20 Minutes.fr: building reader trust and loyalty
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, 20 Minutes France wanted to go beyond breaking news and provide a platform for readers to share their lived experiences.
The challenge was clear: how could they collect, verify, and publish thousands of stories in real time, while keeping journalism trusted and representative? With Contribly, they turned a national crisis into a moment of authentic audience connection.
Since they had already been using the Contribly newsroom tools for months by the time Covid hit, their team were ready for action!
Topline numbers:
31,000+ audience stories in the first 12 months —
including 15,000 first-hand coronavirus experiences and
119 verified healthcare worker contributors.
About 20 Minutes and the Challenge
20 Minutes is one of France’s largest free daily news organisations, serving millions of readers online and in print.
As COVID-19 took hold in early 2020, the editorial team faced a unique opportunity — and challenge:
Information overload on social media: People were sharing thousands of personal stories online, but often in fragmented or unreliable ways.
Need for verification: Sensitive stories from healthcare workers, families, and small businesses required trust and accuracy before publication.
Editorial capacity: Journalists needed to process contributions at speed, but without a streamlined workflow, handling audience content risked becoming unmanageable.
20 Minutes wanted to give its community a trusted platform to speak — but needed the right technology to do it at scale.
How Contribly addressed the challenge
Contribly’s newsroom platform enabled 20 Minutes to gather, verify, and publish reader stories seamlessly.
Key solutions included:
Scalable call-outs: The newsroom created over 90+ coronavirus-related assignments, covering everything from health workers’ fears to children’s experiences of lockdown.
Verification and data management: Contribly’s moderation tools helped filter, verify, and organise thousands of contributions into actionable stories.
Community segmentation: Journalists could identify and directly re-contact specific groups — such as healthcare workers or small business owners — to follow stories as events evolved.
Frictionless workflow: Content flowed into the Contribly Hub, instantly available for review, curation, and publication across web, app, and print.
“20 Minutes is deeply committed to engaged and contributive journalism through Contribly’s tools. Audience participation is a very good way to understand our readers better — their concerns, interests, feelings… In a nutshell, this experience is more than a success. We will pursue and amplify this connection with our audience.”
The results
By integrating Contribly into its newsroom, 20 Minutes France transformed audience participation into actionable journalism:
Unprecedented scale: Over 31,000 audience stories gathered in the first year, including 15,000 coronavirus experiences across 92 assignments.
New sources, new trust: Built a network of 119 verified healthcare workers who contributed ongoing, on-the-ground insights.
Authentic coverage: Stories on family life, small businesses, balcony solidarity, and mental health gave readers a voice during lockdown — and helped strengthen trust in the brand.
Editorial efficiency: Journalists halved turnaround times, with content arriving pre-organised and verified in the Contribly Hub.
Long-term audience insight: Each call-out created structured data — over 50,000 new audience datapoints — enabling the newsroom to segment its community and engage with different groups for future editorial and sponsored projects.
20 Minutes France turned a global crisis into a chance to build lasting audience trust. With Contribly, they created a space for readers to share real stories, gave journalists the tools to publish them with confidence, and established a community-driven model for the future.
Fuel your stories with UGC — without the chaos. From call-out to compelling story, Contribly helps newsrooms like yours build trust, save time, and connect with audiences at scale.