But Le Monde Diplomatique's redaction has been able to remain independent thanks to it's 49% shares and veto right.

It's also fairly small (~10 permanent journalists + independent contributors, ~150k monthly readers).

It's not really the kind of journal able to sustain a long investigation, it's more "social commentaries with a left-leaning/alter-mundialist point of view".

En: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/about-us/article/2023/09/24/two-ma...

Fr: https://www.lemonde.fr/actualite-medias/article/2023/09/24/d...

This was the result of journalist demands, covered here: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/le_monde_daniel_kretinsk...

This structure is also used by Mediapart, owned by Fonds pour une presse libre, and Libération, owned by Fonds de dotation pour une presse indépendante, with Mediapart being inspired to emulate The Manchester Guardian (which has been operated by a trust since 1936): https://www.lesechos.fr/tech-medias/medias/le-monde-appartie...

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Monde_diplomatique offers a few first insights. Note how the page quickly emphasizes the redaction's independence.

Yet, it might be reasonably true: as stated in the Wikipedia page, Le Monde Diplomatique is read mostly by educated people, who probably are 1/ less susceptible to/more aware of coarse manipulation 2/ much less numerous.

That's to say, influencing (too much) the redaction might have too low of a costs/benefits ratio.

Personal anecdote: I've read it a few times about a decade ago. At that time, I perceived some of the articles to be more emotionally grounded than rationally, and the prose to be at time needlessly heavy, "sophisticated".

Those are the main reasons why I didn't kept reading it more often.