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This article was originally published in Medians' 10 Links newsletter, sent every other Monday at 2pm. Sign up here!
- STRATEGY (Medians) — As municipal elections approach, attention is refocusing more than ever on local issues. For local media, the timing is strategic: the election period is an invitation to "enter the campaign" to concretely demonstrate their contribution to public debate and the strengthening of local democracy.
- INDEPENDENCE (Politis x Arrêt sur images) — Jeff Bezos continues dismantling the legendary Washington Post, serving his interests and those of the Trump administration: 300 journalists out of 800 were brutally laid off, including a correspondent in a war zone. An unprecedented case in scale, but one expected to repeat in a fragile sector increasingly under the influence of billionaires.
- INFLUENCE (Taylor Lorenz) — "You're a journalist and you've recently been laid off? Become a content creator!" The push toward entrepreneurship might work for some, but safeguarding the press and journalism won't happen through Substack or TikTok, as Taylor Lorenz reminds us, being well-placed to know.
- FORMAT (La Revue des Médias) — There are exceptions that prove the rule, however. That's the case with Pomélo, launched in 2019 by Ezéchiel Zérah. The food newsletter, hosted on Kessel, shifted to a freemium model in 2020, becoming profitable in just four months. The secret ingredient? Have fun. The journalist champions a publishing pace on his own terms and editorial freedoms that would make many a media establishment uncomfortable.
- STRATEGY (Knight Foundation x FT Strategies) — No, young people aren't abandoning news. However, they're navigating a fragmented and saturated digital space that makes things harder for them. The challenge: rethink formats, platforms, and content distribution, and turn attention into genuine engagement. The study offers some tips for adapting.
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A WORD FROM OUR TEAM — Following Mediapart's investigation into Olivier Legrain, a patron of several independent media outlets, shared in our previous edition, the Médianes team expressed in a statement its support for the victims and reaffirmed its principles of independence and vigilance.
- IMPACT (The Conversation France) — The media outlet publishes its second impact report, detailing precisely its media, political, scientific, and civic repercussions. An interesting feature: supplementary interviews with authors of certain articles to document more thoroughly their concrete impact after publication.
- ARCHIVING (Internet Archive) — Automattic (WordPress.com) has partnered with Internet Archive to launch a plugin against "link rot". The tool redirects to an archived version of a page if the hyperlink no longer works and proactively saves your site's content.
P.S. A major issue: a study estimated that 25% of deep links (links leading directly to an internal page of a website, not to its homepage) used by the New York Times in its articles had become inaccessible.
- AI (RSF) — According to RSF, deepfakes targeting journalists are multiplying: 100 cases documented in 27 countries. Women are particularly targeted (74%), often in sexual harassment campaigns. To stem the phenomenon, the NGO notably proposes the creation of a specific criminal offense and requiring platforms to better identify these fake videos.
- AI (Runway Research) — Confident you can spot AI-generated videos? Take the test. Scores on the team range from 16/20… to 8/20. Pro tip: watch out for overly smooth camera movements, frozen backgrounds, and telltale details (hair floating independently of gravity, grass disappearing, inconsistent shadows, etc).
- TOOL (txt.fyi) — This week, we're talking about a bare-bones CMS. No stats, no account, no cookies, no comments, no ads. txt.fyi deliberately offers an impoverished publishing experience, a rejection of modern CMSs and social networks. You write, you publish, and only people with the link can read you. That's it, and it feels good.
