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Our goal at GlobalPost is to tell great stories from all over the world.













And in the lead up to the Jan. 20th inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, we are organizing our storytelling around a single question: What does the idea of America mean to the world? The special project is called “For Which It Stands.”

We wanted to find stories in every corner of the globe at a time when new leadership is setting out — at least in the resonant speeches of the campaign — to redefine or “reboot,” as Obama put it, America’s relationship with the world. We do not believe in partisan journalism and we vow to be as tough and fair in our reporting on this president as any other. But we do believe this is a moment in our country that transcends party politics and offers an opportunity for America to engage with the world in a new way. We very much want to be a news organization that taps into that new energy in this new administration.

So please go to the guide to our series For Which It Stands to navigate all of the great stories and multimedia that make up the series. There are more than 50 stories reported by more than 40 reporters as well as a handful of photographers, videographers and multi-media producers.

Today, you will see a lyrical and poignant photo essay accompanied by a strong piece of writing by a friend and colleague, Seamus Murphy. It is titled Seeing America: From Kennedy to Obama and I invite you to see and read his work. He is an extraordinary storyteller. I also hope you have time to read Matt McAllester’s piece on Guantanamo about the former guard and former prisoner who are coming together to try to find some common ground in their anger over what happened there. Matt is also a friend and colleague and an incredibly talented and principled reporter. And there is HDS Greenway comparing Obama to Wilson; Joshua Hammer in Berlin on Kennedy, Reagan and Obama and the historic speeches they made there; Royal Ford introducing his new column Wheels or Jack Farrell on foreign policy in Washington. There are also guest writers including NPR’s acclaimed reporter Deb Amos and the brilliant Israeli author Gershom Gorenberg. The list is just too long. But the guide will serve you well in finding out what’s there, so please use it.

One of the more engaging multimedia stories that I hope you will see has a back story that involves Johnny Cash and I think captures the spirit of GlobalPost. You see, we at GlobalPost want to be the Johnny Cash of international news.

I was joking with a few friends back in the summer about that. Off the cuff, I said how we wanted to be like The Man in Black telling stories in the world that are honest and true and that come from the street and have an ear for the music of America.

But what I didn’t realize then was that there was a great story teller out there named Greg Warner who was playing Johnny Cash on his accordion in Afghanistan. Someone sent me a YouTube video of his performance of “Ring of Fire” in Mazar-e-Sharif and it was a good laugh. But then I heard one of his reports from the Congo on NPR and I immediately called him and now he is doing a few multimedia columns for us. He is on his way to Kenya now.

One of his columns is about his “Accordion Journey” as he calls it through Afghanistan. It’s the kind of story telling we want to do at GlobalPost. And since today is the 50th Anniversary of the release of the Folsom Prison Blues single and the 40th anniversary of his concert inside the prison. I thought it was fitting to do a shout out and invite you to watch the video which has a great tribute to Johnny at the end. It even had a public viewing tonight at the “Cash Bash” at the Milky Way Lounge in Jamaica Plain, Boston in a night celebrating “the Man in Black.”

GlobalPost began a beta test by about 100 site evaluators today. And so we welcomed the first small community on to the site in advance of our live launch on January 12, which is just four days away and counting.

Today was an incredibly productive day. We moved onto the test site almost 90 stories — well-reported, well-written, well-crafted pieces of journalism from every corner of the world.

Today a few of the stories I edited that we look forward to sharing with you on Monday came from our correspondent in Kabul, Afghanistan, Jean MacKenzie and our Washington writer and long-time colleague Jack Farrell and an incredible essay and photo gallery that we are putting together from acclaimed photographer Seamus Murphy. We also loaded to the site a multimedia journey by Greg Warner through Afghanistan. I don’t want to give away what these stories are about. You’ll find out on Monday.

But I will tell you the journalism that is flowing onto our site is world class.

I am incredibly proud of the journalists out there who have joined our team and who are unearthing the kinds of stories that we call GroundTruth. We still have a lot of work to do to get ready for you to come to the site live. So I need to get back to it.

But before I do I need to get to the task at hand which is to continue to publish GROUNDTRUTH: GlobalPost’s Field Guide for Correspondents. This guide which is being published on the blog is a statement of purpose, a field guide for correspondents about the values of journalism that we hold to be true. Here are the next two chapters, four and five. Tomorrow, I will post the last two chapters.

GROUNDTRUTH: GLOBALPOST’S FIELD GUIDE FOR CORRESPONDENTS

FOUR:

Be fair and accurate.

Out of careful listening comes fair, truthful reporting. And truth is always the best defense against libel.

Check the facts all the time. Check spelling, particularly the spelling of names and be sure you have the proper title of a source. We are employing the AP style book. GlobalPost is also developing a policy for corrections and clarifications on the site. And any correspondent whose work requires persistent corrections on issues of material fact, will be warned that their relationship with GlobalPost will be terminated if a pattern of inaccurate reporting continues to occur.

Accuracy matters and our reputation as a news organization and your reputation as a correspondent rely on getting it right. There is a great axiom of deadline reporting: When in doubt, leave it out. Live by that. Only write about the things you know, the things you’ve seen with your own eyes and be sure you have clear and accurate attribution on everything else. If you live by these relatively simple and straightforward rules, you will always be on solid footing.

We discourage the use of unnamed sources. We believe it is far better to get a comment on the record. We encourage correspondents to always try their best to get a name attached to a comment. Sometimes it requires asking more than once, but persistence is better than accepting a blind quote and finding out later it is unusable.

We understand that there are circumstances in which anonymity is necessary to protect the life or livelihood of a source, but that is the only occasion in which unnamed sources should be used. GlobalPost retains the right to request a reporter to share with a senior editor any unnamed source of a story. GlobalPost also forbids any reporter from writing on a story in which they have a vested economic interest or a clear political bias. The spirit of full disclosure matters in reporting and we request that you let us know if you believe there is any potential line that might be crossed during the course of your reporting.

We are aware that our correspondents operate in many corners of the world where there are different legal standards for journalism and different ideas about what constitutes fairness. But we hold to a very American tradition of journalism in this regard and one that we believe is a proud tradition.

Our research shows legal precedent is being established that online news organizations will be held to the legal standards of reporting in the country from which they originate. As the United States has perhaps the most fierce protections of freedom of the press of any country in the world, we believe that good, honest, accurate and fair reporting from any place in the world will always put us on solid legal ground. (GlobalPost has a libel insurance policy which offers protections for the organization and those reporting for it. If anyone has questions about the policy, we will make ourselves available.) If you are ever working on a story that you believe is potentially libelous or if any one you are reporting on threatens any legal action, you are obliged to get in touch with me promptly and directly.

FIVE:

Be honest.

Be sure you are accredited as a journalist and work within the guidelines set by the press office in your respective country. Always identify yourself as a reporter when you are working in the field.

Any fabrication of quotes or made-up reporting will not be tolerated and will be considered grounds for GlobalPost to immediately end its relationship with a correspondent. The same prohibitions on fabrication hold true for multimedia. And GlobalPost forbids the manipulation of any photos, audio or video in a manner that distorts reality or misrepresents any facts or quotes.

Plagiarism of any kind will also be grounds for terminating a contract with GlobalPost. Plagiarism includes not only directly copying someone else’s words, but also borrowing quotes, ideas, images and insights without proper attribution.

GlobalPost reporters should not accept gifts or any payment from a source involved in a story, nor should they offer any gifts or payment in return for getting a story.

Any time a correspondent or columnists is provided travel or lodging as part of a reporting trip, this should be discussed in advance with an editor. Typically, we will not permit such trips. But there are exceptions when GlobalPost believes it wise and sometimes necessary to accept free flights on international aid and trade missions or military flights. We may also, for example, allow our global health or auto writers to take an expense-paid trip by an industry group as long as the correspondent has clearly established with his or her host that none of the services-in-kind will influence the outcome of the reporting. If GlobalPost does accept such a trip, we will let the viewers of the site know so they have full transparency and can judge for themselves if any undue influence has crept in to the coverage as a result. We the editors will be working very hard to be sure it does not.