On Tuesday, April 22, the new cohort of the Médianes Program gathered for the first time at our offices in Paris for the program launch session. It was an opportunity to discover everyone's projects, meet the Médianes team, and commit to this nine-month support program designed for founders of emerging, independent, and mission-driven media outlets.
First step of the day: a session of individual pitches where each project leader presented their media, their ambitions and their needs. An opportunity to discover diverse worlds, sketch out synergies and group cohesion.
After a shared lunch, we dedicated the afternoon to presenting the program: content, tools, facilitators, monitoring procedures, how mentoring works…
The day continued with a discussion session with Annabelle Perrin (La Disparition, first cohort of the Médianes Programme) and Estelle Augat (Flaash, second cohort). Their insights made it possible for the new cohort to exchange ideas about their projects while looking ahead to the support they would receive, before closing out the day with a social moment with the Médianes team.
Discover the participants
The leaders and founders of ten media outlets are thus joining the third cohort of the Médianes Program: Arrêt sur images, Disclose, La lettre de Cancan, Les Surligneurs, MOB, Pioche!, Prison Insider, Quoi de mum, Soif la revue and Vertige Media.
Arrêt sur images
Arrêt sur Images is an emblematic media outlet for critical analysis of media discourse founded in 2008. Through articles and videos, their investigations and columns aim to deconstruct common biases in the news world on an independent platform. The team is based in Paris and represented by Antoine Streiff, Robin Andraca and Alizée Vincent.
Their objective with the Medianes Program: to develop a stronger structure to ensure their sustainability, benefit from legal advice, and strengthen their communication strategy.
Disclose
A non-profit investigative media outlet founded in 2018, Disclose produces investigations with significant social impact. Based in Paris and represented by Mathias Destal, the outlet investigates matters of public interest, with a focus on environmental crimes, human rights and fundamental freedoms, and arms sales.
By joining the program, the team aims to strengthen its management and operational tools while reinforcing the overall vision of the project.
Cancan's Letter
Every week since 2022, La lettre de Cancan offers a newsletter covering news from the Centre Manche: local economy, community life, innovations, remarkable initiatives, insider tips, cultural outings… Driven by journalist and project founder Caroline Gaujard-Larson and several independent contributors, this local news newsletter, backed by a cultural third place and a media literacy program, is produced from the third place Cancan Café, in Percy-en-Normandie (50).
Its founder hopes that the Médianes Program will help her structure her project, develop her business model and consolidate her marketing strategy.
Les Surligneurs
Specializing in legal checking, Les Surligneurs verifies the legal compliance of political statements. This work is accomplished through a unique collaboration between journalists and 20 legal researchers, who publish texts accessible to the general public. The project was born in 2016, a year marked by the explosion of fake news, from Brexit to Donald Trump's election. Represented by Vincent Couronne, its co-founder, and based in Paris, Les Surligneurs' objective is to restore verified legal facts as a foundation for public debate.
The media outlet is seeking to diversify its revenue streams and structure its business model. It also wants to strengthen its internal organization and implement its long-term strategic vision.
MOB
MOB is a free online video media outlet dedicated to democracy issues, founded by journalist Elliot Clarke in 2023. Its mission is to reconnect citizens to politics and collective decision-making. MOB seeks to make this topic—perceived as opaque, complicated, and even off-putting—more accessible by anchoring it in everyone's lived reality. The media outlet, based in Montreuil, thus examines all areas of society and daily life through the lens of democracy.
Through the Medianes Program, MOB hopes to strengthen its overall structure, from administrative and legal to financial perspectives.
Draw!
Pioche! is a free online media outlet dedicated to the cultural dimensions of ecology and the ecological transition of culture. Its co-founder, Jean-Paul Deniaud, starts from the observation that the cultural sector is a major lever for transforming our societal models and wishes to contribute to informing a community of cultural professionals, media outlets, and institutions about ecological issues. The media outlet, founded in 2020, is now based in Montpellier.
Their objective? Pioche! would like to benefit from the contributions and tools of the Médianes Program to better understand its audience, strengthen its reader community, and adjust its website, products and distribution strategies accordingly.
Prison Insider
Prison Insider is an information platform on prisons worldwide founded in 2015. It collects testimonies, publishes studies, analyses and interviews, and develops awareness-raising tools in French, English and Spanish. Its objective is to inform, compare and bear witness to detention conditions in light of fundamental rights, in an accessible and engaging manner. Prison Insider operates from Lyon, with the platform represented by Nathália Keller Rorato, Clémence Bouchart and Madeleine Dykmans.
Prison Insider hopes to benefit from the Médianes Program to strengthen its editorial production, develop its communication strategy and diversify its revenue sources.
What's new
Newsletter for young parents, Quoi de Mum has been offering for several months a funny and political take on parenthood, with a feminist and non-guilt-inducing approach. It covers topics such as friendship, the mental load on mothers, co-parenting and children's rights through essays, interviews and cultural recommendations. The founders started from the observation that existing offerings were underrepresentative, often too self-satisfied or condescending toward parents. Quoi de mum is based in Paris and is run by Clémentine Gallot and Pauline Verduzier, its co-founders.
Its objective is to establish itself legally and administratively in order to formalize a sustainable business model. Quoi de mum also needs to strengthen its marketing strategy to increase its visibility, expand and build loyalty among its readership.
Soif, the magazine
Soif, la revue is a biannual magazine (mook) offering reportage on water, examined through a societal, political, geopolitical, cultural, and environmental lens. The magazine, represented by Pauline Boyer, co-founder associate, and designed in Bordeaux, aims to construct a new narrative of water. Soif has championed, since its creation in 2024, a strong artistic vision by paying particular attention to the printed object, which is meant to be shared, kept, and even exhibited.
Soif wishes to strengthen its communication and raise its profile. The publication is also looking to redefine its business model by exploring new sources of funding.
Vertige Media
An online media outlet dedicated to climbing created last year, Vertige Media offers an alternative vision of climbing. Since the discipline is predominantly covered from a performance angle, its founders want to explore it through an engaged perspective, drawing on social, cultural and environmental angles. Vertige publishes from Pantin and will be represented by Matthieu Amaré.
Vertige Media joined the Médianes Program with the goal of developing its business model, strengthening its administrative foundations, and implementing an effective marketing strategy to increase its visibility.
What now?
In the coming days, participants will attend their first workshops, meet their mentor, and discover the tools at their disposal. We can't wait to begin supporting the projects and seeing how each person progresses in the coming months!
To go further
- Who are the participants from previous editions of the Médianes Program? Discover the spring 2024 cohort, and the fall 2024 cohort.
- Want to learn more about the Médianes Program, support, or the schedule? Visit the program's website.
- Dates for the next call for projects, detailed program, speakers… to keep up with the latest program news, sign up here.
