Media part

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Media part

description French internet newspaper (paid)
publishing company Société Editrice de Mediapart
First edition 2008
Frequency of publication Three issues a day,

170,000 online subscribers (2019)

Editor-in-chief Edwy Plenel (Directeur de la publication)
Web link mediapart.fr

Mediapart is a French internet newspaper that was jointly founded in 2008 by: François Bonnet (1995–2006 senior editor at Le Monde ), Gérard Desportes (formerly editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Liberation ), Laurent Mauduit (1994–2006 senior editor at Le Monde ) and Edwy Plenel (editor at Le Monde for a total of 25 years, 1996–2004 in a leading position). The website also contains articles in English and Spanish.

Mediapart is a member of the European Investigative Collaboration (EIC).

financing

Mediapart only generates income through paying subscribers, the website does not contain any advertising, which should enable both good quality and independence from corporations.

According to co-founder François Bonnet, the newspaper needs 50,000 subscribers to be profitable; this threshold was exceeded in mid-2011. In November 2013 the number of subscribers was 80,000, in 2016 it was 130,000 and at the end of 2019 around 170,000. In an interview on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Mediapart , co-founder Edwy Plenel stated in March 2018:

“I had ten years in debt building this media company and I didn't repay my last loan until December 2017! Today Mediapart stands for 140,000 paying subscribers, 4,700,000 individual visitors per month, 85 employees, 13.7 million euros in sales in 2017 and seven profitable years. The key to our success is trust. Our subscribers - we don't call them 'readers' or 'users' - trust us even when we shake their certainties. "

In March 2014 Edwy Plenel announced that the newspaper would be transferred to a non-profit organization (société à but non lucratif) from 2015. The employees and founders now hold 44% of the capital, the Society of Friends of Mediapart (Société des amis de Mediapart) 16.8%, the Doxa 31.8% and the Ecofinace 6.3%. In spring 2017, the value of Mediapart was estimated at 11 million euros. According to information from 2019, the newspaper generated revenues of 13.8 million euros and a net profit of two million euros.

According to Mediapart's revenue model, users pay between five and nine euros a month and receive access to three current online editions a day as well as the entire archive. You have the choice between two areas: “Le Journal” is the editorial offer of journalists who want to offer investigative journalism . In contrast, the content of “Le Club” is mainly designed by the users and can be read without a subscription; however, you must be a paying member to post and comment. The various offers should complement each other through the juxtaposition of editorial reports, blogs and comments.

Public response

Far beyond France, the newspaper in early 2010 became known when she made information public, from which the suspect showed the presidential election campaign in 2007 by Nicolas Sarkozy was possibly due to illegal donations from the assets of L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt financed .

In October 2010, several journalists and editorial offices who had dealt intensively with the Bettencourt affair were deliberately stolen notebooks and CDs in a series of burglaries. In addition to Le Monde and Le Point , Mediapart was also affected. Then Mediapart and the satirical magazine Le Canard enchaîné wrote that President Sarkozy had journalists eavesdropping who were working on the investigation of the Bettencourt affair. The general secretary of the Elysée Palace Claude Guéant and the head of the French domestic intelligence service Bernard Squarcini then announced that they would file charges of defamation against Mediapart ; In early 2011 it was announced that the trial would take place in October 2011. Guéant, who had meanwhile been promoted to French interior minister, withdrew his complaint "without comment" during the 2011 summer break.

In spring 2013, Mediapart played a key role in the discovery of the Cahuzac affair. The French budget minister Jérôme Cahuzac, who was dismissed on March 19, 2013, had invested large sums of money abroad by ignoring the French tax authorities. According to Mediapart editor-in-chief Edwy Plenel, this affair sparked “a democratic earthquake”, the consequences of which are not foreseeable: “Just because a small, independent editorial team like Mediapart remained stubborn for four months, this story came to light and the wall of lies was broken . That's not normal."

At the end of June 2015, Mediapart - at the same time as the daily Liberation - published WikiLeaks documents, which revealed that French companies, but also the former Finance Ministers Pierre Moscovici and François Baroin , were allegedly spied on by the US secret service NSA .

When it was reported in March 2018 that the former French President Nicolas Sarkozy was being interrogated in the so-called Libya affair (alleged donations by the former Libyan ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi to finance Sarkozy's election campaign in 2007), it was recalled that Mediapart had already alleged corresponding allegations published during the 2012 presidential campaign after examining documents from a Franco-Lebanese businessman.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Harriet Wolff: "We are relaxed" . In: The daily newspaper: taz . September 22, 2018, ISSN  0931-9085 , p. 23 ( taz.de [accessed October 17, 2018]).
  2. ↑ See Mediapart.fr: the pioneers of paid content ( Memento of August 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Meedia Topstory of June 1, 2010; Furthermore, we will not be intimidated , taz online from January 30, 2011.
  3. ↑ Skeptical about the chances of survival of this paid Internet newspaper Thomas Knüwer: Mediapart - the false dream ( memento from June 14, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Handelsblatt blog, March 24, 2009.
  4. ^ According to Stefan Ulrich: "No more fetters" , Süddeutsche Zeitung online from June 14, 2011.
  5. ↑ Jutta Sommerbauer: The French online medium "Mediapart" is only financed through subscriptions. It is even highly profitable. " Die Presse ", print edition, November 17, 2013
  6. ↑ See Mediapart a neuf ans: nos comptes, nos résultats , editorial blog of March 9, 2017.
  7. ↑ See Edwy Plenel: Mediapart publie ses comptes et résultats 2019 , Meddiapart, March 10, 2020 (accessed July 17, 2020).
  8. ↑ See After 10 years, could French independent publisher Mediapart be a model for the whole news industry? Global Editors Network, March 8, 2018.
  9. ↑ See Mediapart a 7 ans: voici nos comptes, editorial blog of March 12, 2015.
  10. ↑ See Combien vaut Mediapart? BFM Business, March 3, 2017.
  11. ↑ See Jürg Altwegg: Old Trotskyist on the hunt for ministers, FAS, August 4, 2019, p. 6.
  12. ↑ See individual reference 1 and Lena Bopp: Online journalism: It's a little less convenient , FAZ online, June 5, 2009.
  13. ↑ See e.g. B. Sascha Lehnartz: The lost honor of President Sarkozy , Welt online, July 7, 2010.
  14. ↑ See the handwriting of the secret services , FAZ online from November 2, 2010.
  15. ↑ See Elysée filing a complaint against the media after allegations of spying , Der Standard online from November 6, 2010 and Le procès Guéant / Mediapart en octobre , Le Figaro online from January 6, 2011 (accessed on August 4, 2019).
  16. ↑ See Jürg Altwegg: Three balls in the head , FAZ of September 3, 2011, p. 33.
  17. ↑ See Adrian Lobe: A dangerous little fish among sharks , NZZ online from April 2, 2013; Tanja Kuchenbecker: Feared by politicians , Handelsblatt online from April 4, 2013; Michaela Wiegel: The journalist who brought Hollande into distress , FAZ online from April 4, 2013.
  18. ↑ See Michaela Wiegel: A touch of fin de règne , FAZ online from April 3, 2013.
  19. ↑ See NSA allegedly also spying on the French economy , Deutschlandfunk, June 30, 2015.
  20. ↑ See Sarkozy and the Gaddafi-Mio. , tagesschau.de, March 20, 2018 (accessed March 20, 2018).