While most major U.S. news organizations are fleeing the expensive realm of international coverage, the Global Post is poised to enter the space as an online-only organization.

Charles Sennott is a veteran of the Boston Globe’s foreign desk. He laments the fact that many major metros like the Globe no longer have foreign bureaus. He believes, however, that the demand is still there for coverage of international news.

Enter the Global Post. It is staffed by seven editors — including Sennott, the top dog — and seven business staffers in Boston. It, however, has a large network of global correspondents — 70 in 53 countries, to be exact. This new venture will launch on January 12, 2009.

It’s a different structure than most traditional media outlets. The Global Post wants to work with foreign correspondents who are already living abroad and working on other projects. This is a flatter, nimbler structure that should allow the Global Post to add more correspondents where demand is high (Global Post is looking for additional correspondents, by the way).

“We are able to create a very light structure that stretches out across the world,” he said.

That structure that stretches across the world is partly made possible by the fact that the Global Post doesn’t have a newspaper to print. The cost of printing and distribution is hampering innovation at a lot of newspapers.

“We start with a Web-based news organization in which we are stealth and light,” he said. “We don’t have trucks. We don’t have printing press. We don’t order ink by the barrel.”

One area that really piqued the interest of Beat Blogging, is how the Global Post is hoping to tap into local blogging networks. The Global Post will have a dedicated blog editor whose job it is to managing staff bloggers and find quality bloggers around the world.

The Global Post hopes to find the top five bloggers for each area they cover. So, for instance, you could consume Global Post content from Johannesburg, South Africa, while also being directed to the best local bloggers from that area too.

The Global Post also plans on using social media. Sennott wants to use social media to connect with people all over the world who could help the Global Post understand the world better.

“We really want to create a community of writers on one side of the screen, who are working together as people who care about international reporting,” he said. “And we definitely want to create a community on the other side of the screen of people who want to share their thoughts, their ideas and their stories.”

We’ll definitely be checking back in with the Global Post after it launches to see how their mesh of correspondents and bloggers can cover international news.

Some other questions answered:

• What is the business model of the Global Post? Sennott believes they’ll be profitable in year three.
• What will make this news organization different from The Economist, The Christian Science Monitor and other similar publications?
• Is there a future for large metros that continue to focus on print?

Click here to stream the interview. Or download the MP3.