Launched by Inter Press Service (IPS) in 2007, LobeLog was headed by Jim Lobe, the IPS Washington DC bureau chief from 1980 to 1984 and from 1989 to 2015. Lobelog is the only weblog to have received the prestigious Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs (2015) from the American Academy of Diplomacy. Initially focused on neoconservatives and their influence on US foreign policy, it gradually broadened its scope to feature analyses of U.S. policy toward the Greater Middle East with an emphasis on Iran, Israel-Palestine, and the Persian Gulf states more generally.
The blog, which the Foreign Service Journal also named the “Site of the Month” in June 2017, has also regularly published posts by expert contributors on various global and regional issues, including the militarization of U.S. foreign policy, threats to international institutions and cooperation, mainstream media coverage of foreign policy and events overseas, tensions in Northeast Asia, and the rise of far-right movements in Europe and elsewhere.
LobeLog’s investigative and analytical work has been cited or linked to by major publications, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Buzzfeed, and The Intercept, particularly in regard to the interrelationships among right-wing donors, foreign governments, and think tanks. Among other scoops, LobeLog broke the story of former deputy assistant to President Donald Trump Sebastian Gorka’s association with Vitezi Rend, an anti-Semitic Hungarian knighthood that cooperated with the Nazi occupation during World War II.
Regular contributors to the blog include internationally recognized experts on both U.S. foreign policy and the Middle East, in particular, including former senior U.S. and foreign diplomatic and intelligence officials, distinguished scholars from think tanks and academia, other area specialists, journalists, and NGO leaders active on these issues. LobeLog also frequently cross-posts relevant and compelling material from other websites and publications, including the progressive Israeli-Palestinian blog +972mag.com, eurasianet.org, the International Crisis Group, Human Rights Watch, and the European Council on Foreign Relations.
Since 2015, LobeLog has been based at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC. Its work has been supported by several foundations, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ploughshares Fund, and the Arca Foundation.
About Jim Lobe
Jim Lobe served as chief of the Washington DC bureau of Inter Press Service, an international press agency based in Rome, Italy, from 1980 to 1985 and again from 1989 to 2016. He is currently an Associate Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies where he directs LobeLog, a project launched by Inter Press in 2007.
During his career, Jim has focused particularly on the influence of neoconservatives on U.S. foreign policy, especially during the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. He was the first journalist to cover the ties between the latter’s post-9/11 Mideast policy agenda and the recommendations of the Project for the New American Century and relate them back to the controversial draft Defense Policy Guidance that was overseen by then-Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in March 1992. He has also written at some length on the general worldview of neoconservatives, including a talk, “Neoconservatism in a Nutshell,” he gave at a conference sponsored by the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs and the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy at the National Press Club (video version here) in 2016. A compendium of his IPS articles on neoconservatives and their efforts to influence US foreign policy from 2001 to 2016 can be found at http://www.ipsnews.net/topics/neoconservatives/.
Jim has lectured occasionally on US foreign policy, neoconservative ideology, and mainstream media coverage of foreign affairs at various colleges and universities around the United States. He has also lectured at the Institute of American Affairs at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing; the Institute of International Relations in Hanoi; the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva; and Sciences Po in Rheims, among other overseas forums. His work on neoconservatives was also featured on the BBC’s weekly public-affairs program Panorama, “The War Party,” broadcast on May 18, 2003, and on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Four Corners public-affairs program, “American Dreamers,” broadcast on March 10, 2003, on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq (transcript).
In 2015, Jim received the Arthur Ross Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs from the American Academy of Diplomacy.
A Seattle native, Jim graduated with highest honors in History from Williams College in 1970 and received a law degree from UC Berkeley School of Law in 1974.