GlobalPost.com Tests Global News Model
With U.S. newspapers cutting back on virtual everything, from business reporting to City Hall coverage to investigative projects, it is not surprising that fewer and fewer are choosing to maintain bureaus or reporters overseas.
This is unfortunate on a number of levels, and will have grievous consequences on news organizations as the pace of globalization quickens, making what happens off the coast of Somalia every bit as relevant to our pocketbooks as what happens down at the corner store.
At the same time, every online news site is global in the sense of its reach and its audience. Even hyper-local sites will receive traffic from overseas visitors, but locality-based news sites are particularly attractive for people who already travel to or do business in your city, or who are considering do so.
Plus, one more extremely significant consideration for modern news organizations: Our societies, particularly our urban areas are becoming exceptionally diverse. People from all sorts of national origins beyond U.S. borders now make up our audiences, and this is a trend that is far from peaking as of yet. These readers bring with them close ties and a vital interest in the places they've come from, meaning their are active news consumers of media covering their homelands.
Naturally, I know that none of these arguments are not going to sway execs in companies that are rapidly downsizing from eliminating their global news desks. "We just cannot afford that luxury," is what they say. I've heard it a thousand times. Actually, they cannot afford to not be global in focus, IMHO.
Enter GlobalPost.com, an early-stage effort to fill the void. Ramping up quickly since the start of the year, this company can now boast of 65 correspondents in 46 countries. They are in the main extremely experienced foreign correspondents, pros. I've been scanning the site for a while now, and am generally impressed with both the quality and quantity of coverage; many stories I've found there are not playing in traditional media channels inside the U.S. much, if at all.
According to Robert MacMillan at MediaFile (Reuters), GlobalPost has raised $8.5 million (or 85 percent of its goal) to date, and projects turning a profit by Q-4, 2011. Although its audience is small (135,000 uniques in March), it is growing rapidly, and hopes to top 600,000/month by the end of 2009. The site says its PVs were 844,000 in March and time on site was 2 minutes and 52 seconds.
MacMillan quotes CEO Philip Balboni on how the business model is developing: "We have already signed agreements with 11 media entities ranging from the New York Daily News and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette to CBS Radio News and the new PBS-distributed nightly television news program Worldfocus to smaller newspapers and websites including the much talked about MinnPost, the online news site serving Minneapolis-St. Paul. As of this month, we have reached 60 percent of booked business toward our annual revenue goal and I think we feel confident now that we will exceed it. We have more than 20 solid prospects who have shown active interest in subscribing to GlobalPost and this week we will launch a major push internationally with important English-language daily newspapers in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa."
Advertising, however, is lagging, and has only reached 8 percent of the annual goal. GlobalPost will need to grow its audience significantly before it will be able to monetize that traffic via ads.
What is the most surprising thing about GlobalPost?
To me, that it isn't a British-run operation, but American.
"We are proud to be an American news organization with a decidedly American voice. We also intend to seek out and tell the truth as we find it. To quote the great American newsman and foreign correspondent Edward R. Murrow, we aspire always to report the news 'without fear or favor.'"