The Foreign Service Journal, October 2014

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2014 15 neither secret nor illegal. e exposés have helped draw atten- tion to the Obama administration’s policy toward Cuba, which appears to be stalled. At the beginning of the year, relations were at their best in several decades, with cooperation on drug inter- diction, oil-spill mitigation and immigra- tion, and the president had promised “creativity” in further e orts to “update” the policy. Yet as Reuters correspondents David Adams and Daniel Trotta reported in February, “President Barack Obama J ust 5 years old, GlobalPost aims to redefine international news for the digital age as “the only Internet journalism site devoted exclusively to international news and related content.” The organization’s mission is “to help fill the enormous void that has grown up in coverage of the world by U.S. news organizations.” GlobalPost follows no political line and restricts opinion to the opinion pages. The site is uncommonly user-friendly, with Breaking News, Business, Photos, Videos and Special Reports plainly accessible. One can also access content by region or subject (Section). An extensive Blog section features “Chatter,” written by GlobalPost ’s regional editors on a daily basis, and “QuickClick,” a curated “best of theWeb in bite-sized pieces,” as well as a score of topical blogs such as “India Explained”; “Pulse,” a diverse look at global health issues; and “Holly World,” a global take on entertainment. Among the most-shared items on the home page is a moving tribute to the late James Foley, who worked as a freelancer for GlobalPost, a collection of his best writing and background on his life and work. GlobalPost ’s aim is “to build a community of top correspondents as well as a community of users of the site who share the need and the desire for quality news about the world.” A for-profit enterprise, the group’s business model is based on online advertis- ing, syndication of content to other Web and print publications internationally and, most unusual, creation of an elite community on the site through a paid membership system called Passport. Led by its founder and president, Phil Balboni, GlobalPost has 18 executives and editorial sta¥ at its headquarters in Boston and a network of credentialed journalists around the world who live and work in the countries they cover. By all accounts this bold initiative is well on the road to success. Global Post has partnerships with NBC News, CBS and PBS-TV, among others, and has won a slew of awards for reporting, including a Peabody Award and awards from the Society of American Business Editors andWriters and the Overseas Press Club. —Susan Brady Maitra, Managing Editor SITE OF THE MONTH: www.globalpost.com