Global Voices’ longtime Managing Editor, Solana Larsen, stepped down at the end of May 2014 after seven years as the Managing Editor, citing personal reasons for her decision. She has been succeeded by Sahar Habib Ghazi. Larsen has opted to become a volunteer contributor for Global Voices.
Global Voices is an international network of bloggers, translators, and citizen journalists who report events in the blogosphere from around the world. It is a non-profit project started by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Global Voices grew out of an international bloggers’ meeting held in December 2004 and in 2008 became an independent non-profit incorporated in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Larsen is a Danish-Puerto Rican journalist and activist, trained in international journalism at London’s City University. She also sits on the board of openDemocracy USA, where she previously served as editor for five years.
Sahar Habib Ghazi, who succeeds her, joined the organization as Deputy Editor in June 2012. Ghazi is a journalist, blogger and activist who helped launch the Dawn News TV and has reported for the New York Times. She also launched Hosh Media, an online youth journalism platform, while a John S. Knight Journalism fellow at Stanford University in the United States.
According to Global Voices, “Sahar has been instrumental in developing Global Voices’ style guides, codifying many of our editorial processes, and building our sub-editing team. Most importantly, she’s a highly skilled and deeply committed member of the community, whom we trust will take our editorial section forward, to the places it needs to go.”
Global Voices describes itself as “a borderless, largely volunteer community of more than 800 writers, analysts, online media experts and translators.” Its team of editors and writers reports from 167 countries in a completely virtual newsroom; its international team of translators renders stories into more than 30 languages; its Advox project defends online rights and freedoms and fights censorship; its Rising Voices project empowers isolated and marginalized communities with tools, skills and support; while it also organizes summits for its global contributors and the public to meet face-to-face.
According to Global Voices, its mission is to “work to find the most compelling and important stories coming from marginalized and misrepresented communities” and “speak out against online censorship and support new ways for people to gain access to the Internet.”
