How do we continue to provide information in writing? What economic models can be used to finance quality content that meets the reader’s interest? Fabrice Rousselot, a former journalist at Libération, proposes this approach: The Conversation, a model invented in Australia, which has become a benchmark.
Before co-founding The Conversation France with Didier Pourquery in 2015, Fabrice Rousselot was for a long time a journalist at the daily newspaper Libération. In 1987, shortly after his studies at the École des hautes études en sciences de l’information et de la communication (Sorbonne), Fabrice Rousselot joined Libération. He was 23 years old. A year later, he became a correspondent in New York (1988-89) and shortly afterwards in London (1991-1996), from where he returned as assistant to the foreign service in Paris (1996-99). He subsequently returned twice to the United States as a correspondent before heading Libération in April 2013. Less than a year later, Fabrice Rousselot left the paper’s management and joined his family in the United States.
The precarious financial situation of Libération, a prestigious newspaper launched in 1973, has led it to near bankruptcy on several occasions, to takeovers calling into question its financial independence and, of course, to depressing redundancy plans. A precariousness that hit the entire press in the 2000s, forcing the newspapers to fundamentally question and reinvent an economic model.
Fabrice Rousselot perceived this digital shift on his return from New York in 2005. Print or online newspaper? Paid or free? The essential questions then revolve around the economic model, the digital shift. At that time, Fabrice Rousselot took over as editor-in-chief of the liberation.fr website.
In July 2014, he joined his family in the United States and became interested in an innovative project: The Conversation, an electronic newspaper, an original editorial proposal invented in Australia by Andrew Jaspan: to gather academic experts and researchers to answer the current issues and debates of our time. The innovative side also stems from the economic model: universities, public authorities and foundations are funding the project. In return, they get high visibility of their activities (millions of readers), obtained through The Conversation platform. The reader has free access to the content since it is already funded. Under the impetus of Fabrice Rousselot, The Conversation-France was created in 2015.
Fabrice Rousselot is the author of two essays. “Une femme au Pakistan” (Plon, 1999) and “Le choc”, on the Strauss-Kahn affair (Robert Laffont, 2011). He has also written a novel, “La balade de Sean Brady” (Plon), as a tribute to his late brother.