Journalistic start-up in Düsseldorf seeks backers

Four journalists have launched a crowdfunding campaign to build their own start-up. Their goal: to compete with the established media in the state capital.

Can journalism also work as a start-up? With VierNull , the four journalists Hans Onkelbach, Christian Herrendorf, Andreas Endermann and Boris Bartels are currently trying to build up a product to compete with the established media in the state capital. On the platform Startnext

they have started a crowdfunding for this purpose, until May 10 they want to get together at least 40,000 euros.

The media offer in Düsseldorf has shrunk noticeably in the past, they write on their website, it needs more information and impetus for opinion formation. If the financing stands, it is to give always at six o'clock a new type character, in which the journalists present their articles of the day and give Tipps for the region Duesseldorf. Each weekday there will also be at least one text on one of the four topics of politics, environment & transport, business and entertainment on the website. In the evening, a quick news overview consisting of four to five messages will follow.

VierNull is not the first journalistic project that wants to bring more diversity into local reporting. In Münster, for example, the social enterprise RUMS

was created in 2020. The project is currently financed from its seed capital collected in March 2020 and since September 2020 from a subscription model. Should it ever make a profit, 90 percent of it would be put into expanding the editorial team, RUMS writes on its website. The magazine Katapult is also currently setting up a local editorial office in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and is collecting donations for this purpose. As a reason, the initiators said they had missed a reasonable reporting.