AB Data

The image of a media is created like any brand; there are capitalist mechanisms that cannot be ignored. This is why it is sometimes necessary to outperform the communication and the promotion of certain content, to be identified on the bases that are important to us. When BuzzFeed launched in France with a small team, journalists mobilized online to talk about their work, to promote it, to tell the behind-the-scenes stories, to “advertise” it. When Médiapart publishes a new investigation, the entire editorial team shares it on Twitter, including the editorial director.

At Numerama , we repeat it very often: the trust of readers is earned one article at a time. It takes a long time, but it is the only way to move forward while maintaining a high level of journalistic standards. Especially since the opposite is also true: the trust of an Internet user can be lost because of a single article.

We need to differentiate between how journalists see their media and how it is perceived . In my head as editor-in-chief of Numerama, things are clear. I spend 10 hours a day on the site, I know all the articles and I know exactly what proportion of articles are published per day and in which sections. So I sometimes get shocked when I discover that a reader does not see us in the same way at all.