The Diplomat (magazine)

• 1. Introduction

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  The Diplomat began life on the other side of the world from where it operates today. Founded in Australia in 2001 by Minh Bui Jones, David Llewellyn-Smith, and Sung Lee, it was a print magazine issued every two months, carrying an Australian perspective on the vast and complex Indo-Pacific region. Its first edition appeared in April 2002, with Bui Jones serving as the founding editor and Llewellyn-Smith as the founding publisher.

  For the first few years, the magazine ran advertisements that placed its flag alongside those of the United States and the United Kingdom, alongside the logos of Time and The Economist. The headline above them asked: 'To which view do you subscribe?' That question hinted at the magazine's ambition. But print publishing proved difficult to sustain. Within a decade, The Diplomat had shed its paper edition, crossed the Pacific, and reinvented itself as something quite different from what its founders had envisioned.

  The questions worth asking are: what forced that reinvention, who shaped it along the way, and how did a small bi-monthly print title from Sydney end up as a Washington-based online outlet drawing two million unique visitors a month?

• 2. From Print to Pixels

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  In December 2007, James Pach acquired The Diplomat through his company Trans-Asia Inc. He assumed the role of executive publisher and brought in a new editorial voice by hiring Ian Gerrard, who had previously edited Penthouse, to refresh the magazine's presentation. The idea was to arrest a slide.

  The losses on the print side continued anyway. By August 2009, The Diplomat had ended its print edition entirely. Its Sydney office shut and the headquarters relocated to Tokyo. Two editorial appointments immediately followed: Jason Miks became editor in September 2009, and Ulara Nakagawa was named associate editor. The move to Japan positioned the magazine closer to the region it covered.

  Miks was eventually succeeded as editor by Harry Kazianis, and after Kazianis the publisher Pach himself took on the editorial leadership before the masthead reached its current configuration. Shannon Tiezzi now serves as editor-in-chief, with Catherine Putz as managing editor. Sebastian Strangio covers Southeast Asia and Sudha Ramachandran handles South Asia, while Ankit Panda holds the titles of editor-at-large and podcast host.

• 3. Ownership and Reach

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  Tokyo is still central to The Diplomat's story, even after its editorial operations moved to Washington, D.C. The magazine is owned by MHT Corporation, a Japanese information services company based in Tokyo and formally registered as 株式会社MHTコーポレーション.

  By 2020, The Diplomat had reached a monthly unique visitor count of two million. That figure reflects the scale of the audience the online transition made possible. A print bi-monthly circulating in Australia could never have matched it.

  The magazine covers politics, society, and culture across the Indo-Pacific, a term that encompasses the sweep from the Indian Ocean through the Pacific. Its Washington base gives it proximity to the diplomatic and policy world that its subject matter demands, even as its ownership remains rooted in Japan.

• 4. Notable Voices and Interviews

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  Brent Scowcroft, Ali Allawi, and Anwar Ibrahim are among the public figures whose interviews have appeared in the magazine's pages. The Diplomat has also published conversations with Kim Beazley, Wegger Christian Strømmen, Shankar Prasad Sharma, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Ian Macfarlane, Mike Moore, and Jason Yuan.

  The breadth of that list crosses national security advisors, finance ministers, prime ministers, ambassadors, and opposition leaders from across the Indo-Pacific and beyond. It reflects a deliberate effort to bring the voices of the region's political class to a global online readership.

  One early advertising campaign showed just how pointedly the magazine staked out its identity. Prior to 2004, those ads displayed the national flags of Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom alongside the logos of Time and The Economist, asking readers to choose their viewpoint. Time magazine compelled the cancellation of those advertisements, leaving The Diplomat to define its identity through its coverage rather than its competition.