Friday, September 21, 2018

Towards better journalism

One of the people on The Drum yesterday mentioned in passing a journalism  model being pioneered in the Netherlands for building trusted news sources.  "De Correspondent" is in Dutch but they are intent on creating an English version
The Correspondent wants to redefine what news is about. "we don’t cover the weather, we cover the climate", informing you about how the world really works.
Rather idealistically, here is what the site claims it is about:

  1. We are an ad-free platform funded by paying members. We also accept funding from organizations whose investments contribute directly to our journalistic goals. Any such agreement will include one non-negotiable condition: full editorial independence.
  2. We fight stereotypes, prejudice, and fear mongering
  3. We don’t just cover the problem, but also what can be done about it
  4. We collaborate with you, our knowledgeable members.
  5. We don’t take the view from nowhere. We tell you where we’re coming from, At The Correspondent, we don’t think journalists should pretend to be ‘neutral’ or ‘unbiased’.
  6. We protect your privacy, by minimizing the personal data we collect
  7. We want to be as inclusive as possible. Journalism is at its best when it includes many different perspectives and worldviews. That’s why we seek to include people from a broad variety of backgrounds, both in our newsroom and on our platform.
  8. We always put journalism before financial gain. We do not maximize shareholder return, limiting dividends to 5 percent of revenue.
  9. We believe in transparency and continued self-improvement
  10. We know we’re not ‘the fix’ for what’s wrong in journalism, and we know that there’s no one way to do it. When we make mistakes, we admit and correct them. 

To get a taste of what they are about, it is best to read some of their articles. Fortunately, the ones available from the site, flipped from Dutch to English by Google Translate, are remarkably readable.  I can see why some people are getting excited.  Here is an excellent example of what the final product is like. It delves into why Nigerians are risking death to migrate to Europe. 
More detail about the De Correspondent platform can be seen on Wikipedia

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