The Submarine

In 2016, a group of university students based in Milan felt that the media in Italy was not addressing the issues they cared most about: migrations, climate crisis, and social inequalities. They felt that none of the existing publications could speak the language of their twenty-something peers. So they decided to found The Submarine, an online daily publication dealing with "neglected stories under the water".

The Submarine publishes narrative stories, analyses, and opinion pieces using gonzo journalism, characterised by irony, and informal language. The content is divided into three sections: Milan, about the city where they live; Lotta (in English: struggle), about social movements and activism; and Culto (in English: Cult), about cultural initiatives, namely music.

Its most successful product is a premium newsletter called Hello World, which includes a peculiar daily press review. It costs three euros per month and has a growing number of subscribers: currently, 502. The team also produces podcast series and social-native content. Sebastian Bendinelli, one of its co-founders, said: "Our Instagram account is more active than our website at the moment."

Its business model relies on a mix of advertising and subscriptions, but The Submarine has not yet achieved full sustainability. The publication is co-funded by parallel projects run by its own publishing company, a social enterprise called Undermedia. One of its most profitable projects is Iconografie, a former Instagram account willing to be "an archive of present times", which the organisation turned into a trimonthly registered magazine after acquiring it in 2021.