Site offers ‘cure’ to US news grind

AmsteRdAm: A Dutch ad-free news website, which actively seeks contributors’ help in its reporting and foregoes breaking news in favour of deeper analysis, is about to expand across the Atlantic.

Amid the blaring headlines, the breathless drama of 24-hour TV news, the lure of clickbait and noisy hand-wringing about a media industry in crisis, De Correspondent deliberately spreads an aura of calm.

So successful has it proved in The Netherlands in living up to its pledge to provide “an antidote to the daily news grind” that it is now planning to go straight to the heartland of “fake news” – the United States.

But don’t expect a reporter from its English version, The Correspondent, to be jostling for space at a Trump press conference any time soon.

“We won’t be focusing on what is in the media today, but on what is not in the media and should be in the media,” said one of its two co-founders, Rob Wijnberg.

De Correspondent launched in September 2013 after Wijnberg, 35, and Ernst-Jan Pfauth, 31, both journalists, found themselves out of a job in late 2012, but driven by an idea of what they felt journalism should be.

In an audacious crowd-funding campaign launched in March 2013,

€ they raised 900,000 (then RM5.49mil) in just eight days.

By mid-April, the pot had grown to US$1.7mil (RM7.18mil), enough to fund

We won’t be focusing on what is in the media today, but on what is not in the media and should be in the media.

Rob Winjberg

13 employees, premises in Amsterdam and the design of a website.

In the days when crowd-funding was in its infancy “we figured this is kind of a long shot”, Pfauth said.

But idealistic, and brimming with ideas, Wijnberg drew up a manifesto of principles around which to build their members-funded platform.

De Correspondent sets out to challenge over-simplification and stereotyping, is openly subjective in demanding its reporters are engaged with the world, is ad-free and strives for maximum diversity, but not maximum profits.

Indeed, it has set a profit cap at 5% with 95% ploughed back into the business.

It struck a chord with the Dutch. Four years on, the site now has

€

59,000 subscribers paying either 60

€

(RM298.94) a year, or 6 (RM29.89) a month, and has a staff of 46.

Its approach to news is also unusual. Wall-to-wall coverage of events “like a terror act, or Hurricane Irma” have a function, Wijnberg admits.

“I’ve been watching the news because my brother was right in the middle of Irma. I know the function of news. It’s ‘there’s a threat coming, watch out’,” he said.

“But leave it at that and you’ll never understand, for example, the climate change behind those weather phenomena,” he added.

In its bid to dive deeper, De Correspondent has developed a unique relationship with its members, actively seeking contributions to help its reporters.

Pfauth said in his previous job as an online web editor for a Dutch daily that “people were really interested in sharing their expertise.

“Three thousand doctors know more than one medical journalist,” he added.

So reporters at De Correspondent e-mail members who have signed up to follow them about stories they are working on, asking for help, which is unpaid and on a voluntary basis.

It has not been “an easy process,” Pfauth admitted, acknowledging “the comments section on news sites were places where conspiracy theorists shouted at each other, basically”.

But a desire to attract Englishspeaking contributors and help deepen their knowledge has driven the quest for an English version. — AFP