GlobalPost is helping to keep foreign correspondents reporting from the scene
By Azam on January 13, 2009
GlobalPost is working to keep the foreign correspondents busy while tradition news print struggles with staying relevant in declining market of subscribers and advertising revenues. GlobalPost has ambitious plans on a new revenue model to save foreign dispatches.
GlobalPost is operated by Global News Enterprises, is backed by $8.2 million from cable billionaire Amos Hofstetter and other investors including Akamai CEO Paul Sagan, and Boston Globe publisher Benjamin Taylor. GlobalPost has signed up 65 seasoned correspondents in nearly 50 countries.
“This is not citizen journalism. It is high quality reporting from people who know what they are doing. We want to begin to build a great Amercan news organization that is covering the world in a voice that is familiar to Americans”, according to CEO Philip Balboni.
Each correspondent lives in the country he or she is covering. Correspondents are supposed to submit at least one weekly dispatch, keep a journalist’s blog, and upload videos and photos to give a more personal, inside-account of what it is like to live in the countries being reported on. GlobalPost also serves as an outlet for interesting stories that might not otherwise get printed in mainstream media outlets.
GlobalPost is also covering international hot spots such as current events involving the fighting in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, and other areas of disturbance. The contributors are encouraged to build up an active following and interact with their readers.
But a distributed news-gathering organization requires a distributed economic model. Rather than put each correspondent on a full six-figure salary with a housing allowance and all the extras that are typical for journalists working in foreign news bureaus, GlobalPost is treating them more like stringers. They are encouraged to keep their other news-writing jobs and supplement those with their GlobalPost dispatches.
In return for that minimum one post a week, they are paid a $1,000 monthly stipend and given 10,000 shares in the company. By giving them a stake in the company, Balboni thinks he can get beyond the us journalists) versus them (management) mentality that pervades so many newsrooms today
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Tags : Amos Hofstetter, Benjamin Taylor, Citizen Journalism, Foreign Correspondents, Global News Enterprises, GlobalPost, Paul Sagan, Philip Balboni