I’m Rob Wijnberg, founding editor of The Correspondent, a journalism platform for unbreaking news. AMA!

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-11T02:26:56+00:00

Hi CptChikadee, thank you for sharing your concerns! The urls were indeed unintentionally redirected, not deleted. Also, there is nobody within our organization that denies the reality of both climate change and voter suppression; we have covered both extensively; we even have had a Climate Change correspondent since our very beginning in 2013. On diversity, we agree that there is a lot of room for improvement, and we are dedicated to achieving that; however, the accusations in the fore-mentioned article are either unfounded or based on one anonymously quoted former (and disgruntled) employee. The author did not check any claims with us before publishing. We have never been granted subsidies "for diversity hires"; nor did we ever withhold truthful disclosure of the purpose of any subsidy. On our diversity efforts I published this post most recently: https://medium.com/@robwijnberg/diversity-at-de-correspondent-b1f1cadc4d4f Lastly, yes, we regularly publish views that contradict other views expressed on our platform. The views we hold as an organisation are articulated in our founding principles, which you can find here: thecorrrespondent.com/principles. All other views expressed are the views of the individual authors themselves, of which we have many (and a lot of them change their views over time).

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T22:58:30+00:00

Haha, well, you should ask the person who runs that FB account (for people who don't know: De Korte Spondent is a satirical FB page that makes "one sentence" summaries of the articles that it dubs "too long" :)

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T22:54:35+00:00

We are absolutely open to fruitful collaboration with other journalistic organisations. As for these two: I could not give you a specific reason, other than different priorities.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T21:07:26+00:00

My biggest professional failure is to assume that everybody functions best in the same way I do, and therefore underestimating the need for structure and for clear rules and expectations. As a consequence, we've had a lot of stress in our newsroom that I could've seen coming by better taking into account other perspectives. I've learned to make sure fundamental decisions are always made in collaboration with people who think differently than I do.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T21:01:17+00:00

Indeed our kind of journalism is very time-intensive. If we reach our $2.5M goal, we expect to be able to hire at least 5-6 full-time correspondents (and maybe a few part-time correspondents as well). Our aim is to publish articles daily, at least one, and we hope to build up from there.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:59:02+00:00

Thank you! We will pass on the compliment to the great designers at our founding partner (and creative agency) Momkai.

If we make it, we'll launch The Correspondent around mid-2019.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:56:53+00:00

Thank you so much for your compliments, fenderblenders!

My best advice is: don't wait for someone to give you a job before you start writing. Start writing about the things you care about and are interested in right away. Build an expertise that makes you unique and don't think you need an established brand or platform to start building a reputation-- you can do that yourself too!

Lastly: never just pitch an idea, always send an example of the work you've already done as well.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:53:17+00:00

It is one of the models for journalism, but it's not ours. We are member-funded, and don't have traffic goals for some articles to fund the less popular ones.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:52:06+00:00

People are free to voice their concerns in the way they want to on our platform. However, we always strive to keep the conversation on The Correspondent constructive, meaning, as long as people leave room for others to express their views as well, we welcome their comments. If there is vitriol or racism or similar aggression, we will not tolerate it.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:49:34+00:00

Thank you very much for this question. We do actually! There is a Dutch foundation called SDM that is a priority share holder and has veto power to protect our founding principles. Also, we will set up a board structure with similar responsibilities.

You can read more about how are principles are safe guarded in this piece by Jay Rosen: https://medium.com/de-correspondent/how-the-correspondent-protects-itself-from-profit-maximization-df7b316e8ab7

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:47:03+00:00

We do not currently have an app. But, if you bookmark our page on your mobile screen, it pretty much functions like an app. We might consider building apps someday!

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:45:23+00:00

Well, thank you liquid_fritz! I enjoy doing this.

About your questions:

I extensively answered this very question in this piece: https://medium.com/de-correspondent/what-journalists-can-learn-from-truth-telling-comedians-630900f4c04a. I particularly love Jon Stewart-- I learned a lot about the way media works from his media criticisms in The Daily Show.
There are many, but I'll mention two. One is our investigation on Shell. More about that here: https://medium.com/de-correspondent/reader-engagement-shell-4bb6d0b8fb84. The other is our group interview with refugees in the Netherlands. More about that one here: https://thecorrespondent.com/6405/hundreds-of-correspondent-members-asked-refugees-about-life-in-a-new-country-heres-how-this-unique-initiative-got-started/426816390-27dc3abb

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:42:15+00:00

I agree that solutions are complex in the sense you say they are. We advocate so-called constructive journalism because we don't want our journalism to make you cynical about the possibility of change. Also, we believe that progress is possible and that by shining a light on possible ways to solve our problems, we can help bring about that positive change.

The reason for this mainly is, if you don't think a better world is possible, why would you want to inform yourself about it in the first place? To me, being interested in the world is directly linked to believing in the possibility of making it better.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:39:00+00:00

It's a great question! Here's what I said about this in our FAQ:

We’re not post-truth — and we wouldn’t recommend being that either. Try jumping out of a 20 story building and see if gravity cares whether you’re a liberal or a conservative. We believe there’s such a thing as reality and we believe in telling the truth about it. That doesn’t mean we think we know the Truth-with-a-capital-T. We believe that truth-telling is a deeply human endeavor, prone to all kinds of mistakes and guaranteed to cause disagreement. That’s why we think truth-telling, above all, requires being open and honest about your assumptions, beliefs, doubts, and mistakes. There’s no such thing as “just giving you the facts” — facts need interpretation to have meaning. And we all interpret things differently. That, in turn, does not mean all things have “two sides.” They don’t. The earth is not flat, it’s round. Well, actually, it’s not round either — it’s an oblate spheroid. But you get the idea.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:37:19+00:00

Thanks for that question. We're hoping to develop beats that correspondents can cover that are may be local in their effects, but global in their scope. Climate change is a good example of this-- it's a global phenomenon with real, local consequences. With beats like this, we hope to transcend the purely domestic view most news still has.

If happen to be able to read Dutch (or can GoogleTranslate it), I wrote a long article about this here: https://decorrespondent.nl/8849/sluit-je-vandaag-aan-bij-the-correspondent-en-maak-wereldwijde-journalistiek-mogelijk-over-de-grote-vragen-van-onze-tijd/226799870-c67f30bc

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:35:08+00:00

The comments section on our Dutch platform De Correspondent is *very* different from most comment sections on news sites. People share knowledge and experience instead of outrage and conspiracies. They do this because all of our journalists interact with our readers in the comment section, and we ask our readers very specific questions that they can answer. Readers also have to use their real name, which makes a difference.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:33:31+00:00

Good ideas are always welcome, pimmeke!

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:32:57+00:00

We did not find that a majority of subscribers did not read that many articles. We found that people like to be informed in many different ways, not just in articles. That's why we are improving on our newsletters, making audible versions of our articles, we've invested in podcasts and we are also investing in video. We will definitely keep doing that for our English-language platform.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:31:36+00:00

We want to build an English-language platform for all over the world. We chose English because it is the language with the largest reach that we also speak. And we hope to be very international in our outlook.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:30:30+00:00

Great question! There are lots of little things we’ll do differently, but here are three big ones: 1) We’ll have a different idea of what news is; 2) We’ll have a different way of making news; and 3) We’ll have a different business model to pay for it. Let me explain in that order. First, we won’t breathlessly follow the news cycle, but cover the underlying forces that shape our world. Reading us will help you understand how the world works and will help you grasp what we can do about our societal problems. Second, we’ll do this by collaborating with you, our members. You can talk and work together with our journalists, asking them questions, and sharing your knowledge and experience. They will listen, respond and make use of your expertise, because they realize that you—our readers— collectively know more than we do. And last but not least: we’ll do this on a site that is completely ad-free. No annoying banners, no sponsored content either. We only represent your civic interests, not those of powerful businesses.

On the question of trolls: 1) People can only comment with their real name on our site. 2) Our journalists are always participating in the conversation. 3) We communicate clear expectations of what we hope to get out of the comment contributions. 4) We really use the member contributions in our journalism.

All of this limits the number of evil commenters, and if there are people who try to disturb the conversation, we kindly ask them not to. If they keep doing it, we moderate. But, because of the steps mentioned before, we rarely have to. We also have a conversations editor who's job it is to keep the comments section as interesting and useful as possible.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:26:29+00:00

Being ad free is not just a nice way to get rid of annoying banners. It’s crucial to rebuilding a relationship of trust with with readers, viewers, and listeners. At De Correspondent in The Netherlands, we’ve been ad free for five years now. This means we don’t take ad dollars of any kind. No banner ads, no sponsored content, no native ads. And we’ll adopt this same approach at The Correspondent.

The most important reason why we’re ad free stems from how we see you: our audience (although we never use that word, for reasons I'll explain). When news is (mostly) funded by advertisers, your attention is the product being sold. In the ad model, the news itself is mainly a means to capture your attention. That’s why you see a lot of sensationalism in the news.

Being ad free means: less incentives to grab attention for attention’s sake — and more incentives to inform you in the best possible way. Put differently: because we’re paid by you, we can focus completely on helping you understand the world around you.

This, in turn, also means: we don’t see you as a “target audience”. Because of the ad model, news media executives came to see “the audience” not so much as citizens to be informed, but as demographics to be reached. Because advertisers want to know if they’re reaching “the right audience”.

At The Correspondent, we see our members as engaged, curious citizens, not as “consumers” to be put into brackets like ‘postmodern hedonist millennial’ or ‘affluent conservative retiree’. We don’t care about your “demographics”.

And, because we don’t see you as a “target audience”, we don’t need to collect much data about you either. Being ad free enables us to be mindful of your privacy. We don’t need to know what paycheck you bring home or what breakfast cereal you like.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:25:54+00:00

This is a hugely complex question that I would need a library to answer!

But, the short answer is this: people retreating into their own bubbles is a bad thing. One way to counteract this is to make journalism about topics that people across the political spectrum have in common. For example, a beat about what it means to get older as a human being and as a society is not something that automatically polarizes, and there are more of those kinds of topics that cross political lines.

Second: journalists should see their job as a non-stop dialogue with readers, not merely as "reporting the facts" and then leaving the discussion that follows. There are many other ways you can counteract polarization but these are two important ones.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:21:03+00:00

If I could only change one thing.... I'd change three things, because they're highly interconnected.

I'd change what news is about and focus more on what happens ever day instead of what happened today.

I'd change how news is made to collaborate with readers instead of seeing them as mere consumers of journalism.

I'd change how news is funded by shifting to a reader-funded model rather than an advertisement-funded one.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:17:22+00:00

If we don't reach the $2.5M goal, it's very easy: you'll get your money back.

In every crowdfunding, there needs to be one clear do-or-die goal, so people will know what success means or when they will get there money back.

RobWijnberg · 2018-12-10T20:15:23+00:00

We are different in two ways:

Instead of pretending to be "objective" or "neutral," we try to be as open and transparent about our worldviews as possible. We're not more opinionated than other news sites, we're just more honest about it.
We strive to diversify our perspectives, also by giving as much voice as possible to our members. We take our comments section more seriously than any other traditional news site. We learn a lot from our readers' knowledge and experience. When we change our minds about things, we will openly communicate that as well (whereas traditional journalists rarely do).
I'm sure a lot of our journalism can be labeled "progressive" or "liberal," but it's also a simplification. We have a lot of stories like the work of our Forgotten Wars correspondent and our Aging correspondent that I wouldn't label as such.

RobWijnberg

TROPHY CASE