BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GlobalPost announced today an ambitious initiative for in-depth special reports to be funded through support from leading foundations. The long-form reporting projects will be carried out by GlobalPost’s network of correspondents and will be headed up by Executive Editor and Co-founder Charles M. Sennott.
The Ford Foundation has provided significant funding for reporting on human rights, emerging democracies and transparency and GlobalPost will be using the funding to carry out “Special Reports” in many, under-reported corners of the world. The Galloway Family Foundation has funded two human rights reporting projects.
In addition, The Kaiser Family Foundation is partnering with GlobalPost to help support original reporting on global health policy issues. As part of the partnership, the Foundation is working with GlobalPost to support its coverage of global health, including reporting on U.S. global health policy issues, and is sponsoring the work of three Kaiser/GlobalPost Global Health Reporting Fellows.
“As we continue to make steady progress in achieving our business goals, Charlie will lead a new initiative that is driven by a transformation in journalism, which has unleashed an outpouring of support from the non-profit sector for long-term projects on important issues,” said GlobalPost CEO and Co-founder Philip S. Balboni. “GlobalPost’s non-profit initiative will seek to harness these resources so we can accelerate our special projects reporting while continuing to do what we do best: produce the kind of high quality, daily reporting that has helped build our audience to more than 2 million unique visitors a month and put more than 140,000 fans on our Facebook page,” Balboni added.
Sennott said: “I am thrilled that in such a relatively short time we have been able to build a daily news operation that is humming and growing in its ambitions. And now I look forward to turning all my energy and focus to shaping the special reports which will be aimed at breaking news and unearthing the big stories that need to be told.”
Sennott added, “We’re thankful to the Ford Foundation and to the Galloway and Kaiser foundations for their support, which will provide the resources we need to do important stories in parts of the world that are too often going uncovered by traditional media.”
Sennott, who joined Balboni as a co-founder of GlobalPost in March 2008 after serving many years as an award-winning foreign correspondent for The Boston Globe, said he sees great opportunity for GlobalPost to do signature reporting through the new initiative. It will allow GlobalPost to provide “more financial compensation and more editorial support,” he said, for its stellar network of more than 100 freelance correspondents in more than 50 countries.
The initiative will be assisted by a newly named Deputy Editor for Special Reports Kevin Douglas Grant. On occasion, Sennott will work directly with correspondents in the field to coordinate the projects and to do some reporting of his own as GlobalPost’s Chief Correspondent.
“Our partnership with GlobalPost will enable this innovative news enterprise to undertake in-depth, long-term reporting projects focused on issues of inequity worldwide and raise public awareness of the plight of the disadvantaged whose stories are rarely covered in the mainstream media,” said Calvin Sims, Program Officer for News Media and Journalism for the Ford Foundation.
L. Thomas Galloway, President of the Galloway Family Foundation, said: “The Galloway Family Foundation is pleased to work with GlobalPost in the field of human rights reporting. The Galloway Family Foundation believes that one of the most effective methods of improving human rights is to focus public attention on the abuses of human rights, wherever that abuse may occur and in whatever form that abuse may take. We believe that GlobalPost, their talented staff, and extensive network are well positioned to help accomplish our mission.”
“In meeting with foundations and individual donors over the last several months, what I’ve learned is that the non-profit sector looks favorably at GlobalPost because it’s a new media company with old-fashioned values for journalistic integrity,” Sennott said.
“They know we can leverage our award-winning publishing platform and our partnerships with some of the best news organizations in the country, such as the PBS NewsHour as well as newspapers and online publications worldwide, to reach a growing audience,” he added.
“Charlie has done an outstanding job in building our correspondent corps and has enshrined the highest journalistic standards at GlobalPost,” said Balboni. “We both share a great enthusiasm for this next stage of his leadership in which his experience in in-depth, foreign reporting and his passion for being in the field will contribute to us becoming the most compelling online destination for international news.”
About GlobalPost
GlobalPost (www.GlobalPost.com) is the acclaimed international news site with outstanding original reporting from country-based journalists in all regions of the world. Noted by The New York Times as “offering a mix of news and features that only a handful of other news organizations can rival,” GlobalPost offers fresh, in-depth perspective on the changing global picture that affects us all by combining traditional journalistic values and the power of new media. GlobalPost is the vision of journalist and media entrepreneur Philip S. Balboni and award-winning foreign correspondent Charles M. Sennott.