Web startup to offer foreign news as papers cut

By Anick Jesdanun

updated 4:40 p.m. ET Jan. 9, 2009

NEW YORK - As budget cuts force many U.S. newspapers to retrench on their foreign coverage, veteran journalist Charles Sennott saw virtually no chance of getting another assignment abroad.

So Sennott left The Boston Globe to start his own news organization, GlobalPost.com. It launches Monday with 65 journalists, including veterans of major news organizations such as CNN, The Washington Post, Time magazine and The Associated Press.

The free Web site, supported by ads, will offer regular dispatches for an American audience to supplement coverage from the AP, Reuters and other news organizations still covering the world. GlobalPost also will sell stories to papers to run in print or online.

"We cannot cover every plane crash or be there for every press conference," Sennott said. "What we can do is have a network of talented writers who live in the places they write and who deliver stories that are comparable to a metro newspaper's columnist, stories that connect the dots, that give you a sense of a place in a relatively short space."

At launch, Boston-based GlobalPost will span nearly 50 countries, including Brazil, Indonesia and other regions that Sennott believes are undercovered in American media. Reporters also will be concentrated in key emerging markets like China and India.

Journalists will generally be paid $1,000 a month as part-time freelancers, meaning they'll likely continue working for other outlets as well. In fact, Sennott has discouraged applicants from leaving full-time jobs.

GlobalPost is providing its recruits with digital video cameras and some travel expenses, but they will work from home, eliminating office costs. In high-cost regions like Iraq and Afghanistan, the company looked for freelancers who already have contracts with larger organizations footing the bill.

Journalists also will receive equity stakes in the privately held company, Global News Enterprises. Those shares vest over five years and collectively could give the journalists ownership of half of the stake that is not held by the company's 14 original investors. Those investors, who have put up $8.2 million, include former Boston Globe Publisher Benjamin Taylor and Paul Sagan, chief executive of Akamai Technologies Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

The launch of GlobalPost comes amid a slowdown in online advertising, the source of more than half of the company's projected revenue. Its chief executive and co-founder, Philip Balboni, said the company expects to operate at a loss for three years as it develops two other key sources of income — sales to newspapers and a $199-a-year subscription for premium content, such as more detailed information on emerging markets.

Balboni, who previously started and ran a cable news network for New England, said GlobalPost signed up its first newspaper this past Monday and expects another soon. He would not identify the papers or discuss fees. He said papers that join will be able to request locally flavored stories that will be exclusive to them.

Sennott's recruits include seasoned journalists who have opted to freelance because of cutbacks at U.S. news organizations.

The team includes Royal Ford, longtime auto writer at the Globe, Jane Arraf, formerly CNN's senior Baghdad correspondent, and Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Matthew McAllester, who took a buyout from Newsday after the paper closed foreign bureaus.

Foreign correspondents used to represent a stamp of prestige for big newspapers, but costs of maintaining a single journalist abroad can equate to two or three at home after factoring travel, office and other expenses.

Over the years, the Globe, The (Baltimore) Sun, The Philadelphia Inquirer and other metropolitan dailies have trimmed foreign staffs. The Globe decided to close its three remaining foreign bureaus in 2007; Sennott left 14 months later.

Some newspaper chains like McClatchy Co. share foreign staffs among their papers, while others like Gannett Co. and Sun publisher Tribune Co. have flagship papers providing coverage for smaller ones. The Inquirer now sends reporters abroad for specific assignments, something Editor Bill Marimow acknowledged was no substitute for a permanent presence.

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