I asked a bunch of questions about The Correspondent yesterday and got answers from the anonymous account of the company, and from one of the founders, Ernst Pfauth, on Twitter. He posted a link to a Medium piece about how their rolodex feature works. Below are the questions and answers. #
No. But it is limited-profit. [What this means isn't clear. They have said it means that the partners will not draw out more than 5 percent of the revenue for themselves, putting all the remaining profit back into the company. At least one commenter in the thread thinks this is not straight.]#
Will you have a public editor? If so, will be it be a member of the public or a journalist?#
Since being in the rolodex requires membership, I signed up, giving $25. The next page after signing up offered ways to give more money or help them promote membership. They really sell hard. There was a huge iconic image of Jay Rosen on the page. I found this very disturbing. I actually edited the DOM tree to make his image invisible. Then I gave them the money. #
I asked a bunch of other questions, trying to understand where their reporters will come from and how they will assure that these reporters care about members more than most American reporters. I got a vague answer about that, from which I concluded their reporters will be like every other reporter, and the idea that they will be engaged with readers is either hype or snake oil, or good intentions, but they don't have any magic that turns reporters into community-minded people. #
I am not part of their "movement," even though they accuse me of that in all their communication. I don't like this company. I like them less than the typical journalistic venture that doesn't pretend to give a shit about readers, because they're using our good nature, and desire to believe in something to get money out of us. The limited role of members is, to me, unacceptable. We certainly don't get a chance to participate at the same level as the paid journalists. Consider the answer to the question as to whether members can start new investigations -- you can pitch an idea to a reporter via email. That is a terrible answer. #
The only movement I would be part of is one that doesn't distinguish between reporters and members, that has a level playing field. I think that's the only way journalism can scale to meet our needs and avoid the kinds of disasters journalism has led us to. #
Since the rolodex is online, I thought I should try to find it, and enter my information. I tried a search, but it led me to the home page, and a pitch to give money. I went to their FAQ page and searched for the word "rolodex" -- there were no matches. I looked for a Members link on their website, if it was there I didn't see it. The rolodex may be online, but apparently it's not available to members yet.#
Update: The rolodex exists in Dutch but hasn't been localized yet. #
Observation: The rolodex is a good idea, but why shouldn't there be a global index available to all reporters and sources, not just those who give money to Pfauf and company? Why would I want to limit my usefulness to just their reporters? #
Net-net: They're doing a great job of raising money. They promise to start a very different journalistic enterprise. When I asked Scripting News readers in the Netherlands what they thought of their Dutch effort there was a generally positive response. That's where we are now. #
