The Dutch magazine De Correspondent, a digital platform for journalism, wanted to launch an English-language extension: The Correspondent.

In 2018, editor-in-chief of the Dutch magazine Rob Wijnbergen and the American publisher Ernst-Jan Pfauth started a large (and also expensive) American campaign. It also involved a crowdfunding campaign that raised $2.7 million. It seemed to be a great success. It became a huge task to launch the magazine. It started on 1 September 2019 with the agreement that a year later, we would see if it was really viable. Members could decide how much they paid and they had to renew the subscription themselves, so it was not automatic.

The expansion stopped on 1 January 2021 due to financial reasons. There was an increase in the number of cancellations, due to financial uncertainty resulting from the corona pandemic. Of the 56000 subscribers, only 21000 remained.