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This article was originally published in Medians' 10 Links newsletter, sent every other Monday at 2pm. Sign up here!
- INDEPENDENCE (Médianes x CJR) — If media independence and resilience once relied on financial stability, European newsrooms now operate in hostile environments. Between political pressure and abusive legal proceedings, legal vulnerability has become a determining factor for media survival, even with a solid business model.
- AI (PressGazette) — Deals between media outlets and major AI players are multiplying. But what about independent structures that struggle to have a say in these negotiations? In the United Kingdom, Publishers' Licensing Services is offering publishers, large and small, to feed a shared content database accessible to companies through a license.
- INVESTIGATION (Rembobine) — Mobilizing your readers to conduct large-scale investigations: a practice already adopted by newsrooms like Reporterre and Médor. An effective and journalistically rich method, but one that requires solid oversight to receive and protect testimonies on sometimes sensitive, painful, or legally delicate topics.
- LOCAL (JournalismUK) — Local media outlet Ipswich has just opened a small office in the city centre. A valuable showcase for the outlet on a historic street, and also a way to encourage subscriptions through a new benefit: subscribers will be able to occasionally visit the offices and chat with journalists.
P.S. What's the point of a newsroom in 2026? Several media outlets are rethinking their workspaces to assert who they are and reinvent their relationship with the public.
- LOCAL (RSF) — Media closures, market concentration, and the proliferation of AI-generated plagiarized content… RSF's recent report on the state of local news paints a picture of a sector under severe strain. But it's not all bleak: in parallel, independent local initiatives continue to launch and innovate, such as Splann, Marsactu, Le Poulpe, and Pays (co-founded by Médianes, editor's note).
- PAPIER (Dazed) — After vinyl records and film photography, is it now the turn of handwritten letters to make a comeback? In recent months, “mail clubs” have been popping up everywhere: young independent creators who, for a monthly subscription fee, offer to send letters accompanied by illustrations, photos, or stickers, in a handmade style reminiscent of scrapbooking.
- MODEL (Scott Stedman) — To fund his media outlet, investigative journalist Scott Stedman is relying neither on a paywall nor on a billionaire… but on coffee beans, whose sales are expected to help finance his editorial project. An original approach that raises a question: is offering quality information still a sufficient argument?
A NOTE FROM THE TEAM — Coming soon on Médianes: new content exploring some of our key themes — the far-right threat to independent media, media cooperation, audience engagement. Have ideas, examples, or insights to share? Write to us: [email protected] !
- BEHIND THE SCENES (The New Yorker) — In a previous edition, we discussed the importance of sharing behind-the-scenes looks at creative processes in the age of generative AI. Here's an example from the press: in this video published by The New Yorker, artist Katy Strutz shows how she sculpted and then photographed a clay set to illustrate an article about Joe Rogan.
- GAME (Wikigacha) — Want to reconcile your nostalgia for Pokémon cards with your love of unlikely Wikipedia articles? With Wikigacha, you open card packs and collect encyclopedia pages whose attack points, defense, and rarity are calculated based on their length and popularity. What if we did the same for news articles?
- TOOL (Link Bouquet) — Want to share the links you've discovered here with someone, but the idea of sending a plain list of URLs seems a bit dull? With Link Bouquet, you can create a beautiful bouquet… of hyperlinks. We've even prepared one for you, just for you, to share the links from this edition with your loved ones in a charming way.
