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For a more humane European journalism

It’s hard to pinpoint what it means to be ‘European’. For many, the word evokes boredom, coldness and remoteness. In panel discussions or television programmes, our passions and concerns are rarely mentioned. Yet from the streets of Bucharest to those of Porto or Athens, from the Latvian countryside to the shores of the Mediterranean, our destinies are intertwined. The same issues of climate, exile, identity and social justice run through all of us. The same urgency drives us. Every day, in every corner of Europe, in the shadow of Brussels and the industrial and financial powers, people are acting, fighting, trying, failing, trying again, to reinvent our continent and show that other ways are possible.

ereb was born in 2021, out of the desire to take these extraordinary stories beyond their country’s borders. To follow Svetlana’s 8,200-kilometre flight from Belarus, to find out about Ricard and his dreams of independence, to feel Giannis’ anger against the police officers who murdered his son, to walk in the determined footsteps of Gaetano, the guardian of his local forest,  to read in Kristine’s eyes both the loneliness of the days following her rape in the land of gender equality and her determination to change the judicial system. To make these stories known is to give power back to their protagonists, and to connect those who discover them. It is to portray a more authentic image of our continent, to fight against withdrawal and resignation and to commit to a more united, representative and inclusive Europe.

A Europe of experience

At ereb, we practice an intimate style of journalism. We believe that it is the small stories that make the big ones, that the personal is political and that they deserve our full attention as reporters. We see this kind of journalism as a gateway into European news, and what we like to call among ourselves ‘the Europe we  live’. The starting point of one of our written, photo or video reports and newsletters is always facts, and above all people. We leave the cold corridors of Brussels and the raw numbers of reports to the experts in the European institutions, and focus on the people caught up in the whirlwind of events across our continent. We believe that it is their experiences that make the great stories, the ones that question, enrich, shock, inspire and induce action.

Crossborder and polyglot

For the Phoenicians, “ereb” meant the place where the sun sets, the geographical area beyond the Bosphorus: Europe. It is this space at the crossroads of the continental land and the Mediterranean Sea, the fruit of a moving, rich and complex human history, that ereb explores today. Like the 17 million Europeans who live outside their country of birth, our journalistic productions cross borders, whether they be geographical, political, or  linguistic. In order to connect Europeans in the way that we desire and to represent them in all their diversity, we cannot limit ourselves to one language. To limit ourselves to a single language would be to reduce Europe to a single, uniform image. All of our productions – the result of the joint work of journalists of different nationalities and backgrounds – are therefore available in French, English and Italian.

Committed journalism

We created ereb because we dreamt of a European media that would be equal to the challenges we face. ereb is a media with a social conscience in  both its choice of themes – social justice, climate change, identity and exile – and the honest and serious in the way in which it deals with them. We do not parachute into a place for the duration of a report, but call on established journalists who know their topic and field. We have chosen a slow production rhythm to always take the time to immerse ourselves in the daily reality and to verify all information before publishing it. Our journalistic work is also long-term. Once we have covered a story, we don’t simply forget about it, we return to it to follow its evolution. The diversified business model and cooperative governance we have put in place allows us to do this work independently in every aspect, from the choice of topics, to how we deal with them.

Collective entreprise

ereb is more than a media outlet, it is also a community of citizens who want to be involved in what they read. These people who have signed-up  to our paid membership programme, our members as we call them, are at the heart of the editorial production as they participate each month in the selection process of future reports. We rely on the collective intelligence and curiosity of our members to guide us.  Together we decide what is important to put on the media agenda. Together we experiment with a different way of doing journalism.

At ereb, collaboration is the watchword at all levels. In our editorial practices our reporters work in pairs and their articles are always enriched by an external point of view in order to compare different views on the same subject. In our relationship with you, our audience, the editorial team is continually fed by the opinions and ideas of our members and meets with them regularly. In the cooperative functioning of our company, each employee has a say in moving our story forward. Finally, in our relationship with our partners, ereb is part of the Sphera Network consortium of independent European media, and thus participates in the construction of a more united media ecosystem on a continental scale.

As you can see, we are not afraid to experiment and we believe in the power of the collective. Conversely, we know that producing quality European journalism cannot be done without members who are willing to follow and support us.

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The ereb team