Lemann started the ramp up to production that June by hiring veteran book publicist Camille McDuffie and former Daily Beast editor Jimmy So.

"[3] The first book published by CGR was Shaky Ground: The Strange Saga of the U.S. Mortgage Giants, whose author Bethany McLean had previously written the 2003 expose of Enron The Smartest Guys in the Room.

[6] Other notable authors with books published by CGR include Helen Epstein, Adam Kirsch, Clay Shirky, and Tim Wu.

[7] Its mission is to produce "four to six ambitious works of journalism and analysis a year" on global issues, with each novella-length book available as paperback or e-book.

[8] The Columbia Journalism Review describes CGR's business model as "somewhere between a magazine and book publisher," saying, "Unlike most traditional book publishers (but like high-end magazines), Columbia Global Reports fact checks, pays writers’ expenses, and has a total production time, from signed contract to store shelves, that’s measured in months, not years.