Innovator’s Saga — An Interview with Jeff Israely

Column Editor: Darrell W. Gunter (President & CEO, Gunter Media Group) <d.gunter@guntermediagroup.com>

DARRELL: I am so happy to have Mr. Jeff Israely, who is the co-founder and editor of worldcrunch.com, as our guest for this edition of the Innovator’s Saga.

JEFF ISRAELY: Thanks for having me, Darrell.

DG: So, let’s get started. Before we jump into Worldcrunch, let’s talk about your education, background, and experience, and how you came about to launch Worldcrunch.

JI: Well, I’m American born and raised, and have been in the news business my whole career. The first part of it in Oakland, California and Alameda County, California, and ended up abroad. Love brought me abroad. I met my future wife in California, and she’s from Rome, Italy. And so, I ended up leaving my job at the newspaper in Oakland, California — the Oakland Tribune — and set up shop in Rome. And worked for American news organizations in Rome, and then Paris for the Associated Press, and then for Time magazine for 10 years in Rome and Paris. And worked as a correspondent, a bureau chief, and did what foreign correspondents have done for decades, for a century, writing stories about foreign lands and foreign topics and foreign people, for the American audience, for the global audience. And yeah, a reporter for about 20 years, and then started up Worldcrunch in 2011. So, it’s been more than 11 years now. And happy to tell you that story, too.

DG: Absolutely. So, what prompted you to leave the comfort of being a foreign correspondent to launch a new aggregated service such as Worldcrunch?

JI: Well, back then at the end of the first decade of this century was a time then, as it is now, where our industry — the news industry — was in full transformation, and the good and the bad and in between, because of the big factor that is changing so much of our lives — because of the Internet — that the way news was delivered and the business models around it. When we were in the analog days of... for me as a print reporter, it was newspapers and print magazines. And then with the arrival of the Internet, by 2010, it was clear that the news industry was in full transformation and crisis. And the idea of Worldcrunch was actually taken from print magazines, originally in France and in Italy, that I got to know being here. I’m in Paris now. I’ve been over here in Europe for more than 20 years. And these magazines are weekly news magazines that for the past 20 years or so have... the way they deliver the news is by finding stories in all different languages, and then translating them and adapting them into the language of their readers. So, into Italian for the magazine Internazionale in Rome and into French for Courrier International, which is this French weekly. And so, I had gotten to know this model for delivering news, and it seemed like an opportunity to do the same but in English. And what was different at the time we launched, compared to when they launched, was that we were going to do it just online. And so Worldcrunch is digital. We call it a digital magazine, a digital news outlet that essentially selects stories, finds news in all different languages, and brings it into English for an English readership.

DG: And the significance of what Worldcrunch does, it takes content in its native language and translates it into English without losing the local cultural flavors. Is that correct?

JI: Exactly. Well, we think that there’s real value in getting stories, first of all, just reported stories that are being reported and written for newspapers all around the world. That report the news, that tell stories, that analyze events. And it’s an efficient way to get stories from all over the world. But it’s also unique because, as you say, we get the local, the national point of view on a particular story happening in that country, or it could be that country’s point of view on something happening in the world in general. And we translate, and what we say is we also adapt the story for an international reader. So that means maybe explaining certain things that for a local reader are understood, and so we smooth out all the rough edges and make it accessible for a global reader while maintaining the voice and the point of view of the place, and the person who wrote it.

DG: Wow, that’s excellent. And so, how would you describe the mission of Worldcrunch?

JI: Well, I think the mission to start with a mission similar to other news organizations. We want to tell stories, from around the world, get our facts straight, teach things, open people’s eyes to what’s happening around the world, and keep people informed. Also, entertain, tell interesting stories, news stories. But what’s unique about us is that we think that there’s a real value and a real appetite in the audience for a news service that thinks internationally. And that covers the world in an international way. And it’s not just, if you’re an American, it’s not your American correspondent parachuting in and telling the story for the Americans and in the American interests. We think that there are more and more readers all around the world who look at the world and at themselves in a more international way because the world is evermore connected, because their own experiences may have brought them to or from another country. And so, we really want to tell the story of the world as it’s happening in real time, but with an international point of view.

DG: Wow. And how many countries are you gathering articles or news stories from?

JI: Well, we’re looking all around the world, all the countries in the world, where we tap into partnerships that we have with newspapers, and directly with journalists who are covering the whole world. So, it can be any country. And we have partnerships with newspapers here in Europe, and in Asia, and in Africa, in Latin America. And so, we’re working where we potentially can work with any newspaper or any journalist around the world with whom we have obtained the licensing rights to be able to translate their stories. And then, we have our own team of translators and editors and journalists, who select the stories, who find the stories, and then translate them and edit them for an English audience.

DG: And so, I’m very curious as to the editorial philosophy and how do you choose what stories for Worldcrunch, which stories you don’t choose?

JI: Yeah, sure. Well, I mean, in some ways, we’re driven by the news. So, it’s what’s happening in the world. You can imagine, over the past almost nine months now, I have had a lot of coverage of the war in Ukraine, where we’re finding stories from Ukrainian news outlets, from Russian news outlets, but also from news outlets here in Europe who have their war correspondents on the ground there. But more generally, what we’re looking for are interesting stories, no matter where they are. But we’re also looking for stories that cross borders, that sort of connect the dots and tell the story of a smaller and smaller world where things have relevance. Something happening in a small town in Bulgaria could be interesting for someone in Argentina, or in Chicago, or in Alaska, because the story is relevant to them. And so, we’re looking to have that mix. And we do stories across all topics. We’re a general news outlet. But yeah, we’re looking for those stories that describe the global world in which we live.

DG: And how does someone become a ... I don’t know if correspondent is the right word, or contributor. What is that process like? Because there’s a lot of folks out there who, unfortunately, over the years have been laid off because of what was going on in the industry.

JI: Well, we work with people with all different kinds of backgrounds and skill sets. Obviously, journalists. Typically, journalists who have at least one other language besides English, so that they can find stories in other languages, and translate them or edit them or rewrite them. Because, in addition to the direct translation stories that we do, we also write our own stories where the information is pulled in from different languages. So again, our starting point is to look at what’s being written and what’s being reported in all the languages in all the credible news outlets around the world. And so, journalists who have language skills, multiple languages, editors, translators. We work with some people who really come from a translation background. And so, it may be that our editorial team finds the stories and then ships them out to a translator, who will translate it and send it back. So, yeah, we work with freelancers. We have a core team here in Paris, but we work with freelancers all around the world. So, I’m always happy to receive inquiries from prospective contributors. Happy if you want to share my contacts because our team is growing and happy to be in touch with others.

DG: And to that point, I believe your email address is jeff@ worldcrunch.com, correct?

JI: That’s right. J-E-F-F, <jeff@worldcrunch.com>. Yep.

DG: Nice and easy. All right! And so, you mentioned a few of the very nice news organizations that you work with. Can you give us a feel for the great organizations that Worldcrunch is working with?

JI: Sure, sure. Well, we have ongoing partnerships with about 40 news organizations around the world. For example, here in Europe, here in France, we work with Les Echos, and we’ve worked with Le Monde and Le Figaro in the past. And we’re working with Die Welt in Germany and La Stampa in Italy. And in Asia, we work with the Initium, which is a Mandarin language news outlet that operates freely around the world, doing stories about China and the Chinese diaspora around the world, a very interesting news organization, covering China. We work with Kommersant and Proekt in Russia, and Livy Bereg in Ukraine.

In Latin America, we work with El Espectador in Colombia and Clarín in Argentina. And just Jeune Afrique, which covers Africa, a French language magazine. And, yeah, work with ... more and more we contact journalists directly when we find their stories, and get the okay from them to be able to get their stories into English. And so, yeah, to work–

DG: I’m sure they love that, right?

JI: Oh, yeah. I think, journalists in some cases have to sweat and struggle to make a living, and so we’re aware of that. But they, first and foremost, want to get their stories out there, read by as wide an audience as possible, and their stories are limited by the readership and the language in which they publish. And so, when we get into English, it multiplies the readership exponentially. Not only for Americans and British and Canadians and people in English-speaking countries, but so many more people around the world have English as a second language and get a lot of their news in English. And so, yeah, the journalists are happy to get their stories out there to a wider audience.

DG: Very nice. And so, when you think about Worldcrunch started back in 2011, how large is the corpus of articles in the whole corpus of Worldcrunch?

JI: Well, our archives, we recently dug back and counted and tallied up our archives, were around 20,000 articles that we’ve produced over those years, and it’s a weekly rhythm of about 45 features each week. We’ve recently actually launched a digital PDF formatted weekly magazine as well, which features some of our top stories put together into a weekly digital magazine. But yeah, we’re not chasing after the latest breaking news all the time. That’s not our approach. We’re more of a magazine which has analysis and reportage and feature stories.

DG: Very nice. And this magazine, this is part of the subscription. You have a B2B subscription. But you also have a B2C subscription model as well, right?

JI: Yes, we’re integrating the digital magazine into our paid subscription offer. And that will arrive on Thursday nights or, I guess, U.S. time Thursday afternoon is when it hits the digital presses.

DG: Very nice, very nice. Who do you think is the best audience for Worldcrunch?

JI: I really think that it’s anyone who sees themselves as... you hear the term “a global citizen” or a citizen of the world, which doesn’t necessarily mean that you live in a different country, or that you’re from a binational family, or that you travel, that you’re a business traveler. You could have even never yet left your country, but you want to, and you know that your life and your experience and your future is connected with the rest of the world. And if you have that awareness and that curiosity, then I think you’d find Worldcrunch interesting.

DG: You know, interesting. I teach Professional Sales at Seton Hall, and I’ve been teaching there since 2009. And I’ve always stressed the importance of understanding what’s going on in other countries, from a corporate standpoint, from a business standpoint. And I attended a webinar the other day — someone was trying to sell professors a new service — but that was the main thing that they had for the sales professional, to truly understand the international scope of the business and the culture and all that’s going on. And that’s where I think that Worldcrunch brings so much value. So, I guess it’s screams that the public libraries and the academic libraries would be prime customers for Worldcrunch.

JI: I think so. I remember my university experience and it was the first time I really encountered people from other countries. Universities are necessarily international places. Libraries, public libraries are international place where you go to discover the world. It’s where people discover that there is a world out there. And so, I think that it’s really a natural fit for what we’ve been doing for the past 11 years. That we’re a way in to what’s happening elsewhere, and I think more and more people understand, as you said, in whatever context you’re in. If you’re a business person, and you don’t even have clients elsewhere in the world, you need to know what’s happening in your industry elsewhere in the world. What customers are looking for, what factors, what supply chains, and all those sorts of things. There’s an understanding that the future is only going to get more and more global. And we’ve seen in politics, we’ve seen a sort of a backlash over the past even decade, let’s say, to globalization. That word has come to take on this kind of negative connotation. And there’s plenty of discussions to have about that, and how this process should take place in a way that’s just and smart. And in the general interest of any country or town or the world in general, we need to think hard about how it happens. But it’s going to keep happening. There’s really no unwinding that. I mean, the only scenarios for truly unwinding it aren’t pretty scenarios. So, I think the conversation about globalization in all its forms is one that’s changing, and rightly so, has a critical eye as well. But I don’t think that in any way changes the reality that the world, because of communication, because of technology, because of the opportunity to travel, is only going to get more and more connected. We can look back on these past few years with the pandemic, and when the world was suddenly shut down. And I don’t think anyone thought it meant that borders were literally shut down, and it was shocking, and we couldn’t imagine something like that happening. And because of technology, the world was able to still stay connected, because of digital technology, Internet technology. And frankly, once the borders opened up, business resumed, supply chains resumed, tourism resumed. Things will change, but that desire to go out and seek out in the rest of the world is probably innate to us humans and now made more and more possible by all of the progress that we’ve talked about.

DG: So, Worldcrunch is really bringing the world together by educating the world community about what’s going on in each individual country. Recently, you also have this great video service, “what happened today in history.”

JI: Yeah.

DG: Tell us, how does that fit with into the Worldcrunch vision.

JI: Sure, well, this year we’ve just launched it at the beginning of this month, and it’s a one-video-per-day, a short video, less than one minute where we’ve selected one event that happened on that day in history and an iconic photograph that captures that event. And make a video. We’ve created this format, where we explore the details of the photograph, and tell the story of what happened on that day in history through this single photograph. And when we had mapped out the 365 days of the year and the 365 historical events and the photos that go with them, for us it was global history. It was what happened in history around the world that had an impact on the whole world. And so, it’s a way to remind us that the world is connected, and to tap into the interest that people have to learn new things about what’s happening today and in the past.

DG: Recently, you presented a video at the Charleston Premieres, the Charleston Conference in Charleston, South Carolina. You were in Paris. I was the emcee for the event. And unfortunately, you couldn’t see the reaction of the audience. And one of my good friends Judy Luther, who is a consultant, she didn’t know that Worldcrunch was a client of mine. But she looked over at me and she goes ..., and I saw the heads in the audience like bobbing, as a nod of approval. Recently the Charleston Conference Premiers Virtual audience voted Worldcrunch with the award of “Most Impactful.” Has Worldcrunch won any awards for any articles that you might have done over the last 11 years?

JI: We are very appreciative of the Charleston Conference Premiers’ award. It validates our editorial mission. Well, a few years back we won a Digital Innovation Award for the website and for the new model, the way we cover the world. For better or for worse, since we’re translating ... most of our best pieces are these translated stories, so all the glory goes to the writers in the original language, who are award winning journalists in their own countries. And so, what we’re after really is finding the best that’s out there around the world and making it accessible. So much great journalism is produced every day in so many different languages. There’s also plenty of not great journalism being produced in all languages every day. And so, I don’t know if there are awards for that, but part of our job is selecting the good from the bad. And so, that’s what we’re busy doing every day.

DG: Beautiful, beautiful. Well, we’re coming down to the wire, to the end of our interview. And I’d like to give you the last word. What would you like to share with our audience that you want them to know about Worldcrunch and what might be next?

JI: Well, we’re really excited about the possibility of really multiplying our readership with the students and the professors at universities and with the members of public libraries. Because we really think that it’s a natural fit. And so, really, our mission is to make great journalism accessible. And our job is to do it by finding these stories and getting them into English. And then, maybe the harder part is getting it out there, making sure then our product reaches the people. And so, we’re busy on that. We’ve got a great team also on the business side, who’s expanding our reach and our audience, and we’re growing. And so, it’s an exciting time for us now. And yeah, happy to share the progress as it comes.

DG: Well, we’re going to have to have you back on the Innovators Saga. Jeff, thank you for the interview.

JI: Thank you, Darrell.

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