When we started EurActiv in 1999, we could not have foreseen what an influence our new internet venture would have on the future of European Union news reporting. At the time, European Voice was the only media ‘voice’ trying to bring traditional newspaper journalism to the European scene. It was therefore no surprise that, during a first meeting with the Economist-sponsored weekly newspaper, its commercial and editorial team seriously underestimated and even ridiculed the ‘new kid on the block’.

What they thought would make it impossible for us to survive was exactly what made our venture successful. EurActiv’s biggest asset at that time was that its business guru/publisher and its chief editor had no journalistic experience at all. Having both of us worked in the European institutions, we had discovered a real market for EU information that went beyond classical journalism. Most lobbyists and policymakers needed to find the right information at the right time and so our ‘information brokerage’ model with direct internet links to the most important institutional and lobbyist documents (‘LinksDossiers’) very fast became an indispensable tool of all EU policymaking. Transparency (making all documents available for free) made EU policymaking easier to monitor and, in that sense, EurActiv disrupted traditional lobbyism. Thanks to a smart sponsoring model in combination with a strong independent editorial policy, the web portal went from strength to strength and when the publisher came up with the brilliant idea of moving beyond Brussels in the context of the EU’s enlargement, EurActiv’s information brokerage model went to the EU’s capitals.

Where we did not succeed, on the other hand, was in creating a European public space; but then the desperate efforts of DG Communication did not succeed in that respect either, a clear indication that the Brussels bubble does not equal a real European public space.

So what about the present? EurActiv is now no longer disruptive. It is the new Normal. It is at the heart of the Bubble and has lots of smaller and bigger imitators (Politico), who most likely will not succeed and survive because there is just not enough money to be made to keep a big media operation going.

Does this mean that EurActiv is safe for the future? Certainly not. What it takes is a few young innovative disruptors with some brilliant ideas and a decent but realistic business model and EurActiv could go the same way that European Voice went. So where will this new disruption come from? My guess is that it will be linked to whatever happens to the European Union itself. The current EU, built on the ideology of everlasting economic growth and the miracles performed by the free market, cannot and will not continue to stagger and survive from one crisis to the next. In the end, it will fail and from its ashes will be born a new PhoenixEurope. Maybe with a new Phoenix EurActiv?

 

Willy De Backer

Founding Editor 1999-2007

December 2015

Author : EurActiv: Pioneering Values in European Media
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