Starting Monday morning, millions of people will get The World, a New York Times newsletter for our global audience. Every weekday, it will give them what they need to start their day: clear, smart analysis of the biggest news, the best of Times journalism and a few delightful surprises, made specifically for people around the globe.
The World replaces our Morning Briefing newsletters for Europe and Asia, which readers have relied on since 2017. It is a cousin of The Morning, our flagship newsletter, which serves audiences in the United States and Canada. But The World is very much its own new thing, featuring frequent video dispatches, a daily quiz, cultural tidbits and recommendations. Like all our newsletters, it is powered by New York Times journalism, particularly the hundreds of journalists we have based outside the U.S., who reported from over 170 countries and territories last year.
Your host for this endeavor is Katrin Bennhold, a former Berlin bureau chief who has reported from more than a dozen countries since she joined The Times in 2004. Katrin has written extensively on gender, terror, the far right and populism across Europe. She’s done podcasts and video reports. She’s also a mother of two teenage girls and a 9-year-old son. So she knows exactly how busy you are, and she’s committed to making The World something you can finish without feeling overwhelmed.
I talked to Katrin about what readers can expect.
The World is a big, broad title for a newsletter. That gives you a lot of ground to play with, but it’s also a lot to take on. In 25 words or less, what’s your mission statement for this thing?
I want The World to be smart, short and delightful. A guide to understanding world news. But also: An antidote to the overwhelm. That’s 24 words!
Can I have just a few more? In this polarized moment, we badly need a global conversation. If The World contributes to that, I’ll be happy!
Your title is host. How is that different from writer or editor?
I’ll write regularly, especially on topics where I have reporting experience. But above all, I will engage my brilliant colleagues around the world. After more than 20 years at The Times, many of them have become friends. I want to turn them into smart, trusted friends for our readers, too.
Some days, I’ll interview them in video or in text. Other times, I’ll hand over the mic. And every day we will feature not just sharp analysis of the news but also lovely slices of life and reporter insights about the places where they live and travel on assignments.
You’re German, you live in Wales, you’ve reported extensively from across Europe for a news organization based in New York. How does your background and experience shape the way you think about the news?
I’ve lived in five countries on three continents. I married a Welshman whose grandfather fought on the other side of World War II from mine. We speak three languages at the dinner table. (Occasionally four; my husband and I resort to French if we don’t want the kids to understand!) I think the biggest thing this has taught me is humility. It’s really made me appreciate how much history and national narrative shape the lens through which people look at the news.
If you grow up in Germany, as I did, you are taught that nationalism is terrible and potentially leads to genocide. If you grow up in Wales, nationalism is ubiquitous, a joyful rebellion to cultural subjugation by the English — and an excuse to sing very loudly at rugby games!
Living with differences has helped me see patterns that play out across borders. I think about the world in terms of stories, the stories of people I’ve met along the way. And I plan to keep traveling and reporting in this role. So you’ll meet them, too, in this newsletter.
How did you get into journalism in the first place? What made you stay?
I’m very much an accidental journalist. I had just started a Ph.D. in economics when my then-boyfriend and now-husband got a job in London, and I decided to take a one-year break to join him. Bloomberg News was looking for a German speaker, and before I knew it (and much to my mum’s delight) I was a television presenter!
One year turned into three. But it was only after I was hired by The New York Times in 2004 — the week of the Madrid train attacks — that I chose journalism for good. There is no better job. You can pick up the phone and talk to anyone. You interview rioting youth and heads of state. You meet tabloid editors and the families of ISIS recruits. You embed with nudists and with a group of neo-Nazis plotting to overthrow democracy. It’s a real privilege. And it’s so fun.
You’ve followed migration and gender issues for years. In 2019, you did a podcast series on nationalism and populism in Europe, and in 2021 you hosted Day X, another audio series on the far-right in Germany. What topics are you most interested in right now?
I started reporting at a time when I really bought into the idea that it was the end of history. But it turned out to be just a brief vacation from history. And really ever since 9/11, I’ve been chronicling the unfolding culture wars that eventually led to the populist uprisings we’ve seen in so many western democracies.
The rise of ethnonationalism and the populist far right have been at the core of my reporting in recent years. And so has the feeling among working-class voters of being betrayed by centrist elites. In that sense, Trump is a symptom rather than a cause of a zeitgeist. But he is accelerating that shift, and given the importance of America in the world, that really matters.
One signature feature of The World is videos in which you chat with our correspondents about stories they’re covering. Why video?
The short answer is: it’s fun! My colleagues are some of the smartest and most interesting people I know, so I love talking to them. But there’s also a real public service mission here: If we want to empower young people with information, we need to be where they are — and they are on platforms showing short videos. I know this firsthand, because I have two teenage daughters.
News fatigue and reading fatigue are real. Video is a very efficient way of understanding a story. You can learn a lot from a smart correspondent in three minutes.
There are some other new features in the newsletter — what’s your favorite?
I love Around the World, where we look at what people in a certain country are listening to or eating or wearing, because it tends to offer some much-needed levity in the report, and it can often tell you more about a place than what’s going on in Parliament. We don’t just want to make readers smarter, we also want to make them smile!
And “Ask a Correspondent”: First up is Peter Baker, our chief White House correspondent. You can use this form to send us questions about President Trump and the world, and Peter will answer them in an upcoming newsletter.
The World will land in most people’s inboxes by 6:30 a.m. What’s your morning news routine?
First thing, I put on the BBC’s Global News Podcast. It’s a very efficient way to know what’s going and it’s truly global. On the way back from my son’s school run, I might listen to The Daily or Ezra Klein, or this German podcast I like called Die Lage der Nation.
Given that I live in the U.K., I try to keep up with The Rest is Politics, but don’t always manage. Once at my desk, I read in on The Times’ home page and skim-read a bunch of newsletters. Adam Tooze has a great one on geopolitics and economics, and Azeem Azhar is super smart on AI and other technology.
Where do your kids get their news, and what have you learned from them about what we do?
I basically force my kids to watch this German news program called Logo. It does a good job of explaining the news for kids. My daughters also get WhatsApp alerts from The New York Times, BBC and Wales Online. But honestly, they mostly get their news from TikTok and YouTube. They made it very clear that they won’t read my newsletter (“Reading is not my thing,” my 13-year-old said), but will watch the videos. Which is one very personal reason I wanted to bake video into The World from the start.
What’s your superpower that would never be listed on a résumé?
I can do a backflip off a five-meter diving board!
Jodi Rudoren oversees The Times’s newsletters, including The Morning, DealBook and scores of emails focused on specific topics.
The post Q&A: Our New Global Newsletter Host on Creating ‘an Antidote to the Overwhelm’ appeared first on New York Times.
