It has been years since the news industry started to wonder about the future of journalism in the digital age and how to make the transition from a printed world to a digital one.

"How to be profitable online? To charge or not to charge? Integrated or separated newsrooms?"
All these kind of questions have dominated the news media's thoughts.

Well, there is a weekly magazine in France that didn't asked itself all these questions and simply remained the same as it has been for about the last 90 years.

It's the weekly investigative-satirical magazine Le Canard Enchaîné and things there seem to go be going pretty well.

Printed in only two colours, the eight-page broadsheet "carries no photographs or advertising, its articles are unsigned and the newspaper shuns the web - yet somehow it manages to outsell rivals such as Le Monde. Just how does it do it?", wondered the Irish Times.

The article noted that while France's newspapers are facing misfortune, as the western print media industry generally is, Le Canard is thriving, enjoying an abundance of three things every newspaper craves: readers, influence and profit.

The paper's independence is guaranteed by the fact that all shares in the company are distributed among staff and by its refusal to accept advertising. Quite surprisingly, it relies solely on sales for its survival, selling - the article said - about 600,000 copies each week. "We must be a soundly-run newspaper, because that's the price of liberty," says deputy editor Louis-Marie Horeau, cited in the article.

While doing so well, Le Canard Enchainé is also - in the Irish Times' opinion - the most reliable and influential source of investigative journalism in France.

It was one of its stories that caused the resignation of the foreign minister Michèle Alliot-Marie after the paper published a story about her ties to a Tunisian businessman allegedly close to deposed president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. "Last summer, two ministers stepped down after Le Canard published details of their spending thousands of euro in public money on cigars and private jets while the government was preparing the public for deep spending cuts", the article reported.

Last year the paper was protagonist of a big story, accusing President Nicolas Sarkozy of having instructed secret service to spy on its journalists since one of them started an investigation that could cause trouble for the Presidency.

One of the paper's strong points is the ability to mix a satirical approach with a serious research investigative work.

Its seriousness in verifying its sources is reflected in the fact that a successful libel case against Le Canard is relatively rare, and this is even more interesting if noting that it refuses to let a lawyer read its stories before a publication. "A lawyer is programmed to be cautious whereas a journalist must push to the limit", the Irish Times reported Horeau said.
The paper - it was also said- avoids falling foul of France's strict privacy laws thanks to its policy of not reporting on a politician's personal life unless it negatively affects his work as a public servant.

Alongside the decision not to run a website, Le Canard's journalists - actually fewer than half of them - are probably the last ones not to using computers.

"Claude Angeli had his little black book on the table -- a real little black book, leather bound and yellowing pages. No BlackBerry. No iPhone. No computer in sight", said the New York Times in a profile on the paper's editor in chief.

"If we put our stories up on the Internet, who would buy the paper on Wednesday?" the article reported he said. "We believe in print."

Sources: Irish Times, New York Times