Le Monde, the newspaper of reference about news in the world
The newspaper Le Monde is the best known and most sold national newspaper in France. It began its transition to digital a few years ago.
Le Monde is a French newspaper founded by Hubert Beuve-Méry in 1944. It is the most widely read paid national daily newspaper in France (2.42 million readers in 2016) and the second most widely sold (323,565 copies per issue in 2019)
Le Monde’s website is organised as follows, with different sections covering news, the economy and both international and social issues. There is also a section called “Videos” where you can find reports on different subjects. What is also interesting on Le Monde is the “Opinions” section where different guests such as philosophers give their opinions on social issues There is no bias on this newspaper and everyone can give their opinion through tribunes for example. In addition, there is a section on culture and a section reserved for subscribers. Thus, the newspaper Le Monde deals with most of the subjects in real time, whether international or specific to France. The paper version is organised in much the same way, with the main news items in particular.
The orange part is for Digital Versions Individual of Le Monde. The green part for the portage, the purple segment Individual subscriptions and the last one the yellow part is the Individual No. Sales
The paper version of “Le Monde” costs €3.00 and €4.50 on Saturdays. Moreover, Le Monde is one of the last so-called evening newspapers. It is published in Paris in the early afternoon of the following day, and in some large cities a little later, and is distributed elsewhere the following morning. The Le Monde website is updated live 24 hours a day through a news feed of the latest news in France and around the world.
In terms of the website and the application, there are some articles that anyone can access, but most of them require a subscription to see the whole article for example. There are different subscription packages ranging from €9.99 to 29,99€.
Le Monde is present on all forms of social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or Tiktok. The main news is relayed in a serious tone throughout the day. On Facebook, for example, there are almost two publications per hour. It also works a lot through stories. This proves that Le Monde has adapted to the new forms of journalism, which are now multi-channel.
Le Monde engages its readers through its neutrality. Indeed, each reader can make up his or her own mind about different news items such as economic or cultural topics. Moreover, through the “opinions” section, the newspaper invites its readers to read the opinions of various guests without any political bias for example.
The newspaper Le Monde is a good practice of digital journalism because it is present through a website, an application but also on social networks. They deal with different news topics in a multi-channel way. Moreover, the comments and positions they take in their paper are the same as in the digital format. It remains a neutral newspaper regardless of the information channel chosen by the reader. It is also an interesting exercise at the moment because with the covid-19 crisis, the traffic on the digital platforms of the different newspapers has exploded considerably because many more people want to be informed live from their homes about the latest news on the crisis.In addition, the crisis is handled differently in different countries, so the information varies.
Like everyone else, Le Monde has been affected by the coronavirus crisis. On the advertising side, the Le Monde group concedes a 50% drop in advertising revenue without specifying the amount and says it estimates the impact of the health crisis at 18 million euros on its turnover, to which must be added the costs linked to the Presstalis bankruptcy, estimated at 14 million euros. To cope with this, the Le Monde group has taken out a state-guaranteed loan of €17 million, as well as another bank loan of €5 million and a €5 million contribution from shareholders. “These new funds, combined with the renegotiation of our real estate lease, give us the necessary means to relaunch our operations and get through the blip of this first half-year,” said Mr Fenoglio and Mr Dreyfus the directors of Le Monde in an interview to Cbs (e.g interview). At the same time, during the crisis, the newspaper recorded a peak in subscriptions never reached in its seventy-five years of existence: “well over 400,000 in combined print and digital” .