15 votes

The Correspondant - A different business model for organizations producing journalism.

I just watched an interesting This Week in Startups interview with the CEO of a nascent but successful new "news" organization from the Netherlands called De Correspondent. They are launching a new US-based company called The Correspondent, which has some high profile supporters. This list includes Nate Silver, William Julius Wilson, Rosanne Cash, and some others.

Their business model allows them to attract high-quality journalists by optimizing for journalistic integrity and independence. They have around 60,000 members paying around $70 per year in the Netherlands. They do no advertising business and are a for-profit corp with a dividend cap of 5% to make themselves unattractive to VC-type investors. The CEO claims they "ignore the news," meaning that they try to avoid the sound-bite quips that can be very distracting. They do not report on individual's scandals, instead focusing on systemic issues.

Journalists are required to share their stories with the members as they are developing. Stories are not guarded secrets while in development unlike traditional news organizations. This allows members to contribute to the stories via a form of curated crowdsourcing. For example, they reached out to members when doing a story on Shell, and found a few members who had access to the company which led to discovery of Shell's own internal Inconvenient Truth type video which was made in 1991.

The CEO also mentioned that he always includes a developer or designer in story discussions so that the latest investigation and presentation tools can be used on a story from day one.

Please take a look at the links and let me know what you think of this model, and its chances in the US market. I am pretty excited for anyone trying anything new in this space. What do you think? Would you pay for something like this?

Edit: I'm not sure if there is a better ~group for this topic, please move it if there is. Also, formatting, phrasing, and clarity.

Here is a direct link to the CEO's Medium account with more information.

7 comments

  1. clerical_terrors
    Link
    I've been immensly enjoying the Dutch version of The Correspondent, especially their regular podcasts. While there are a lot of opinions pieces there's also a lot of really well produced...

    I've been immensly enjoying the Dutch version of The Correspondent, especially their regular podcasts. While there are a lot of opinions pieces there's also a lot of really well produced informative content on both pressing issues and "forgotten" stories of recent history. I'm really hoping they can bring this same level of quality to the English speaking world.

    4 votes
  2. [2]
    Tenar
    Link
    They are fantastic! I posted a link to an interesting article here a bit ago, which got some discussion. I haven't watched the linked interview, but some things that weren't mentioned in your...

    They are fantastic! I posted a link to an interesting article here a bit ago, which got some discussion.

    I haven't watched the linked interview, but some things that weren't mentioned in your blurb:

    1. they care about privacy, a lot! They regularly talk about privacy issues with big companies, GDPR, social media, how easy it is to hack public wifi, and things like that. Then they got some feedback that they were a bit hypocritical because they were using google's analytics tools, so they switched to self-hosting (even though they knew it would bring overhead, extra costs)
    2. They give away free articles quite often! They don't paywall because they're greedy, but because they need to for their business model. But knowledge is to be shared so (1) they share stories themselves (see 'volg de corresondent' on this page to see their social media accounts), and (2) all members are allowed to freely share however many articles they want with other people, no limits.
    3. they work with other journalists quite a bit! They employ people who have an interesting story to tell, give them enough money to write a series of pieces out of it (or films, or whatever). They've also shared documentaries, they make some books (some translated to english as well!), so they're broadening their perspective. Interesting stuff, imo!

    If you can, sign up for their newsletter, they might share when they make new english stories, and when they launch completely you can see if it's something you're interested in. I think this is what a lot of people (especially on sites like ~ or other high-level discussion groups) are missing, so give it a shot!

    3 votes
    1. BoredomAddict
      Link Parent
      Wow, this alone makes it worth supporting them to me! I'm so happy to see people trying to tackle the issues with old-fashioned journalism that have been made obvious over the past few years.

      Then they got some feedback that they were a bit hypocritical because they were using google's analytics tools, so they switched to self-hosting (even though they knew it would bring overhead, extra costs)

      Wow, this alone makes it worth supporting them to me! I'm so happy to see people trying to tackle the issues with old-fashioned journalism that have been made obvious over the past few years.

      2 votes
  3. [2]
    Zeph
    Link
    Is there anything like this in English, I assume their articles are all Dutch? I'd be worried the American offshoot would be too heavy on American specific issues.

    Is there anything like this in English, I assume their articles are all Dutch? I'd be worried the American offshoot would be too heavy on American specific issues.

    2 votes
    1. Tenar
      Link Parent
      Most of their articles are in Dutch, there's some that have been translated. (a quick search of their website through a search engine will give you english articles though, but in no good order,...

      Most of their articles are in Dutch, there's some that have been translated. (a quick search of their website through a search engine will give you english articles though, but in no good order, like this instead of browsable or whatever).

      So what they're planning on is going towards an english-language, US-based offshoot as well. My experience from their Dutch part tells me they'll be focused partially on local issues, but always in a pretty good (international) context, with loads of non-local news too. (as in, Dutch news websites will often have headlines like "huge earthquake in Lombok, Indonesia, 3000 dead, here's an interview with a Dutch tourist who was nearby", but they don't do that, they'll just tell you about that place without feeling the need to add useless fluff inbetween)

      3 votes
  4. [2]
    Tenar
    Link
    So I'm watching the interview you linked, and it's interesting to see the discussions going on, but I am not a fan of the guy's interviewing style. He's interrupting his interviewee constantly,...

    So I'm watching the interview you linked, and it's interesting to see the discussions going on, but I am not a fan of the guy's interviewing style. He's interrupting his interviewee constantly, and it kind of feels like he's going through a list of pre-made questions instead of seeing where the conversation leads and using that to hook onto other interesting subjects. Like once or twice Ernest-Jan had some interesting points and he's just silent for a bit and asks the next question. (like after E-J talks about their coming to the US, having ambassadors, etc, he doesn't ask the very obvious questions of 'what timeframe', or 'what goals', or 'what if you don't reach the goals'… but asks about banning people from social media)

    Also with the whole asking questions about Sarah Jeong, those were some terrible questions, leading questions. Like "here's my opinion, do you agree" and aggressively pushing for his opinion without letting him hedge his statement first.

    And his ending with some semi-conspiracy stuff was really weird.

    1 vote
    1. Neverland
      Link Parent
      Oh yeah, Jason Calacanis is a weird person, though a very successful angel investor. There are all kinds of critical things that I could say about him, but he often has some great guests. Chamath...

      Oh yeah, Jason Calacanis is a weird person, though a very successful angel investor. There are all kinds of critical things that I could say about him, but he often has some great guests.

      Chamath Palihapitiya once called him "the Donald Trump of Silicon Valley," right to his face.. and they are friends. I still find what he does valuable. But I agree with all of your criticisms of the interview, he usually does much better on asking good questions, at least the basics that you mentioned.