With Lebanon’s news outlets traditionally as partisan as its politics, many Lebanese are turning to alternative, non-sectarian platforms for their news. Among them is Megaphone, one of the most dynamic independent media organisations to have emerged from the country’s month-long protest movement.

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Megaphone has a simple goal: to cut the partisan content that has long been a fixture of Lebanon's media – and get the news out fast.

“It’s extremely important, now more than ever, to get independent voices out there, to get the real demands of the people,” says Tariq Keblaoui, a filmmaker volunteering with Megaphone.

The organisation is run on a shoestring budget. There are no salaried staff and most members of the team juggle other jobs. Nonetheless, their images are slick and their audience is big: three quarters of a million hits in a week – not bad in a country of just six million.

Part of their appeal is their independence, a rarity in a country where it’s often all too obvious which TV stations back which politicians.

“By independent we mean that there is no interference from political and financial interest in the editorial line,” says Jean Kassir, Megaphone’s managing editor. “This is not the case in Lebanon. Most media outlets are to a large extent dependent on either political money or tied to financial interests.”

Click on the player above to watch the report by FRANCE 24’s Nadia Massih and Mohamed Farhat.

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