Designing Europe’s Media for All.
European Lab is joining forces with The Circle for a one-day event at La Gaîté Lyrique bringing together media professionals, journalists, creatives, and policymakers from all over Europe to share their experiences, best practices, and success stories in cross-border media collaboration. Discussions, workshops, and networking sessions will foster cross-cultural understanding and promote high-quality, inclusive journalism. Topics will range from the challenges of crossborder reporting to the necessity of creating communities within the media landscape, the ethics of responsible journalism, and the role of technology in shaping democracy.
European Lab
Founded in 2011 in Lyon, the platform European Lab has been identifying and connecting artists, activists, thinkers and journalists all united in their conviction that culture and the media have the potential to transform our crisis-ridden societies. That to think is to celebrate, that art and activism are capable of rising to the challenges of our age. Over the course of 12 years and close to 30 forums —from Seoul to Delphi, Brussels to Madrid, not to mention Lyon and Paris —European Lab has brought together nearly 1,800 speakers.
Through talks, debates, workshops, projections but also inspiring, innovative and hybrid projects, the ambition of this platform is to bring together, at the European level, a new generation of emerging and innovative cultural actors, around a shared reflection on and commitment to the future of culture.
The Circle
The Circle is a cooperation project aiming to develop a new approach to cross-border journalism and collaboration. It brings together four European media partners — Are We Europe (NL), Hostwriter (DE), Arty Farty (FR), and n-ost (DE) — joining forces to create media knowledge hubs in eight European cities.
Programmation
➔ 10am-12pm (Foyer historique) — European Media Speedmeeting
Spend a morning in the company of the stakeholders in the European media sector. Financing, editorial collaborations, project discoveries: a moment of connection with inspiring personalities.
With:
— Caroline Baldeyrou (ARTE I FR)
Caroline Baldeyrou entered the digital and media world at the very end of the 20th century, and has since experimented with many different types of organisation. Having joined ARTE France in 2019, she initially managed the digital creation and broadcasting teams, and is now Deputy Director of the Audience Relations Department. She is in charge of coordinating ARTE's presence and projects within the Fabrique de l'Époque at the Gaîté Lyrique.
— Peter Bokor (EM GUIDE I HU)
Peter Bokor is the president of KultDesk Cultural Foundation (https://kultdesk.hu/), the founder of MMN music magazine (https://mmn-mag.hu/) and Lahmacun community radio (https://www.lahmacun.hu/). He’s also an active contributor in blindblindblind label & concert series (https://blindblindblind.com/).
— Zsofi Borsi (Lazy Women I HU / FR)
Zsofi Borsi founded Lazy Women, an international feminist magazine and community in 2020 with a group of like-minded women with a desire to use creativity for social and political change. She currently works at a tech non-profit while managing Lazy Women as editor-in-chief. As a politically engaged feminist, Zsofi Borsi has been invited across Europe and beyond to hold keynote speeches on the topic of independence, inclusive editorial policy, feminism, and the political situation in Hungary.
— Ricardo Esteves Ribeiro (Fumaça I PT)
Ricardo Esteves Ribeiro is a co-founder and journalist at Fumaça, an investigative journalism podcast focused on injustices and inequalities that creates serialised audio-documentaries. In the past, through sometimes years-long investigations, Fumaça has covered the private security sector, European anti-refugee policies, the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the climate crisis, natural-gas drilling and mental healthcare. The project is on track to become the first audience-funded newsroom in Portugal, while keeping its journalism nonprofit, ad-free, and without paywalls, investors, or corporate-sponsored content.
— Sabrina Faramarzi (AWE I UK / DE)
Sabrina Faramarzi is the Managing Director of Are We Europe, an award-winning, independent multimedia European media platform and collective working towards a borderless European media space. Previously a journalist and editor focused on international issues around data, AI, gender, and digital human rights, Sabrina has worked and written for The Guardian, Vogue Business, Vice, Wired and others, as well as consulting on audience development strategies and producing large-scale global editorial projects for media and non-profit organisations. She is also one of the co-founders of the arts activist collective, Feminist Internet.
— Anne-Claire Marquet (SPIIL I FR)
Anne-Claire Marquet trained in public affairs. She is director of Spiil, which represents 270 independent press companies, and of J'aime l'info, an association that supports press pluralism by enabling publishers to launch participatory fund-raising campaigns that are tax-exempt for donors. J'aime l'info raised nearly 6 million euros in 2023. Since 2020, Anne-Claire and her team have been advising and guiding emerging independent media in their administrative procedures and funding applications.
— Jamil Mis (Collectif I FR)
Jamil Mis is a specialist in community mobilisation. For six years now, he has been helping media, activists, and committed content creators to set up community fund-raising campaigns and define sustainable strategies. Jamis Mis is co-founder of Collectif, an agency dedicated to supporting independent cultural players.
— Mathieu Molard (StreetPress I FR)
Mathieu Molard is editor-in-chief of the independent news website StreetPress.com. He has been devoting part of his work to shedding light on police malfunctions and civil liberties, such as in the documentary he co-directed: Gilets jaunes une répression d’État, and on investigations into police violence. Recently, he has been focusing his work on financial crime.
— Francesco Sebregondi (Index I FR)
Francesco Sebregondi is an architect and a researcher, whose work explores the intersections of violence, media, and the urban condition. Since 2021, he is the founding director of INDEX, an independent expertise NGO and investigative media based in France. Between 2011 and 2020, he was a researcher and project coordinator at Forensic Architecture, as well as the co-editor of its first collective publication “Forensis: The Architecture of Public Truth” (Sternberg Press, 2014).
— Ben Whitelaw (Financial Times I UK)
Ben Whitelaw works at FT Strategies, the Financial Times' media strategy and subscriptions consultancy, and has almost 15 years of experience working with publishers globally. Before joining FT Strategies, Ben Whitelaw was an independent newsroom and content strategy consultant supporting news media across Africa, the Middle East and Europe. Prior to that, he was Head of Audience Development at The Times and The Sunday Times, where he worked on audience growth and newsroom transformation projects.
➔ 10h30-12h (Atelier) — Setting up New Media with Regards to Mental Health [workshop]
This workshop will explore the intersection of media and mental well-being, allowing to gain insights on responsible media creation, and to learn how to foster a supportive working community. It aims at elevating your impact and contributing to a media landscape that promotes positive mental health for all. It will be about discovering the tools and strategies to amplify mental health awareness through cutting-edge media channels. Having navigated her personal journey with bipolar disorder and stressors in the newsroom industry, Belle de Jong specialises in mental health and journalism. With a background in mental health reporting and well-being in cross-border journalism, Belle’s workshop aims to guide media professionals through the challenges within the industry. Join her for an empowering session focussed on fostering dialogue and envisioning solutions for a healthier and more compassionate media landscape.
With:
— Belle de Jong (The European Correspondent I NL / MT)
Belle de Jong is a freelance journalist and leading editor at The European Correspondent. She covers mental health, social justice, and international affairs, crafting stories that bridge the gap between complex issues and their real-world significance. As a mental health advocate, she brings her unique perspective to the intersection of mental health and media.
➔ 10h30-12h (Meeting room 4ème ) — Design Thinking and Journalism: A Crash Course [workshop]
Facilitator : Alex Wolf (Freelance l DE)
Alex Wolf is a design thinking trainer and innovation consultant from Berlin, Germany.
Design Thinking and journalism — it’s a marriage that’s long been overlooked, but journalists often already apply design thinking principles (such as keeping your end user or audience in mind with everything that you do) without realising. And there’s much more to use that can help any production or project, at any time.
This workshop is an introduction to the Story Design Sprint, from Are We Europe, where participants will learn to see, adapt and apply design thinking principles in their projects and productions. It doesn’t matter whether you’re an editor, data journalist, photographer or designer, or just interested - anyone will find this useful in their work, whether or not it’s in the field or behind a desk.
The Circle Network has set up 8 hubs using this methodology, and now the program 'Designing Europe's Media for All' will continue to do so across the continent. Get your crash course now.
➔ 11:00-19:00 (Forum) — Media Fair
Embark on a journey into the future of media collaboration at our Crossborder Connections Media Fair, a pivotal element of this media event. Witness the unveiling of 8 new projects from The Circle, highlighting groundbreaking local and crossborder collaborations. Immerse yourself in a lively atmosphere designed for networking, thought-provoking conversations, and adaptability —creating an exceptional space for meaningful meetings and fostering creative synergies.
Meet The Circle Hubs:
11h00-13h00: Tbilisi, Porto, Cluj & Gothenburg
14h00-16h00: Lyon, Vilnius, Naples & Belgrade
➔ 14:00-16:00 (Meeting Room 4ème) — Building Networks of Multilingual European Independent Media [workshop]
This workshop will delve into the strategies and challenges of fostering collaboration among independent media outlets across Europe. Explore innovative approaches to multilingual content creation, distribution, and audience engagement. Harness the strength of linguistic diversity to amplify your media impact. This is an opportunity to connect, learn, and shape the future of a united and vibrant European independent media landscape.
With:
— Peter Bokor (Lahmacun Radio I HU)
Peter Bokor is the president of KultDesk Cultural Foundation (https://kultdesk.hu/), the founder of MMN music magazine (https://mmn-mag.hu/) and Lahmacun community radio (https://www.lahmacun.hu/). He’s also an active contributor in blindblindblind label & concert series (https://blindblindblind.com/).
➔ 14h00-16h00 (Atelier) — Unlocking Opportunities: Navigating European Fundings for Independent Media
with Relais Culture Europe [workshop]
Funding schemes for independent media are not well known - because there are not many of them. In recent years, the European Union has launched a number of calls for projects dedicated to the sector, notably as part of the NEWS calls under the Creative Europe programme. Other European programmes, such as Erasmus+, can support mobility and European cooperation. By encouraging cooperation between print and online media organisations, these schemes can enable players in the European media landscape to get together and work on joint productions. Combating misinformation, audience development, new business models, collaborative practices, skills development, support for local media and investigative journalism... several types of projects can be supported under these schemes. During the final event of The Circle (a consortium supported by this programme) as part of European Lab, Vincent Soccodato from Relais Culture Europe will be holding a session to decipher these calls for projects and encourage the creation of new collaborative journalistic projects on a European scale.
A workshop led by the Relais Culture Europe
With:
— Vincent Soccodato (Relais Culture Europe • FR)
Vincent Soccodato joined Relais Culture Europe in March 2019. Within the Europe Créative France office, he is responsible for European territorial development and support for cross-sectoral activities. As part of the Europe Créative programme, his mission is to identify and support players who are developing innovative practices in France and Europe, within the cultural and audiovisual sectors and in conjunction with other sectors (education, technology, research).
➔ 16:00-16:30 (Auditorium) — Keynote: Designing Europe’s Media for All
The European media space could use some good design. The intersection between journalism and design is there to be explored. New media projects need better good designed set-ups, models and inclusive approaches, meant to be accessible to all, without technical, structural, and societal barriers. The new creed of Are We Europe – Designing Europe's Media for All – is meant to be a rallying cry for all actors, for media big & small, legacy & independent, team & creator. A call for media to design their project and publications with the end user - the audience, the partners - in mind, to design adaptable, resilient organisations and diversify their revenue models. And to break down barriers to access to highly important information, whether these are visible or invisible barriers, and for those with visible or invisible disabilities. The keynote will be the center point of The Circle event, by its initiator, part of this partner-led consortium that has gone to 8 cities across Europe to build better bridges between media organisation.
With:
— Mick ter Reehorst (Are We Europe • NL)
Mick ter Reehorst is the Creative Director and founder of Are We Europe, a non-profit media collective founded in 2017. The collective takes on the complex issue of European identity by showcasing talent and storytelling from around the continent and beyond. We now combine that with our creative agency - Awe Studio. Mick studied journalism and international relations in Amsterdam and Paris. He now travels around Europe spreading the gospel of good design and cross-border collaborative journalism with his new motto he's trying out "Designing Europe's Media for All".
➔ 16h30-18h00 (Auditorium) — Crossborder Collaboration in European Media Landscape [talk and screening]
Building collaborative, resilient communities is at the core of a strong independent media landscape in Europe. For this, new ways of doing journalism need to be designed and discussed. The Circle is a first answer to the sector’s renewal. It is a new approach to cross-border journalism and collaboration. By bringing together creatives, journalists & media entrepreneurs to set up the next generation of collaborative media hubs, the project proposes a new vision for the European media landscape, more inclusive, cross-border, and collaborative. This crossborder collaborative approach also aims at building bridges between legacy media and new media organisations to explore the latest formats.
How can this vision be spread in a more effective way across Europe? What challenges are crossing these practices? How can we elaborate solutions to these challenges to better navigate these spaces? How to better enhance these collaborations to make European independent media more balanced and represented?
This talk will also be the occasion to discover The Circle documentary: a walk through two years of projects in 8 different European cities!
With:
— Christina Lee (Hostwriter / Unbias the News • US / DE)
Christina Lee is a media and research professional with a passion for telling stories about human rights, climate, and migration. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of the digital Berlin-based newsroom Unbias the News. Unbias the News provides a space for journalists facing structural barriers in the field, and have published several groundbreaking cross-border investigations such as Syria's Poisoned Soil and The Sinking Cities Project. She is also a trainer and public speaker on topics such as inclusive journalism, cross-border journalism, digital media, migration, and climate reporting.
— Lara Rindt (n-ost • DE)
Lara Rindt is a project manager at n-ost, mainly working with media partners from Eastern Europe. She is also a freelancer on the editorial board of the journal "Osteuropa". Previously, Lara studied Slavic Languages & Literatures and Eastern European Studies in Berlin.
— Rimma Sammir (Are we Europe • KZ)
Rimma Samir is a Community and Production Manager from Kazakhstan, holds a master’s in international affairs with a focus on development from Sciences Po Paris School of Public and International Affairs. With experience in European projects, she works on spotting grants and funding opportunities. A skilled network organiser, Rimma brings a passion for building communities that go beyond borders.
— Clarisse Teyssandier (Arty Farty • FR)
Clarisse Teyssandier is in charge of communication for all the European projects run by Arty Farty, such as the itinerant talks and debates forums European Lab, the European network of independent cultural and media organisations, Reset! network, and the cooperation project uniting 10 European electronic music festivals, TIMES. She also hosts the Ça jacte on the Lyon-based community Radio Béguin, where once a month, she invites a local player (artist, journalist, activist, cultural player) who is pushing back the boundaries of his or her discipline to share his or her particular story and path of mobilisation.
— Moderation Sabrina Faramarzi (Are We Europe • UK / DE)
Sabrina Faramarzi is the Managing Director of Are We Europe, an award-winning, independent multimedia European media platform and collective working towards a borderless European media space. Previously a journalist and editor focused on international issues around data, AI, gender, and digital human rights, Sabrina has worked and written for The Guardian, Vogue Business, Vice, Wired and others, as well as consulting on audience development strategies and producing large-scale global editorial projects for media and non-profit organisations. She is also one of the co-founders of the arts activist collective, Feminist Internet.
➔ 18h00 - 20h00 (Forum) — Radio Lab: A Collection of Podcasts
Dive into the rich tapestry of European storytelling at our Radio Lab, an integral part of our crossborder collaboration-focused media event. Immerse yourself in the diverse world of European podcasts through captivating presentations, riveting extracts, and exclusive mini-interviews with the brilliant minds behind the shows. Join us in exploring the significance of podcasts in the European media landscape, celebrating the vast array of formats and topics that make this medium a dynamic force in storytelling.
➔ 18h30 - 20h00 (Auditorium) — Media, Technology and Democracy
The digital scene is no exception to the strong concentration observed in the media landscape. Once a space of diverse opinions, the internet is now deeply influenced by Tech Giants, who, through major acquisitions, wield considerable power over key platforms of democratic discourse (for example, Twitter, which has become X). Technology has become an instrument of power and sovereignty, creating a new dimension in international relations. Technological races, particularly between China and the United States, shape the contours of this new hegemony, where the possession and control of technological advancements equate to power. This is now known as the 'splinternet': a concept that considers the global internet, once seen as a utopia for democracy at its inception, is giving rise to the formation of distinct ideological blocs guided by specific political and ideological interests. These blocs are recreated online thanks to algorithms which limit the free diffusion of information. By creating information bubbles based on a little research, the audience - and in consequence media and journalists - finds itself locked into a spiral of similar news - or fake news. How can we keep online democratic discourse free from ideological interests? What is cyber-skepticism? How does the action of Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) unfold in support of the media and safeguard democracy? What consequences will the development of Artificial Intelligence have in this debate?
With:
— Asma Mhalla (Geopolitics of tech specialist • FR)
Asma Mhalla has a doctorate in political science and is a political scientist specialising in the political and geopolitical issues surrounding technology and AI. She is a researcher at the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Politique at EHESS and teaches at Sciences Po, Polytechnique and Columbia GC. In February 2024 she published her first essay, "Technopolitique", with Editions du Seuil.
— Evgeny Morozov (Writer • BY)
Evgeny Morozov is a writer with a strong interest in the history and politics of technology. The author of award-winning books such as The Net Delusion and To Save Everything, Click Here (both listed as notable books of the year by the New York Times), Morozov holds a PhD in History of Science from Harvard. He’s also the founder of The Syllabus, the non-profit knowledge curation initiative. His writings have appeared in a variety of publications, including The New Yorker, London Review of Books, The New York Times, The Guardian. Between 2019 and 2021, he was part of UNESCO's high-ranking International Commission on the Futures of Education.
— Andrei Petre (The Circle • RO)
Andrei Petre is a freelance journalist and OSINT investigator based in Romania. He has worked on cross-border investigations with journalists from The Guardian, Politico, Lighthouse Reports, Deutsche Welle, South China Morning Post, OCCRP, Balkan Insight and Libertatea on stories about migration and workers rights, protests and social unrest, disinformation, corruption, and environmental issues.
Moderation: Amaelle Guiton (Libération • FR)
Amaelle Guiton is a journalist at Libération, where she covers the major political and geopolitical issues of the digital age, from data protection and privacy to the online "information war". Formerly at Le Mouv', where she hosted the morning show from 2011 to 2013, she has also written for Slate.fr and appeared as a columnist on L'Instant M on France Inter. In 2013, she published "Hackers, au coeur de la résistance numérique" (Hackers, at the heart of digital resistance), published by Au Diable Vauvert.
Co-curated with Europod, which recently launched the French version of the podcast "Les Santiago Boys"
➔ 20h30-21h30 (Auditorium) — Performance • Reading of selected texts by Zola Chichmintseva-Kondamambou
This reading oscillates between a wish to share and convey the authors voices and another one to archive them for their memory to be shared. The selection of texts wishes to underline the cultural and political ties between several decolonial contexts. The texts, kindly shared by their authors, will convey the voices of, cultural workers, journalists and story-tellers and commented by the reader carefully crafting the links between them. As the first part of the reading establishes links through words, the second one does so with the help of images sharing with the audiences a video aligned with the topics carried through the texts.
With:
Zola Chichmintseva-Kondamambou (Beyond the post-soviet I FR)
➔ 21h-22h30 (Forum) — DJ set by DJ Tűz (Lahmacun radio I HU)
With:
— DJ Tűz (Lahmacun radio • HU)
DJ Tűz, also known as a member of the Pizza Amore duo, is a prominent figure in Budapest's music scene with a rich history of performances at smaller clubs and major festivals like Sziget, Ozora, Daad, Kolorádó or Bánkitó. By day, he works as a developer, but in his spare time he also supports the IT team of Lahmacun Radio, where he and his friends host their own show called 'Learning Audio Classification with Torso'.
