News translation service Worldcrunch chalks up first distribution deal

News translation platform Worldcrunch has announced its first distribution deal this week, in a new partnership with Time.com.

Worldcrunch, which went live in December last year, was set up by former bureau chief for Time magazine Jeff Israely and former CEO of Ask.com France Irene Toporkoff.

The site aims to offer journalists and the public translated news from non-English media, which have been selected, translated and edited.

A new version of the site, with designs adapted for iPad and smart phones is due to launch at the end of this month.

Since launching, the site claims to have established partnerships with a number of foreign news outlets, including Le Monde, Les Echos and Le Figaro in France, Die Welt in Germany and La Stampa in Italy.

The news outlets provide Worldcrunch with access to their content so articles can be selected for translation, which also then gives them the opportunity to post Worldcrunch's English version on their pages.

However the new distribution deal with Time.com is the first step for Worldcrunch in reaching a wider audience in the US and globally, which will see its translated articles published on the site's blog, the very first one published by the site yesterday.

But Israely told Journalism.co.uk the core produce and mission remains "the selection and translation of the best stories".

"We are learning as we go but we want to make sure our English versions are of absolute top quality because they are coming from the top news outlets.

"A Le Monde story in English should be at the absolute top level as it would be in French."

"Our strategy was to go to the top names and we hope that others will follow," he added.

The site currently produces around 25 stories a week Israely says, with a team of five journalists in Paris and around 10-12 part time translators dotted around the world.

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