The text below is the author’s remarks to the M20 Media Freedom Summit held online in Delhi on September 6, 2023 by the M20 Organising Committee, which comprises 11 editors from India and a former judge of the Supreme Court.Hello everyone from Mediapart‘s headquarters in Paris and from my country, France, which prides itself on having proclaimed the universality of human rights that, alas, its own state does not always respect.I would like to begin by warmly thanking the organisers of this meeting in defence of the right to information in the public interest, while regretting that it is ‘virtual’ and not in-person because of the nationalist, authoritarian and identity-based course taken by the current government of India’s great democracy.And I would like to add a special salute to The Wire, Mediapart‘s partner in India. Thanks to its founding editors, our editorial teams have been able to illustrate the cooperative journalism that the digital revolution facilitates by working together on the Rafale corruption scandal involving a major French company, Dassault, which also owns media, and which has shaken Narendra Modi’s Indian government.Also read: M20: The Digital Age Has Brought a New Kind of Censorship for the Media in IndonesiaMany excellent things have been said by previous speakers. For my part, I would like to share with you an experience and a concern. My experience is that Mediapart is good news for the future of journalism. My concern is the danger that the reign of opinions, invading the public space, will undermine our profession, whose “raison d’être” is to provide information.I’m speaking to you from a totally independent media outlet that we set up over 15 years ago in March 2008. Our ambition was twofold.Firstly, we wanted to resist the normalisation of journalism through media concentration, the influence of shareholders, the intervention of economic and financial interests alien to our profession, and the authoritarian evolution of government, facilitated in France by the concentration of political power around a single person, the president of the republic, in a kind of elective monarchy that weakens checks and balances.We wanted to prove the viability of a media that lives solely on public support: our only revenue comes from subscriptions from our readers. No advertising, no subsidies, no shareholders. As we like to say, “Only our readers can buy us”.Our second ambition was to rise to the challenge of the digital revolution which, like any industrial revolution, risked leading to the advent of new media models born of the weakening of the old productive forces of journalism in favour of a journalism that was less independent, less rigorous, less concerned with the general interest and the truth of facts.We wanted to prove that it was possible, thanks to the potential and innovations of digital technology and the Internet, to invent a journalism that was more in-depth, more documented, more participatory, more demanding and more sustainable. This is why we have defended the need for offensive investigative journalism that strives to reveal what the conformist media hides by defending the dominant interests.As you know, Mediapart has shown that it is possible. With almost 225,000 subscribers, Mediapart is now France’s third-largest general-interest daily. It has been profitable for over 10 years and is now controlled by a non-profit fund that protects and consolidates its independence. This is good news and shows that, more than ever, there is a future for journalism, provided it can demonstrate that it is fighting for its economic independence, that it is safeguarding its editorial dignity and that it is proving its social usefulness.We have to fight all the more because the headwinds are so strong. We are living in an era reminiscent of the European “Renaissance” after the invention of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century. There are lights and there are shadows. Progress and regression. Revolutions and counter-revolutions, creations and destructions.Also read: Why M20? To Remind G20 Leaders That the World’s Problems Can’t Be Solved Without Media FreedomThe digital revolution brings with it a new hope for democracy, for sharing knowledge, for borderless communication and for citizen participation. This was illustrated by the pioneering work of Wikileaks, which is why its founder Julian Assange is paying a high price. We are living in the era of the counter-offensive, with states, including those with elective democracies, repressing independent journalism, while economic powers, notably digital platforms, are ruining the quality of public debate.This is a very important point about our responsibility as journalists: everywhere, political powers and economic interests use opinion against information, use the freedom to say against the right to know, use the right to say anything – even lies, hatred, violence – in order to stifle our relationship with the concrete, informed, cross-checked, sourced truth.This is the challenge we face at a time when extreme right-wing and even neo-fascist ideologies are being revived everywhere, based on hatred of others, racism, xenophobia and scapegoating. Their weapon is the reign of opinions, including the craziest ones, to exclude, relativise, marginalise or discredit information, in other words, the truths of facts.So, as journalists, we must be at the forefront of a vital battle for the democratic ideal as the public’s right to know everything that concerns them, everything that is in the public interest. That’s what I wanted to share with you. Thank you very much for your attention.Edwy Plenel is the Editor of Mediapart (France).
