Edwy Plenel takes over as president and editorial director of Mediapart. Carine Couteau, a journalist at the house for 16 years, takes the helm of the famous online investigative newspaper.
It’s now official, Edwy Plenel, 71, one of the four co-founders of the online newspaper Mediapart, is handing over his place as president and publishing director to Carine Fouteau, 49, a loyal supporter from the start. Arriving at Mediapart in 2008, she covered migration, hospitality and discrimination issues for ten years. She also carries out numerous reports in Ukraine and Seine-Saint-Denis, notably during the 2012 presidential election. A page is being turned at the famous investigative newspaper.
Carine Fouteau will not be alone in this new mission. She will be surrounded in particular by women. Because it is specific to Mediapart, the media will now be managed exclusively by women. Today freed from any private shareholders after the creation of the Fund for a Free Press (FPL), Mediapart will see Carine Fouteau chair it from 2022, while contributing regularly to the newspaper.
In 2023, co-founder Marie-Hélène Smiejan handed over the general management of Mediapart to Cécile Sourd. “Today she chairs the moral guarantor of our entire structure, the Association for the Right to Know (ADS) whose co-founders are ex officio members as well as Martine Orange, who chaired our Society of Employees” explains Edwy Plenel. From now on, four women are at the head of the media: Carine Fouteau, president, Cécile Sourd, general director, Lénaïg Redoux and Valentine Oberti, co-editorial directors for a year.
With this new direction, Médiapart intends to be part of a new dynamic and play a role “in the revolution
To replace Edwy Plenel, the choice of Carine Fouteau was logically imposed in the corridors of the Mediapart editorial staff. The latter is judged to be “emblematic”, capable of uniting, inspiring, and training the entire team with as much kindness as rigor” praises the former director of publication of the online newspaper. A handover mentioned in 2015 but which turned out to be more difficult than expected to put in place, and above all longer, as he embodied the media thanks to his aura, his personality and his famous mustache. If she is unknown to the general public, Carine Fouteau is extremely respected internally.
This appointment also echoes a unique feature of Médiapart: the press company does not have a non-journalist at its head, as is the case in the majority of media. The newspaper also requires in its statutes that the president of its publishing company also assumes management of the publication, and that he be a journalist. Concerning the editorial line, it should not change under the leadership of Carine Fouteau who intends to continue the defense of “committed but non-militant journalism”, we read in Le Monde. “Whether it is the Bettencourt affair in 2010, the Cahuzac affair in 2012 or our work before and after the movement
