising and Partners

During our roundtable discussion, Climax pointed out that “a climate-focused media outlet can hardly rely on advertising ,” so they decided to make their newsletter a paid service and rely on their community to fund its production.

For their part, Les Oth­ers derive one-third of their revenue from their studio’s activities. One of the conditions for maintaining this model is to remain vigilant in the selection of advertisers by refusing any assignments from brands that show little concern for thethe environment. In 2017, Les Oth­ers joined the “1% for the Planet” collective, which helps companies make a positive environmental impact. As a result, 1% of Les Autres’ annual revenue is donated to organizations that work to protect the environment.

Print media: Prioritize pre-orders

In June, Cli­max is launching a 116-page fanzine. What about the environmental impact? To plan ahead and avoid printing more than necessary, Dan and Lauren ran a crowdfunding campaign. The pre-order system allows the Cli­max team to get a precise idea of how many copies to print. Not distributing the magazine at newsstands also helps prevent unsold copies from being destroyed. Beyond limiting print runs, the pre-order system makes it possible to gauge public interest in a given project.

Les Oth­ers also held pre-sales for the Rec­to Ver­so project, which was printed in France. For the magazine, despite the rise in paper prices, the team continues to use sustainable inks and paper.

Educate and raise awareness within the community

Les Oth­ers, a partagé Le Code de l’Aventure Respon­s­able dans lequel ils don­nent quelques con­seils sim­ple à suiv­re pour voy­ager en respec­tant la nature. « Ce sont des actions basiques mais par­fois il con­vient de les rap­pel­er. Cela va être s’intéresser à la des­ti­na­tion et à ses habi­tant·es, rechercher des infor­ma­tions sur les régle­men­ta­tions en vigueur, prévoir le bon matériel et adapter les moyens de trans­port util­isés, laiss­er l’endroit comme il était à l’arrivée, ne pas déranger la faune et la flo­re, com­penser les émis­sions de CO₂, ne pas partager les lieux exacts sur les réseaux soci­aux surtout si l’on a une grosse com­mu­nauté », a énuméré Thomas Firh lors de notre table ronde.

Dans ses pre­mières newslet­ters, Vert partageait des recettes mai­son pour faire soi-même ses pro­duits d’entretien et de beauté. Ils ont égale­ment récem­ment pub­lié « les gestes de pre­miers sec­ours pour le cli­mat » qui con­siste à établir des con­seils sim­ples quo­ti­di­ens à des­ti­na­tion des citoyens pour réduire l’empreinte car­bone : cess­er de pren­dre l’avion, végé­talis­er son ali­men­ta­tion et manger local, ou encore acheter d’occasion.

Note: We had previously announced that the event would be available on our website in audio format. However, we encountered problems during the recording and are unable to make it available to you. We apologize for this. You can check out our Twitter feed from the event.

Editor’s Note: Médi­anes, the stu­dio, work­ed with the Cli­max team on the launch of its fanzine and with Vert on its fundraising campaign in the spring of 2022, and Les Autres in a fundraising effort in 2021.

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For further reading:

Details about the event are available on Twitter.

Check out all the episodes of the series “Testing Your Project,” where we interview, among others, the founders of Climax and The Others.

Learn about environmental issues through BBC courses designed for journalists.