Launched by Inter Press Service (IPS) in 2007, LobeLog was headed by Jim Lobe, the IPS Washington DC bureau chief from 1980 to 1984 and from 1989 to 2015. Lobelog is the only weblog to have received the prestigious Arthur Ross Media Award for Distinguished Reporting and Analysis of Foreign Affairs (2015) from the American Academy of Diplomacy. Initially focused on neoconservatives and their influence on US foreign policy, it gradually broadened its scope to feature analyses of U.S. policy toward the Greater Middle East with an emphasis on Iran, Israel-Palestine, and the Persian Gulf states more generally.