GlobalPost and The GroundTruth Project announce VOICES, offering ideas and opinions from underrepresented communities

BOSTON — GlobalPost and its foundation-supported initiative today announce an expansion of GlobalPost’s Commentary section with the launch of a new series of commentaries, analysis and multimedia profiles titled VOICES.

The series seeks to bring new voices into a global dialogue on important social justice issues through a small team of regular contributors and through outreach to writers and thought leaders in the developing world who will share important points of view, innovative ideas and proposed solutions that need to be considered.

GlobalPost co-founder Charles M. Sennott, who heads up the foundation-supported initiative known as The GroundTruth Project, said, “This commentary and analysis writing will allow us to invite important thought leaders on topics such as human rights, freedom of expression, emerging democracies and global income inequality.”

“Thoughtful and provocative writing by a host of prominent opinion writers will specifically augment our continuing coverage of social justice issues through our award-winning GlobalPost Special Reports,’’ Sennott added.

The series launches today on Martin Luther King’s birthday, Sennott said, because we hope this forum will be a place where the GlobalPost community can hear the voices of those who want to share their "dreams" around the world.

VOICES begins with a piece from our new GlobalPost columnist Calvin Sims, who is also president of International House, a former program officer at the Ford Foundation and a longtime foreign correspondent for The New York Times.

“The dream that Dr. King envisioned five decades ago continues to resonate across America and the world, informing and inspiring new and innovative social justice movements far and wide that few could have imagined,” Sims writes in the inaugural VOICES piece.

Other regular GlobalPost columnists for VOICES include Maria Hinojosa, award-winning journalist and founder of Futuro Media Group, as well as Linda Mason, founder of Bright Horizons, the world's largest provider of day care and former board chair of Mercy Corps International.

These voices and other writers and thinkers we will be seeking to recruit from around the world will consistently discuss topics important to The GroundTruth Project including human rights, religious issues, global health, economic inequality and democracies in transition. The GroundTruth Project, which was announced in May 2013 with a mission of training the next generation of foreign correspondents and expanding coverage of social justice issues, publishes in-depth Special Reports on GlobalPost and hosts a network of blogs dedicated to these subjects.

VOICES will be led by Rebecca Lee Sanchez, GlobalPost’s deputy editor for Special Reports and a graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism.

“I hope VOICES will stimulate conversation, even acting as a sort of confrontation, to compel people to engage across borders and boundaries,” Sanchez said. “In providing a platform for the voices least often represented or celebrated in the media, we can better learn from those who are most affected by many of the issues we report on.”

Robert Giles, GlobalPost’s Commentary editor, said, “GlobalPost's initial venture into Commentary nearly two years ago attracted hundreds of writers, many from developing countries, whose analyses gave voice to ideas and perspectives not available anywhere else. Its success has emboldened GlobalPost to expand Commentary with the launch of VOICES.”

VOICES is made possible with support from the Ford Foundation’s Freedom of Expression Unit, which is dedicated to “developing a better-informed and engaged citizenry, and encouraging creative contributions to public participation in civic life.”

To inquire about this commentary series or to offer a submission to VOICES, please contact Rebecca Lee Sanchez at rsanchez@globalpost.com. For media inquiries, please contact Rick Byrne at rbyrne@globalpost.com.

GlobalPost is the world 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 has received a number of prestigious journalism awards for its work, including the Peabody Award, the Polk Award, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, and the Overseas Press Club Award.

The GroundTruth Project is a foundation-supported initiative led by GlobalPost co-founder and Editor-at-Large Charles M. Sennott. GroundTruth is dedicated to training the next generation of foreign correspondents in the digital age and produces Special Reports on GlobalPost. It is focused on issues of social justice including human rights, freedom of expression, emerging democracies, the environment, religious affairs and global health.