We are happy to announce a new exciting partner of Hostwriter. When we were introduced to each other it felt like match made in heaven. Hostwriter provides an infrastructure for journalists while InPerspective offers an outlet for publishing and translating international content. This calls for promising collaborations. We met with two of the founders Hanne Bohmhammel and Anieke Becker and had a bit of a chat.
Part of the inPerspective team in Berlin
InPerspective is a non-profit project made up of a network of journalists, translators and readers dedicated to reporting stories that explore different subjects and perspectives from all over the world.
How did you come up with the idea of InPerspective?
InPerspective: I (Hanne) studied political science on the Ivory Coast 2011 during the Ivorian crisis. When I talked to my family about the events I realised that our perception of what was happening differed greatly. They didn’t fully believe what I was telling them, because Spiegel Online wrote something different to what the people on the ground had told me. At this moment I really wanted a reliable source written by Ivorian people that my father could read offering him a different perspective. But it but it didn’t exist.
Why do you think that there is a demand for InPerspective?
InPerspective: Everything is connected in this world. And if you want to understand the financial market for example you need a global view. You need to translate things to make them available. Or, for example the Ukrainian crisis. It unravelled when we started the project and a lot of readers criticised their national media for being anti Russian, but almost no one had the possibility to read Russian papers. We want to change that.
A lot of the work in foreign reporting is done by the fixers, which do not even get their names displayed under the article. The stringers are our journalists. Now they can write in their own language and then we’ll find a translator.
So, how does it work?
InPerspective: A lot of journalists want to spread their perspectives to readers and they also want to read other points of view and not just their own national, or continental narratives. So it’s not that difficult to get the content from the journalists, especially as we don’t have a problem with 2nd-publishing articles.
And the translations?
InPerspective: The translators are really important for us. They are doing an amazing job. They need to know the cultural background in their country to translate it properly. Even UK and US English are so different. This is why we chose to only work with professional translators.
And the million dollar question. How do you pay them?
InPerspective: Everyone is currently working on a voluntary basis. But of course, we would like to change that.
How many people are contributing to the magazine at the moment?
InPerspective: We are around 50-60 people. Journalists, translators, developers, a graphic designer, and legal and tax advisors.