Mediapart

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Mediapart is an independent, nonprofit French investigative online newspaper founded in 2008 by Edwy Plenel, former editor of Le Monde. Based in Paris, it publishes in French, English, and Spanish and had about 220,000 paid subscribers as of December 31, 2023. It is funded entirely by its subscribers, with no advertising or commercial partnerships, and its slogan is “Only Our Readers Can Buy Us.”

The paper is owned by Le Fonds pour une Presse Libre, a non-profit trust created to protect Mediapart’s financial and editorial independence in perpetuity. The trust’s board does not control the newsroom. Mediapart operates two main sections: Le Journal (professional reporting) and Le Club (a subscriber-edited forum). In 2011 it launched FrenchLeaks, a whistleblower site inspired by WikiLeaks. Mediapart started as a for-profit venture but became a non-profit in 2018.

Over the years, Mediapart has published hundreds of investigations into political corruption, financial fraud, environmental crimes, sexual harassment, and police violence, helping to reveal major French political scandals. The New York Times has called Mediapart “France’s leading investigative news site,” and the Financial Times once described its editor as an “ex-Trotskyist” who shakes up the French establishment.