International news case study: Glimpse

Glimpse is a nonprofit online platform for reporting about living abroad (Glimpse. n.d.). Its Web site, http://glimpse.org, hosts blogs and a travel/living abroad tips section, accepts story submissions, operates a photo contest, and serves as the vehicle for the work of participants in its Correspondents Program. Through the program, Glimpse selects 10 correspondents via an application process to work with Glimpse editors for regular posts to the site in exchange for a $600 stipend. Participants in the Correspondents Program must be between the ages of 18 and 34 and must live abroad for at least 10 weeks.

Glimpse was designed as a way for young people to share meaningful cultural experiences resulting from living abroad. “We’re a Web site geared toward Americans, with the idea that Americans could particularly benefit from a greater understanding of the world,” said Kerala Taylor, co-founder and editor-in-chief for Glimpse. “Glimpse started from this idea of having a platform to share daily life from abroad. We just felt like the study abroad experience was generally underappreciated,” Taylor said.

Though now it is supported in part by National Geographic, Glimpse started out in 1999 as a project initiated by then-undergraduate Brown University students Nick Fitzhugh and Taylor. Fitzhugh is now the publisher and senior designer. The idea was Fitzhugh’s, according to Taylor, who said he was struck by how wrong his preconceptions of life in Europe were when he spent a year in France and Italy before going to college (K. Taylor, personal communication, September 22, 2009). “His idea was that we would create a magazine. Back then print was kind of the first thing that people thought of. And online was more of a secondary component, and that was kind of how we envisioned it. We started a Web site first because it was cheaper.”

Their first magazine issue came out in spring of 2002, just before they graduated, and Glimpse continued to produce a quarterly print publication until fall of 2008, when they discontinued it to focus on the online component. Now the Correspondents Program is moving to the forefront for Glimpse, Taylor said. While serving as a platform for a variety of user-generated content was part of the idea behind Glimpse, they have found that readers’ expectations have changed, and they’re working to meet those expectations.

“We feel like these days people are becoming really jaded with user-generated content and the desire is for curated user-generated content,” Taylor said. “So people like to see their peers, nonprofessionals, being able to publish, but they also want to find good stuff, and they don’t want to be slogging through a million really boring blog entries to find that one good blog.”

Taylor said Glimpse has been getting around 500 applicants for the Correspondents Program at each application cycle, which makes the selection process competitive. They have also just opened up the program to non-U.S. citizens. “We’re looking into expanding the number that we work with, because we end up turning away people who are very qualified,” she said.

Glimpse tries to make the correspondents group about half undergraduate students and half people who have earned their bachelor’s degree. “People who have graduated are often doing different things abroad,” Taylor said. “They tend to go to less-traveled destinations, do volunteer work. We want to try to get a range of experiences.” In all cases, Glimpse tries to choose participants who will be interacting with the culture they’re living in while abroad, and getting out of their comfort zone, Taylor said.

Each participant in the Correspondents Program is assigned an editor who will work with them throughout the semester. The correspondents have a weekly check-in, they’re responsible for a weekly blog posting, photo submissions, one assignment story and one feature story, all of which they work closely with their editor to produce. “The story that they’re responsible for working on, we go through a minimum of three drafts, usually more five to seven, so it’s a pretty rigorous process,” Taylor said.

On the other hand, Taylor said, they know that the correspondents are abroad for other purposes, such as studying or volunteer projects, and they try to structure the program so it’s a manageable workload. The program targets English and journalism majors, but Taylor said anyone from any discipline who shows talent for writing or photography will be considered. Glimpse also tries to choose writers who have some photography skills and photographers who have some writing ability.

In addition to applying for the Correspondents Program, those going abroad can submit proposals for projects via the Web site, and if Glimpse likes the idea they’ll work with the applicant to get the project published.

Glimpse has had a relationship to National Geographic since 2002, Taylor said, when Fitzhugh e-mailed National Geographic’s CEO to tell him about the project, not really expecting to get a response. But the CEO wrote back and asked them to make a presentation to some senior-level staff at National Geographic. “It was a rather terrifying experience,” Taylor said. But it paid off. Glimpse received an initial planning grant from National Geographic.

That funding ran out quickly, though, Taylor said, and the two co-founders went on to work on Glimpse for about five years without paying themselves, doing bartending work on the side to stay afloat. By spring of 2007, the project reached the point where Glimpse was getting enough exposure that it needed to expand, but they couldn’t handle the workload and revenue was touch and go, Taylor said. “It was kind of that classic Catch-22 that small nonprofits are caught in so often,” she said.
So Glimpse went back to National Geographic to ask for additional support. That resulted in an invitation for Glimpse to move into the National Geographic offices in Washington, D.C., where they now have access to National Geographic’s resources and expertise. The editor-in-chief of National Geographic Traveler is the chair of Glimpse’s board of directors now, and Glimpse sometimes shares content with various divisions of National Geographic.

Glimpse’s staff consists of three people: Fitzhugh, Taylor and Managing Editor Anders Kelto. They are bolstered by “a very vibrant team of interns, who outnumber us,” Taylor said. “We love working with them because they are our demographic.”

Taylor said that while Glimpse often looks for ways to work more closely with National Geographic, they also think it’s probably in their best interests to remain independent. “National Geographic has some editorial standards that could be restrictive for us just given our demographic. But they also have a very large interest in our demographic,” she said, noting that the venerable publisher is eager to tap into a younger market. National Geographic also sees Glimpse as a potential talent feed, Taylor said. “We’ve worked with about 40 correspondents now, and a couple of them I can really see becoming National Geographic photographers,” she said. “I cannot at all guarantee that, but it is a foot in the door.”

Glimpse is also open to sharing content with other media outlets, Taylor said. “A lot of these publications feel like they’re losing the younger generation and they don’t know how to appeal to them. We offer something there, I think.”