1/(Thread) Restoring trust should be the number one priority in journalism. And *membership* is a great way to do that. In this thread I want to share how our journalists put membership into practice at @decorrespondent (and hopefully soon at @the_corres 🤞🏼). Hope you’ll read on!

2/First off, let’s be clear on what we see as the core difference between subscription and membership. Subscribers pay money to get a product (i.e. access to a site). Members join your (journalistic) cause. In our case: to be their *antidote to the daily news grind*.

3/How do you get people to “join a journalistic cause”? Well, a good start is: hire journalists who are deeply engaged with and care about their subject of expertise. And then: allow them to *express* their deeply felt convictions in all kinds of ways.

4/This is the main reason why we let our correspondents set their own journalistic agenda. Great journalism isn't determined by "the news" pushed by other media, or by editors on high. Great journalism comes *from the heart*.

5/Then, we ask our correspondents to write *a mission statement*. That’s right. We have them write down why they are so passionate about their subject matter, how they hope to inspire you to care too, and what they hope to find out once they start their research.

6/Writing a mission statement is important in building trust, because it helps your readers to understand *where you’re coming from*—what your assumptions, moral views, and doubts are, and what you expect or hope to find once you start digging into the matter.

7/This is why a mission statement is never just “report the news”—that’s not a mission, but a mode of information. Rather, a mission statement gives a sense of direction and urgency: “This is why I believe this is important and this is what I hope to achieve.”

8/For example: In The Netherlands, the mission of our Energy and Climate correspondent @jhmommers is not just to heighten public awareness of global warming, but also to accelerate the transition to a society built on sustainable energy.

9/Similarly, our Privacy correspondent @mauritsmartijn not only warns of the ways in which our privacy is threatened, but also explains how we can protect it and resist further encroachments. This kind of moral clarity helps manage readers’ expectations.

10/Once a correspondent has clearly worded her mission, she starts keeping a public notebook. A correspondent doesn’t just write “finished stories,” but *shares her learning curve*. What research am I doing, what sources am I using, what conclusions am I drawing?

11/The goal of this public notebook is twofold. First, it *shows your work*, so readers can see what you’re cooking in the kitchen. Just “stating the facts” isn’t enough to breed trust — a journalist must also justify her choices and provide insight into her research.

12/And second, making the journalistic process transparent also makes it possible for readers to take part in it. They can share their questions, knowledge, and experiences with the correspondent while the story is still in the making. Their comments are not an afterthought.

13/This collaboration between journalist and readers is a crucial ingredient of the membership model. Readers are the biggest resource of knowledge and experience journalists have—and the internet has given us the unprecedented ability to tap into it.

14/In The Netherlands, for example, collaborating with members is how our Debt correspondent @jessefrederik exposed systematic abuses in the debt industry. It’s also how our Healthcare correspondent @sanderheijne catalogued bureaucracy in Dutch hospitals.

15/The result: true insight into how the world works. Because who knows more about healthcare than doctors, hospital workers, and patients? And who understands education better than teachers, students, and parents of school-aged children?

16/By sharing our knowledge and experiences with each other through constructive dialogue, we can learn to understand the most important systems and trends of our time. And if we can *understand* how the world works, we can also still *change* that world.

17/That, I believe, is the key pact for restoring trust in journalism. The shared belief that better understanding can lead to a better world will help build a new relationship between journalists (formerly known as “the media”) and members (formerly known as “the audience”).

18/Oh, and by the way: it’s great for business too. At @decorrespondent, 94 percent (!) of revenue comes from our readers. It has kept us fiercely ad free for five years and completely focussed on our only customer: our members.

19/You can read my full essay here: https://medium.com/de-correspondent/putting-membership-into-practice-2e980c025fc9 … Would love to hear your thoughts! (Oh, and you can follow us here: @the_corres. And sign up for our newsletter here: http://thecorrespondent.com ).

You can follow @robwijnberg.

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