Letter from the Editor: Welcome to the New Defense One

Dear Defense One Readers,

I’m very excited to announce what you may already have noticed: Defense One has just launched a major website redesign. 

After months of detailed work with our talented design and development teams, we are thrilled to see the new Defense One site go live. This is the site’s first major overhaul since the 2013 debut of Defense One — a photo-forward, mobile-oriented news site in gunmetal-and-gold that looked like none other in defense media. The new site introduces an even sleeker look with design upgrades, new features, and improved navigation that highlight and showcase more of our journalism, giving readers more options to go deeper into subjects or browse across the breadth of our coverage, whether China or domestic extremism, missiles or robots, special ops or White House politics. 

The new design also better surfaces everything we do beyond the written word, including upcoming and archived Defense One newsmaker events and exclusive videos, and the award-winning Defense One Radio podcast.

Some of the notable upgrades include:

• Improved overall reader experience and navigation, including infinite scroll
• Updated navigation bar, with a new Science & Tech channel, Podcasts, and Events
• Homepage one-click access to Defense One Radio, featured video, upcoming events, and other exclusive editorial content
• New homepage trending topics bar, with direct access to articles, sorted by categories such as Russia, 2020 Elections and Artificial Intelligence
• More visible Breaking News and Special Report tags
• A new Voices homepage module, highlighting the recent work of reporters and contributors

Defense One remains a free news site, with no subscriptions or paywalls. To continue that benefit for readers, our new design also provides new opportunities for advertisers.

Since 2013, Defense One has consistently grown its audience and revenue, recently setting consecutive monthly traffic records during the coronavirus outbreak. Defense One has become a media partner to several major international policy events and think tanks. Our reporters and editors continue to cover the globe, speaking and moderating at world-leader events in Brussels, London, Bratislava, Singapore, Halifax, Aspen, and more. Almost a quarter of Defense One’s readership is located outside the continental United States. Since February 2020, the Defense One Radio podcast has been downloaded over half a million times, and has been honored with a Folio: Eddie Award for journalistic excellence. And Defense One continues to be a trusted destination for defense and national security leaders to publish commentary pieces and sit for exclusive interviews on our stages.

Finally, you should know there have been some changes recently in our house. 

First, we have new owners. In March, Atlantic Media’s owner David Bradley sold his controlling stake in the Government Executive Media Group division to the private equity firm Growth Catalyst Partners. As a result, GEMG is an independent company that includes Defense One and its sister brands Government Executive, Nextgov, and Route Fifty. 

What does this mean for you? Only that we are excited to continue to bring you the award-winning journalism and events you have come to expect, but with even more potential for the kind of growth GCP envisions for the entire company. GEMG’s media business model is healthy and innovative, and our core purpose remains the same: journalism. And thanks to a continuing agreement, Defense One will still be able to bring you relevant articles originally published by The Atlantic. 

This year has been filled with unexpected twists and turns for all of us. We’re all doing our best to live with the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic and the historic nationwide protests underway — during a divisive presidential election year, no less. We hope you continue to take care of yourselves and loved ones, because we’re all in this together. Thank you for your continued support of Defense One. 

Sincerely,

Kevin Baron
Executive Editor