Manon Verchot is a French-American journalist and journalism trainer with over 10 years of experience. She started her career as an environment journalist working primarily in print, but quickly began exploring additional mediums like video, photography and animation to reach new audiences. In 2016, Manon moved to India where she joined The Quint and began to explore video and graphics. She later joined Hindustan Times, where she was promoted to head the video team for the newspaper. She also took on the video operations at Mint, one of India’s leading business newspapers. These roles required a deep knowledge of product development, social media strategy and editorial strategy. 

In 2019, Manon joined Mongabay as the head of video. In her role, she commissioned stories from freelance journalists reporting in over 30 countries. During her time at Mongabay, she grew the organisation’s YouTube channel and launched 2 more YouTube channels — in French and in Portuguese. She also launched Mongabay’s TikTok account.

In addition to shortform video, Manon has worked on deeply reported documentaries. Her documentaries, on subjects like urban wildlife, citizen science and artificial intelligence for conservation, have won awards at film festivals around the world.

Throughout her career, Manon has been passionate about helping journalists learn new skills. In her role at Hindustan Times, she was part of the team that helped train hundreds of print journalists to record videos on their phones. Later, she took these trainings to more newsrooms. Manon has conducted trainings for hundreds of journalists across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Her trainings have focused on social media strategy, social video and product development. More recently, Manonhas focused her training efforts on the ethical use of AI for journalism and newsroom products that can unlock new revenue streams. 

Her interest in media development and supporting the journalism ecosystem led her to New Narratives, where she is working with journalists in West Africa to develop new skills and explore new funding models that support independent media. She works with New Narrative’s partner newsrooms to develop new product ideas, develop pitches for advertisers and learn new skills to reach audiences on social media. 

Manon has also continued her own learning journey. She was part of the Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program offered by the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. She also completed the Solutions Journalism Training of Trainers and is an accredited Solutions Journalism Trainer. She has an MSc in journalism from Columbia Journalism School and a B.A. in History and Social Anthropology from the University of Kent.