De Correspondent, the Dutch journalism organization which has gained plaudits for its crowdfunded, reader-centric approach to news, aims to launch an English language site in 2019, its co-founder announced on Wednesday.
Rob Wijnberg, who launched de Correspondent following a crowd-funding drive in the Netherlands in 2013, told the Guardian the English-language version, like the Dutch outlet, would focus on “underlying forces in the world that shape our society” rather than the daily news agenda.
Wijnberg and his colleagues need to raise $2.5m by 14 December for the English version – called the Correspondent – to get off the ground. The Correspondent launched its crowdfunding drive on Wednesday, backed by about 150 “ambassadors”, including the Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, the comedian Kamau Bell and the director Judd Apatow.
People will be able to choose what they pay for a year’s access to the Correspondent. The minimum contribution will be a dollar – enough to cover transaction costs – but it is hoped the average will be higher.
“We want to be as inclusive as possible, so we don’t want anybody to be excluded from the platform just because they can’t afford it,” Wijnberg said.
“There’s not really a price to put on something that we hope will be worldwide. Someone in Lagos might have less to spend than somebody in New York, for example. Or there are people who can spend more – or less – in New York as well.”
Wijnberg, a former newspaper editor in the Netherlands, and his co-founder, Ernst Pfauth, have been based in New York City for a year planning the launch, working with media experts and researchers at New York University. If the Correspondent reaches its fundraising goal, it will hire five to six full-time correspondents focussing on specific beats, Wijnberg said. Instead of a traditional office, the Correspondent’s journalists could be based around the globe – wherever their focus may be.
De Correspondent set a crowdfunding goal of 1m euros to launch in the Netherlands in 2013, which it estimated would take 15,000 members to achieve. Instead 19,000 people joined the site – at a cost of €60 each for a year – as Wijnberg and his colleagues raised €1.7m. Five years later, De Correspondent has more than 60,000 members.
One of the ways de Correspondent differs from traditional news sites is in its embrace of reader input and expertise. Wijnberg hopes that approach can break through at a time when “general distrust of the media is common everywhere”. De Correspondent journalists are expected to spend up to 40% of their working time in conversation with members, asking readers for expertise and seeking sources.
“[It’s about] bypassing the spokespeople and going pretty much straight to the teachers and the students and the principals or the doctors and the patients and the nurses,” Wijnberg said.
“The idea basically is if you want to cover structural everyday reality, you have to involve as many people in those realities as possible.”