Owner De Correspondent B.V. Website decorrespondent.nl Commercial Yes | Editor Rob Wijnberg Alexa rank 86,989 (April 2016) | |
Available in Dutch, English (partly) | ||
De Correspondent (in English sometimes referred to as The Correspondent) is a Dutch news website based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. It was launched on 30 September 2013 after raising more than €1 million in a crowd-funding campaign in eight days time, establishing a world record in journalism. The website distinguishes itself by rejecting the daily news cycle and focussing on in-depth and chronological coverage on a topical basis, led by individual correspondents who each focus on specific topics.
Contents
The concept and initial success of De Correspondent has inspired other projects elsewhere, notably the German website Krautreporter which has adopted the same concept.
History
The project was co-founded by Dutch journalist Rob Wijnberg, creative director Harald Dunnink, CTO Sebastian Kersten and publisher Ernst-Jan Pfauth. Wijnberg, former editor-in-chief of Dutch newspaper NRC Next, proposed the crowdfunding idea for an ad-free new media platform on national television in March 2013. Eight days later, he and his team reached their goal of 15,000 subscribers all paying €60 for a one-year membership [1].
Wijnberg worked with digital creative agency Momkai and its owners, Harald Dunnink and Sebastian Kersten, served as creative director and CTO respectively. Ernst-Jan Pfauth, who had been the founding editor of The Next Web and head of digital at Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, joined as a publisher.
The website went live in September 2013. By January 2015 the website had over 45,000 paying subscribers. In January 2016 the number of paying subscribers on the website was reported to be 50,000.
In 2014, De Correspondent concluded a deal with Medium’s magazine Matter, for the magazine to translate stories from De Correspondent that they believe are relevant for an international audience. The first article in the partnership concerned the hazards of using public Wi-Fi.
In 2015, De Correspondent started translating stories from Dutch to English.
Content
The website aims to move away from the daily news cycle by focussing on context, rather than what happened in the past 24 hours. Individual correspondents lead as “guides” — deciding the news agenda, and making their choices explicit. De Correspondent intends its authors to report on under-reported themes including energy, privacy, technology and future economic reends.
Technology
De Correspondent runs on a content management system (CMS) called Respondens. In several blog posts, the founders said that they might make Respondens available for other publishers in the future.