Philip Balboni, the founder and president of regional TV network New England Cable News, has raised $7 million to start a news website with a focus on international current affairs issues, Boston.com reported. The funds have been provided by several Boston-area investors led by billionaire Amos Hostetter Jr., chairman of Pilot House Associates (Continental Cable, AT&T (NYSE: T), etc.). Other backers include Benjamin Taylor, former publisher of The Boston Globe, and Paul Sagan, president of Akamai (NSDQ: AKAM) Technologies.

Balboni will leave his post as president of NECN, which is jointly owned by Hearst Corp. and Comcast (NSDQ: CMCSA), next month. He doesn’t plan to hire any full-time reporters, but hopes to attract journalists in other countries by offering shares in the company. A former local broadcast journalist in Boston who created NECN in 1992, Balboni has also worked as a reporter for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He was also an editor and reporter for United Press International.

Staci adds: The people involved in this have good track records but that’s a lot of funding for a news venture that doesn’t plan to have any full-time reporters—and sounds like little more than an interesting idea at present.