His newspaper career started in Kyoto writing for the Japan Times before he became a freelancing Southeast Asia correspondent for a number of newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning News, Miami Herald and London's Daily Telegraph.
He returned to the US in 1993 writing for the Anchorage Daily News covering, among others, early on the career of Sarah Palin.
As the Post's economic correspondent, he undertook extensive travels to Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa, Australia, and Europe.
His move from a respected position at a major traditional newspaper to the web-based The Huffington Post was noted.
Howard Kurtz wrote that Goodman indicated that at The New York Times he found himself engaged in "almost a process of laundering my own views, through the tried-and-true technique of ringing someone at some think tank to say what you want to tell the reader.