David D. Judson previously served as Stratfor’s editor-in-chief where he oversaw both the global network of the company’s information gathering area specialists as well as the publishing team in Austin that works with analysts to craft Stratfor’s work into written, video and graphic form. Before joining Stratfor, Mr. Judson worked for the Istanbul-based Dogan Media Group for eight years, first as managing editor of the Turkish-language business daily Referans and later as editor-in-chief of the Hurriyet Daily News, the company’s English paper. Before his work internationally, Mr. Judson was a senior correspondent in Washington for Gannett Newspapers/USA Today.
By most conventional logic in the publishing trade, our approach shouldn't work. That it does is the reason for our shoutout here to the many independent thinkers and like-minded readers who are willing to swim with us against so many currents.
Cynics may attribute Christmas' spread to the success of modern marketing and globalized commercialism. But Christmas is a holiday with deep and diverse roots and one that has, by the 21st century, become truly global – and for that matter, geopolitical.
As we grow and evolve as a company, the world of geopolitics is also changing before our eyes.
Nearly a month has passed since American voters gave the presidency, seemingly against all odds, to Donald Trump. And for nearly a month a global chorus of pundits, pollsters and media prophets have asked: How did just about everyone get it wrong? Amid the hand-wringing, the list of culprits is long: Skewed models of voter bases. The demise of landline telephones. Underestimates of "lapsed voters." The evolution of game-changing social media. Wishful thinking.
Stratfor is a unique company, and that very uniqueness that makes us difficult to pin down, open as we are to so many interpretations. So it's time to try to pull back the curtain on who we are, what we do and how we do it. Welcome to our new column, Stratforium.
Though the new year marks a great loss for Stratfor’s staff, it also heralds the arrival of three new analytical voices.
Journalism tells you what you want to know. Stratfor tells you what you need to know. We co-exist in this ecosystem, but geopolitical intelligence is scarcely part of the journalistic flora and fauna.
