International New York Times to expand opinion pages

The opinion offerings by the New York Times relaunches the International Herald Tribune as The International New York Times on October 15 and is expanding its roster of international opinion writers, RTTNews.com reported. As a part of the expansion plan, more international opinion contributors, new editorial staff, and an additional page in the INYT's weekend edition will be added.

According to a statement by the company, the INYT opinion pages will be edited from Hong Kong, Paris, London, and New York. It will be tailored for global audiences.

The paper's op-ed team announced that it would be hiring 29 opinion writers from countries including Egypt, Bangladesh, Russia, and Poland to contribute monthly columns, according to a report by the ColumbiaJournalism Review. The new opinion writers' diversity also extends to their professions. Not all of them are journalists; handfuls are academics, including political theorists, sociologists, and scholars.

The International New York Times has appointed two part-time editorial board writers: Mira Kamdar, based in Paris, and Masaru Tamamoto, based in Yokohama, Japan. Kamdar is a faculty member of the École de Journalisme at Sciences Po and the author of "Planet India: The Turbulent Rise of the Largest Democracy." Tamamoto has been a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, a research associate at Cambridge University and a MacArthur Foundation fellow in international peace and security at Princeton University.

According to the press release, The INYT has also assembled a roster of more than two dozen contributing opinion writers who will write monthly columns reflecting perspectives, debates and ideas from around the world.

"The quality and geographic range of voices in the International New York Times Opinion Pages will help ensure that our pages reflect those issues that are the most relevant and compelling to our global readers," said Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of The New York Times. "Our international readers have asked us for more viewpoints from around the globe, and we are delighted to fulfil that request."

By: Savita V Jayaram