GlobalPost Shakes Up the Online News Industry

By Marisa Peacock | Published Jan 27, 2009

Mochila has been quiet for a few months, but they have emerged recently to announce a new partnership with GlobalPost.com that chose Mochila to be the principal architect and developer of its website, which launched January 12. Mochila already distributes GlobalPost.com's content via their online media marketplace which works to syndicate a plethora of premium news articles, videos and photos.

While Mochila definitely deserves attention for being selected, the real focus of the initiative is GlobalPost. The online international news gathering and syndication service aims to "exploit powerful global demographic, political and economic trends by creating the only Internet journalism site devoted exclusively to international news and related content."

The brainchild of media entrepreneur Philip S. Balboni and award-winning foreign correspondent Charles M. Sennott, GlobalPost.com is poised to be the first web-based news organization to provide international news coverage by its own team of experienced correspondents.

It offers articles, photography, video and audio from more than 60 correspondents in more than 40 countries. Its print and online syndication platforms will report international news and provide analysis and context for users.

With US$ 8.2 million invested in the launch of GlobalPost, of which US$ 1 million was spent in startup costs, GlobalPost relies on multiple streams of revenue. They include web advertising, syndication and paid membership through Passport, their innovative premium content service.

GlobalPost is a bold endeavor in the bleakest of times for print and web publishing. By paying on a freelance basis (approximately US$ 1,000 a month) to correspondents who live where they work plus a stake in the company, GlobalPost is able to save money.

Rather than providing comprehensive daily news coverage, GlobalPost will focus on subjects and regions that are less covered by wires like The Associated Press and Reuters. GlobalPost hopes that by refining the way news is reported, the launch and subsequent partnership with Mochila will gain the interest of publishers, at a time when many are cutting back and laying off staff from its news bureaus around the world. To have "a team of nearly 70 outstanding foreign correspondents" at their disposal, GlobalPost's resources will be broad and far reaching.

Their recent partnerships include the New York Daily News and the Star-Ledger that will run its foreign reporting in their print and online publications, as well existing partnerships with the Huffington Post's new world section, Vietnamese news site VietNamNet and World Focus, a PBS news program.

However risky GlobalPost's endeavor may seem, it just may be the change and innovation that will make the news industry thrive again.