Overview
The Global Mail is a newspaper with a difference. Launched today, the not-for-profit news and features website will offer its readers local and global public interest stories, but will not have any advertisers nor charge its readers. Instead, The Global Mail will be funded in entirety by Wotif.com founder, Graeme Wood, who has committed a minimum of $15 million to the project.
At the helm will be former ABC journalist, Monica Attard (pictured), as Editor-in-Chief. She plans on taking a step back from the intensity of everyday news to create a more engaging, informative experience. "I had long viewed, with a degree of envy, the ProPublica model in the US and wanted to build a site here that carried only public interest journalism - no ads, no subscription, no celebrity stories, no spin, funded philanthropically", Attard told The Australian.
Attard will lead a team of journalists in Australia and correspondents across Europe, the United States, Asia and Latin America. The site will give up-to-the-minute news nationally and internationally, and promises to deliver stories that speak to the people, tackling issues such as government, business, religion, science, art and culture.
It sounds like a much-needed news alternative. Let's just hope that the impartiality remains when the philanthropy inevitably disappears.
