James Smith
Another new era is beckoning
Thursday 15 December 2011
Amazingly, with every management change and abrupt staff dismissals there comes a new era. First, there was chief executive officer Tom Glocer, who only a few months ago painted a bright future and said he had no plans to leave. Well, he is out the door at year-end, replaced by James Smith, who even before taking the helm says Thomson-Reuters integration has been completed and “the company now enters a new era”. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler says he has the full support of Smith and that he is “optimistic, energized, and eager to embrace the opportunities ahead”. Well, let’s hope so because recent blunders by Adler’s prize-winning staff additions are not a good beginning to a new era.
Howard Luxenberg
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Howard Luxenberg
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Big names and bright lights
Thursday 08 December 2011
This is the season to be jolly, except, of course, when it comes to the mess that needs cleansing from the Tom Glocer era, whose dismissal was long overdue and certainly not without regret from long suffering shareholders and perhaps much of the Thomson Reuters staff, as well.
But is his ousting enough to right a ship that has wandered far off course? That may not be known for months, perhaps a year or so at least, although one thing is obvious: The organization, under the rein of Glocer and his editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, has gradually drifted away from what customers most expected – being first with the news and getting it right! Adler, rightly so, wanted more; he wanted award-winning journalists to enhance the company’s status. Well, he got his journalists, but right out of the box were a host of blunders, including errors from his award winners and a need to withdraw stories, all at great embarrassment to the company.
Surprisingly, Adler says he believes that newly appointed chief executive James Smith will continue to support Adler’s mission of making big name journalists the cornerstone of the company’s effort to push its brand forward. Well, that cannot be good news for a dedicated staff that has fought long and hard to keep TR the leader in financial news reporting against its most formidable competitor, Bloomberg, which has narrowed the gap considerably in recent years.
Big names and bright lights are wonderful, but not at the expense of what has long made the name Reuters one of the most respected news organizations in the world.
Howard Luxenberg
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But is his ousting enough to right a ship that has wandered far off course? That may not be known for months, perhaps a year or so at least, although one thing is obvious: The organization, under the rein of Glocer and his editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, has gradually drifted away from what customers most expected – being first with the news and getting it right! Adler, rightly so, wanted more; he wanted award-winning journalists to enhance the company’s status. Well, he got his journalists, but right out of the box were a host of blunders, including errors from his award winners and a need to withdraw stories, all at great embarrassment to the company.
Surprisingly, Adler says he believes that newly appointed chief executive James Smith will continue to support Adler’s mission of making big name journalists the cornerstone of the company’s effort to push its brand forward. Well, that cannot be good news for a dedicated staff that has fought long and hard to keep TR the leader in financial news reporting against its most formidable competitor, Bloomberg, which has narrowed the gap considerably in recent years.
Big names and bright lights are wonderful, but not at the expense of what has long made the name Reuters one of the most respected news organizations in the world.
Howard Luxenberg
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Thomson Reuters commitment to news
Wednesday 07 December 2011
Re ● New Thomson Reuters CEO backs editorial hiring plans - Stephen Adler, the jury is out whether Thomson Reuters managers will recognize the value of a news organization that is trying, as Jon Friedman puts it, to “maintain a strong position in the meat-and-potatoes work of covering the financial markets while making a name for Reuters in enterprise writing.” The Wall Street Journal’s parents know as well as anyone how difficult it is for the two to co-exist comfortably and profitably under one roof. For decades Reuters managers said the meat-and-potatoes variety, while it didn’t win seats on the US Sunday talk shows, was what paying clients wanted. Tom Glocer was not a journalist, but he put the company’s money where his mouth was when he spoke in favor of the value of Reuters news. Some Reuters journalists will disagree on Glocer, but the ranks grew under his watch despite hard times in most other news organizations. Although James Smith was once a journalist, are we sure he and the Thomson family have the same view and will make the same commitment over time?
Nelson Graves
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Nelson Graves
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Putting the customer first
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Surely the most effective way to promote a strategic “change plan” is through plain speaking?
What a pity then that James Smith, Thomson Reuters’ new chief operating officer, introduces the topic with an insipid collection of platitudes and meaningless snippets from the book of management-speak [● James Smith aims for change plan by 1 January].
A new drive for sales growth, he asserts, will be backed by an organisation that “puts the customer at the heart of every decision.” My word, what a radical notion!
A small team (a committee, presumably) will “facilitate dialogue on how best to shape internal efforts and direct resources to support customer-facing businesses”. Hardly a revolutionary concept, it must be said.
He then rambles on about “further structured dialogues guiding the evolution of our thinking” and a promise of “open conversation involving multiple voices from across the business”.
This stuff can’t have been written by a Reuters journalist – or any other kind of journalist.
Come on James, you can do better than this, even in the mealy-mouthed context of public relations.
You might start, for example, by acknowledging that TR for years has been losing the battle for desk-top space, messaging and analytics; has a headcount that is out of control; and has failed to properly exploit product brands that once dominated the financial markets.
As penance, take the time to read Robert Harris’s new thriller The Fear Index, set in the world of hedge funds and algorithmic trading. Every scene set in the trading room plugs Bloomberg. Thomson Reuters doesn’t get a mention.
John Jessop
Reuters 1959-1978
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What a pity then that James Smith, Thomson Reuters’ new chief operating officer, introduces the topic with an insipid collection of platitudes and meaningless snippets from the book of management-speak [● James Smith aims for change plan by 1 January].
A new drive for sales growth, he asserts, will be backed by an organisation that “puts the customer at the heart of every decision.” My word, what a radical notion!
A small team (a committee, presumably) will “facilitate dialogue on how best to shape internal efforts and direct resources to support customer-facing businesses”. Hardly a revolutionary concept, it must be said.
He then rambles on about “further structured dialogues guiding the evolution of our thinking” and a promise of “open conversation involving multiple voices from across the business”.
This stuff can’t have been written by a Reuters journalist – or any other kind of journalist.
Come on James, you can do better than this, even in the mealy-mouthed context of public relations.
You might start, for example, by acknowledging that TR for years has been losing the battle for desk-top space, messaging and analytics; has a headcount that is out of control; and has failed to properly exploit product brands that once dominated the financial markets.
As penance, take the time to read Robert Harris’s new thriller The Fear Index, set in the world of hedge funds and algorithmic trading. Every scene set in the trading room plugs Bloomberg. Thomson Reuters doesn’t get a mention.
John Jessop
Reuters 1959-1978
nbnbn
Putting the customer first
Thursday 06 October 2011
How many times in the past have we heard of the strategy of “putting the customer first” [● James Smith aims for change plan by 1 January]? It just seems like every time there are changes in the organization’s hierarchy the new person thinks he is reinventing the wheel. Spending more than 30 years at the Baron, I’d lost track of the number of times these words were uttered by one of the company’s top executives. It’s hard to imagine that in the current economic climate there are any businesses that would not claim that customer satisfaction is the top priority.
Howard Luxenberg
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Howard Luxenberg
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