Mediapart celebrates its seventh anniversary on March 16th. As always at this period, we are publishing our accounts for the last financial year (see bottom of page for downloads), in a process of transparency that should be the rule for all the press whose mission is to inform in the name of public interest.
Seven years of independence. Seven years firmly attached to preserving this essential value without which no enduring trust can be established with the public.
The editorial independence, of course, of an online journal that has no other agenda than that of the right of citizens to know, to understand and to debate. It is an independence illustrated by Mediapart’s regular revelations on all issues of public life, by its in-depth investigations which reveal the dark side of power, politics and economics.
But this editorial freedom is conditional to having total economic independence. While almost all private French media are under the thumb of financial and industrial interests that are foreign to the journalistic profession, and which thus buy means of influence and guaranties of protection, Mediapart is an exception. It carries no advertising, has no subsidies or patrons, and lives thanks to its subscribers alone.
Behind this editorial and economic success is the daring choice that was made at the beginning to invent the new press of the digital revolution. Not a website subjected to the logic of traffic, obsessed with attracting visitors, which prefers immediacy over depth, which depends on advertising revenue to the detriment of journalistic values. On the contrary, the choice was to create a journal that is totally digital and participative, in which our professional traditions discover a fresh lease of life thanks to the huge potential of the new digital era.
This success remains a fragile one, such as it is that this exception disturbs conventions and upsets conservatisms. Between now and its tenth anniversary in 2018, Mediapart intends to consolidate its independence by inventing a novel legal and financial status which is close to that of a not-for-profit citizen’s press organization. In other words, one in which profits are ploughed back into the development and reinforcement of an independent press that is solely at the service of the public.
“Any moral reform of the press would be in vain if it were not accompanied by political measures intended to guarantee for newspapers a real independence with regard to capital,” wrote French author, journalist and thinker Albert Camus just after the Liberation of France in 1944 in Combat, a newspaper founded by the French Resistance movement. It is that approach that the Mediapart team wish to honour by defending a journalism of high standards and of ideas, in which the truth of facts raises public debate.
For, as Camus also wrote: “Everything that degrades culture shortens the paths that lead to servitude. A society that accepts to be distracted by a dishonoured press […] heads towards slavery, despite the protests of those same people who contribute towards its degradation […] It is however our task to reject this rotten complicity. Our honour depends on the energy with which we will refuse compromise.”
That is the steep path which Mediapart has followed for seven years, with the help of its readers. With our abundant thanks to you all.
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Mediapart: the year 2014 in figures
All the data can be found in the press brochure that was prepared for our seventh anniversary, and which you can be download in PDF form by clicking here and, of course, pass on to others. At the bottom of this page you will find detailed, separate downloads of our financial results.
In the autumn of 2014, for the first time since its creation seven years ago, Mediapart passed above the landmark figure of 100,000 individual subscribers. The steady growth continues: in this month of March 2015, Mediapart now counts 112,000 subscribers.
In 2014, turnover was close to 9 million euros (more precisely, 8,761,169 euros when including only subscriptions – a total up 27% from 2013 – and 8,982,229 euros when including all revenues), while profit after tax was almost 1.5 million euros (1,484,253 euros, up 64% on 2013).
Our financial results have been used as follows:
To develop your online journal. At the end of 2014, the editorial team and the different operational services (the technical, marketing, administration and accounts departments) totalled 55 staff members. There were also new investments in technical innovation and projects, multimedia content, regular live debate broadcasts, photojournalism and editorial partnerships.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Above: the Mediapart staff (editorial in red, marketing and communications in green, technical services in dark grey, subscription department in blue and finance and accounts in light grey).
The strengthening of finances. Mediapart has taken out no loans and is therefore not in debt. However, since December 2013 it has been in conflict with the French tax administration which refuses to recognise the status of parity between the online and printed press which was formalised by decree in 2009. Mediapart, (officially categorized as a journal of political and general information, or IPG, by the press regulatory commission, the CPPAP) applies the same 2.1% VAT rate that is granted to the printed press, in accordance with the pledges of the government and professional associations. The tax administration adjustment concerning financial years of 2010, 2011, 2012, and up to January 2014 could result in a demand for backpayments of 4.7 million euros. Mediapart intends to challenge any such demand, all the more so given that the French parliament has now formalised by law the parity in VAT rates applied to the online and printed press.
Building independence. Between now and 2017-2018, Mediapart’s four founders (François Bonnet, Laurent Mauduit, Marie-Hélène Smiéjan and me, all of us Mediapart employees), wish to transfer the control of the company to its staff, under a new legal entity inspired by the notion of a “not-for-profit press organization”. Between now and then, and with the support of its ‘Société des amis’ group of small investors, Mediapart will increase its self-management status by buying up the shares of those who have been investment partners from the early hours. Part of that process was carried out at the end of 2014, when the stake held in Mediapart since 2009 by investment fund Odyssée Venture was bought up for 2.5 million euros, purchased on a half-half basis by Mediapart (Société Editrice de Mediapart) and one of our two longstanding investment partners, Ecofinance.
- Click here for to consult Mediapart's accounts as presented in our seventh anniversary brochure (in French)
- Click here for charts detailing annual turnover and net profit for the years 2008-2014 (in French)
- Click here for the detailed figures of Mediapart's 2010-2014 financial results (in French)
- Click here for detail of Mediapart's shareholders and their stakes (in French)
- Click here for a presentation of Mediapart's staff (in French)
- Click here for 2008-2014 evolution of numbers of subscribers and readership figures (in French)
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