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Reuters journalists win New York awards

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-05-10T18:28:34+01:00

Reuters journalists have been named winners of awards for excellence given each year by the New York Press Club. Entries are considered in more than 20 categories of reporting from material submitted by New York metropolitan area news organisations and individual journalists. The top prize, the club’s Gold Keyboard Award, was won by the Associated Press. Bloomberg dominated the business reporting awards. Reuters won in the following categories: Business Reporting - best story or series focusing on business, finance, economics, trends or management: “Shell Games” - Brian Grow, Kelly Carr, Laurence Fletcher, Nanette Byrnes, Cynthia Johnston, Matthew Bigg, Joshua Schneyer, Kevin Drawbaugh, Martin de Sa’Pinto, Sara Ledwith. Continuing Coverage - coverage of an ongoing story or series, reflecting a news operation’s day-to-day coverage: “Libyan Revolution” - Samia Nakhoul, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Alastair MacDonald, Oliver Holmes, Lamine Chikhi, Christian Lowe, Emma Farge, Jessica Donati, Paul Taylor, Dmitry Zhdannikov, Regan E. Doherty, Mohammed Abbas, Rania El Gamal. Political Coverage - coverage of politics, campaigns, government, municipal agencies, or civil service: “Secret US/Taliban Talks” - Missy Ryan, Warren Strobel, Mark Hosenball. The awards will be presented on 11 June. ● SOURCE New York Press Club

More Thomson Reuters concessions in EU antitrust case

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-05-04T14:19:24+01:00

Thomson Reuters has offered additional concessions to the European Commission to end an antitrust investigation into its financial data codes. The Commission gave no details but a spokesman said on Friday: “I can confirm we have received new proposals for commitments by Thomson Reuters.” The Commission opened an investigation into Reuters Instrument Codes – which identify stocks, bonds and other financial instruments on systems used by traders around the world – in 2009. It said customers may potentially be locked-in to working with Thomson Reuters because replacing the codes required “a long and costly procedure” to rewrite or reconfigure software applications. Thomson Reuters said in December it would give licences for customers to use RICs to retrieve data from other suppliers and provide them with information for computer systems to link the codes with those used by competitors. But in a market test conducted by the EU watchdog competitors and trading firms then demanded more. The company could face a fine up to 10 per cent of its global annual turnover, up to $1.4 billion, if it is found to be flouting Europe’s antitrust laws. ● SOURCE Reuters | ZDNet | BusinessWeek

Greek bank sues Reuters over investigative report

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-05-02T14:26:38+01:00

One of Greece’s biggest banks is suing Reuters for €50 million in damages over a story that exposed property deals between the bank and companies run by the family of its executive chairman. Piraeus Bank in Athens has filed lawsuits against both the news agency and the article’s author, reporter Stephen Grey. It accuses Reuters of malicious defamation and of wishing “to harm the entire Greek banking system”. The 2 April special report, headlined “A Greek banker’s secret property deals” said Piraeus had rented at least seven properties that were owned by a series of private investment companies directed among others by the wife and two children of the bank’s executive chairman, Michalis Sallas, and financed by Piraeus bank loans. The lawsuit states: “The bank never bought or leased any property, particularly illegal ones, from its chairman or his family.” Piraeus said the report was inaccurate and highly defamatory. The article was based on a study by Reuters of Greek corporate records and company statements, documents filed in Greek land registries and interviews with legal, accounting and property experts. Reuters director of global communications Barb Burg said: “We continue to stand by our story. Due to the ongoing legal process, we cannot comment further at this time.” The bank, whose stock price has fallen 97 per cent since its peak in 2007, is due to receive up to €5 billion as part of a bailout backed by European taxpayers. The lawsuit says that the article’s publication caused the bank’s shares to tumble 14.5 per cent, representing a loss to the bank at the time of €46 million. The shares had more than recovered their value a week later before declining again. ● SOURCE Reuters

Rethinking Eikon: Thomson Reuters' two-year plan

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-05-02T08:42:38+01:00

Thomson Reuters is rethinking the rollout of Eikon, its flagship financial data product that has failed to set the market alight and disappointed investors since its 2010 launch, in an effort to get sales back on track over the next two years. First-quarter figures announced on Tuesday showed that just over 16,000 clients had Eikon desktops at the end of March, compared with 15,000 three months earlier. “We have an eight-quarter plan to be more competitive,” chief executive James Smith told the Financial Times in New York after announcing the Q1 figures. “We’ve been more targeted in our sales effort around Eikon, and we’ve redirected sales so we are going after sectors where we are in a strong position.” Thomson Reuters makes 54 per cent of its revenues from financial and risk products and the rest from legal, tax and accounting and science businesses. It has targeted Eikon sales to foreign exchange, commodities, energy and fixed income customers. The company was reported to have invested close to $1 billion in developing Eikon. In December it reiterated its commitment to the product and said it would be rolling out new capabilities in 2012. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Thomson Reuters' biggest challenges are now outside - James Smith

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-05-01T13:37:48+01:00

Thomson Reuters on Tuesday reported higher-than-expected profit for the first quarter on strong sales in its tax and accounting division, and affirmed its outlook for the year. It said revenue from ongoing businesses grew four per cent before currency changes to $3.19 billion, above analysts’ average forecast of $3.13 billion. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 44 cents from 37 cents a year earlier, beating analysts' average forecast of 41 cents per share. “I am really pleased with how the team has responded and the progress we are making inside the company,” chief executive James Smith said in an interview with Reuters. “The biggest challenges right now are outside the company, the macro economic environment, particularly in Europe.” He added: “It is the first quarter and only the first quarter, but the good news is most of our businesses are doing well, and we are making progress across all of them.” While the legal and tax & accounting divisions lifted overall results, the business serving the financial industry remains under pressure from layoffs and other cost cuts at banks. The company said Q1 revenue at its financial & risk division grew one per cent to $1.8 billion as declines in sales to traders and wealth managers were offset by increases in sales to risk and compliance customers, as well as acquisitions. The legal unit reported three per cent revenue growth to $777 million. Tax & accounting posted revenue growth of 31 per cent to $310 million. “Our Financial & Risk business continues to make progress in a very difficult environment,” chief executive Smith said in a statement. “We are executing against a more focused strategy.” A key financial product, Eikon, has struggled to gain traction with customers, selling over 16,000, up 30 per cent from the previous quarter. The first quarter results reflect a new reporting structure put in place after a major reorganisation last year resulted in the exit of several high-level executives including former CEO Tom Glocer. Smith, who headed the company's former professional division, took his place at the beginning of the year. The new organisation was aimed at simplifying the company created by Thomson Corp’s acquisition of Reuters in 2008. Thomson Reuters said underlying operating profit rose two per cent to $545 million. Underlying operating profit margin fell to 17.1 per cent from 17.4 percent a year ago due to higher depreciation and amortisation from new product launches, the company said. The company affirmed its 2012 forecasts, including revenue growth in the “low-single digits”. ● SOURCE Reuters | Thomson Reuters

Stephen Adler praises Middle East team for Pulitzer recognition

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-17T20:10:09+01:00

Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, pictured, on Tuesday lauded Reuters’ Middle East team involved in coverage of Libya, finalists in this year’s Pulitzer Prizes. In a message to top Thomson Reuters executives, he said: “This recognition marks the first time Reuters has been a finalist in the Pulitzers for text journalism in the 95-year history of the award, according to the Pulitzer Prize office.” New York’s Columbia University on Monday cited “Thomson Reuters Staff for its well-crafted reports on the momentous revolution in Libya that went beyond battlefield dispatches to tell the wider story of discontent, conflict and the role of outside powers”. But it awarded the prize for international reporting to Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times for his reports on famine and conflict in East Africa. The ten Libya stories Adler submitted to the Pulitzer Prize advisory panel demonstrated the high calibre of work done by Reuters journalists day in and day out, he said. “The pieces cited were a mixture of extraordinary exclusives, a stream of breaking-news articles and longer, carefully crafted Special Reports. They span politics, war, business and diplomacy. It’s an exemplary body of work, one that shows how Reuters can lead the coverage of the world’s most important stories along the time curve – winning the moment with snaps and urgents, winning the day with scoops and smart trunk stories, and winning the year with definitive long-form journalism.” Adler congratulated “the cast of outstanding reporters who worked tirelessly on these stories, often at personal peril”: Samia Nakhoul, Marie-Louise Gumuchian, Emma Farge, Alastair Macdonald, Oliver Holmes, Paul Taylor, Jessica Donati, Lamine Chichi, Christian Lowe, Dmitry Zhdannikov, Regan Doherty, Mohammad Abbas, Rania El Gamal, Maria Golovnina, Michael Georgy and Peter Graff. In addition to Middle East editor Samia Nakhoul, the coverage was guided by Europe, Middle East & Africa editor Michael Stott, enterprise editors Simon Robinson, Sara Ledwith, and Mike Williams, the commodities desk led by Richard Mably, and London editors Ralph Boulton, Giles Elgood and Peter Millership. “They are part of the broader team of reporters, editors, photographers, videographers and general managers who gave our customers and the general public the world’s best coverage of the Arab Spring in all media.” Adler’s letter to the Pulitzer panel nominating the Libya team said Reuters journalists were on the ground from Day One, “delivering war dispatches from the front, market-moving scoops from the oil terminals and cinematic narratives that broke the biggest news of all: how the regime was toppled and what the revolution wrought”. No news organisation dominated an international story this year the way the Reuters team dominated Libya, he said. “Our correspondents didn’t merely cover events: they were out of their offices breaking the news others had to follow.” He added: “Throughout the uprising, readers and viewers around the world looked to Reuters for real-time news on the Arab Spring. As our Libya coverage exemplifies, what they found were war correspondence and business journalism of the highest order.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters a Pulitzer finalist but misses prize

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-16T21:29:10+01:00

Reuters coverage of the Libyan revolution was a finalist in this year’s Pulitzer Prizes but missed out on the award, New York’s Columbia University announced on Monday. The $10,000 prize “for a distinguished example of reporting on international affairs, using any available journalistic tool” was awarded to Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times for his “vivid reports, often at personal peril, on famine and conflict in East Africa, a neglected but increasingly strategic part of the world”. Columbia, which administers the Pulitzer Prizes, said: “Also nominated as finalists in this category were: The New York Times staff for its powerful exploration of serious mistakes concealed by authorities in Japan after a tsunami and earthquake devastated the nation, and caused a nuclear disaster, and the Thomson Reuters Staff for its well-crafted reports on the momentous revolution in Libya that went beyond battlefield dispatches to tell the wider story of discontent, conflict and the role of outside powers.” ● SOURCE Columbia University

Obituary: Nick Carter

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-11T17:11:22+01:00

NICK CARTER, KNOWING HE DID NOT HAVE LONG TO LIVE, SENT HIS OWN OBITUARY TO THE BARON FOUR WEEKS AGO. IT IS PUBLISHED HERE IN FULL. Nick Carter was a Reuters journalist who played a front-line role in the agency’s conversion from typewriter-and-teleprinter-tape news delivery to videoscreens and computerised message-switching in the 1970s and 80s. Under a series of titles from production editor to deputy editor and operations manager to news products manager of Reuters World Service, he helped Reuter journalists accept and make use of a technology which was at first widely disliked, and to modernise a global news agency operation. Born Anthony Carter in south London, he was brought up from the age of nine in rural mid-Hampshire. Thrilled by wartime news reporting, in 1945 he went from grammar school to “tapes boy” trainee in the newsroom of the London Daily Sketch. The pay of 35 shillings (£1.75) a week was not enough to cover lodgings or restaurant food, so he lived inside the Sketch building in Gray’s Inn Road, eating solely in the canteen, sleeping on the camp beds provided among the printing presses for off-duty printers to nap, learning the arcane practices which surrounded hot-metal printing, assembling agency news stories for the sub-editors. Within a few months he was out of London, in his first job as a reporter, on the Reading Mercury, before being conscripted into the RAF and trained as a radar mechanic. On his release he resumed a newspaper apprenticeship which took him to papers across the country including the Northern Echo and the Sheffield Telegraph and Star, where he was industrial correspondent before joining Reuters in 1953. Although it was the most famous news agency in the world, Reuters was at that time short of money and rather small, a trust owned in common by the newspapers of Britain, Australia and New Zealand, whose approval of its news file was more important than its profits, if any. It was full of former World War Two correspondents and ex-servicemen, cynical about the ethics of Fleet Street newspaper owners and tabloid news values, mentoring a new generation that included Derek Jameson, Sandy Gall, Robert McNeil, and Frederick Forsyth. In 1966, becoming convinced that commercial radio would be permitted in Britain and would lead to increased demand for radio skills, Carter left Reuters for the BBC World Service, becoming one of the first duty editors to produce the well-loved Radio Newsreel programme in a globalised Bush House edition. Just over four years later Reuters decided to produce its own news-in-voice service for radio subscribers. Carter set up and equipped its audio studio, and trained reporters to write and speak despatches that could easily be razor-cut into ever-changing updates, and to avoid the low quality of telephone handsets by recording their reports on cassettes and clipping the recorder directly into the phone wires. For the first time, Reuters’ correspondents were paid a separate extra sum for providing such material, but there was no money for overseas studios – in Singapore the “studio” was four walls of empty boxes, and other correspondents learned to put overcoats over their heads to shut out unwanted noise. After a year, Reuters audio service broke even, and Carter turned to his main role, as production editor responsible for all general news output from the Fleet Street headquarters, where computerisation had recently begun amid the usual problems of system crashes, competition between users for inadequate memory and capacity, and writers’ dislike of over-precise format. At this stage there was no video-editing, telegraphists still had to re-key every word onto paper tape, and there was only rudimentary auto-sorting of news items by priority rating and destination area. Reuters was also beset by rivalry and competition between its economic and general news services for priority on its limited newswire space through the new computers. Familiar with technology through radar and radio, Carter became the interlocutor between the technical experts and the journalists, and also between the economic and general news writers. With endless consultation, the problems were gradually ironed out, while Reuters moved into new fields, of economic data displayed on subscriber screens, which were to make it rich beyond its owners’ dreams. Carter was given the additional title of deputy editor in the general news service, but in 1975 began three years as deputy manager for South East Asia, with the special task of introducing computerised message-switching and communications there. It was also an experiment in combining executives from general news and economic backgrounds in “company” posts. A few years later the rival editorial fields were merged under the single title Reuters World Service, with economic news specialists in top roles. Carter, by then manager of the general news service, became operations manager of the new combined editorial. By now, video-editing and personal computers were beginning to appear, but were often very limited and unstable. Carter got himself the first true portable computer, the Osborne 1 introduced in 1981, but at over 24 lb it was useless for journalists. He took the lead in analysing the needs of different bureaux around the world and choosing the best kit for the newly-combined economic and general news teams to use for video-reporting. There was also intensive consultation with fellow journalists on the characteristics of Reuters’ own design of desk-editing terminal, and Carter produced the first detailed plan under which the computers and editing desks in London and Hong Kong were interlocked, with Hong Kong responsible for the world news file during the London night from 1982 onwards. At the same time, the unitary control of the global Reuters editorial was broken into three areas – Europe, Asia and Americas. Carter was appointed news products manager with a brief to co-ordinate the development of news handling systems to ensure global compatibility between regions, and give impetus for new services. Once again he became an interlocutor, fostering agreement on what new features and services should get priority, and what systems could produce them. The old low-speed teleprinter services, tapping out the news at about one word per second, all in capital letters and unsorted, quickly gave way to services on screens as well as paper, with full typesetting capability, and extensive coding on subject matter as well as destination, usable for historical databases as well as newspaper, banks, television studios and trading rooms. He completed a full training course as a system controller on an expensive new editing system so as to be sure Reuters’ version would meet the agency’s editorial standards. Three fully-duplicated copies were bought, fulfilling the dream of having news service control following the sun, passed from Asia to Europe to America. The costs involved had become acceptable as the economic data services were bringing in millions, with more to come after the company was floated in 1984, producing cash for its former owner newspapers and agencies to launch their own computerisation. Reuters also bought the photo service of its struggling American rival UPI and Carter was a member of a four-man team which in 1985 turned it into a digital news picture and graphics service, delivered direct to editing screens, years before digital cameras and photo software became generally available. Carter’s final years before retirement were spent on the effort to ensure that diffusing editorial control to the regions did not affect editorial standards. In three years of negotiation with Reuters editors and journalists worldwide he produced Reuters’ first full, alphabetically listed international style guide, covering everything from objectivity to technicalities. He also set up a quality unit which continually reviewed and compared the stories sent out, using pages on the company’s instant screen services which only its own bureaux could read. After his retirement in 1987 he tailored specifications for Reuter video-editing systems for Japan, South Africa, the Middle East, South America and Visnews, then devoted himself mostly to world travel and local community activities at his home in Beckenham. He died on 10 April after a five-year battle against malignant melanoma, leaving a wife, and two daughters. He was 83. Photo: Nick Carter in 1978

TRI shares upgraded to Hold

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-06T16:31:29+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares have been upgraded by US financial media company TheStreet Ratings to Hold from Sell. It said TRI’s strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth and largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures. “However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including feeble growth in the company’s earnings per share, deteriorating net income and disappointing return on equity.” ● SOURCE TheStreet

Reuters drops top sports editor from Olympics team

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-05T14:03:40+01:00

Reuters has dropped its award-winning global sports editor from the team covering this year’s Olympic Games. Thomson Reuters sources said that after a dispute over staffing Paul Radford, pictured, a veteran of 15 Olympics, would play no part in coverage of the London event. Radford planned for 73 text journalists to cover this year’s games but was over-ruled by Stuart Karle, chief operating officer for Reuters news, who said the team should be 40 and the editing, filing of snaps and results should be done by local staff in Bangalore, where Reuters has a large long-range reporting and editing centre, assisted by a senior sports staffer. Gary Hershorn, Washington-based sports pictures editor, was placed in overall charge of Reuters coverage with Ossian Shine, Singapore-based editor-in-charge sports, Asia, leading text. The Reuters team has now reverted to 80 text journalists with desking to be done at the event itself rather than in Bangalore, the sources said. Radford, 65, joined Reuters in 1980. He led the entire Reuters team at the last five Olympics. Some 300 people were accredited for the 2008 Beijing games, of which 100 were text journalists. The team won Reuters News Story of the Year Award that year and Radford went to New York to collect the trophy. He remains global sports editor and was recently re-appointed to the International Olympics Committee’s press commission by IOC president Jacques Rogge despite having no more Olympics responsibilities at Reuters. A sports journalism source said the organisers of the summer Olympics – the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and the IOC – were extremely unimpressed at Radford’s treatment. Reuters announced on Monday that it would collaborate with The New York Times to offer an Olympic online news service using publishing technology developed by the newspaper. Steven Schwartz, global head of business development, Reuters Media said, “Our collaboration with The New York Times demonstrates our commitment to deliver robust multimedia experiences on major news events for our customers. The offering is particularly well suited for online outlets that are seeking ways to present real-time, comprehensive and engaging experience to their audiences and we deliver it with the tools to curate and monetize the content easily.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters executives deny ‘Pulitzer pursuit’ report

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-04T10:46:50+01:00

Reuters executives have denied a report that the agency was adopting a new editorial approach aimed at winning Pulitzer Prizes. The 23 February ● report on The Baron said European chief correspondents had been told about the new approach and other editorial matters at a briefing in London. It said: “Reuters is adopting a new editorial approach aimed at winning Pulitzer Prizes: long, in-depth, investigative special reports from all bureaux.” The report was based on accounts of the briefing by participants. The Newspaper Guild of New York, a union which represents 430 Thomson Reuters employees, picked up the report on 7 March in its online publication Common Sense under the heading “Pulitzer Prize Pursuit”. The denial was made to the Guild by Stuart Karle, chief operating officer for Reuters news, and Paul Ingrassia, deputy editor-in-chief. Both vigorously denied the report, the Guild said on Tuesday. “Karle and Ingrassia called the idea ‘stupid,’ with Ingrassia adding that it would be foolish to make Pulitzer Prizes a goal, given the slight chance of winning one,” it said. The Guild quoted Karle as saying the report was factually incorrect and based on a flawed premise. He said managers had gone through the list of journalism prizes to weed out those with a “corporate mission”. “You do this stuff (quality journalism) because it’s a good in itself,” he said. “It’s explicitly not a goal to win prizes.” The Guild said neither Karle nor Ingrassia categorically denied what it called a more troubling aspect of The Baron report: the notion that the pace of staff turnover is too slow “for new and better people to be brought in quickly enough.” When asked about that, both said they had received reports of journalists “underperforming” and “not pulling their weight,” but said their main objective is to improve performance. “Separately, the Guild has heard from numerous sources since last year that the Adler administration wants to use the performance management system to ‘manage out’ veteran journalists to make way for ‘stars’ picked by the new team,” it said. “This is a serious concern, given the parlous nature of the performance management system and the new contract language that performance management cannot be used in discipline. The Guild has already filed two grievances on issues related to this, including one that is scheduled for an arbitration hearing, and we’re continuing to monitor management’s actions closely.” Reuters’ deputy opinion editor Paul Smalera, in an article on the media business on Monday, wrote: “Online media companies (including my own… ) have been investing serious cash in upgrading the quality of their reporting and have made no secret of gunning for their print counterparts when it comes to journalism awards, including the granddaddy of them all, the Pulitzer.” The Baron stands by its story. ● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York | Reuters

Tom Glocer gets nearly $20 million payoff

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-04T11:05:58+01:00

Tom Glocer, pictured, who stepped down as Thomson Reuters CEO at the end of last year, walked away with almost $20 million in compensation, including $3.1 million in severance to be paid over two years. Most of Glocer’s $19.9 million payoff is part of his regular compensation for 2011 including stock options, long term incentives and a base salary of $1.5 million, the company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. Glocer left Thomson Reuters at the end of 2011 after the company underwent a series of structural changes and management shakeups to address lacklustre sales of one of its key products, Eikon, and a declining stock price. He was replaced by James Smith, a veteran Thomson executive who joined the Canadian newspaper group in 1987. Smith’s base salary is $1.5 million. His compensation could include an additional $7 million in cash and stock depending on the performance of the company. In 2011 Smith’s total compensation was $10.5 million, which included options and share base awards, when he served as professional division head and later as its chief operating officer. Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler received a base salary of $636,923 in 2011 and a one-time grant of options that helped boost his compensation to $2.7 million. ● SOURCE Reuters

‘Nasty nocturnal shifts’ go as Reuters merges regional desks

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-04-01T10:12:52+01:00

Reuters unifies its regional editing desks on Monday with the aim of raising the quality of its journalism and reinforcing the checks and balances of the ● Trust Principles. As part of the consolidation, overnight staffing in London and Washington is abolished for all but the biggest stories. “Note: we aren’t eliminating jobs, just most of the nasty nocturnal shifts,” Paul Ingrassia, deputy editor-in-chief, said in a message to staff ahead of the change. The London desk will open at 6:00 am London time year-round. The London and New York desks will handle each other’s overnight copy from the Americas and Europe, the Middle East & Africa and monitor broadcast and online media across the Atlantic for breaking news. Reporting lines are reorganised to bring all desk staff under three newly-appointed heads of desk – Matthew Tostevin in London, Ciro Scotti in New York and Jean Yoon in Singapore. A new desk has been launched in Sydney. The heads of desk will coordinate teams of specialist chief desk editors. Reporters will file copy to just two baskets – Money, Politics & General News, and Companies & Commodities – but these will not be in place from day one. “Our goals are to raise the bar for copy editing, rewrite and headlines and become the most vibrant desk operation in the business. We want the desk to offer a career path rich in opportunity,” Ingrassia said. “One of the most exciting changes is the creation of multimedia ‘hubs’ in each region – a cluster of desks where the regional text editor and her/his deputies will sit with journalists from our pictures, video, online and graphics operations. The aim is to foster greater collaboration across the teams and generate richer multimedia packages for our professional and consumer products. You’ll soon see these hubs start to take shape in London, Singapore and New York. “Together, these moves will create a strong, independent desk that elevates the quality of our journalism and reinforces the checks and balances of the Trust Principles.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Iran’s female ninjas sue Reuters, Tehran bureau closed

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-29T19:06:33+01:00

Reuters Tehran bureau has been forced to close and a group of Iranian martial artists are suing the agency for defamation after a video report described them as “female ninja assassins”. The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has revoked the press cards of all staff in the bureau. Iran’s state-owned Press TV channel ran a television report in February about a group of women in Karaj, outside Tehran, dressing as Japanese warriors to practice the martial art Ninjutsu. Reuters television’s version said “Iran is training thousands of female ninjas as assassins,” ostensibly to defend the Islamic Republic from possible foreign attacks. “The athletes say the Reuters journalist had asked them what they would do if their country came under attack. Reuters used the girl’s patriotic response as an excuse to call them assassins,” Press TV later reported. It said the journalist who conducted the interview left Iran after a court case was opened. New York magazine said on Thursday: “Though the women toss shurikens and deliver crushing roundhouses, it’s all for practice and show – they don’t actually stalk and kill political targets under the cover of night. “Unfortunately, the Reuters story called the ladies ‘assassins’ and alleged that they would be deployed to kill foreign invaders. Other British news outlets repeated the false claim. Realizing its mistake, Reuters quickly corrected the report, but the peaceful martial artists claim that the damage to their reputation has already been done. They’re now suing for defamation of character. As one of them put it: “‘We are taking legal action because the ladies that train in Ninjutsu first and foremost enjoy it as a sport. It’s about working out and staying fit. Reuters has blatantly lied about us.’” Press TV quoted a female Ninjutsu practitioner as saying: “The lady from Reuters asked me only one question which had a very obvious answer. I believe that anyone anywhere in the world would defend his country if it were attacked … but she twisted our words to make us look bad and described us as assassins in the headline of her story.” Reuters corrected the story’s headline, “Thousands of female Ninjas train as Iran’s assassins”, to read “Three thousand women Ninjas train in Iran”. The guidance ministry contacted Tehran bureau chief Parisa Hafezi about the video and its publication, as a result of which Reuters’ 11 personnel were told to hand back their press cards. “We acknowledge this error occurred and regard it as a very serious matter,” editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said on Thursday. “It was promptly corrected the same day it came to our attention. In addition, we have conducted an internal review and have taken appropriate steps to prevent a recurrence.” Adler said that Reuters was in discussions with Iranian authorities in an effort to restore the accreditation. “Reuters always strives for the highest standards in journalism and our policy is to acknowledge errors honestly and correct them promptly when they occur,” he added. All that survives of the erroneous video report online is a slideshow, below. Postscript: The Reuters bureau in Tehran has been closed and correspondents have been expelled on several occasions since the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah. Barry May, now editor of The Baron, was ordered to leave in 1981. ● SOURCE Reuters | New York | Press TV ● SLIDESHOW

Anatole Kaletsky to join Reuters as a columnist

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-28T10:29:18+01:00

Anatole Kaletsky, pictured, award-winning journalist and economist who recently announced he would be leaving The Times, will join Reuters as a columnist in June, Stephen Adler, Reuters editor-in-chief, announced on Wednesday. “We’re thrilled to welcome Anatole to our international team of columnists and to be able to share his incredible economic insight with our customers around the world,” Adler said. “His work will appear not only on our financial and professional platforms, but also on ● Reuters.com and in the International Herald Tribune as part of their ‘Business with Reuters’ arrangement.” Kaletsky, whose last column appears in The Times today, has been the newspaper’s editor at large, writing a weekly column on economics and government, since joining as economics editor in 1990. He is the latest in a line of high-profile writers and editors who have joined Reuters in the last two years, including Sir Harold Evans, former Times and Sunday Times editor, as editor at large. “I am delighted to be joining Reuters because I believe that news and analysis for business readers and policymakers is shifting irrevocably from print to digital,” Kaletsky said. “I think Reuters, with its unrivalled journalistic resources, its worldwide network of professional readers and its understanding of technology, has an excellent chance of creating the world’s leading online news company. After 35 years of working in print media, it will be exciting to work for a company that is constantly evolving to meet the needs of its readers and is determined to ensure the survival of quality journalism in the internet age.” From 1976 to 1998 Kaletsky was a full-time journalist on The Times, The Economist and the Financial Times. His journalism awards include Newspaper Commentator of the Year, Economic Journalist of the Year, European Journalist of the Year and Specialist Writer of the Year. He will be 60 on 1 June. ● SOURCE MarketWatch

Thomson Reuters puts health unit back on the block

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-20T14:09:42+00:00

Thomson Reuters has resumed an auction of its healthcare business, suspended in December due to tough market conditions. Reuters quoted sources familiar with the situation for its report and said Thomson Reuters declined to comment. More than one bidder is vying for the unit, which provides data, analytics and other services related to the industry to companies, government agencies and healthcare professionals, one of the sources told Reuters. A price of $1 billion has been mentioned. India’s Infosys Technologies had been reported close to a deal worth up to $750 million when it was pulled three months ago. That would have been only half of the high end of the $1 billion to $1.5 billion analysts had said was possible. Several new bidders, including private equity firms, have emerged and it appears Thomson Reuters will be able to secure the valuation it was looking for before suspending the sale last year, Reuters quoted one of its source as saying. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters pension funds resume discretionary increases

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-16T14:43:20+00:00

Discretionary increases for retired members of the two legacy Reuters pension funds are to resume. Trustees of the two schemes have also reached agreement on company contributions to reduce the funds’ deficits. Pension increases will be paid in line with increases in the UK Retail Prices Index up to a maximum of 2.5 per cent for each of the next 10 years. The increases will be backdated to 1 January 2012, though they are unlikely to reach pensioners before May or June due to payroll deadlines. Friday’s announcement by trustees of Reuters Pension Fund (RPF) and Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme (SPS) followed completion of negotiations with Thomson Reuters on the funds’ December 2010 actuarial valuations. The negotiations also included a fresh look at the parent company guarantees for the two defined benefit schemes, which are closed to new members. Greg Meekings, pictured, chairman of both funds, said: “I am pleased to say that we have maintained our prudent valuation assumptions and we have agreed a plan with the company to make good the deficit at 31 December 2010 over the next eight years. We have also agreed a substantial increase in the level of Parent Company Guarantee…” The guarantee provides additional support from Thomson Reuters in certain circumstances where the principal employer, Reuters Ltd, is no longer able to support the funds. The additional discretionary increases are consistent with those provided in pensions being earned by current Thomson Reuters employees who are members of the funds. The increases are being funded by the company, which is also funding the deficit incurred since the height of the credit crisis in 2008. Meekings described the arrangement regarding pensioner discretionary increases as satisfactory and “a generous settlement”. He thanked Tom Glocer, who stepped down as chief executive at the end of 2011, and the Thomson Reuters management team. “Tom stood by his commitment that the company would find a solution to the provision of discretionary pension increases from the Fund. I’m sure we would like to wish him all the best for his future now that he has retired,” he told fund members. Pensioners have been vocal in campaigning for restoration of discretionary increases, whose absence over much of the past decade has eroded the value of their pensions. The Pension Review Group formed in 2004 by RPF and SPS members concerned about the performance of the two funds says that since 2002 the purchasing power of their pensions has fallen by 23.3 per cent. For 2008-2011, Reuters pensioners would have needed an increase of up to 14.4 per cent to cover inflation. The PRG welcomed the new agreement, which it said provides a degree of certainty of an increase for the next 10 years. “Obviously, we would have hoped for larger increases each year when the September inflation figures are higher than 2.5 per cent, and also compensation for the loss of value to our pensions over the years when there has been no increase,” PRG chairman Angela Dean said. “However, we have to be realistic and recognise the tough economic climate in which our pension fund has to be managed.” Meekings, in a talk to The Reuter Society on 6 March, endorsed the contribution made by the PRG over the last eight years, saying “the PRG has served us all very well” and adding that it was “a very valuable group”. Dean said: “We should also acknowledge the achievement of the chairman of the Trustees, Greg Meekings, and his colleagues on the managing committees in reaching this settlement, as well the support from Thomson Reuters, and in particular from Tom Glocer, to enable a fair deal to be concluded. “The PRG will not be disbanding, however, and will be monitoring pensions issues both within Thomson Reuters and trends externally.” RPF, founded in 1893, is one of the oldest pension schemes and by far the larger of the two Reuters plans with net assets of £1,163,753,000 on 31 December 2010. On that date it had 7,774 members comprising 703 active members making contributions and accumulating benefits; 5,450 deferred members no longer making contributions but with benefits left in the fund for payment at a later date; and 1,576 pensioner members, including dependants of members who have died, receiving a pension. SPS net assets were £178,252,000. The scheme had 191 members, of whom 12 were active members, 62 deferred members, and 117 pensioner members. ● SOURCE Reuters Pension Fund | Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme | Pension Review Group

Thomson Reuters wins ethics award for fourth year

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-16T09:00:37+00:00

Thomson Reuters has been named one of the world’s most ethical companies for the fourth successive year. The award by the Ethisphere Institute, a business ethics think-tank, recognises exceptional ethical leadership across continents and industries. “Out of a record number of nominations for the award, Thomson Reuters secured a hard-earned spot on the list by implementing and maintaining upright business practices and initiatives that are instrumental to the company’s success, benefit the community and raise the bar for ethical standards within the industry,” a Thomson Reuters statement said. “Our Trust Principals (sic) are an integral part of the way we do business,” said Deirdre Stanley, executive vice president and general counsel. “Being named one of Ethisphere's 2012 World’s Most Ethical Companies for the fourth consecutive year shows that we consistently strive to make a positive impact on society and we are honored to be included.” Ethisphere makes its annual award on the basis of a review of codes of ethics, litigation and regulatory infraction histories; evaluating the investment in innovation and sustainable business practices; looking at activities designed to improve corporate citizenship; and studying nominations from senior executives, industry peers, suppliers and customers. ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Diane Stormont

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-15T09:35:48+00:00

Diane Stormont, who worked for Reuters in Asia from 1986 to 1997, died in Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong on 14 March, succumbing to cancer. Born in 1959, Diane was among a crop of young journalists who arrived in Hong Kong in the early 1980s in the search for work and a fortune. The work, notably at the South China Morning Post, was easier to find than the fortune. She joined Reuters in Hong Kong in January 1986, served as a correspondent in South Korea and carried out a number of fireman assignments. Her final Reuters post was as Hong Kong bureau chief. She said in her biography that her favourite story was Hong Kong’s handover to China in 1997. Her worst assignment was the civil war in Sri Lanka. She developed an aversion to tear gas in Seoul, to teenagers with automatic weapons in the Philippines, and to thugs, whether uniformed, sunglassed, besuited and/or armed with guns or writs. Diane was president of the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club in 1991-92 and president of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents’ Club in 1998-99. After leaving Reuters Diane established a successful Internet and editorial consultancy and, in her spare time, acquired a master’s degree in journalism. Always a whizz with things technological (and infinitely helpful to those of us who aren’t), in 2008 she landed a plum job teaching online journalism at Hong Kong University, a post for which there were no fewer than 150 applicants worldwide. Diane lived in some splendour in a house with a lush garden on Lantau Island along with a small menagerie of pets, which included a hedgehog or two. Generous to a fault, she frequently invited to her home her many friends, colleagues and her students, who cherish memories of splendid, lazy Sunday afternoons with good company, food and wine. Only in the final weeks did her long-standing illness slow Diane down. She was earthily realistic about her survival chances. In her last e-mail to me, on 25 February, she said she planned not to tell too many people about the return of her cancer, which by then was causing her considerable pain. “I know it's probably a bit daft but I don't think I have the stomach on the one hand to chat cheerily and openly about it like some do – or have people being sincere and sympathetic/urging the latest last-ditch miracle cure (coffee enemas, Mexican apricot pits, weird and wonderful stuff from the net, etc.). I know they mean well, but ... “I’m planning to stick to a fairly vague line – ‘receiving treatment’, ‘optimistic’, etc. In reality that’s bollocks of course.” JONATHAN SHARP

Foundation turns focus on Brazil and China

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-09T04:38:13+00:00

The Thomson Reuters Foundation will focus this year on Brazil and China, where its services for NGOs, social entrepreneurs, lawyers and journalists are strongly needed. “We will also organise a crucial conference on women’s rights in partnership with The International Herald Tribune,” chief executive Monique Villa, pictured, said in the charity’s annual report for 2011. “Called Trust Women, this conference will bring together leaders from corporations, law firms, government and civil society to examine what works when women’s rights are placed at the heart of economic and social development.” Villa said 2011 was an award-winning year for the revamped AlertNet, the Foundation’s global humanitarian news site, with extraordinary multimedia stories from the field, including an exclusive reporting trip to North Korea. “Our journalists set the agenda on the human impacts of natural disasters, wars, hunger, disease and climate change. And with the launch of YouTrust, a new multimedia social media platform, our communities of aid workers, lawyers, social entrepreneurs and journalists have a fantastic set of tools to engage others on issues they care about. “TrustMedia too had an extraordinary year, organising more journalism and media-training courses around the world than ever before. In October, the team launched in Egypt Aswat Masriya, a website in Arabic and English to provide fair, independent and accurate news and information around Egypt’s elections.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters Foundation | VIDEO

Reuters shuffles general manager group

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-08T13:57:43+00:00

Stuart Karle, chief operating officer of Reuters news, has shuffled the agency’s general manager group, whose role is to make sure journalists have the best available support and resources to do their jobs safely and effectively, and to represent Reuters within the company and around the world. In Asia, Abi Sekimitsu, who has recently directed the editorial operation in Japan, takes over as general manager, Southeast Asia & the Pacific. She will be responsible for Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. “We’ve taken a different approach in South Asia, which Duncan Pitcairn recently left to become general manager video based in New York,” Karle said in a note to staff. Christina Pantin will take over as general manager South Asia in addition to her duties as general manager, Bangalore, and so will be supervising operation and logistics, as well as coordinating editorial’s partnership with the teams from human resources, public relations, legal, real estate and facilities, finance and security. “To take further advantage of Caroline Drees’ expertise in handling safety and security issues, she will be responsible for those issues in South Asia while continuing in her role as general manager Middle East and Africa,” Karle said. Marius Bosch, bureau chief Southern Africa, is the new deputy general manager for the Middle East and Africa. ● SOURCE Reuters

EU probe into Thomson Reuters data access 'at critical stage'

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-08T15:43:38+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ proposed remedies to settle an investigation into the availability of its data to investors are not sufficient, the European Union’s top anti-trust official said on Thursday. The probe into the company’s possible anti-competitive behaviour, opened in 2009, has “reached a critical stage”, said Joaquín Almunia, the EU’s competition commissioner. The dispute centres around market participants’ access to data. Like other vendors, Thomson Reuters uses short, alphanumeric codes – Reuters Investment Codes (RICs) – that identify financial instruments and their trading locations. Banks, brokers and other financial institutions use them to convert information from Thomson Reuters market data feeds to their own systems. The European Commission has argued that the availability of up-to-date data at a reasonable cost to participants is critical to a competitive market. Its initial assessment of the case found that restrictions imposed by Thomson Reuters created “substantial barriers” for customers to switch to alternative providers. It can fine companies up to 10 per cent of their annual turnover for breaching competition rules. The Commission is examining whether customers could be “locked into” working with Thomson Reuters because rewriting software to replace RICs could be lengthy and costly. “Recently, we have unsuccessfully market-tested a solution offered by Thomson Reuters to facilitate switching,” he said in a speech in Denmark. “We have now reached a critical stage in this investigation. If no effective solution can be agreed upon, then we will have to draw the adequate conclusions.” “Thomson Reuters has just received feedback from the market test, which it is now analysing," the company said. "While we are undergoing this review, it would be inappropriate to comment. However, Thomson Reuters will continue to co-operate fully with the EU while we are engaged in this process.” To settle the case, Thomson Reuters in December proposed that it would allow customers to license additional usage rights for RICs and provide them with information to map RICs to rivals’ codes. Almunia said competitors and investment funds had demanded more concessions. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Reuters prepares to bury Coyote

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-07T13:43:15+00:00

Reuters is preparing for the final shutdown of System 77, the editing system used by its journalists since the 1970s. Most journalists are already filing their stories through its replacement, Lynx Editor. “This will benefit us all because the news data contained in Sys77 is completely stale,” said Stuart Karle, chief operating officer for Reuters news agency. “We can move swiftly on this because even after Sys77 disappears, we will still have back-up editorial systems to support Lynx Editor,” he said in a note to editorial staff. The shutdown will begin in Asia, where the Singapore node of Coyote will be shut down on 17 March. In the rest of the world, the shutdown will be on 16 June. “We understand that this is a big change for people who have had Coyote or Decade on their desktops since they joined Reuters, but we are ready to move forward with the Lynx suite of editorial tools, which we can use to enhance our stories in ways that the old system simply could not manage,” Karle added. He invited ideas for “a suitable burial ceremony for this system, which has served Reuters well over more years than anyone ever expected”. ● SOURCE Reuters

Clients see TR as 'early innovator who fell behind'

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-05T15:42:31+00:00

Thomson Reuters has set up a task force aimed at regaining the company’s position in sell-side trading “where significant numbers of customers see us as an early innovator who fell behind”, financial & risk division chief David Craig told staff on Monday. “In listening to our customers, it’s clear they want Thomson Reuters to succeed. They want to do business with us and reduce their dependency on our competitors. They like our approach, the choice and the openness we offer. But we must first earn their confidence and their business by better understanding them and how they use our products, as well as what they value most,” he said. “This requires us to constantly innovate – particularly on the sell-side where significant numbers of customers see us as an early innovator who fell behind. It’s an urgent priority for many of them that we regain Thomson Reuters position in trading, re-establishing a strong presence in trading communities across the buy- to sell-side and across multiple asset classes. “I’ve seen more feedback on this topic than anything else in recent weeks, both from our customers and our employees, and I want you and our clients to know that we are listening.” Craig announced a special nine-person collaboration & trading community task force that he would chair, working closely with clients on this key priority. Its primary focus would be to create a single, consistent commercial platform that allows the company to effectively support collaboration within key financial communities across all sectors. ● SOURCE Reuters

TR chairman David Thomson's wealth up $53.5 million in a day

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-03-05T11:35:35+00:00

Thomson Reuters chairman David Thomson’s net worth increased by $53.5 million on Friday, according to a new daily ranking of the world’s top 20 billionaires. His fortune is now $22.7 billion. The increase meant that Thomson, pictured, saw a 5.8 per cent rise in his wealth over the past 12 months. The calculation was made by Bloomberg which placed Thomson 19th in its Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 20 wealthiest individuals, launched on Monday. The index excludes Bloomberg founder Michael Bloomberg because the privately-held company said it does not cover itself. Thomson, 54, was described by Bloomberg as the patriarch of Canada’s wealthiest family controlling a media and technology giant as well as large holdings in telecommunications and commodity research through the family investment arm Woodbridge. “Thomson himself is known for large investments in Canadian real estate, a spectrum of art genres and a stake in an NHL hockey team, the Winnipeg Jets,” it added. Top of the billionaires list is Carlos Slim Helu, Mexican telecommunications tycoon, with a fortune of $68.5 billion, followed by Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, $62.4 billion. ● SOURCE Bloomberg

New Bloomberg terminal raises questions at Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-27T15:54:38+00:00

Thomson Reuters staff prepared for client questions following its main rival’s launch of a new flagship market data service. David Craig, who heads the financial & risk business that includes Reuters news agency, circulated a list of customer talking points following the announcement. Bloomberg’s new $100 million user interface is aimed at making its flagship terminal more intuitive and easier for financial clients to search for data and news. It is part of an effort to connect with a new generation of traders who grew up on internet browsers and are more comfortable using a mouse than the company’s customised keyboard. “Bloomberg will get press coverage and attention on this announcement, and we expect comparisons to be made to Thomson Reuters in the media,” Craig told staff on Monday. “In addition, clients may have questions.” Craid added: “With financial & risk now into its third month as a business, we’re already delivering concrete wins for our customers.” He drew attention to print and banner advertising in the Financial Times “demonstrating ownership of the ‘Next’ brand and providing great visibility for Thomson Reuters”. The advertisements promote Westlaw Next, a product for the group’s legal customer base. “We continue to set the pace in our industry in terms of using new, open technologies to deliver easier navigation, better search and more choice – all things our customers for both WestLaw Next and Eikon value enormously,” he said. Thomson Reuters’ Eikon terminal, designed as a platform for dozens of disparate products that resulted from Thomson’s 2008 acquisition of Reuters, was introduced in September 2010. It also offers easier search features and allows customers to build different applications to customise it for their needs. Sales have disappointed Thomson Reuters shareholders, however. The company has more than 400,000 end users across its range of desktop products, of which 40,000 have signed up for Eikon, including 16,000 that have installed the product and are considered active users. Bloomberg edged out Thomson Reuters last year in the $25 billion sector for market data and analysis, taking a 30.44 per cent share compared with Thomson Reuters’ 30.05 per cent according to New York consulting firm Burton-Taylor International. Thomson Reuters said the Burton-Taylor survey focused on terminal sales and did not reflect other market segments the company serves in the financial & risk unit, where revenue also comes from sales of feeds, foreign exchange products and compliance and regulatory products. ● SOURCE Reuters | Paid Content

Thomson family affirms importance of Reuters news – Stephen Adler

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-25T15:19:23+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ business leaders and its majority shareholders – Canada’s Thomson family headed by chairman David Thomson – have strongly affirmed that news is core to the products and services it provides and to the mission of the company, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler told editorial staff. Following a meeting with the company’s leadership team at which he was asked to report on progress, Adler said he had never been more optimistic about the opportunities ahead, the support Reuters News has from the company, or the significant impact everyone can make in 2012. “No news organization is as well positioned as Reuters to excel in the coming months and years: We are global in a global economy and digital in a digital world, with a multi-talented team, a passion for great journalism, a strong business model, and the staunch support of the company’s leaders and its majority shareholders and board of directors,” he said in an internal message titled Our Path Ahead. Adler, who became editor-in-chief in February 2011, said his presentation to editorial staff reflected conversations within Reuters News all year long, including as recently as his “Town Hall meetings” in London last week. Summarising his remarks, Adler said: “Our goal at Reuters News is to achieve journalistic excellence, harness that excellence to benefit our users, and thereby strengthen Thomson Reuters’ individual businesses and the company as a whole. “We aim to be the best journalism organization in the world – best at being fast, accurate, and fair and best at offering insight, originality, and depth. “Being fast, accurate, and fair remains absolutely essential to Reuters coverage, and we are committed to preserving and extending our leadership in this area. As news providers proliferate and standards waver elsewhere, our rock-solid reliability becomes an even stronger competitive advantage for us. And of course it is mandated by the Trust Principles. “While fast, accurate, and fair are absolutely necessary, they are no longer sufficient in a changing company and a changing world. Our users also seek ideas and deeper understandings, so they can make smarter business decisions, advise clients more intelligently, achieve fresh insights, and influence the global conversation. Meeting these needs has become a bigger imperative as Reuters News has come to serve all the company’s businesses – traders and Media clients to be sure but also investment bankers, investment advisers, wealth managers, lawyers, accountants, compliance officers, and the scientific and pharma communities, among others. Facts alone are not enough for this demanding customer base – insights that can spur actions are also essential. “Our mantra of news AND insight also reflects external changes, as a flood of basic news and information becomes available free via the web and social media. In this environment, we must differentiate ourselves by adding value – through our trustworthiness and our insight – lest we fall victim to the commoditization that has undermined the businesses of other news providers. Hence, we are nourishing Breakingviews, op-ed commentary, enterprise journalism, data mining, innovative video programming, stronger financial graphics, and other ventures that provide differentiated value, while we bolster our training, desk strength, technology, and talent to enhance speed, accuracy, and fairness.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Bloomberg market share edges ahead of Thomson Reuters - US report

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-24T09:34:58+00:00

Bloomberg pulled ahead of Thomson Reuters in their share of the market data and analysis industry for the first time in 2011, according to a US report. Bloomberg had a market share of 30.44 per cent last year compared with Thomson Reuters’ 30.05 per cent, the report by Burton-Taylor International Consulting said. Crains New York Business said Bloomberg’s move into first place “has coincided with troubles at Thomson Reuters, which replaced its CEO at the end of last year following disappointing results for the Eikon market-data desktop product that the company launched in 2010”. Overall spending on market data and analysis reached a new high in 2011, growing 6.1 per cent over the prior year to $24.94 billion, according to Burton-Taylor. Even so, the year ended on a down note amid “uncertainty in the Western European economies and late-year contraction by market data users,” Douglas Taylor, managing partner of Burton-Taylor, said in a statement. “Much of the revenue growth was the result of price increases, currency conversions, and non-data related turnover such as transaction fees,” he said. Bloomberg has been gaining on its rival for years, Crains said. In 2007, the year Thomson and Reuters agreed to merge, Bloomberg had 26 per cent of the market, against Thomson Reuters’ 36 per cent. “Completed in 2008, the merger made the global giant less competitive for a while, as management focused on integrating two companies in what would soon become a tough economic climate. And by the time Eikon was launched, its customer base was still recovering from a devastating recession. “‘They were trying to rebuild a new company and build a new product at the same time,’ Mr. Taylor said in an interview. ‘Bloomberg, even in difficult economic times, sticks to its knitting’.” A spokesman for Thomson Reuters declined to comment, Crains said. ● SOURCE Crains

Reuters wins five US journalism awards

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-24T08:11:03+00:00

Reuters has won five Best in Business Awards presented by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers. “These awards, which honor excellence in business and financial journalism across all platforms, reflect the success of our efforts in on-the-ground news coverage, investigations, and ground-breaking commentary,” said editor-in-chief Stephen Adler. He listed the winners as ● Reuters coverage of the Libyan revolution, which included scoops on Muammar Gaddafi’s death and the capture of his son, was selected as a winner in the Breaking News/International category. ● Scot Paltrow’s investigation into banks’ use of robo-signing won in the Explanatory/News Agency category. ● Paltrow also picked up an award in the Feature/News Agencies category for “The Congressman with Banks on the Side,” which exposed how Representative Phil Gingrey has flouted House ethics and financial disclosure rules for years. ● Jack Shafer’s “feisty and funny” media columns received an award in the Opinion & Column/News Agencies category. ● Breakingviews agenda-setting commentary won in the Opinion & Column/Digital category. The awards will be presented on 17 March in Indianapolis. ● SOURCE Reuters | SABEW

Reuters changes editorial priorities in quest for Pulitzers

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-23T07:49:11+00:00

Reuters is adopting a new editorial approach aimed at winning Pulitzer Prizes: long, in-depth, investigative special reports from all bureaux. In the longer term the organisation will have fewer journalists; they will be better paid. There will be strict attention to performance and greater staff turnover; foreign postings will be longer than the usual three years; international assignment packages will be eliminated. This was the essence of a briefing for European chief correspondents given at a recent meeting in London called by editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, his deputy Paul Ingrassia and Stuart Karle, chief operating officer for Reuters news agency, according to various accounts of the session by people present. Under the new dispensation correspondents will have to set themselves a minimum target for long-form investigative takeouts and keep to it. During a recent visit to European bureaux Ingrassia contrasted what he termed “adrenaline journalism” – the traditional wire service story flow – with “aspiration journalism” – the new investigative writing at length that is now being pushed for editorial operations. Spot news is still wanted but the benchmark should be set higher, chief correspondents were told. It is up to bureau chiefs to decide where that level will be and what stories can be ignored. Asked about the business case for such a radical switch in journalistic priorities, the editorial chiefs said the chairman and majority owner David Thomson wants Pulitzers, and this is the only way Thomson Reuters can get them. He is a very rich man – the world’s 17th wealthiest billionaire according to the most recent Forbes magazine reckoning – and that is what he wants, chief correspondents were told. Thomson admired what Sir Harold Evans, appointed Reuters editor-at-large last June, did with The Sunday Times and its Insight team of investigative journalists when he was the British broadsheet’s editor three decades ago. That is what he wants from Thomson Reuters journalists and that is how it has got to be, the new editorial leaders said. Adler, appointed editor-in-chief a year ago, said Reuters often wins the newsbreaks and follow-up stories in the weeks and even months after an event but it is not very good at keeping after a story over the long term. Not everyone can be an investigative reporter at the same time. Bureaux will have to cover day-to-day beats when a specialist reporter is busy on his special report. Adler said the ● reuters.com website – re-designed in December 2009 and again last July to make it more “consumer-facing” – will be thoroughly revamped over coming months. It is intended to make the site a window attracting a much wider audience for the organisation’s paying services, partly with special reports. The aim is to make Thomson Reuters a better Financial Times – a “free newspaper on the site” in the words of one of the executives. Reuters has been on an editorial hiring spree over the past year, attracting high-profile American editors and writers with a pedigree of Pulitzers and other US journalism prizes in their resumés. But the pace of staff turnover is too slow for new and better people to be brought in quickly enough. “We need to be much more strict on performance,” the chief correspondents were told. The new editorial leadership favours longer postings – five or six years and more – if staffers are performing. The new leadership wants experts on their beats. Travel and entertainment costs linked to special reporting will not be cut. “Our specialists will need to cultivate their sources.” International assignment packages, of which there are about 300, will be eliminated.

Pearson denies FT is for sale - to Thomson Reuters or anyone

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-10T11:42:27+00:00

The Financial Times is not for sale, its owner Pearson said on Friday in a sharp slap-down of a report that Thomson Reuters was in “clear discussions” to buy the newspaper. “The FT is a very valued and valuable part of Pearson. It is not for sale,” the publisher’s press office said in a Twitter post following the report in The Guardian. The paper’s US media blogger Michael Wolff, in a report on Thursday, said the rumour was raised over lunch with someone he described as “a senior Thomson Reuters executive”. ● SOURCE Twitter

FT, after spurning Bloomberg offer, rumoured talking to Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-10T06:14:25+00:00

Thomson Reuters as owner of the Financial Times? It’s no more than a rumour, but one discussed publicly and at length by a media commentator after lunch with a senior Thomson Reuters executive. The hypothesis, reported in The Guardian on Thursday, is based on a passing remark by the unnamed executive about how the company might use the FT. The executive also spoke about how Bloomberg might use the FT. “Then it trips out, according to my friend – said quite unselfconsciously, rather as though it should be obvious to all; for a moment, I actually think I’ve somehow missed the story – that the FT, having flirted with and then turned down an acquisition offer from Bloomberg, is now talking to Thomson Reuters,” Michael Wolff wrote. “I should qualify my source: he or she is not from the deal-making side (where they keep their mouths shut or, at least, more carefully confide), but someone likely to be consulted by the deal-making side. My source, by the way, has been usefully loose-lipped before, when in the woe-is-me-what’s-going-to-happen-to-us mood of so many media people.” Wolff wrote: “For good measure, my lunch companion also says that at Thomson Reuters, they believe that the Wall Street Journal’s parent, News Corporation, will sell the Journal in two years, give or take – an actuarial (New Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch [a former Reuters director], who protects the money-losing WSJ, will shortly be 81), as much as a business analysis. “True, my companion clearly wishes for an FT or WSJ acquisition by Thomson Reuters to be true; so wishfulness may be coloring his sense of corporate ambition and the likelihood of a transaction. After all, the Thomson company, which owned papers in Canada and London, is one of the few newspaper companies – perhaps, the only one – to have mostly exited the business, reinventing itself, at great profit, as a modern, specialized, high-value, information company.” Even when Thomson bought Reuters in 2007, it bought it not for its legacy news operation, but for its much greater business information assets, Wolff wrote. “Bloomberg, for its part, generates the overwhelming share of its revenues from its terminals and financial data products. Journalists work for Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg only at some sufferance – they aren’t really needed.” Back at the Thomson Reuters office after lunch, Wolff asked his source “How solid is this?” “After the sinking sensation of realizing that foot may have been put in mouth, the source shuts the office door and says: ‘Solid. Solid. Really. Still at an informal level of conversation …’ – a slight retreat – ‘but in clear discussions.’ In other words, even if true, it could be a business lifetime until an agreement. Still. The logic of a deal can almost be as good as a deal.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

Thomson Reuters resilient in tough times - James Smith

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-09T15:16:46+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ latest financial results – a steep quarterly loss following a $3 billion charge related to the falling value of its financial services division – once again demonstrated the resilience of the business in demanding times, chief executive James Smith said in a rallying call to staff on Thursday. The $3 billion write-down – “a non-cash charge for goodwill impairment” – does not reflect lack of confidence and the financial foundation of the business remains strong, he told the group’s 55,000 staff. Smith, who took over from Tom Glocer on 1 January, said he looked forward to the year ahead with confidence, both because of the company’s time-tested resilience and because of the dramatic steps taken in recent months. “Our management team is stronger and we are taking steps to make our organization simpler. We are putting the customers back where they belong – at the heart of everything we do – and we’ve got important product and service improvements planned for 2012… “I am realistic about the turbulent markets we will face this year. But I also know that dramatic change presents dramatic opportunity.” The more dynamic and challenging the environment for the world’s professionals, the more complex the regulations, the more value Thomson Reuters could provide. Smith said the $3 billion “accounting adjustment” reflected the fact that the external world – and market valuations – had changed since Thomson completed the Reuters acquisition in 2008. It also reflected the fact that the company had yet to achieve the performance expected from some of the businesses in the former markets division. “It is important to note that this non-cash charge will not impact the company’s normal business operations nor will it affect liquidity or cash flow from operations. Nor does it reflect a lack of confidence: I am fully confident that our Financial & Risk business can achieve organic revenue growth in the mid-single digits. The financial foundation of our business remains strong. “Today’s action puts the past behind us and sets our focus squarely on the future,” Smith said. Across the organisation work was well under way on key priorities for this year. He enumerated these as ● kick-start the growth engine in Financial & Risk ● invest in higher growing segments and adjacent businesses ● exploit the strengths of Thomson Reuters’ global franchises ● accelerate development of the business in fast-growing geographies. Smith said news and insight would become part of the basic fabric of all the group’s flagship products. “We have the biggest and best news organization in the world and no one is better positioned as THE source for market-moving news.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

$3 billion hit pushes Thomson Reuters into heavy loss

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-09T15:03:11+00:00

Thomson Reuters revealed a $3 billion charge on Thursday related to the declining value of its troubled financial services business, swinging the company to a steep quarterly operating loss. The loss for last three months of 2011 was $2.59 billion, a sharp contrast to $307 million profit a year earlier. The charge reflects turmoil in the group’s markets division, whose flagship desktop product Eikon has not been taken up by as many customers as forecast. That lead the division to report quarterly revenues just one per cent higher at $912 million. The company said there were now 15,000 active Eikon installations compared with 8,000 in September. Thomson Reuters has suffered in the wake of the financial crisis, with customers in banking and finance laying off tens of thousands of employees and slashing costs. It was the first quarterly report under James Smith, who took over as chief executive from Tom Glocer on 1 January following a series of management shake-ups. “We have simplified our organisation; we have strengthened our management team; and we are making progress toward improving our execution capability,” the new CEO said in a statement. The $3 billion charge was the result of the company’s annual goodwill testing. “This non-cash charge will not impact the company’s normal business operations, nor will it affect liquidity, cash flow from operations or financial covenants under the company’s outstanding public debt securities or syndicated credit facility,” it said. Overall revenues for the quarter were up five per cent before currency changes to $3.35 billion, thanks to strong sales in the group’s legal and tax and accounting businesses. Thomson Reuters said it expects 2012 revenue to grow in the low single digits. “The guidance is prudent, as it should be,” Claudio Aspesi, senior analyst at Sanford Bernstein, told Reuters. “My concern is that headwinds in financial services will be very hard because employment will continue to be under pressure. Financial markets and legal both will be under continued revenue pressure in 2012 and beyond. At some point the question of whether the cost structure is in line will have to be answered,” he added. Thomson Reuters said it intended to sell three businesses: Tax & Accounting's Property Tax Services; Legal's Law School Publishing business; and Financial & Risk's eXimius business, which is part of the Retail Wealth Management organisation. The three businesses combined had about $155 million of revenue in 2011. ● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times

David Schlesinger, former editor-in-chief, quits

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-09T00:42:09+00:00

Former editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, pictured, is leaving Thomson Reuters. After a quarter century, it’s time for something new, he told colleagues on Thursday. He said he had decided to leave in August. He did not say what would come next. “I’m planning to stay in Hong Kong for a while.” “It has been a great ride, firstly in editorial and latterly with a tremendous China team – wonderful people, great experiences, amazing stories,” Schlesinger said. Schlesinger, 51, joined Reuters in 1987 as a correspondent in Hong Kong. From 1989 to 1995 he managed Reuters editorial operations in Taiwan, China, and the Greater China region. He was appointed editor-in-chief in January 2007 after a spell as global managing editor. He became chairman, Thomson Reuters China, in February 2011 when Stephen Adler was appointed editor-in-chief. “I loved being editor-in-chief; I’ve had a blast being Chairman, China; I’m happy to be able to end it like this,” he said.

Reuters UK journalists accept new pay offer, call off strike

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-08T13:52:31+00:00

Reuters journalists in Britain called off plans to strike hours before a midnight deadline after accepting an improved pay offer on Wednesday. London-based members of the National Union of Journalists voted to accept a three per cent pay increase offered by Thomson Reuters with a raise of at least 2.5 per cent guaranteed for all journalists and the rest dependent on individual performance. Union members last week rejected an offer of a minimum 1.75 per cent increase and called on about 150 staff to strike on Thursday and Friday. “The settlement redefines the relationship between the NUJ and the Company and puts us on track to work constructively on urgent issues of pay transparency and a new house agreement,” a joint statement by union officers Mike Roddy and Helen Long and editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said. Adler said separately from New York: “I'm especially heartened that everyone involved worked so hard to reach an agreement that enables us to keep publishing the outstanding journalism our customers rely on in London and around the world.” He added: “We listened to the NUJ’s concerns and, during extensive negotiations, went back with an improved pay offer.” The agreed three per cent increase includes a minimum pay raise of 2.5 per cent and an additional 0.5 per cent available for merit raises. The threatened 48-hour stoppage had been timed to coincide with Thomson Reuters’ 2011 full year and Q4 earnings announcement due on Thursday. The last strike at Reuters was in 1980 when The Newspaper Guild of New York went on strike for three weeks in support of a pay claim. NUJ members stopped work in solidarity. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters launches new safeguards for initiative journalism

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-03T15:29:02+00:00

Reuters is instituting a new system of story proposals for initiative journalism. Reporters must tell editors in advance of writing what kinds of sources and statistics or data will be used and whether the story will need to be read for legal reasons or potential risk to the organisation’s reputation. The new system comes just a week after Reuters was embarrassed by a story that required complex corrections to put right multiple factual errors. The episode became a journalistic talking point and dismayed old editorial hands. No connection with what was described in-house as a fiasco and a disgrace was made by Paul Ingrassia, deputy editor-in-chief, in a note on Friday announcing the new system. The reason, he said, was to better focus journalists’ time and talent. “It will help the editors ensure that the time you are devoting to enterprising journalism is well spent,” he told staff. “Reuters is the best real-time news organization in the world – and we intend to solidify our dominance as such,” he said. “Let me reinforce that crucial point: Our commitment to being the world’s best real-time news service isn’t changing. But the world is evolving. Our customers demand more of us than ever before – not only fast, accurate and fair real-time news, but also deep and proprietary insight into the companies, markets, governments, people, trends and ideas shaping our world. That means we need to do more initiative journalism – stories with original findings that wouldn’t see the light of day if we didn’t undertake them for our readers.” Items that need to be proposed are any story tagged Analysis, Feature and Insight. Brief proposals are to be filed by a reporter’s manager, via e-mail, to regional special top-news distribution lists. The e-mail must explain what the story will say and why it matters. “Very briefly describe the kinds of sources and stats or data that will be tapped. If the story will need to be read for legal or reputational-risk reasons, briefly flag that in the proposal. Run the idea by your manager. Your manager will vet and file the proposal.” Editors will reply to the e-mail quickly giving the idea a thumbs up or thumbs down and assign an editor who will work with the reporter to deliver the story in good condition, Ingrassia added. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters holds lead in market data race

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-03T15:08:04+00:00

Thomson Reuters remains ahead of its rival market data providers in the $24.5 billion global financial information business but Bloomberg is catching up despite the downturn in financial markets that has hit their revenues. Thomson Reuters leads with about $7.6 billion and Bloomberg is next with about $7.3 billion. The two are the market leaders by far with about two-thirds of the total market for financial information, according to a commentary in Forbes magazine. “If current trends continue with banks cutting staff and spending, 2012 is shaping up to be a tough year in finance,” said Tom Groenfeldt, a writer on finance and technology. ● SOURCE Forbes

Stephen Adler: We respect right to strike

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-03T12:58:18+00:00

Reuters respects the right of journalists to strike, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said after the National Union of Journalists called on its members to stop work for two days next week. “We have been informed by the NUJ that approximately 150 of our staff members are being called upon to strike on Thursday 9 February and Friday 10 February. We regret to hear this and have put in place contingency plans to ensure that Reuters continues to deliver the quality journalism that our customers rely on during this period,” Adler said. “We respect the right of our colleagues to engage in this job action as part of the bargaining process and look forward to welcoming them back to work on their next work day.” The stoppage is over a below-inflation pay offer. Some 83 per cent of NUJ members at Thomson Reuters voted in favour of strike action. The strike will be the first at Reuters in 25 years. It will start on the day that Thomson Reuters announces its 2011 and Q4 financial results. ● SOURCE The Guardian

UK journalists vote to strike next week

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-02T15:09:38+00:00

Unionised journalists working for Thomson Reuters in Britain voted to strike next week over pay disputes with the group. The 48-hour stoppage by members of the National Union of Journalists will be on Thursday 9 February and Friday 10 February. It will coincide with the group’s 2011 full year and Q4 earnings announcement due next Thursday. There was 83 per cent support among NUJ members for industrial action over the union’s disputes with Thomson Reuters arising from its 0.70 per cent pay increase across the board for 2011 and proposed 1.75 per cent this year. “Thomson Reuters must shoulder the responsibility for this dispute,” said NUJ chapel officers Mike Roddy and Helen Long. “The company ignored repeated warnings that members had reached a tipping point, after years of below inflation pay rises, combined with rising costs, that are pricing many members out of their jobs. Those with families who cannot afford to live in London are especially feeling the pain as they are forced to commute into the capital on the most expensive train lines in Europe. “We hope management will now listen to its journalists and return to the table with a sensible offer to avert a costly strike.” NUJ deputy general secretary Barry Fitzpatrick said: “This strike is about fairness. The management is proposing a below-inflation pay deal, while holding back money for a merit scheme. This is just not on. While our members struggle to make ends meet on their wages, the management should be putting all the money into an across the board pay increase.” ● SOURCE Press Gazette

Bloomberg to open new front in war with Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-02-01T03:31:54+00:00

Bloomberg is set to launch a new front in its war with Thomson Reuters by offering a free and open software interface that aims to bypass RICs, the lucrative code for identifying securities on terminals. The New York-based group has developed a tool that allows financial institutions, rival data vendors and software developers to connect and adapt their increasingly complex trading and data connections through a single source at no cost, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. It also represents part of Bloomberg’s push to build on Thomson Reuters’ long-running dispute with European anti-trust officials into the market access codes. At the same time the increasing automation of trading is putting pressure on providers of market data terminals to open up their data feeds. The fragmentation of markets into new trading platforms has forced many investors to connect to multiple data feeds, ratcheting up their IT costs. By offering a free interface, Bloomberg is hoping to to provide a tool that allows investors to both cut costs and circumvent its rivals’ market access codes and win market share. “Bloomberg is a fierce competitor to Thomson Reuters, which two months ago announced that Tom Glocer would stand down as chief executive to be succeeded by Jim Smith, a long-time Thomson executive with a mandate to improve its core financial data product, Eikon, and technology and customer service,” the FT reported. “Burton-Taylor Consulting has estimated that Bloomberg has gained market share on Thomson Reuters in the last four years.” RICs – Reuters Instrument Codes – are short alphanumeric codes that identify financial instruments and their trading locations, and are used by banks, brokers and other financial institutions to convert information from Thomson Reuters market data feeds. But they could not be used to translate data from rival market vendors like Bloomberg or Fidessa, a process known as mapping. The European Commission is examining whether customers could be locked into working with Thomson Reuters because rewriting software to replace RICs could be lengthy and costly, the FT said. “Bloomberg’s move could force Thomson Reuters to further weaken its policy on RICs and push the US data group into hitherto closed markets. ‘We sell market-data services. We want these systems to be easy to use,’ Shawn Edwards, chief technology officer at Bloomberg, told the Financial Times.” Last month Thomson Reuters proposed to the European Commission that it allow customers to licence additional usage rights for RICs and provide them with information to map RICs to rivals’ codes. The move could make it easier for financial institutions to switch between different data providers and help Thomson Reuters avoid a potential fine. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Multiple corrections on US story earn Reuters a black mark

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-30T03:29:17+00:00

Reuters has been taken to task in the United States over a story that required complex corrections to put right five factual errors and became a larger talking point than the article itself. The story last Thursday looked at what it called the “unlikely” vice-presidential prospects of Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio. The headline said “Florida’s Rubio a star, but an unlikely VP pick” for the Republican nominee’s running mate in this year’s presidential election. “Former Reuters staffer and current Washington Examiner senior editorial writer Philip Klein called it a ‘hit piece’ and Daily Caller was early to spot problems with the reporting,” said The Poynter Institute, a journalism school at the University of South Florida, St Petersburg. “Politico’s Dylan Byers has also been on the story, and notes that Reuters is not talking publicly about what happened. “One senior staffer at Reuters described the episode to me as a ‘fiasco,’ another as a ‘disgrace’,” a Poynter writer wrote on the institute’s website. “It was so bad, in fact, that the editors and writer involved have been asked not to talk about it. (I reached out to editors David Lindsey and Eric Walsh, but have not heard back.)” Poynter said a correction had been added to the story, “but one thing to note is Reuters’ correction style isn’t well-suited to public consumption, as it’s more to geared towards the company’s newswire clients. As a result, the Rubio correction reads more like a list, offering no context or acknowledgement that the story suffered from serious problems. But at least you can see the errors that had to be fixed.” The correction: (Removes words “and at times has had difficulty paying his mortgage,” paragraph 7; removes “he did not make payments on a $100,000-plus student loan” and instead states “he did not pay down the balance of a $100,000-plus student loan,” paragraph 10; removes “he was caught up in an Internal Revenue Service Investigation” and instead states “his name surfaced in an Internal Revenue Service investigation,” paragraph 12; removes “voted against Sonia Sotomayor, Obama’s Supreme Court nominee” and instead states “opposed President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor,” paragraph 41; removes “voted against Obama’s healthcare overhaul” and instead states “opposed Obama’s healthcare overhaul,” paragraph 41) ● SOURCE Poynter | The Newspaper Guild of New York

Doing ‘the happy dance’ at Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-30T03:21:00+00:00

Reuters, which earns its revenue from electronic information, is seriously considering getting into the print business after producing a one-off magazine for the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos last week. Some 5,000 copies of the 64-page proof-of-concept publication were printed for Davos and another 6,000 for clients and others. “I would be very surprised if there wasn’t a print product in our future,” said Jim Impoco, executive editor of Thomson Reuters Digital. “We’re having pretty extensive conversations about it right now … “We feel there is an opening for a magazine along these lines, a sophisticated, well-designed magazine that doesn’t dumb down” its financial, business and foreign policy coverage, he told The Poynter Institute, a journalism school at the University of South Florida, St Petersburg. Impoco said the magazine was assembled over about two months, starting in October when editor-in-chief Stephen Adler posed the idea to him. “Steve Adler and [chief executive] Jim Smith and key players at the company seem to be very excited about it,” Impoco said. “We’re sort of making this big consumer-facing push, and what better to hit people with than a lush magazine that you can sort of cuddle up with?” But, Impoco said, “Let’s keep it in perspective … We are digital natives. We believe in electronic news. Every day we do the happy dance because we don’t have a legacy product dragging us down … We are afforded the luxury of trying something like this.” There’s one thing the magazine is not, said Poynter: the “first-ever” Reuters magazine. “A previous version was discontinued at some point, which Impoco said he just learned on Wednesday.” ● SOURCE Poynter

Sell Thomson Reuters, Goldman Sachs tells investors

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-26T14:41:30+00:00

A Sell recommendation put Thomson Reuters shares under pressure on Thursday after Goldman Sachs cited concerns that job cuts at banking and financial customers will hurt results through this year. The New York-based investment bank downgraded the stock from Neutral. Thomson Reuters’ financial services clients account for nearly 50 per cent of its revenues and Goldman believes the job cuts could amount to a three to five per cent drop in the number of users for the group’s desktop products in 2012. “Thomson Reuters operates on a subscription model that means events from one year tend to impact the following year more profoundly, meaning deterioration from late last year will flow throughout 2012 results,” said Brian Karimzad, who is rated as a five-star analyst for the accuracy of his earnings estimates on Thomson Reuters. He also believes operating expense pressure at banks will limit the company’s pricing power. The downgrade was the first analyst recommendation on TRI since chief operating officer James Smith replaced Tom Glocer as chief executive on 1 January. “While we have confidence in Thomson Reuters’ new management team, we see few ‘quick fixes’ addressing deteriorating market share resulting from misdirected product development in the space,” Karimzad said. He is in the minority of analysts urging investors to sell. Of the 19 analysts covering the stock, three rate it Sell, 13 have a Hold and three a Buy or a Strong Buy recommendation. Goldman cut its six-month price target on the stock by $3 to $25. ● SOURCE The Globe and Mail

Reuters editorial desk shake-up in drive for quality

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-24T14:30:16+00:00

Reuters editorial’s global desk structure is being re-organised with the aim of “becoming the world’s leading provider of news and insight”. There will be a single unified desk in each of the organisation’s three regions – Asia; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Americas – handling copy filed to two baskets divided by subject area: companies, commodities and energy stories in one and political and general, economics and markets stories in the other. Overnight desk staffing in Europe and the Americas will cease. “It’s the end of the World Desk as we know it,” one editorial insider commented. “The reorganisation is not about saving money or cutting staff,” said a joint internal announcement by Ciro Scotti, deputy editor, Americas; Matthew Tostevin, desk editor in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Jean Yoon, Asia desk editor. “It’s about quality.” The goals are: ● Further improve the quality of editing ● Reinforce standards to build a better capability for publishing and packaging our stories ● Preserve the specialist knowledge essential to writing for specific audiences ● Overhaul our ability to carefully edit and improve long-form stories. “By unifying our regional desks, we will reinforce their importance to the heart of the news file and offer greater opportunities for talented journalists to make a career of desking or to use their experience as a springboard to advance within Reuters. We will improve consistency globally and be able to manage deskers and story flow more efficiently. One of the early goals will be to improve our international media monitoring so that we can end overnight desk staffing in Europe and the Americas.” “Deskers will work ever more closely with news editors and bureaus to improve copy as needed through high-quality editing and rewriting. There will be tighter coordination between the Desk, Top News, and Enterprise teams.” The new regional desks will be up and running by the end of February. “These global improvements are vital for taking our news and insight to an even higher level. We look forward to everybody’s help in making sure they deliver the benefits they must.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters launches YouTube channel aimed at consumer TV market

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-19T13:12:34+00:00

Reuters has launched a YouTube channel called Reuters TV covering hard news, finance, politics, technology and special investigations. Reuters said the channel marks its entry into the “rapidly growing business of online video programming” and that it employs a “creative editing style that is suited for internet programming and does not mimic traditional TV”. “This deal with YouTube gives Reuters a way to showcase our collection of talented journalists and compelling video from around the world,” said Dan Colarusso, who joined Reuters as global head of programming in November from Bloomberg Television where he was managing editor. “It will offer unique insights and images that other media companies simply can’t match.” The new shows were developed by global executive producer Barclay Palmer. Reuters said “They highlight a high-energy, high-quality production style that is unique to any business news broadcasts on traditional television.” The 10 programmes featured on the channel are ● Reuters Investigates, featuring investigative journalism and special reports from around the world ● The Trail, with political reporters covering the presidential candidates on the campaign trail ● Felix TV, with finance blogger Felix Salmon ● Media Bite, featuring Peter Lauria, editor of technology, media and telecommunications ● Tech Tonic, with Anthony De Rosa, Reuters Digital’s social media editor ● Freeland File, with digital editor Chrystia Freeland interviewing top newsmakers ● Fast Forward, hosted by Chrystia Freeland and featuring Reuters’ top commentators and journalists ● Money Clip, with Lauren Young, personal finance editor and former editor at BusinessWeek and SmartMoney ● Rough Cuts, with Jen Rogers, showcasing news video that video journalists shoot around the world ● Decoder, explaining the key topics in the news. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

CEO James Smith appointed a Thomson Reuters director

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-19T14:24:46+00:00

James Smith, Thomson Reuters’ new chief executive, has been appointed to the board of directors, the company announced on Thursday. Smith, 52, succeeded Tom Glocer, also 52, as CEO on 1 January after three months as chief operating officer. Previously, he had been chief executive officer of the group’s professional division where he oversaw the legal, tax & accounting and intellectual property & science businesses. Smith joined the Thomson Newspaper group in 1987. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Another challenging year for Thomson Reuters - CEO James Smith

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-19T17:04:50+00:00

Two weeks into his new job as Thomson Reuters chief executive, James Smith, pictured, warned staff on Wednesday that 2012 will be another challenging year. Market conditions remain uncertain in many places and quite difficult in others. The lagging nature of the group’s subscription-based business model means that it takes time to turn the ship, especially in choppy seas, he said in a message heralding the beginning of a new year and what he called a new era. “During my break, I could not help but reflect on the opportunity and the responsibility of leading Thomson Reuters as CEO,” Smith told the group’s 55,000 employees. “In thinking about the best way to begin, it was helpful to dream about where I wanted to end. What do I want Thomson Reuters to be known for when my tenure as CEO has ended? “I want us to be known for: “● Our intimate understanding of customers, their needs and how we can help them achieve their business goals; “● The quality of our products; “● The excellence of our customer service; “● The caliber, character and engagement of our people; “● And a level of teamwork that makes possible a truly ‘boundaryless’ organization, where the whole delivers far more than just the sum of its parts. “If we can accomplish all that, the financial results will take care of themselves.” To do that, however, would need change in the way some things are done and focus on new measurements of success. “In the coming weeks, expect to hear more about how we will set targets and keep track of our progress in critical areas like competitive position and customer satisfaction. We will elevate the dialog surrounding new product development and sales effectiveness. We will bring renewed commitment to the development of our people and to improving the diversity of our workforce. And we will address aspects of our performance culture to make sure we all celebrate and share in each other’s successes.” Smith, who took over from Tom Glocer at the turn of the year, added that there would be plenty of tactical priorities and key initiatives to focus on in the coming year. All of them would reflect the long-range goals he had set out. “I have no doubt that 2012 will be another challenging year. Market conditions remain uncertain in many places and quite difficult in others. The lagging nature of our subscription-based business model means that it takes time to turn the ship, especially in choppy seas. “But regardless of the short-term challenges, I am confident that we have begun laying the foundation for a successful future. As I reflected over my holiday break on all the changes we announced at the end of 2011, I could not think of one decision I would have changed. The senior team is in place. It has never been stronger, nor more committed to mutual success… “I have never been more confident of our ability to succeed in the long term. Our best days are ahead of us.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Obituary: Allan Dowd

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-17T23:03:36+00:00

Dedicated master of quirk Allan Dowd, pictured, died this month in a Vancouver hospital at the age of 52. Allan, who delighted in the oddball stories that everyone loves to read, joined Reuters in Vancouver in 1998 after several years working in Maine as a stringer for Reuters, Maine Public Radio and other news organisations. Born in Rochester, New York, where his mother still lives, Allan was an old-school Reuters all-rounder, able to tackle any story that might come up including business, commodities and sports. But he was happiest with politics, general news and brights, where he really made his mark on the news file. His colleagues speak fondly of his dry humour, and of his stories. There was the tale about the sasquatch, and whether it had any connection to the UFO, or the one of the single feet that washed up on BC coasts – four right feet and one left foot, according to a 2008 story – and where they might be from. He could write with sensitivity and tenacity, as shown by his years of coverage of Vancouver’s notorious case of dozens of missing women, and the gruesome trial of murderer Willie Pickton. Allan went to his doctor with what he thought was a mysterious, hard-to-shake cold in July, just weeks after reporting on the rioting that erupted when Vancouver lost in the finals of the Stanley Cup. It turned out to be a particularly aggressive form of lymphoma, and he died on 10 January. His mother, and his sister Laura were with him. Special thanks from the Reuters family to all the Vancouver journalists who stepped in to help when Allan fell sick, but especially to his Reuters colleague Nicole Mordant. JANET GUTTSMAN

FT awards Devin Wenig, ex-markets CEO, for jargon

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-12T10:31:47+00:00

Devin Wenig, the former markets division chief executive who left Thomson Reuters abruptly last July after slower than expected Q2 growth, has been named by the Financial Times as a winner of its annual jargon awards. Wenig, pictured, receives the FT’s so-called guff award for the most spurious use of percentages over 100 per cent, said the newspaper’s associate editor, Lucy Kellaway. Now eBay’s president of global marketplaces business, “He said he was a mere ‘1,000 per cent committed’ to his new job but added an explanation that craftily kept up the mathematical theme. ‘At this point in my career, a big platform, big brand, and global impact were all part of what I was solving for in prioritising opportunities’”. ● SOURCE Financial Times | AUDIO

Reuters hires Pulitzer winner and deputy social media editor

editor@thebaron.info — 2012-01-09T18:32:34+00:00

Steve Secklow, pictured, a former Reuters stringer in Philadelphia who became a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at The Wall Street Journal, is joining Reuters in London as a member of the expanding investigations team. Matthew Keys, another award-winner, has been hired as deputy social media editor. Secklow shared a 2007 Pulitzer with three Journal colleagues for a series on backdated stock options. In 2003 he and Alix Freedman, now Reuters’ global editor for ethics and standards, were Pulitzer finalists for their series on corruption in the United Nations’ oil-for-food programme. He has also won or shared the George Polk journalism award three times, including in 1996 for exposing a Ponzi scheme in a story edited by Stephen Adler, now Reuters’ editor-in-chief. Keys, who will be based in New York and report to social media editor Anthony De Rosa, will produce online content for ● Reuters.com, expand Reuters’ presence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and new platforms, and play a key role in helping to train Reuters journalists on best practices in social media. He was recently nominated for an Online News Association award in the category of “Breaking News excellence” for his coverage of the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster in Japan. Before joining Reuters he was an online content producer and manager for KTXL FOX40, a Tribune Broadcasting television station in Sacramento, and an online news producer for KGO-TV, the ABC affiliate in San Francisco. ● SOURCE Talking Biz News

Thomson Reuters remains committed to Eikon - product chief

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-29T23:55:09+00:00

Thomson Reuters is committed to Eikon, the market data desktop launched with much fanfare in 2010 but poorly received by its target customers, and will be rolling out new capabilities in 2012, the company executive in charge of the product said in an interview on Thursday. “It is still clear to me that the product is the future of the company and that commitment has never waned,” said Philip Brittan, who joined the firm in May and now runs its Eikon group as global head of desktop/mobile platform. “I think it’s exactly the right strategy to bring all of our customers onto one single platform and allow our customers to leverage that set of assets in a much more powerful and flexible way.” Market observers say a confluence of factors contributed to Eikon’s sluggish start, the website Wall Street & Technology said. It said that with the news that chief executive Tom Glocer is stepping down, the industry is questioning what went wrong with Eikon. Thomson Reuters had high expectations for it, reportedly investing close to $1 billion in the product, holding launch celebrations in 78 offices worldwide and live events in 14 cities that brought in Wall Street decision makers for demonstrations and executive speeches. An advertising campaign – the company’s largest in its history – touted the product as a market data platform for “The New Eikons of Finance”. All seemed to be going well. Members of the executive team even rang the New York Stock Exchange opening bell on October 4, 2010, and Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division, gave interviews. “Nine months later Wenig unexpectedly quit along with five key members of staff, after reportedly being asked to make faster and more extensive structural changes than planned. A few months later Glocer expressed regret for the fast pace of Eikon’s launch, and one month after that in early December, the company announced Glocer’s replacement.” Industry experts say that it was a confluence of factors. “In an economy where cost cutting is rampant on Wall Street, it’s hard for any company to make a major platform switch,” says one industry executive, who requested anonymity. In addition to the cost of the new platform, there are integration and training costs associated with a major platform change. These costs are not easy to swallow in a difficult economic environment. The executive added: “Eikon was not nearly as successful as Thomson Reuters would have liked, which is to a certain extent why Devin is gone and I’m sure had something to do with Glocer leaving.” But Brittan says Eikon is exactly where it should be according to the company’s metrics. He admits, as with any new product, there was some “teething” that had to be worked through early on. “There is a process to maturing technology and getting the early kinks worked out,” Brittan says. “There was no one smoking gun that everyone experienced, just some little things like ‘this isn’t showing up right’ or ‘when I do this giant flex sheet it uses a lot of memory,’ or ‘the layout on screen isn’t how I want it’.” These things were fixed very quickly, he said. Brittan says speed was another issue that came up early during the release. “Speed is something that we are constantly optimising,” he says. “Speed of retrieval of news stories was sluggish according to some, and now it is multiples faster. Creating charts and downloading data into excel, all these things are dramatically faster. “The product we have out today is dramatically different from the Version 1 roll out of a year ago,” he explains. “The initial product had some gaps, which we’ve been filling.” Brittan adds: “Our goal is still to transition existing customers to Eikon and to best serve our customers. We’ve got new customers and we’ve got a bunch of customers who have successfully migrated over. We’re not forcing customers to change. We realise it’s an organic thing. We will naturally see the migration in time if the product is the best product. It is relatively new just one year out, so we will move customers at the pace that they want to move.” What’s next? “We'll be rolling out new capabilities on close to a monthly basis. And in six months we’ll have a bunch of new capabilities. I don't want to talk about them. I just plan to deliver them.” ● SOURCE Wall Street & Technology

Those we lost in 2011

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-28T10:04:59+00:00

The following Reuters people died in 2011: ● Sabah al-Bazee, 30, stringer. ● Erdmuthe Greis-Behrendt, 74, former editorial assistant. ● Shaun Best, 43, photographer. ● Pat Caton, 60, former human resources adviser. ● Robert Eksuzyan, 81, former translator. ● Ronald Farquhar, 88, former correspondent. ● Frank Fitter, 79, former economic services editor, staff executive and welfare officer. ● Ron Harris, 86, former staff manager. ● Bill Hartley, 73, former sub-editor. ● John Lawrenson, 80, former executive. ● Allan Maitland, 80, former correspondent. ● Clare McDermott, 82, former correspondent and editor. ● Mark Nichols, former sub-editor. ● Michael Posner, 79, former correspondent. ● Dennis Savage, mid-80s, former commodities journalist. ● Gilbert Sedbon, 94, former correspondent. ● Ron Sly, 83, former chief sub-editor. ● Richard Williams, 56, former correspondent and chief sub-editor. Go to ● RIP for further details

Thomson Reuters pulls healthcare sale

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-22T14:57:59+00:00

Thomson Reuters has suspended the sale of its healthcare business, citing tough economic conditions that made it difficult to fetch the right price. Since announcing the planned divestiture in June, global economic conditions have become more challenging and the company believes they are not conducive to concluding a transaction that reflects the fair value of the healthcare business at this time, a Thomson Reuters statement said on Thursday. “Thomson Reuters is committed to continuing to invest in and grow the Healthcare business until improved market conditions allow the company to complete a divestiture at attractive terms.” Thomson Reuters said the business continues to perform well with strong revenue growth and expanding margins. Results of the business will continue to be included within “other businesses” in group financial statements. The company had previously said the sale of the healthcare unit was not expected to have a material impact on its 2011 outlook. The business supplies healthcare data and analysis to companies, government agencies and health professionals. Revenue was about $450 million in 2010. A company spokesman declined to tell Reuters what parties had considered buying the business or what prices might have been discussed. Two months ago, India’s second-largest software services exporter, Infosys, was said by Indian media to be keen to acquire the business for $700 million to $750 million, but Infosys said it “is not in discussions for the acquisition of Thomson Reuters’ Healthcare business at present”. ● SOURCE Reuters

Changes make TR 'more unified internally' - James Smith

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-19T22:33:11+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ new chief executive James Smith, who takes over from Tom Glocer on 1 January, confirmed two top appointments on Monday and said that after a year of challenges and changes everyone would be relieved “to put this period of realignment behind us”. The changes “will make us more unified internally and more competitive in the marketplace for years to come,” Smith said in a message to employees. He referred to working “to turn the world’s greatest collection of news and information assets into the world’s greatest news and information company”, and said “We have already come a long way since we announced our next generation of business leaders at the beginning of this month.” Following last week’s appointment of Peter Warwick as chief people officer, Smith confirmed Deirdre Stanley as general counsel and James Powell as chief technology officer. “Both of them have remarkable track records and both are committed to working side by side with our business leaders to take this company into a new era,” he said. “All of our organizational decisions are based on straightforward, durable principles: everything starts and ends with the customer, business is a team sport, and simpler is better. During the weeks ahead we will bed down our organizational structure, continuing to streamline the company and push authority, accountability and resources closer to the customer. I know it will be a relief for everyone to have the structure and leadership team firmly in place and to put this period of realignment behind us. “2011 has been a year of challenges and changes. Those changes will make us more unified internally and more competitive in the marketplace for years to come.” Separately, the president of the new financial and risk business unit that includes Reuters news agency, David Craig, told staff that after a year of tumultuous change, 2012 would be a defining year “and I am confident that the team and structure now in place will set us up to re-start our growth engine. There is no doubt that the markets are tough, and are likely to get worse in 2012 – but that should not deter us. Even in a downturn, and in markets that are changing fast, there are opportunities if we are agile enough to seize them.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Editorial jobs go in Toronto, New York, Chicago - reports

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-15T23:55:01+00:00

Reuters is moving its Canada-based online desk to India. Some 17 jobs out of 22 in Toronto are affected. Five positions will remain there. The rest will be taken up in Bangalore. At the same time, other editorial jobs – including those of managers – have also been cut in New York and Chicago this week. The Canadian Media Guild, which represents about 60 people in Reuters’ Toronto office and others across Canada, said 17 permanent and five temporary workers were being cut. They were people who posted news stories and pictures to the ● Reuters website. The online operation has been based in Toronto since 2005. After the cuts, it will have five employees there. The cuts affect roughly one-third of Reuters’ editorial operations in Toronto, said the Guild. Reuters said it had greatly increased the number of website staff over the last eight months. “As part of restructuring of our production staff, we’re moving some roles in our global online newsroom from Toronto to Asia. The online visuals desk remains in Toronto,” the company said in a statement. Staff in New York and Chicago were also laid off. The Newspaper Guild of New York said: “In one of the shabbiest moves made by this increasingly shabby company, seven of our Guild colleagues at 3XSQ and one at the Chicago office were laid off on Monday, December 12. Members of the client administrator group – some of whom have worked here for over 30 years – walked into the office Monday morning only to be told, twelve days before Christmas, ‘Your job is gone, as of today.’ “As soulless as this layoff of Guild members was, it was better than what happened to a handful of editorial managers this week. Upper management simply picked a few and sent them packing. If there’s any question about the worth of union membership, the answer can be found at the empty desks of managers who had no Guild contract.” It added: “This seems standard operating procedure for this new administration: long chirpy emails from the top brass on how well we’re doing and how much high-priced talent we’re hiring, but public silence on the forced departures of the workers who have created this success. There’s one printable word to describe it: shabby.” ● SOURCE The Toronto Star | Canadian Business | Newspaper Guild of New York

Analysts lower TRI price target to $26

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-15T17:46:09+00:00

Equities research analysts at Piper Jaffray lowered their price target on Thomson Reuters shares to $26.00 on Thursday in a research note issued to investors. TRI opened at $26.18 in New York. Thomson Reuters has a 52-week low of $25.58 and a 52-week high of $42.15. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $27.87 and its 200-day moving average is $31.20. The company’s market capitalisation is $21.665 billion and price-to-earnings ratio 15.68. ● SOURCE Localized

Reuters managers leave in end-of-year cull

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-14T22:48:55+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ incoming chief executive James Smith on Wednesday announced the appointment of a chief people officer – Peter Warwick – to take over the human resources function from Stephen Dando on 1 January with support from Dando until the end of March. Warwick is currently chief operating officer of the group’s professional division and has been chief executive officer of the legal and tax and accounting businesses. Dando is one of several Reuters era managers including senior editorial figures said by sources in New York to be leaving the company. Smith, who takes over from Tom Glocer at the turn of the year, said solid progress had been achieved on the Customer First organisational design work and senior leadership appointments. He said it concludes the Thomson-Reuters integration and the company now enters a new era. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Huge challenges for Reuters in 2012 - Stephen Adler

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-14T23:24:57+00:00

Reuters faces enormous challenges in 2012 and beyond, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said on Wednesday. “We must accelerate our pursuit of journalistic excellence, with the understanding that our news is a central resource for Thomson Reuters that must serve all the company’s customers,” he said in an end-of-year message to editorial staff seen by The Baron. “As we’ve discussed many times, winning in our highly competitive markets requires us to differentiate ourselves by offering more value – not just more of the same. We will succeed by providing a combination of smart, forward-looking news coverage, more exclusives, richer enterprise journalism, effective data mining, memorable story-telling, targeted community-building, trenchant commentary and analysis, and better designed, easier-to-navigate news delivery channels.” Adler said: “Throughout the year, many of you have asked: How do we remain fast, accurate, and fair while also providing the depth and insight you keep talking about? How do we consider the needs of a broad customer base when we’ve been asked to focus more narrowly in the past? There’s no easy answer, so we will have to ask the right questions with each assignment. Sometimes the value of a story will come from chasing the news and reporting each incremental move. Sometimes it will come from stepping away from the day-to-day to develop a longer-term story that will ultimately benefit the reader more. Often we will need to operate on two tracks simultaneously, with some people focusing on immediate news and others looking beyond the moment to go deeper and help our coverage win not just the hour or day, but the week, month and year. All this requires judgment more than blanket rules, which is why we’ve tried to cut down on many of the edicts.” Adler said Reuters moves into 2012 with extraordinary backing from the new corporate leadership, the same staunch support received from Tom Glocer and his team in 2011. “Tom’s commitment to excellence, and his clarion call that news is the heart and soul of the company, have brought us to this moment and helped us lay the groundwork for stronger performance in the coming months. We will now be led by incoming CEO Jim Smith, to whom I reported when he was running the professional businesses and I was working to integrate news into their products. Jim spent much of his career in Thomson newspapers and has a deep understanding of, and great passion for, journalism. I can tell you from personal experience that Jim will be an ardent advocate for news quality and editorial integrity. As you get to know him, you'll also find that he is an extraordinary leader who combines great business instincts and discipline with humor, warmth, and decency. “Bottom line: I am optimistic, energized, and eager to embrace the opportunities ahead. Our goal today, as it was when I began the job, is to be the number-one news provider in the world. As before, I’m in favor of anything that gets us there and against anything that gets in the way.” ● SOURCE Reuters

EU to test Thomson Reuters' RICs commitments

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-14T10:46:54+00:00

The European Commission is asking for comments from other market players on commitments offered by Thomson Reuters to address concerns that it is abusing its market position in real-time data feeds. “The commitments proposed by Thomson Reuters should allow financial institutions to switch more easily between different providers of financial data and stimulate competition between data vendors,” competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement on Wednesday. Thomson Reuters offered to allow customers to licence additional usage rights for Reuters Instrument Codes and to provide them with the information needed to cross-reference RICs with other data, the commission said. The codes identify securities used by financial institutions to retrieve data from real-time data feeds. The European Commission opened an investigation into the codes in 2009, saying customers may potentially be locked-in to working with the company because replacing the codes required “a long and costly procedure” to rewrite or reconfigure software applications. The commission was concerned that Thomson Reuters was abusing its dominant market position “by prohibiting customers from using RICs for retrieving data from alternative providers and mapping them for such a purpose to alternative symbols,” the commission said. ● SOURCE Dow Jones

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown becomes Trust Principles trustee

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-12T16:41:10+00:00

Lord Mark Malloch-Brown, pictured, former journalist, international diplomat and British government minister, has joined Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company as a director. Directors of the Founders Share Company act as trustees of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles, which were established by Reuters in 1941 and adopted by the merged company when Thomson Corporation acquired Reuters in 2008. They govern the way in which Thomson Reuters operates throughout the world. “Lord Malloch-Brown is most welcome as a Director and Trustee. He has a wealth of international experience, not least in prominent positions in the United Nations and in world-class NGOs. His background as a journalist is an element that is appreciated in a company such as ours,” said Pehr Gyllenhammar, chairman of the Founders Share Company’s board. Malloch-Brown said: “A free press is as important a guarantee of an open society as any. As media freedom faces new challenges of technology and economics as well as the enduring ones of editorial standards and securing free speech, the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles look more relevant than ever. I am proud to have this opportunity to support them.” Malloch-Brown is chairman of Europe, Middle East & Africa, FTI Consulting. Previously he served as minister of state in the British government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with responsibility for Africa, Asia and the United Nations. He had also served as United Nations deputy secretary-general, administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, vice president of external affairs at the World Bank and founded the Economist Development Report. He worked as a journalist at The Economist and was a political consultant. He is chairman of the Royal Africa Society, trustee of the Shell Foundation and a member of the boards of the International Crisis Group, the Open Society Foundation, Save the Children International, the Centre for Global Development and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation. ● SOURCE Reuters ● Trust Principles

Obituary: Allan Maitland

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-11T12:54:46+00:00

Allan Maitland, pictured, former correspondent and editor, died on Saturday after suffering from lung cancer for five years. He was 80 one month ago. After Cambridge University and military service in Cyprus and Egypt, Maitland joined Reuters as a trainee journalist in 1962. His first posting was to Brazil. He was assigned to Saigon in 1969 to join the reporting team covering the Vietnam War. There he quickly found himself covering a Viet Cong attack on a South Vietnamese military base. Two years ago Maitland recounted his experiences for a multi-media project for the Imperial War Museum in London. Asked how he coped, he replied: “The adrenalin was up and one got on with it.” After Vietnam Maitland reported the conflict in Cambodia and then the Portuguese revolution. He retired in 1990, leaving as associate editor of the staff magazine Reuters World. ● Allan Maitland in Vietnam: ‘The adrenalin was up…’

Tom Glocer might have stayed longer but for 'bad luck and overconfidence'

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-08T22:21:51+00:00

Tom Glocer might have stayed longer as Thomson Reuters chief executive were it not for a mix of bad luck and overconfidence, The Economist said on Thursday. Glocer, whose retirement was announced a week ago, brought Reuters from the verge of bankruptcy to a state of rude health during seven years as the organisation’s CEO, the weekly said. “But he has done less well as chief executive of Thomson Reuters, the company created when Thomson, a Canadian purveyor of professional information for lawyers, accountants and others, bought Reuters in 2008. Bloomberg, the firm’s American rival, has almost wiped out its once-clear lead.” New information platform Eikon, launched last year to compete with terminals offered by Bloomberg, has been taken up by just 8,000 out of Thomson Reuters’ 400,000 financial-data subscribers, The Economist said. “Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg are the big fish in the professional-publishing pond, at least eight times larger than their nearest competitor. Bloomberg, besides expanding its terminals business, which has over 300,000 customers (at about $20,000 a pop), is pushing into government-related news and data… “So what happened to Mr Glocer’s winning streak? His allies say his departure was always just a matter of time: once a firm buys another, it completes the takeover by putting its own people in charge. The Thomson family still owns 55% of the company, and some think the generous price [$17.2 billion] Mr Glocer secured from Thomson for Reuters made him all the more vulnerable. “But he might have stayed longer were it not for a mix of bad luck and overconfidence. Eikon, intended to replace Reuters’ grab bag of services with a single offering, was designed to be more user-friendly than Bloomberg’s devices, but it was launched hastily and with flaws. With hindsight, a more gradual upgrade might have been more prudent.” Perhaps Glocer’s replacement James Smith can do better, The Economist said. “He will almost certainly have a freer hand, and some upgrades to Eikon are planned for next year. But these are still stormy seas.” According to Claudio Aspesi, an analyst at investment bank Sanford C. Bernstein, it took most professional-publishing firms three to four years to recover from the 2001 recession. This time, Bernstein predicts, revenue growth at Thomson Reuters will not reach pre-crash levels until at least 2015. One area of potential growth, though, is trading services. Changes in financial regulation in America and Europe will force a lot of trading in derivatives from the murky world of private “over-the-counter” deals onto exchanges, where contracts will be standardised and prices quoted. This presents both Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg with an opportunity to gather and sell data on these markets and perhaps to capture a share of the trade by linking banks and their clients through their own electronic trading platforms. The market for these derivatives is gigantic. A competitive edge there could make a big difference to both companies’ fortunes. ● SOURCE The Economist

TR: Sorry tale of upheaval, clashes and disappointments - editor

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-07T20:17:57+00:00

The Thomson Reuters merger has not lived up to the expectations of either consumers or shareholders and instead, like so many mergers and acquisitions, it has turned into a sorry tale of upheaval, clashes and disappointments, a London-based editor said on Wednesday. The 2008 acquisition was billed as the deal that would blow rivals like Bloomberg out of the water. The idea was to create a Goliath in the $24 billion market for screen-based financial information that is used by banks and investment institutions around the world, wrote Richard Wachman, City editor of The Observer. “The reality has been a sorry tale of management upheaval, culture clashes and disappointing product launches. In the latest chapter of the saga, chief executive Tom Glocer has announced his accelerated departure amid rumours he is being nudged out by Canada’s Thomson family, the dominant shareholder, and former owner of the Times before Rupert Murdoch,” Wachman wrote in The Observer’s sister newspaper The Guardian. “Analysts say the share price has underperformed and complain that hoped-for synergies and innovation haven’t come through, despite all the trumpet blowing at the time of the transaction. The launch of the company’s new Eikon product was behind schedule and the offering was less robust than the market had envisaged, although adjustments may put that right.” Bloomberg is closing the gap on Thomson Reuters after being well behind four years ago, Wachman said. Florida-based Burton-Taylor International Consulting’s research reveals that in 2007 Thomson Reuters spoke for more than 36 per cent of the market against 25 per cent for Bloomberg. But according to its estimates Bloomberg will have nearly caught up in 2011 with a 30.8 per cent market share against 31.4 per cent for Thomson Reuters. “Something has gone horribly wrong. At the very least, the task of melding these two companies together has been far more complex than originally envisaged. A less kind interpretation is that management, which has cut many hundreds of jobs, has taken its eye off the ball, losing hapless investors billions along the way.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

Reuters extends journalism training to New York and Asia

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-07T18:10:40+00:00

Reuters announced on Wednesday it will extend its journalism trainee programme from London to New York and across Asia. The scheme offers nine months of training for university graduates with a proven interest in financial news and grasp of key economic trends. Working journalists and other professionals wanting to move into journalism can also apply. Applicants should exhibit a passion for journalism with evidence of editorial work experience, a competitive instinct, and speak and write fluently in English. Advanced skills in other languages, particularly Arabic, Russian, Mandarin or German, financial and data expertise, and multimedia will be given special consideration. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said: “We are reinvesting in journalism through this highly competitive training program and, at the same time, strengthening our position as an industry leader. While other news organizations have discontinued similar efforts, Reuters has more than doubled the size of its program. This year, we are proud to offer 15 jobs for trainees who successfully complete the program.” ● SOURCE MarketWatch

New Thomson Reuters CEO backs editorial hiring plans - Stephen Adler

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-07T09:44:08+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ new chief executive James Smith supports Reuters’ editorial growth strategy, Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief, said and will not curtail his hiring spree. “We’re full speed ahead,” Adler told The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch website. Some media analysts aren’t quite so sure, columnist Jon Friedman said. They suggest that Smith’s promotion as replacement for CEO Tom Glocer signifies the company’s desire to undercut Adler’s go-go spending ways. They believe that Thomson Reuters’ challenges will force Adler, appointed to the top editorial job in February, to curtail the big spending and eventually shrink the size of his staff. Friedman said Adler couldn’t have sounded more confident that Smith, who takes over on 1 January, will continue to have “an extraordinary commitment” to Adler’s strategy of investing heavily to strengthen its commitment to enterprise reporting and to recruit journalists such as the WSJ’s Michael Williams and Bloomberg television executive Dan Colarusso. “Adler said he, too, has heard the whispers from Thomson Reuters’ critics but declared: ‘This doesn’t change anything’,” Friedman wrote. “What’s also not likely to change is the industry’s confusion about what Adler wants to accomplish,” Friedman wrote. “Does he want his operation to be true to its roots as a British-based wire service that reports doggedly on financial markets or a gleaming long-form journalism operation that wants to be known for its enterprise and investigative reporting? Can Adler make both sides co-exist?” Adler has tried hard to change the culture of Reuters by wooing a plethora of non-wire-service journalists, Friedman said. “He is betting that he can maintain a strong position in the meat-and-potatoes work of covering the financial markets while making a name for Reuters in enterprise writing. “In his first year, Adler and his team have succeeded in changing the company’s rather stodgy image. Now, they must find a way to continue the momentum at a time when the world at large expects him to rein in his growth plans.” ● SOURCE MarketWatch

Executive changes beginning of the end of turbulent period - new CEO

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-02T14:48:28+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ next chief executive James Smith, pictured, on Friday set out his priorities for the company when he takes over from Tom Glocer on 1 January and said Thursday’s announcement was the beginning of the end of a turbulent period of executive changes. “Thomson Reuters is a company built to win in the information age,” he said in a message to the group’s 55,000 employees. “We have sustainable franchises. We have differentiating competitive advantage in many areas. And – most importantly – we have talented, dedicated people. “We do many things very well. But there are some things we must do better. Yesterday’s announcement sets in place our next-generation leadership team. It is the beginning of the end of a turbulent period of executive changes. As I have said before, I believe business is a team sport.” The executives appointed to head new business units form a world-class team of operators that will lead to great heights in years to come. Among the team’s first tasks will be completion of the organisation design work of the past several weeks. “That effort carries the project name ‘Customer First,’ because we are organizing our business around our customers and their needs. That customer theme is at the top of the list of things we must do better. “Simplifying the organization and our approach to customers is another. Those will be guiding principles.” Smith said he intended to focus on ● Defining and pursuing the most promising growth vectors in financial services ● Continuing to broaden the company’s value proposition beyond core content and research with high-value tools, software and services ● Exploiting its unique position at the intersection of regulation and finance ● Accelerating development of the business in fast-growing geographies around the world ● Simplifying internal commercial policies and practices ● Improving underlying technology platforms and dramatically improving product quality and customer experience ● Making Thomson Reuters the best place in the world to work. Smith, chief operating officer until the change of command takes effect, promised an update on the new operating model before the year ends. He added: “I accepted the CEO job with a great sense of personal excitement and gratitude to the many people who have been responsible for my success. That includes Tom Glocer. His shoes will be impossible to fill; I will have to do the job in my own way. But I also accepted with a deep sense of duty and commitment to the tens of thousands of my colleagues who have dedicated their talents, efforts and professional lives to this organization. Business may begin and end with the customer, but it is the Thomson Reuters people in the middle who make it all happen.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Reuters shakes up global desk operations

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-01T22:18:25+00:00

Reuters announced a major shake-up of its worldwide desk operations after a two-month review. Henceforth there will be a unified desk in each of the organisation’s three regions – Asia; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Americas. In a joint statement to staff, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler and his deputy Paul Ingrassia said a strong desk had always been central to upholding and improving Reuters’ standards and quality, “and it’s important that we staff and organize the desk to draw the most from its deep well of specialist knowledge and to ensure that the file is edited clearly and quickly”. After a review by Reginald Chua, former editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal now Reuters data editor, they said the specialist “tracks” within each desk will remain, but they will report to a single strong desk head, who in turn reports to the regional editor. “This structure will allow the desk head the flexibility to manage the staff more efficiently and adjust to the flow of stories while at the same time bringing to bear deep knowledge of asset classes and issues. It should also provide better career opportunities for desk editors, who can move across specialist areas more easily. “And critically, it will ensure that desk operations have strong advocates in the new chiefs, who will also play key roles in upholding Reuters’ standards.” The new desk chiefs are ● Asia - Jean Yoon, based in Singapore. She joined Reuters in 1995 in Seoul as a correspondent and is currently general manager for South East Asia and the Pacific. ● Europe, Middle East and Africa - Matthew Tostevin moves to London from Africa, where he is general manager, to run the EMEA desk. Tostevin joined Reuters in Congo in 1995 after reporting for BBC radio from a series of African war zones. ● Americas - Ciro Scotti, former managing editor of BusinessWeek, before and after its acquisition by Bloomberg, joins Reuters as desk head. After leaving Bloomberg Businessweek in October 2010, he helped manage the merger of Newsweek and the online publication The Daily Beast. Since April he has been executive editor of The Fiscal Times, a website devoted to analysis of and commentary on the major issues confronting America and the global economy. “Ciro will start next Monday, and we expect that Jean and Matthew will transition into their new roles by the end of the year,” Adler and Ingrassia said. “They’ll be spending the next few months working through the details of the new desk structure, which we expect to implement in phases by the first quarter of next year. We’ll announce more details once the desk heads have settled into their new roles.” As part of the desk review, the role that Top News plays in leading and managing the most important stories of the day was also examined. “We need to ensure that those stories – which cross asset classes and regions and are of interest to the broadest range of our readers – are among the most insightful, sharpest and best-written on the file. “So we’ve decided to build on a successful pilot project in Asia and increase the staffing of Top News in all the regions, including adding several lead writers to each team to handle the top stories. This will ensure more continuity of editing and more attention to those stories. We’ll also rotate top editors from the desk through the Top News teams, both to bring more specialist knowledge to bear and to hone editing skills on the desk. We’ll announce more details about these changes in the coming weeks and months.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Tom Glocer out as Thomson family appoints new CEO

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-12-01T23:47:32+00:00

Tom Glocer is stepping down and will be replaced as chief executive by chief operating officer James Smith on 1 January, Thomson Reuters said on Thursday. The change is happening more quickly than had been expected, indicating the Thomson family which owns 55 per cent of the company is taking tight control of its largest asset. The Financial Times quoted people close to the company as saying that David Thomson, chairman, and Geoffrey Beattie, the Canadian family’s consigliere who runs its investment vehicle Woodbridge, have been frustrated with the Thomson Reuters share price, which has fallen from above $41 to $27.22 this year. The company has undergone a series of structural changes and management shake-ups over the past six months to address the disappointing performance of its markets division, which was essentially the old Reuters and mainly served financial institutions. Glocer, 52, pictured left, has led Thomson Reuters since 2008, when Canada’s Thomson family completed its acquisition of Reuters. A mergers and acquisitions lawyer, he joined Reuters in 1993 and became the agency’s first American chief executive and the first not to have been a journalist in 2001. He negotiated Reuters’ sale to the owner of Thomson Financial shortly before the global financial crisis. The merged group enjoyed almost three years of better than expected cost savings from the deal, but has struggled in the last year to roll out a financial services product called Eikon that was meant to unify the two legacy companies’ multiple data products. By replacing him, the Thomson family effectively removes the last senior Reuters executive from the merged company’s top echelon. Smith, pictured right, is a former journalist who joined the Thomson Newspaper Group in 1987. Until a few months ago he was head of the professional unit, which sells legal, tax and accounting products. That business has weathered the financial crisis much better than markets. “By the end of the year, the organizational strategy and budget work I have been leading will be complete, and the transition plan I launched last summer will have achieved its objectives,” Glocer said in a statement. “Jim Smith is a very talented executive with whom I have worked closely over the past four years; he is ready to lead Thomson Reuters.” The company’s stock has lost about 30 per cent of its value over the past six months as its banking and financial customers laid off thousands of employees and slashed costs. David Thomson said in a statement: “Tom will be remembered as the individual who turned around Reuters ten years ago, led the company to growth and guided its sale to form Thomson Reuters. Over the past four years, Tom successfully directed an extensive integration, expanded our business internationally, revitalized the Reuters news organization and championed talent across the entire business. The board joins me in thanking Tom for his dedication and service to our company and wishes the very best for him and his family.” He added: “Jim Smith will provide strong leadership for Thomson Reuters at this juncture. He has earned the respect and confidence of his colleagues and the board alike. His instincts and his customer focus have been the basis of a remarkable career in our business. “Working with Tom Glocer, the board oversaw the successful execution of an established succession plan in the second half of 2011 and we look forward to beginning the new year with a new management team, new organizational structure, and ever stronger commitment to deliver long-term, sustainable value for all shareholders.” The new organisational structure will consist of the following business units: financial and risk, legal, intellectual property and science, tax and accounting, and global growth organisation. ● VIDEO ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | Reuters | The New York Times | Financial Times

Thai minister 'certain' military killed Reuters cameraman

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-29T14:54:10+00:00

Thai investigators have clear evidence that the military was responsible for the death of Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto during political violence last year, a deputy prime minister said on Tuesday. Witness testimony confirmed with certainty that the bullet that killed him was fired by a soldier, Chalerm Yubamrung told reporters. “For certain, the death was caused by a government official because we have witnesses who state that they saw the event when it happened,” he said following a meeting with Japan’s ambassador to Thailand. Muramoto, pictured, was a Japanese national based in Tokyo. “The direction in which the bullet was shot was confirmation that it came from the government officials’ side,” Chalerm said. Muramoto, 43, was killed by a high-velocity bullet wound to the chest while covering clashes between anti-government “red shirt” protesters and troops in Bangkok on 10 April 2010. He was among 25 people, including several soldiers, who died that night in one of the worst bouts of political violence in Thailand in decades. Unidentified gunmen dressed in black clothes and balaclavas were seen among the demonstrators. Chalerm’s comments followed the issue on Monday of a police summons for former prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and former deputy prime minister Suthep Thaugsuban to answer questions related to the unrest, during which 91 people were killed and more than 1,800 wounded. The evidence stated by Chalerm concurs with witness accounts in a leaked copy of a preliminary investigation by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) seen by Reuters last December, which said the shot came from the direction of troops. A witness was quoted as saying he saw “a flash from a gun barrel of a soldier”, then watched Muramoto fall to the ground after he was shot while filming security forces. The issue of whether the military was behind Muramoto’s death is sensitive in a country where the armed forces are extremely powerful and deeply politicised. DSI director-general Tharit Pengdit issued a statement on 27 February that contradicted the initial findings, saying the bullet came from a type of rifle not used by soldiers that day. But in September, the DSI pressed for a new probe into the case, a dramatic reversal from its earlier stance. Chalerm said he told the ambassador during Tuesday’s meeting that the probe would soon be concluded and there would be no political intervention in the proceedings. “I expressed to the Japanese ambassador: ‘Let us be certain as regards our investigation. There will be no intervention’,” he said. The head of the probe, police Major-General Anuchai Lekbumrung, told Reuters that work on the case was continuing. It had yet to be sent to public prosecutors and Suthep and Abhisit would be questioned on Friday, he added. Tharit told Reuters on Tuesday the DSI and the police were in agreement on the findings reached so far and believed there was sufficient evidence to show Muramoto was killed by a gun fired by a soldier. The protracted investigation appears to have picked up pace since prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra took office in August after her Puea Thai Party’s resounding victory over Abhisit’s Democrat Party, which was in power at the time of the unrest. Yingluck is the sister of ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the figurehead of the red-shirt protest movement long opposed by the military and Thailand’s establishment. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters stock plumbs new 52-week low ahead of Thanksgiving

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-23T16:59:30+00:00

Thomson Reuters shares plumbed a new 52-week low in New York on Wednesday as markets headed into the US Thanksgiving Day holiday. The stock traded at $25.75, below its previous 52-week low of $26.11, before recovering slightly to close 2.40 per cent down at $26.06. TRI’s average volume has been 1.3 million shares over the past 30 days. Over the past 52 weeks, the shares have traded between today’s low of $25.75 and a high of $42.15. Financial News Network said the stock has potential upside of 27.1 per cent. Analysts’ consensus price target is $32.86. ● SOURCE The Street | Financial News Network

Reuters hires Bloomberg editor to head TV programming

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-22T21:37:34+00:00

High-profile change at Reuters continued on Tuesday with fresh blood at the head of the agency’s television programming. Dan Colarusso, who has held top editorial posts at the New York Post, Condé Nast’s Portfolio and briefly at Business Insider, is joining as global head of programming from Bloomberg Television where he was managing editor. Both companies are trying to expand their video reach to a more general business audience while continuing to jockey for position among Wall Street traders and firms. Last year, Reuters introduced a video on demand option for its subscribers called Reuters Insider. Colarusso will take over responsibility for it and will report directly to Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital. He replaces Chris Cramer, who will become editor at large and will focus on several key projects as Reuters expands its multimedia focus. ● SOURCE Paid Content

Tom Glocer sees great things ahead for news

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-22T22:07:14+00:00

Many people at Thomson Reuters are tired of organisational change and the rumour mill is hyperactive, CEO Tom Glocer said on Tuesday, but many of the group’s businesses are growing strongly and he sees great things ahead for news as a core distinguishing asset for the whole company. The company’s financial position is rock-solid, the balance sheet is strong and the credit rating excellent, he said in a message to the group’s 55,000 staff worldwide as Americans prepare to celebrate Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday. Robert Daleo has done an exemplary job as chief financial officer and the transition to Stephane Bello is going smoothly. Glocer said that before the year is out decisions will be taken and announced and 2012 will begin with a shared road map for success. “Meanwhile, the best thing you can do from any perspective is to stay focused on meeting your 2011 objectives.” He told employees: “We can feel good about the work under way to rekindle growth in the businesses that have been struggling. I have been leading a major strategy effort focused on the financial information market, which I reviewed with our Board just last week. In some areas we have a steep climb ahead, but we have what it takes ultimately to succeed and I am working closely with the leaders of those businesses to get us back on the path to robust growth.” Glocer mentioned powerful growth in the group’s enterprise, trading marketplaces, legal, tax and accounting, and intellectual property and science businesses. Regionally, the company was growing in rapidly developing markets in Asia, the Middle East/Africa, and Latin America. “I am working directly with Media and Editorial, and I can tell you first-hand that we have built the strongest news organization I’ve seen in my 18 years working here. I see great things ahead for News as a core distinguishing asset for the whole company.” Glocer said he was working together with chief operations officer James Smith to align the company with its customers’ evolving needs. “From talking to colleagues across our businesses, though, I know that many people are tired of organizational change and that the rumor mill is hyperactive. I understand. Change and the uncertainty that comes with it are hard to handle.” He said a new operating model called Customer First was taking time because Smith was collaborating with the group’s business and functional leaders to get it right. “Yes, our markets are changing. That’s true for most big companies these days. The fact that we are changing to keep pace may be a source of anxiety for some, but overall it should be a source of comfort. Any company that tries to stand still today will find itself moving backward,” he said. “This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all the good things about our company and that Thomson Reuters is blessed with many thousands of talented people who will settle for nothing less than excellence.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Reuters affirms Thailand commitment despite layoffs

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-22T12:56:12+00:00

Reuters Software (Thailand) said it remains committed to Thailand despite a recent reorganisation that resulted in layoffs. The country's largest software employer said Thailand is still one of the top three development centres for Thomson Reuters. Vichitra Sophon, head of human resources at Thomson Reuters Thailand, said the local unit was rotating resources to serve a dynamic environment. The company last month laid off 40 quality assurance staff out of its 1,400 employees. She said job rotations were considered normal for global firms but acknowledged that layoffs of a particular group were significant for the company. The company's focus on technology to improve software would result in a reduced need for quality assurance staff in the future. It would also focus on automated quality assurance. “We have several development centres globally. Each location has its own expertise from different countries including specialists from the Philippines responsible for content, Indian experts on accounting and Thai experts for financial systems,” Vichitra said. Thomson Reuters Thailand has two business units: Thomson Reuters operating intelligent information with 200 employees, and Reuters Software (Thailand) with 1,400 staff handling software development. ● SOURCE Bangkok Post

NUJ to hold strike ballot after 'insulting' Thomson Reuters offer

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-21T14:39:34+00:00

The National Union of Journalists is to ballot its members at Thomson Reuters in the UK over strike action following what the union called an “insulting below inflation pay offer”. The Thomson Reuters NUJ chapel said in a statement: “This chapel rejects the below-inflation offer of 1.5 per cent across the board as insulting after three years of real-term pay cuts. “This chapel insists on a return to the previous practice of annual across-the-board pay rises at least in line with inflation. It demands 7 per cent across the board and in light of our continuing pay dispute, and the company’s failure to come close to our demand, the chapel will proceed with its ballot for industrial action.” Michelle Stanistreet, NUJ general secretary, said: “Our members at Thomson Reuters have said enough is enough. Over the past years they have tried to meet the management half way on pay issues, despite the fact that pay agreements dating even before the credit crunch have been derisory. They are getting to the point where they can no longer afford to work for Thomson Reuters because they cannot afford to pay their train fares to work or pay their bills. Voting for industrial action is their only option.” ● SOURCE Journalism

Reuters stringer who worked for president won't cover Yemen again

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-17T22:48:00+00:00

Reuters defended the work of long-time Yemen stringer Mohamed Sudam on Thursday amid outrage from opposition activists over his employment by the government as a personal translator to President Ali Abdullah Saleh but said he would no longer work for Reuters from Yemen, though he would probably still provide reports from elsewhere in the Middle East. “Sudam’s work as a Reuters stringer over the course of many years has been fair and accurate,” the company said in a statement. “When he became a translator for the president, he disclosed his role to Reuters.” “On reviewing the matter, however, we believe it’s not appropriate to use a stringer who is also working for the government.” Sudam was briefly detained last month by opposition forces because of his connection to the government. His employment by the president began several years ago. A Facebook page and Twitter hashtag created under the name “Shame on Reuters” voiced anger at Reuters over Sudam’s dual role. ● SOURCE The New York Times

Pension talks 'constructive and positive'

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-15T11:26:25+00:00

The Pension Review Group has reacted with cautious optimism to a letter from the chairman of Reuters’ two UK pension funds in which he says discussions with Thomson Reuters on a new pension agreement have been “constructive and positive”. The comments by Greg Meekings, chairman of Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme, were in response to an earlier letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean in which she underlined pensioners’ continuing concerns about the declining value of their pensions. RPF, the larger of the two funds, has nearly 8,000 members. With discretionary annual increases paid in only three of the last nine years the real value of RPF pensions has dropped substantially because of inflation, the PRG said. The group calculates that pensioners would need an increase of 16.7 per cent to bring the value of pensions back to the levels of early 2003. The rise needed will jump to 23.3 per cent if no increase is awarded in January. Discussions between RPF, SPS and the company aim to produce a new pensions agreement effective from 31 March 2012. The current agreement allows for annual inflation increases only if the fund is in surplus. Both the RPF and the SPS are currently in deficit. The company’s last major injection of funds was in 2006. The PRG said it was encouraged by comments made last December by chief executive Tom Glocer expressing his concern about the position of UK pensioners and calling on those responsible to find a way of resolving the problem, both now and in the future. “I care a lot about our obligations to our pensioners and all our pension plans around the world,” Glocer said in a talk to The Reuter Society. “We’ll do whatever we need to do.” The PRG met last month to consider Meekings’ letter and decided to await the outcome of current discussions before taking any further action, in the hope that positive comments so far would translate into an agreement which would guarantee an annual increase in pensions. The group was established in 2004 by retired staff of Reuters. Its objective is to restore inflation-linked increases and bring certainty to pensioners in future by ensuring there is a sound agreement in place that protects the value of pensions and the security of the pension fund. ● SOURCE Pension Review Group

Bloomberg v Thomson Reuters battle about to get bloodier - WSJ

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-14T09:17:41+00:00

Retrenchments on Wall Street are likely to hurt the market for financial data, intensifying competition between Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. Steps the two firms took to diversify in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis are being tested. The $23.7 billion global market for financial data is expected to grow only about two per cent this year, according to market data research and consulting firm Burton-Taylor International Consulting, down from 4.2 per cent growth last year, the Journal said. While the market shrank slightly in 2009, it grew in the low double-digits from 2006 to 2008. These businesses tend to ebb and flow with Wall Street employment. The global finance industry is downsizing as firms brace for a prolonged slowdown due to weak growth, tighter regulations and instability in Europe. Bloomberg so far has managed to sharply outperform the broader market. It expects 2011 revenue to rise about 11 per cent to $7.6 billion, chief executive Dan Doctoroff said. Revenue rose 10 per cent last year, when the company topped 300,000 subscribers to its terminal, a bundle of financial data, tools and news that costs subscribers about $20,000 a year. Thomson Reuters offers its comparable product for about the same price, though cost varies depending on features, the Journal said. It said Burton-Taylor estimates Bloomberg lifted its share of the overall market to 30.3 per cent last year from 25.1 per cent in 2005. In contrast, Thomson Reuters’ share slid to 33.2 per cent last year from 37.4 per cent in 2005. Thomson Reuters’ stock is down about 20 per cent year-to-date. Bloomberg executives said the company likely will slow hiring in 2012 after increasing the size of its work force by about 35 per cent over the past three years. “We feel like we need to give the organization a little more time to breathe,” Doctoroff said. Thomson Reuters’ financial services business, which has a little more than 400,000 customers of various desktop products, increased revenue 5.5 per cent to $5.64 billion in the year’s first nine months. “The financial-services division, which accounts for just over half of Thomson Reuters’s revenue, has stumbled amid the disappointing performance of Eikon, its new desktop offering for financial professionals,” the Journal said. “The product now has about 8,000 active users a year after its launch, which it said was slower than expected. Executives said recently that a recent reorganization of the Markets division is likely to improve sales in 2012, though it won’t drive revenue growth in Markets until 2013.” Chief executive Tom Glocer said Eikon started slowly in part because the product wasn’t ready for “every type of user at every institution”. An upgrade is pending. He also said Eikon was just one of several investments that overall have helped revenue in markets edge up in the most recent quarter ended 30 September. Meanwhile, the professional division, which serves the legal, tax and accounting industries, increased revenue by 10 per cent to $3.93 billion during the first nine months. “Thomson Reuters, Mr. Glocer said, has recognized for a long time the trend toward ‘fewer bums on seats’ in the financial-services sector and has shifted dollars to fast-growing areas such as governance risk and compliance, which helps financial institutions cope with growing regulatory burdens,” the Journal reported. “I think we’re well positioned even in a downturn because of the other weapons we have,” Mr. Glocer said. Thomson Reuters spent about $850 million last year on acquisitions across its businesses. ● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal

Tom Glocer enforces Thomson Reuters ethics code

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-13T00:23:11+00:00

Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer, pictured, has ordered the group’s 55,000 employees in more than 100 countries to read its code of business conduct and ethics and report colleagues who break or bend the rules. All staff are required to electronically acknowledge that they have read the code and must do so by the end of January at the latest. Improper activities can be reported on a business compliance and ethics hotline. Nothing is more important to the business than customers’ trust, Glocer said in a memo circulated last week to all staff under the heading “Integrity matters”. “We’ve earned our reputation over many decades. It could be destroyed in a single day, by one thoughtless action. That’s why you need to carefully review our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics … even if you've read it before. It’s there so we all understand the conduct that is expected of us, and it tells you whom to consult for guidance on complex issues. It’s vitally important to me – and I’m sure it is to you as well – to be part of a company with such a long-established reputation for integrity. “Integrity matters. Judge every action not only by whether it’s legal or permitted by the Code but whether it’s right. “If you see any of our colleagues breaking or even bending our guidelines, report that immediately to your manager, the Human Resources department or the attorney who supports your business. Failing that, the Hotline is available to you in many languages, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It is every employee’s right and responsibility to use one of these avenues to report improper activities.” Glocer added: “No business deal or strategic objective is worth sacrificing the reputation that we worked so hard to build and of which we are all so justifiably proud.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Social media accord ends union dispute with TR

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-08T09:38:22+00:00

A US union and Thomson Reuters have agreed on a social media policy that preserves employees’ rights to discuss wages, hours and working conditions on Facebook, Twitter and similar networks. The Newspaper Guild of New York said on Monday: “Aside from guaranteeing our freedom to express ourselves about job conditions on these networks, the agreement also puts to rest the final dispute the Guild had with Thomson Reuters stemming from the company’s declaration of impasse in contract talks back in January 2010.” The union had filed an unfair labour practice charge with the US National Labor Relations Board after environment correspondent Deborah Zabarenko, who chairs the union’s unit at Thomson Reuters, was reprimanded for a message she posted on a Reuters Twitter feed. The text of the message, in response to a management request for suggestions on how to make the company “the best place to work,” was: “One way to make this the best place to work is to deal honestly with Guild members.” The Guild withdrew all other unfair labour practice charges as part of a contract settlement ratified in July. With the social media agreement, finalised on 20 October with an e-mail exchange between its president Bill O’Meara and Reuters Americas Editor Jim Gaines, the Guild has asked the NLRB to withdraw this final charge. The new social media policy underscores rights workers have under the National Labor Relations Act to publicly discuss working conditions. However, it does not give Guild members a licence to make personal attacks against colleagues or managers, or against individual Thomson Reuters stories or products on social media. It states: “Our wish is for people to benefit safely from social networks, not to muzzle anyone. Journalists are people too, with all the rights of citizens. If we want to tweet or post about a school play, a film or a favorite recipe, we are free to do so. When dealing with matters of public importance and actual or potential subjects of coverage, however, Reuters journalists should be mindful of the impact their publicly expressed opinions can have on their work and on Reuters. In our Twitter and Facebook profiles, for example, we should identify ourselves as Reuters journalists and declare that we speak for ourselves, not for Thomson Reuters.” The policy adds: “When writing as Reuters journalists, whether for the file or online, we are guided 24 hours a day by the ethics of our organization as embodied in the Code of Conduct and the Trust Principles, which require us to be responsible, fair and impartial.” “We expect our journalists to reach conclusions through reporting, but they must also demonstrate the intellectual discipline to keep their conclusions susceptible to further reporting, which requires a posture of open‐mindedness and enlightened skepticism. This is difficult to demonstrate in the social networks’ short forms and under the pressure of thinking‐writing‐posting in real time. But maintaining this posture is critical to our credibility and reputation as journalists. When in doubt about a post, tweet or other action on social networks, we must enlist a second pair of eyes, even at the cost of some delay.” The policy specifically states that nothing in it should be interpreted as inhibiting the exchange of ideas about matters that deal with employees’ common welfare. Nor is there any prohibition on using social media for speech protected by the National Labor Relations Act, such as candidly discussing wages, hours and working conditions. The tension is clear, says the company. “Social networks encourage fast, constant, brief communications; journalism calls for communication preceded by fact‐finding and thoughtful consideration.” It adds: “At all costs, we must avoid flame wars, incendiary rhetoric and loose talk.” ● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York | Thomson Reuters social media policy

Analyst cuts price target on TR stock

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-02T17:54:12+00:00

A Canadian analyst cut his price target for Thomson Reuters shares by $5 to $35 on Wednesday following the company's third quarter results. Robert Bek of Toronto investment bank CIBC said Tuesday’s results – a higher-than-expected rise in third-quarter profit and revenue – were “decent”. But he noted chief executive Tom Glocer’s forecast that growth in its key markets division will likely have to wait until 2013 as restructuring efforts announced in July play out. “As such, we believe the Street will discount numbers further while waiting on execution,” Bek said. He maintained a “sector performer” rating on the stock. Thomson Reuters shares traded 0.24 per cent higher at $29.09 in New York on Wednesday. In Toronto the stock was 0.57 per cent lower at C$29.53. ● SOURCE The Globe and Mail

Tom Glocer: ‘We’re not magicians’

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-01T15:47:50+00:00

Benefits of the recent reorganisation at Thomson Reuters may not fully kick in until 2013, chief executive Tom Glocer said on Tuesday. “We’re not magicians,” he said in an interview after the company reported a higher-than-expected rise in third-quarter profit and revenue. Glocer was interviewed in New York by Reuters’ media correspondent Jennifer Saba who said he is under pressure from the board and the controlling shareholder, Canada's Thomson family, to increase the group’s market share, particularly for its financial industry products. Sources familiar with the board's thinking said in July he had about a year to make that happen, she reported. In September Thomson Reuters said it would merge its two operating divisions – the strongly performing professional serving mainly lawyers and accountants, and the struggling markets, which targets banks and other financial institutions. “We expect the benefit of these changes will improve sales performance in 2012 and benefit 2013 revenue growth,” Glocer said in a statement accompanying the Q3 release. “What is clear at this point is that 2012 will not look particularly good,” said Claudio Aspesi, a London analyst. “Things are going to get worse before they get better ... even 2013 is a statement of optimistic faith in a recovery.” Glocer said conditions remained tough in the financial markets. “But that’s not a good enough excuse as various competitors were still able to grow their businesses," he said in a memo to staff. The company would grow by driving sales in fast-growing markets and taking share in slower ones, he said. As part of the September shakeup, James Smith, former head of the professional division, was elevated to the new role of chief operating officer, putting him in a strong position to succeed Glocer. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters Q3 earnings beat estimates

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-11-01T14:08:21+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ third-quarter profit rose by 10 per cent, higher than expected, as strength in its professional division offset weakness in the markets business. The company, in Q3 results announced on Tuesday, reaffirmed its outlook for 2011 as its margins improved. In September the company said it would merge the professional division, which serves mainly lawyers and accountants, with the struggling markets division, which targets banks and other financial institutions. “We expect the benefit of these changes will improve sales performance in 2012 and benefit 2013 revenue growth,” chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement. Markets accounts for about 58 per cent of overall group revenue. The division posted revenue growth of just one per cent as banks continued to slash jobs and costs. The company has also been hurt by the slow uptake of its new Eikon desktop product for traders and analysts, Reuters reported. It sold or migrated 32,000 Eikons by the end of September, up from 28,000 three months earlier. “Conditions were challenging in some of our markets, but that’s not a good enough excuse as various competitors were still able to grow their businesses,” Glocer said in a memo to staff. The company would grow by driving sales in fast-growing markets and taking share in slower ones, he said. In July Reuters reported sources familiar with board thinking saying Glocer was under pressure from directors and the company’s controlling shareholder, Canada’s Thomson family, to improve performance. At that time, sources said he had about a year to make that happen. James Smith, former head of the professional division, was elevated to the new role of chief operating officer in September, putting him in a strong position to succeed Glocer. Thomson Reuters reported third-quarter revenue of $3.26 billion, up five per cent before currency changes. Analysts had expected $3.23 billion. Revenue in the professional division, which accounts for 42 per cent of overall revenue, increased 10 per cent after growing eight per cent in the second quarter. The one per cent revenue growth in markets was unchanged from the second quarter. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 56 cents from 45 cents in the same quarter last year. Analysts had expected 53 cents. Thomson Reuters said it still expects revenue to grow by a mid-single-digit percentage rate in 2011. The company’s underlying operating margin improved to 22 per cent, from 21.2 per cent a year earlier. Thomson Reuters shares have fallen 20 per cent this year, worse than the market at large. ● SOURCE Reuters

Mark Wood’s digital Future shock

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-27T14:40:23+01:00

Mark Wood, pictured, former Reuters editor-in-chief, was appointed chief executive of Future Publishing, a UK-based international special-interest media group, on Thursday after its CEO and finance chief resigned suddenly. Future publishes magazines for computer games, cars, cycling, music and photography fans. Its titles include Fast Car, Classic Rock and Guitar World. Wood became a non-executive director in April 2009 and UK chief executive in August 2010. In July, the company said the faster transition of its US business to a primarily digital model and a reorganisation of its UK business were expected to result in job cuts and one-time cash costs. Future's shares have lost more than 60 per cent of their value this year. “The recent restructuring which positions the company for its digital future has allowed the Board this opportunity to achieve substantial savings by eliminating an entire tier of corporate overhead,” Future said in a statement. Wood dismissed speculation that Future might sell off its US business. “There are no plans at all to sell it off,” he said. “On the contrary we are bringing the US and UK operations closer together. My plan is quite clearly to integrate the businesses much more. The US is a very big market for all our digital products, the results of the Apple store sales prove that, but we need to do a lot more.” Wood joined Reuters in 1976 and was editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2000 when he took charge of the group’s strategic media investments and alliances as managing director of Reuters Content Partners. Between 1977 and 1987 he was a correspondent in Vienna, East Berlin, Moscow and Bonn. He later became chairman and then chief executive of UK television news provider ITN until September 2008. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters changes direction, pushes Insiders outside

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-25T20:35:41+01:00

A year and a half after launching a key new product aimed at shaping the future of news, Thomson Reuters has changed its direction and fired many of the people who made it. Reuters Insider, an online interactive financial video service dubbed “YouTube for traders” when it was launched in May 2010, was aimed at 500,000 financial subscribers paying up to $2,000 a month to receive a stream of 3,000 online news clips a week. Clients could access it on desktops, BlackBerries, iPhones and iPads, live or on-demand. Reuters built TV studios in Hong Kong, London and New York to produce original content for the new service. It was part of a $1 billion technology investment in a project called New Era, New Tools, which was designed to address challenges faced by the financial services community. Insider followed the launch of Elektron, a high speed data distribution network, and was to be fully integrated into Eikon, a new information desktop that aimed to create a common platform for all of the group’s financial products. Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief, said on Tuesday Reuters Insider would now broaden its reach to include non-financial audiences while reducing the number of video programmes targeted solely at financial clients. “The new approach, with more emphasis on high impact than high volume, will necessarily result in the reduction and redeployment of Reuters Insider Editorial staff,” he announced in an internal message obtained by The Baron. “As most of you know, Reuters Insider was launched last year with the goal of bringing exclusive multimedia programming to our financial clients. We introduced innovative technology, built a video team for original content, and invited financial institutions to create their own video channels as well. The response from institutions was strong, with more than 300 participating. Meanwhile, our team of talented journalists and analysts has done important work,” Adler said. “We have since learned that Reuters Insider’s exclusive focus on the financial world has limited our ability to provide high-value video to our professional, agency, and consumer audiences. With our new strategy, we will continue to provide a platform for institutional customers while pursuing our plans to integrate Reuters Insider into Eikon. But we will also be able to cover topics of interest to our many other audiences. “We have ambitious plans for our video and multimedia programming, and deploying our resources in new and creative ways will help us provide more value to our customers across the company’s businesses. Those video professionals who remain with us will have an exciting task ahead. To those who are leaving, I extend my thanks for your many contributions and wish you the best in future endeavors.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Stephen Adler spells it out: stick to Reuters standards

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-18T21:09:58+01:00

Five days after Reuters published an inflammatory report that alleged billionaire financier George Soros was behind the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler on Tuesday spelled out to staff the need to stick to the agency’s editorial standards. “We aim to provide deeper understanding through tough, accurate, fair reporting, not through expressing personal opinions in news coverage or stating or even implying conclusions unless they are rigorously supported by all the facts,” he said in an internal memo obtained by The Baron. Adler did not refer explicitly to the controversial news item last Thursday which was derided by media critics in the United States for editorial mishandling and failing to meet Reuters’ standards. “A great virtue of our cherished reputation for accuracy is that readers actually rely on what we write, and they feel betrayed when we fall short of our high standards. We therefore have a responsibility to be worthy of their trust every day. This doesn’t mean every subject of every story has to be pleased with what we have reported,” he said. The Newspaper Guild of New York said “the seriously flawed story and the company’s handling of it have drawn strong criticism from inside and outside the company, indicating an erosion of trust in the news we provide”. The company’s new editor for standards and ethics, Alix Freedman, was quoted by The Atlantic Wire as saying, “We update stories all the time when we get more information.” “While that’s superficially true, it’s not the whole truth,” the Guild said. “This wasn’t an update; this was a story that was seriously flawed at best, and more likely not a story at all. It should have been corrected or withdrawn in a forthright fashion.” It added: “One of the worst things about this incident is that it could have been avoided, if the editorial safeguards that have preserved our reputation for decades were followed. ... The story was stopped on the Americas Desk, questions were raised and it was suggested that the piece be killed or substantially revised. Instead of heeding this advice, managers took over the story and transmitted the flawed version.” Adler also said he was getting a number of questions about Reuters online op-ed and blogging initiatives. “How, some people inside and outside Reuters are asking, can we purport to be independent and unbiased when we publish opinion columns and edgy online commentaries?” His answer referred to the Trust Principles established 70 years ago to protect Reuters’ integrity, independence and freedom from bias. “In my view, the issue comes down to whether we are adding value for our readers,” Adler said. “Are we helping them make smart decisions, achieve fresh insights, and influence the global conversation? We’re already doing this brilliantly through our own financial commentary service, Breakingviews. I believe that providing a forum for other intelligent commentary on a variety of topics also helps fulfill our mission, as long as we disclose clearly that the ideas presented reflect the views of the individual writers and not of Thomson Reuters. As an organization, we are abiding by the Trust Principles because we come to the process with no political or ideological agenda but rather with a straightforward commitment to the vigorous exchange of views in the public interest.” ...As you know, one of our top editorial priorities is to add insight, context, and depth to our stories to supplement – not replace – the speed, accuracy, and fairness for which Reuters has long been known. The idea is to provide more value to our readers so they can make smart decisions, achieve fresh insights, and influence the global conversation. This newer focus, with its acceleration of efforts in enterprise reporting, exclusivity, and in-depth coverage of breaking news, has produced some terrific journalism, along with a bit of confusion. To review, here is what I said on the topic when I became editor in chief in February: ... But in order to fulfill Thomson Reuters mission, we have to aim even higher and compete even harder. This means being second to none in speed, accuracy, relevance, and fairness but also and crucially in enterprise, insight, analysis, and originality. Building our strength in these areas is essential to our becoming a must-read among global professionals, who are looking for understanding as well as information.” To annotate, “speed, accuracy, relevance, and fairness” remain absolutely essential. We aim to provide deeper understanding through tough, accurate, fair reporting, not through expressing personal opinions in news coverage or stating or even implying conclusions unless they are rigorously supported by all the facts. Someone asked [enterprise editor] Mike Williams on a recent staff call how we could maintain our journalistic standards while embarking on investigative reporting. Mike was a little dumbstruck and responded that high journalistic standards and investigative journalism aren’t just compatible, they are inextricably connected. I entirely agree: We uncover hard-to-get facts through meticulous, dogged reporting, and we report what we learn fairly and dispassionately – with no other agenda than informing our readers. The story’s heat emanates from the depth of reporting and understanding it reflects, not from loose logic, innuendo, or what some internally call “banalysis.” A great virtue of our cherished reputation for accuracy is that readers actually rely on what we write, and they feel betrayed when we fall short of our high standards. We therefore have a responsibility to be worthy of their trust every day. This doesn’t mean every subject of every story has to be pleased with what we have reported. Indeed, if we are reporting deeply and well, we will uncover wrongdoing and other circumstances that reflect poorly on individuals or institutions. ... But even when a story is critical, it must be accurate and fair. And when we do make a mistake, we must correct it fully, openly, and as quickly as possible. I know this ethically demanding approach to journalism runs deep in the culture of Reuters. It remains core to our belief system and our behavior even as we pursue more in-depth modes of coverage. On a related topic, I’m getting a number of questions about our online op-ed and blogging initiatives. How, some people inside and outside Reuters are asking, can we purport to be independent and unbiased when we publish opinion columns and edgy online commentaries? In my view, the issue comes down to whether we are adding value for our readers: Are we helping them make smart decisions, achieve fresh insights, and influence the global conversation? We’re already doing this brilliantly through our own financial commentary service, Breakingviews. I believe that providing a forum for other intelligent commentary on a variety of topics also helps fulfill our mission, as long as we disclose clearly that the ideas presented reflect the views of the individual writers and not of Thomson Reuters. As an organization, we are abiding by the Trust Principles because we come to the process with no political or ideological agenda but rather with a straightforward commitment to the vigorous exchange of views in the public interest. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on any of these issues.

Blogger disowns 'biased' Reuters report

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-14T01:03:46+01:00

One of Reuters’ most prominent commentators has publicly distanced himself from a controversial news report that linked Occupy Wall Street protests in New York to billionaire financier George Soros. “The article is particularly problematic from my perspective because I’m incredibly proud of Reuters’s long tradition of impartial journalism,” Felix Salmon, pictured, wrote after the article drew a burst of criticism in the blogosphere. “I’m on the opinion side, not bound by such things, and if you think I’m biased you’re right. (I should mention here explicitly that this post, just like everything else on this blog, is my personal opinion. It may or may not be shared by others within the organization. But it should emphatically not be taken as representing the views of Thomson Reuters.) “Reuters news stories like the one about OWS are held to a very high standard of integrity, independence, and freedom from bias. And there’s lots in this article which tilts hard to the right," Salmon wrote. “Reuters cannot — must not — get a reputation as a right-wing media outlet. We have to report the news as impartially as we can. In this case, there was no story, and nothing to report. Inventing a tenuous and intellectually-dishonest link between Soros and OWS might get us traffic from Matt Drudge — but that’s traffic which, frankly, we don’t particularly value or care for. Much more importantly, it serves to undermine the heart of what Reuters stands for. And we can never afford to do that.” The offending article headed “Who’s behind the Wall Street protests?” began: “Anti-Wall Street protesters say the rich are getting richer while average Americans suffer, but the group that started it all may have benefited indirectly from the largesse of one of the world’s richest men.” Soros and the protesters deny any connection, it said. “But Reuters did find indirect financial links between Soros and Adbusters, an anti-capitalist group in Canada which started the protests with an inventive marketing campaign aimed at sparking an Arab Spring type uprising against Wall Street.” As adverse comment mounted, editors recast the article with a denial by Soros’s spokesman. Jim Impoco, executive editor for Thomson Reuters Digital, tweeted: “Here’s an update cum clarification of Reuters’ Soros-Occupy Wall Street story.” The update was headed “Soros: not a funder of Wall Street protests”. It began: “George Soros isn’t a financial backer of the Wall Street protests, despite speculation by critics including radio host Rush Limbaugh that the billionaire investor has helped fuel the anti-capitalist movement.” New York magazine commented: “The wire service and aspiring ‘best journalism organization in the world’ ran an odd story this morning, insinuating that billionaire financier George Soros is secretly funding the Occupy Wall Street protests. The evidence, unlike the innuendo, is awfully thin.” It concluded: “This story might not be out of place on Fox News, but at Reuters, which has always taken pains to stay above the partisan fray, it smells suspiciously like Drudge bait. (Sure enough, The Drudge Report ran a link to the item, with the headline: “WIRE: Who’s behind ‘Occupy’?”) For a company that “aims to report the facts, no rumours,” an attempt to tie Occupy Wall Street to conservatives’ favorite billionaire boogeyman feels poorly thought-out, at best.” Among reader comments on the Reuters report: ● “Yellow journalism at its finest. Shame on Reuters.” ● “Yet more evidence that editorial standards at Reuters continue to hit new lows.” Media commentator Jay Rosen examined the story – in all its versions – in detail and remarked: “Reuters vs. Reuters: News agency makes an ass of itself by trying to connect George Soros to Occupy Wall Street.” ● SOURCE Felix Salmon | Reuters | New York | The New York Observer | Eqentia | Poynter

Infosys says it is not in talks to buy TR's healthcare business

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-13T10:08:50+01:00

India's second-largest software services exporter, Infosys, said on Thursday it is not in talks to acquire Thomson Reuters’ healthcare business. Denying earlier media reports, Infosys said in an e-mailed statement, “this is to clarify that Infosys is not in discussions for the acquisition of Thomson Reuters’ Healthcare business at present.” Press Trust of India news agency reported on Wednesday that Infosys was keen to acquire the business, which supplies healthcare data and analysis to companies, government agencies and healthcare professionals. The Bangalore-based firm’s CEO and managing director SD Shibulal said at a press conference: “We are dating ... not yet engaged”. He added: “... we need to understand each other. So, we are definitely ... we have an intention to get engaged.” Thomson Reuters said in June it was planning to sell the business. India’s Business Standard newspaper reported last month that Infosys was close to buying it for $700 million to $750 million. ● SOURCE Money Control

TR healthcare sale: 'Dating ... not yet engaged'

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-12T13:56:22+01:00

India’s Infosys Technologies said on Wednesday it is keen to acquire Thomson Reuters’ healthcare business. “We are dating ... not yet engaged”, CEO and managing director SD Shibulal said at a press conference. “... we need to understand each other. So, we are definitely ... we have an intention to get engaged,” he added. Bangalore-based Infosys, India’s second largest software company, has been reported to be close to acquiring the business for $700-$750 million. In June, Thomson Reuters said it planned to sell the unit, which supplies healthcare data and analysis to companies, government agencies and health professionals. It had revenues of about $450 million in 2010. ● SOURCE Economic Times

Obituary: Mark Nichols

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-11T20:01:50+01:00

Mark Nichols, a sub-editor on Reuters’ Nordesk in London in the 1960s, died in hospital in Toronto at age 74 on 21 September. Nichols worked for Reuters from 1964 to 1968, translating the file into North American-friendly usage, after spending four years with The Canadian Press wire service in Toronto. “He was a big influence on my life, especially at Nordesk in the 1960s, where I saw him as the personification of the journalist that I – with six months of experience at CP under my belt – wanted to be,” journalist Robert Marshall said. During his time as a writer for Time Canada from 1969 to 1977, Nichols was inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame in 1971. He became editor of the Imperial Oil Review from 1978 to 1980 and then served as a section editor at Maclean’s, Canada's weekly news magazine, from 1983 to 2000, overseeing Canada news and, later, technology and science. “There really wasn't an assignment that Mark could not handle or a subject that he could not distill into a silken narrative,” Robert Lewis, former editor-in-chief at Maclean’s, wrote in a eulogy. “He wrote about politics, business and the arts with aplomb.”

James Smith aims for change plan by 1 January

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-10-05T21:44:34+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ new chief operating officer James Smith, pictured, has set out his strategy for a change plan to be in place by 1 January 2012. A new drive for sales growth will be backed by an organisation which puts the customer at the heart of every decision. “Any changes we make will be guided by this simple operating principle,” he told staff on Wednesday. Smith, appointed COO a week ago, said a small team would facilitate dialogue on how to best shape internal efforts and direct resources to support customer-facing businesses. “We will tackle our work in multiple steps. The first step will be locking down the organisation and the operating plan that must be in place on January 1. We need credible, realistic budgets as well as management teams who are committed to delivering. We also must establish the operating mechanisms and rhythms that will support greater teamwork and the transparent flow of information across the company,” he said. “The next steps will be further structured dialogues that will guide the evolution of our thinking about key strategic and operating issues. My commitment to you is that these will be open conversations, involving multiple voices from across the business.” Smith said some decisions would be made fairly quickly; others would take longer. “But all will be the result of open dialogue and a desire to promote agility, speed decision-making and place authority and accountability as close as possible to the front lines.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Frank Fitter

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-30T22:16:02+01:00

Frank Fitter, a stalwart of the economic services editorial department in London before turning to human resources and welfare duties, has died at the age of 79. Fitter joined the commercial department as an office junior in 1948 and following his return to the company in 1952 after two years' national service with the Royal Air Force became a sub-editor, then copytaster. He was appointed evening editor in 1969, office manager in 1977, staff executive in 1979 and welfare officer in 1981. He retired on 9 July 1987, his 55th birthday, after 38 years with Reuters. Fitter died on 14 September.

Obituary: Dennis Savage

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-29T14:54:58+01:00

Dennis Savage, a long-serving commodities journalist in Comtelburo and Reuters Economic Services, died on Sunday in the Journalists’ Charity home in Dorking, Surrey, where he had been resident since March. He was in his mid-80s. Savage joined Reuters in 1950 and transferred to the company’s permanent disability scheme in 1978. He had worked in the City office in London editing the non-ferrous metals and sugar bulletins before combining the jobs of evening editor and filing editor. The funeral will be at 2:30 pm on Tuesday 4 October at North-East Surrey Crematorium, Lower Morden Lane, Morden, Surrey.

Another major shake-up as Thomson Reuters disbands dual structure

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-28T20:51:27+01:00

In the second major management shake-up in two months, Thomson Reuters disbanded its two-division structure on Wednesday and promoted a senior executive to the new role of chief operating officer. Tom Glocer remains chief executive. Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, will leave next year. The company said James Smith, chief executive officer of the professional division, would become chief operating officer immediately. At the same time, the professional and markets divisions are disbanded and will “transition to a set of focused business units” reporting to head office. Both Daleo and Smith were Thomson Corporation executives when the Toronto-based company bought Reuters in 2008. “The changes we are announcing today will streamline our organization and enable us to work better across business units to achieve growth and capture operating efficiencies from scale,” said Glocer. “The professional markets in which we operate are marked by increasing collaboration among specialists and Thomson Reuters must operate with the speed and agility needed to serve these demanding professionals.” Daleo, chief financial officer since 1998, will retire in July 2012 when he turns 63. Stephane Bello, chief financial officer of the professional division, will succeed him as chief financial officer of Thomson Reuters, effective 1 January 2012. Daleo will then serve as vice-chairman of the group until his retirement. David Thomson, chairman of Thomson Reuters, said: “Bob Daleo has guided the financial operations of the company for more than a decade through three chief executives. Retirement has been anticipated for some time and we shall miss the presence of a trusted and valued colleague. Bob’s contributions to the businesses have been immense. Our evolution into a global electronic information company owes a great debt to him. Bob’s advice and leadership will be sorely missed, but those qualities remain in place over the months ahead to all our benefit.” “Stephane Bello is the perfect choice to succeed Bob because of his strategic and analytical strengths, proven leadership abilities and deep knowledge of the company and our markets,” said Glocer. “He will work closely with Bob, Jim and me over the next several months to ensure a smooth transition and uphold the high standards of integrity and financial reporting set by Bob Daleo.” Following the sudden departure in July of Devin Wenig, head of markets, Thomson Reuters promoted Smith, chief executive of the professional division that caters to lawyers, accountants and scientists, to the new role of chief operating officer. The Financial Times reported that the latest moves take some burden from Glocer, who took hands-on control of markets after Wenig’s exit, which was seen as a sign of the group’s controlling shareholder, Canada’s Thomson family, exerting tighter control. Glocer told the FT that the split into markets and professional divisions had made sense when Thomson Corporation bought Reuters and needed to concentrate on merging its financial data businesses without distracting its professional units. “Certainly for the first two years it worked very well like that. This year, I concluded markets wasn’t coming out of the integration the way it needed to and I had to take the first step in July,” he said. “In the perfect world, markets would have been growing faster this year and I would have moved in an orderly way to this structure” in 2012, he said. The FT said Smith’s promotion could elevate his standing as a possible internal successor to Glocer, who said: “He’s always been in the frame as far as I’m concerned, but I’m not planning to go anywhere.” In a message to staff, Glocer said his strategic goals were simple: to work better across business units to meet the increasingly complex demands of customers and capture growth opportunities; to leverage Thomson Reuters’ scale and achieve efficiencies by building innovative technology platforms that can be shared across the company; and to square off against competitors as a whole company which is greater than the sum of its parts. He said the priorities he set in July for the markets division of restarting the sales engine and resetting Eikon in the context of the company’s broader product strategy had not changed, nor had the goal of creating a strong performance culture. “These last two months acting as both CEO of Thomson Reuters and CEO of the Markets division have convinced me of two important things. First, no matter what labels we apply to our units, we have great people who are eager to work together to better serve our customers and grow our company. Second, this must be a team effort but with clearly defined roles and accountability for performance. I am looking forward to working closely with Jim, Bob, Stephane and our other leaders to achieve success and excellence at Thomson Reuters.” ● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times

Obituary: Robert Eksuzyan

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-24T21:22:52+01:00

Robert Eksuzyan, pictured, who died in his homeland of Abkhazia on Saturday at the age of 81, served Reuters for more than 40 years as a translator and indefatigable fixer in Moscow bureau, from the Soviet period of Brezhnev, through Gorbachev’s Perestroika, the chaos of Yeltsin’s years to Putin’s Russia of today. Over that period he became the bureau’s historical memory. But for several generations of correspondents, this irascible, short-fused but utterly endearing ethnic Armenian was much more than just a fixer: his honesty and integrity – despite the ideological pressures he worked under until the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 – made him a loyal and reliable friend. He had a clear devotion to Reuters, and a deep respect for the correspondents who worked for it and their families. He was a hilarious raconteur – and he loved to provoke an argument too. Rows were always conducted with gusto, made all the more entertaining by his erratic English, a language he adored but which, to his great frustration, he had never mastered. This was a source of much amusement, though, to his colleagues. As John Morrison, a former Moscow bureau chief in the 1980s, said: “I would love to have had a chance to explain to him the sense of ‘You had a good innings’.” Most of us ascribed his hot-headedness to his Armenian blood and his upbringing in Abkhazia, the now breakaway region of Georgia. And how he loved to provoke us all – even when he was nearing the end of his long service! I recall him arriving for work one morning when he was well into his 70s, and announcing to the editorial floor with a raised, clenched fist: “One day, Abkhazia will bring the United States to its knees!” Bob Evans, his bureau chief for much of the Brezhnev period, says he was hired in 1964 by then bureau chief Sidney Weiland not so much for his English, which was clearly dodgy, but for his potential as a fixer. It was an inspired decision. Seated in the old Reuters office in a lugubrious Soviet building known by its acronym of Sad Sam (Sadovo-Samtyochnaya), he would argue for hours on the phone with Soviet bureaucrats to get access to sporting events and even political information. Trawling through the columns of the intimidating Soviet broadsheets of the day, he would pounce on scraps of buried information – or more often notice what was not said – and draw conclusions that would put correspondents on the trail of a news story. His leads often led to page one stories round the world. Robert was intensely proud of his father, an Abkhaz-Armenian Red Army officer who survived Stalin’s pre-war military purges and went on to beat a war-time death sentence and service in a ‘punishment battalion’ from which he was not expected to come back alive. It was memories of his father, rehabilitated in the 1950s, that made Robert a patriot – and though he loved the company of Western correspondents and deeply respected Western values he was no push-over for empty anti-Soviet propaganda. Having worked all his life for British bureau chiefs, though, he had an extraordinary admiration for the British. After the defeat or Argentina in the 1982 Falklands war, he observed: “I have been telling people for ages round here that Britain would win. Nobody believed me.” A high point of his life was a trip to England, his first ever outside the Soviet Union, to spend a week in Editorial when Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika had made travel possible for ordinary Soviet citizens. To his astonishment he found “there was food in the shops even outside London as well!” Bob Evans had taken him on a Saturday stroll down the high street in Sutton, Surrey. A universal character and himself a boy at heart, he loved the company of young people whom he always encouraged. With women, he was chivalry itself. He once chewed out a Western colleague for divulging the age of a female colleague whose birthday we were celebrating, and told off more than one bureau chief when he thought they were not paying enough attention to their wives. The extraordinary tributes from his colleagues, drawing on vivid memories, speak of a remarkable life lived to the full. Having spent most of his life combing through the Soviet or Russian press, clipping out articles for potential news stories and filing them, he never made the adjustment to the full-blooded computer age when it dawned at Reuters. He retreated more into himself in the office and took out a lot of his frustration on the hi-tech of the day which stubbornly remained beyond his reach. But he soldiered on through three office moves – and at least one stroke – ending his working days in the present premises of Berlin House, giving us always the warmth of his company and benefit of his historical recall which was so useful. “He considered Reuters his home,” his grandson, also called Robert, said. He retired in 2008, after a 40-year-career in Reuters interrupted only by a period in the mid-1970s when he was ordered by the KGB to move to another news organisation because he had become – as they told him – “too friendly” with our “bourgeois correspondents”. He was allowed to return three years later after our well-connected office driver Zhora Nikitin who, like all our Soviet staff, loved him too, intervened with the authorities. For a while, after retirement, he stayed on in Moscow with his wife Anya, but then they moved back to Gagra for his last years in the family house he inherited when his mother died. He continued to care for its surrounding mandarine orchard which he had looked after throughout his adult life. RICHARD BALMFORTH

Reuters v Bloomberg battle 'may change news'

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-22T23:21:23+01:00

The battle for dominance between Reuters and Bloomberg may change the way news is gathered and distributed, a leading US media commentator says. Peter Osnos, a former Washington Post correspondent, said the recent hiring of Alix Freedman, a Pulitzer prize-winning 27-year veteran of The Wall Street Journal, as global editor for ethics and standards was another signal that Thomson Reuters is in a major contest for dominance with its principal rival, Bloomberg. Osnos is founder and editor at large of PublicAffairs books and vice-chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review. Writing in The Atlantic, he noted that Reuters editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said that in Freedman’s new job she will work “closely with reporters and editors on major stories, final-reading many signature pieces and holding us all to the high standards set out in Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and the Reuters Handbook of Journalism”. Osnos also noted recent high-profile arrivals at Thomson Reuters and said Bloomberg had amassed a similarly impressive roster as it launches its opinion section and invests in its multiple news teams in Washington and around the world. “The growth of Thomson Reuters since their merger in 2008 and the rise of Bloomberg … are major developments in journalism that aren’t fully recognized by the public at large because so much of their activity and income comes from financial data on terminals and in specialized packages,” he said. “Unlike the leading newspapers in this arena that also have formidable ranks of reporters, commentators and editors – the New York Times, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal – the lack of a daily anchor in print seems to reduce the visibility of their output in the traditional competition for attention in mainstream news circles.” Because Bloomberg is privately owned, it is hard to know just how profitable it is, Osnos said, but every indication is that it has come through the prolonged financial crisis since 2008 without any meaningful loss of momentum. “Thomson Reuters is a more complicated situation. According to a recent takeout in the Wall Street Journal, the Thomson family and its investment arm, Woodbridge, which controls the majority of shares in the enterprise, is ‘impatient with the company’s performance.’ Like Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters’ revenue is significantly tied to its sales of sophisticated and extensive material to Wall Street and to the international banking community through its markets division. Over the summer, Thomson Reuters restructured the markets division, leading to the departure of six top executives. The division now reports to CEO Tom Glocer. The stock price of Thomson Reuters has been lagging, and posted a 52-week low recently, a drop of almost 20 per cent this year, Osnos said. “But assuming the shake-up on the financial side and the strengthening of its already formidable news operation gain the necessary traction, its competition with Bloomberg will be a vitally important aspect of how journalism is adapting to the continuing turbulence in the industry … “With so much uncertainty elsewhere in the news business, the robust competition between Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg looms especially large in the overall future of news gathering. With thousands of reporters and strong leadership teams, both companies are bound to be factors in the news business in the digital age, even if their overwhelming profitability is tied to financial data.” Osnos said The Wall Street Journal's loss of Freedman was much more than a job shift. “It is a measure of bigger changes in how news and data are being collected, paid for, and distributed.” ● SOURCE The Atlantic

Police drop sources order

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-20T23:46:17+01:00

Police dropped an attempt to force The Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories related to Britain’s phone-hacking scandal. Leading newspaper editors earlier roundly condemned the bid at a Thomson Reuters event at which the regulation of the press was debated. London's Metropolitan police wanted a court order to force the newspaper's reporters to reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that murdered teenager Milly Dowler's phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed a reporter could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act. Tuesday’s Scotland Yard announcement came not long after hundreds of media people discussed the police initiative and other press freedom issues. The event, chaired by Reuters editor-at-large Sir Harold Evans, was attended by a top-level contingent from Thomson Reuters including chairman David Thomson, CEO Tom Glocer, pictured, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, and other editors and executives. Police left open the possibility the so-called production order could be applied for again, but a senior police source said: “It’s off the agenda. There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists.” Editors speaking at the Thomson Reuters event recognised Fleet Street had to mend its ways but appealed to the government not to crush Britain's cherished free speech with draconian laws. Top lawyers, editors and politicians agreed during the debate on “The Press We Deserve” that Britain’s existing Press Complaints Commission, a voluntary self-regulatory body, had failed in its duty to keep the press honest but differed sharply over the solution. Evans said the British press was in its greatest danger since two journalists were jailed for not revealing their sources in 1963. Editor’s note: The original version of this report headed “Police drop sources order after Thomson Reuters debate” erroneously implied that the police announcement was a consequence of the Thomson Reuters debate. It was not. It was a coincidence. Mea culpa. Photo: Julie Mollins ● CLICK to view Reuters video ● SOURCE The Guardian | Reuters

Exciting times ahead for Reuters, says Stephen Adler

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-20T12:38:30+01:00

Reuters is trusted to be fast, accurate and fair but still has a way to go to be the dominant news organisation worldwide, editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, pictured, told former staff members. Those at the top of Thomson Reuters want to own the world’s best news organisation and they want to invest in it, he said at a special meeting of The Reuter Society on Monday. It is in the Trust Principles that Reuters is supposed to be the world’s best news organisation, and in the present environment, with other businesses weakening and with Reuters’ journalistic organisation strengthening, it is uniquely placed to be really powerful and really strong, Adler said. Visiting London before returning to New York after a trip to Tokyo, Singapore and Beijing, he said Reuters was the best news organisation in the world in terms of being fast, accurate and fair. But for deep, “inciseful” storytelling, “we’re not nearly the best in the world”. He cited the Financial Times and The Economist in Britain and The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal in the United States as news organisations people would typically say were the best. “People, when they say that, are thinking about memorability, about the big stories, about the things that really change people’s thinking. So there’s enormous praise for fast, accurate and fair but I think we’re living in a world that needs both.” Adler, a former Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek editor appointed Reuters editor-in-chief in February, said Reuters’ editorial has a good, strong budget, though funding was not unlimited. “But our budget is so substantially bigger than anything any other news organisation I’ve ever seen that, when I came in and I saw the budget I said, you know, this is something I can work with… “The signal I get from the top of the company is they want to own the best news organisation in the world and they want to invest in it. They think it’s important to business generally and they think it’s important to the company’s place in the world.” The aim is to reach a high-end audience in terms of people interested in ideas, decision makers thinking about what’s going on in the world in a serious way. “That’s the tier we want to reach.” Adler said Reuters was heading towards having a very strong digital placement across pretty much any device whether it be an iPhone, iPad or none-Apple device, the web or mobile. “We don’t want anybody else to be better. Where we are is we’re in an interim period. We’ve done a little bit to refresh the website, it’s a little better than it was before, but some time next year I think you’re going to see a dramatic improvement in delivery of Reuters news pretty much across every platform ... whether you end up having to pay for it or not is kind of a business model question but we’re going to dramatically improve it.” Adler acknowledged concern that Reuters was being seen as a New York-based organisation that looks out on the world from the United States. He said: “We need to be strong in the United States because it’s the world’s largest economy and because the political system is really important and because it’s a regulatory environment affecting the entire world and the fact we’re truly committed to being global we have to be a whole lot better in the US than we are. I think that’s the first principle.” Several questions put to Adler reflected a perception that his recent senior appointments were either overwhelmingly American or did not seem to value international or wire service experience. In response he mentioned hires from Dow Jones news wires, from Asia, and from Europe. “So I think the premise is wrong. The fact is I have hired a lot of senior people who I’ve worked with in the past, I think they’re some of the best journalists in the world, I think it’s the best leadership team in any news organisation in the world, but it is significantly more diverse than it was characterised.” He dismissed talk about Reuters being “The Wall Street Journal in exile”. Hiring two successive page-one editors from that newspaper should be viewed as a good thing and not a bad thing. Adler said he found Reuters had got a little lax on training, which had been an enormous virtue of the company. At some point there came to be no general training budget and training, which was basically given to the bureaus. “So what we’ve done is we’ve re-created a centralised training budget and requiring the ethics course to be taken every two years to stay fresh while re-introducing a boot camp that everybody has to go to … basically, when you join the organisation you have to have mandatory training.” Does this also apply to the new hires or columnists? Adler said anybody who comes in on staff has to go through the mandatory training and a lot of the new columnists were on staff. He could not say whether such training would also apply to columnists who were not on staff and would look into it. “What I really don’t like is the merging of opinion and news in a news story and we do watch out for that,” he said. “We want to be relevant in a contemporary media world and we want to do it in a way that’s respectful of and consistent with the Reuters tradition but not one that makes us irrelevant going forward.” Referring to talk about current Reuters journalists being up in arms about the agency’s direction, Adler said he did not see that at all. “I see an enormous amount of excitement and receptivity to a desire to do frankly stronger and more ambitious journalism. I think the staff is on fire; they’re really excited, and everywhere I go there is a sense that we’re going to a world of extraordinarily ambitious journalism and we’re going to raise the level of journalism and there’s tremendous energy and excitement around that.” Photo: Corrie Parsonson ● CLICK to view edited video highlights of the meeting

Harold Evans on Rupert Murdoch 'the stiletto'

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-19T11:16:42+01:00

Sir Harold Evans, pictured, Reuters editor-at-large, censures his former employer Rupert Murdoch in a new preface to his 1983 book, Good Times, Bad Times, re-published today as an ebook and paperback. Describing media ownership rivalry between Murdoch and Robert Maxwell, one-time owner of Mirror Group Newspapers, Evans writes: “Maxwell was the meat axe, a muddler, a volatile sentimentalist, a bully and a crook. Murdoch is the stiletto, a man of method, a cold-eyed manipulator.” Both media barons were directors of Reuters in the 1980s through their British newspaper interests. Evans is a former editor of The Sunday Times and The Times, then owned by Murdoch who took over Times Newspapers in 1981 from the Thomson Organisation. Thomson was formed in 1978 as a holding company for the publishing, travel and natural resources empire founded by Canadian entrepreneur Roy Thomson, who became a British citizen in order to be ennobled in 1964 as first Baron Thomson of Fleet. The organisation joined Thomson Newspapers to become the Thomson Corporation in 1989. Evans writes that he has come to regard the judgments he made in 1981, when Murdoch sought to acquire control of The Times and The Sunday Times, as the worst in his professional career. He was appointed Reuters editor-at-large in June. “Editor-at-large means you're free to create as much havoc as they will tolerate,” he said at the time. ● CLICK to read Harold Evans’ new preface in full as published by The Guardian ● Harold Evans’ books

Thais call for new probe into Reuters TV cameraman's death

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-17T16:14:10+01:00

Thai authorities are seeking a new investigation into the death of Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto, pictured, and 12 other civilians killed during political unrest last year. Troops may have had a hand in the shootings, they said. A statement by the Department of Special Investigation on Friday marked a dramatic reversal from February when the agency's chief concluded the Japanese journalist and others could not have been shot by soldiers. Muramoto, 43, was killed by a high-velocity bullet wound to the chest while covering clashes between “red shirt” protesters and troops in Bangkok’s old quarter on 10 April 2010. He was among 25 people, including soldiers, who died that night. Mysterious gunmen clad in black were seen among the red-shirted protesters, firing at troops. Witness accounts in a preliminary DSI investigation seen by Reuters in December said the fatal shot came from the direction of troops. A witness was quoted as saying he saw “a flash from a gun barrel of a soldier”, then watched Muramoto fall after he was shot in the chest while filming the security forces. But on 27 February, DSI Director-General Tharit Pengdit issued a new statement that contradicted the preliminary report, saying the bullet came from an AK-47 assault rifle, which did not match weapons used by soldiers in the area that day. The Bangkok Post reported that, before Tharit made the claim soldiers were not involved, the army chief of staff had paid him a visit “to complain about an initial department finding”. The DSI denied the report. It was unclear what caused the DSI chief to change position again and assert soldiers may have played a role in civilian deaths – an extraordinarily sensitive issue in Thailand where the military is extremely powerful and deeply politicised. “We want the court to be the one who investigates this so that the result can be accepted by all,” Tharit told Reuters. “The DSI has insisted from the beginning that we found soldiers may have been involved in the deaths.” Tharit said his agency would send the cases of the 13 civilians killed to police on Monday. Police would then submit the findings to prosecutors, who would bring the cases to Thailand’s Criminal Court for a final investigation. “We welcome this development and have always wanted to see this case fully investigated in a transparent manner. Muramoto-san’s family and Reuters colleagues deserve to know how this tragedy occurred and who was behind it,” Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief, said in a statement. Muramoto was based in Tokyo and had gone to Bangkok to help cover the anti-government red shirt protests from March to mid-May last year. The DSI has identified the cases of Muramoto and 12 other civilians, killed over the course of the unrest, for its initial investigation. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters aims to become best in the world – Stephen Adler

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-16T16:50:07+01:00

Reuters wants to raise its profile, increase the impact of its journalism and be as influential in the United States as it is in the rest of the world. “Indeed, to be fully effective as a global organisation, we have to be as influential and as well known in the US – the world’s largest economy – as we are elsewhere in the world,” editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, pictured, said in an interview published on Friday. “Our mandate at Reuters is to become the best journalism organisation in the world,” he said. Reuters’ recent hiring spree, including a handful of Pulitzer Prize-winners, has quickly attracted the media world’s attention, the US news website and blog Huffington Post reported. At the same time, it said, Reuters has relaunched its ● website to better showcase its vast reporting in a more consumer-friendly way, stepped up social media efforts and increased analysis, opinion and enterprise reporting. Reuters is not giving up on breaking financial news that paying subscribers want or reporting international wire stories that cash-strapped newspapers, lacking foreign budgets, increasingly need, The Huffington Post said. However, deputy editor-in-chief Paul Ingrassia says the company wants to go beyond breaking news. “I think what we’re making a bigger effort to do is not only be first with events,” Ingrassia said, “but very quickly and analytically ... report the meaning and impact of those events.” By giving Adler a mandate to make big moves, Reuters may hope to avoid being lapped by the Bloomberg behemoth, the website said. When asked whether Bloomberg is Reuters’ main competitor, Adler rattled off the many subscription platforms that Reuters offers its users, including traders, investment bankers, lawyers, tax specialists and pharmaceutical researchers. Reuters, he said, also reaches one billion people a day through the agency business used by newspapers, magazines and websites. “Our audience base is thus quite different from anyone else’s, as is our revenue model,” Adler said. “The better we are, the more our journalism is worth to all of our customers. And we aim to be the best. And, yes, Bloomberg is certainly a leading competitor.” As part of Reuters’ hiring spree, The Huffington Post noted that last week alone the agency hired former Slate media critic Jack Shafer, Pulitzer-winning Wall Street Journal veteran editor Alix Freedman, and Bay Citizen editor-in-chief and Industry Standard founding editor Jonathan Weber. The website said that a year ago, media watchers wouldn’t have imagined such a slew of hires coming back-to-back. But Adler – a former deputy managing editor at the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek editor-in-chief just before Bloomberg’s acquisition of the magazine – started making big moves shortly after becoming Reuters editor-in-chief earlier this year. Adler’s new editorial leadership team was looking like the Wall Street Journal in exile, it said. Ingrassia spent over three decades at the Journal and Dow Jones, where he won a Pulitzer for his coverage of the auto industry and later ran Dow Jones Newswires. Three other former Journal staffers are on board, too: former chief operating officer Stuart Karle, data editor Reginald Chua, and enterprise editor Michael Williams. “Adler’s leadership team isn’t all Journal ex-pats,” The Huffington Post said. Adler hired Jim Gaines, a former Time Inc. executive most recently at News International’s iPad application The Daily and Harold Evans joined as an editor-at-large. “And some members of the team are old Reuters hands. Chrystia Freeland, who joined Reuters last year, became editor of Thomson Reuters Digital. In May, James Ledbetter moved from ● Reuters.com to become Reuters inaugural op-ed editor… “When my position was created, there became a much stronger mandate from above to go out and get big names and put the full weight of Reuters behind it,” Ledbetter said. Since he took over, Reuters has hired not only Shafer but two former New York Times reporters with Pulitzers on their resumés: David Rohde and David Cay Johnston. “It’s getting to be quite a stable,” Ledbetter said. While recent buzz may help raise Reuters’ profile outside, The Huffington Post said there has been some grumbling inside the company. Staffers say there are concerns that too much emphasis is being placed on big-name outside hires at the expense of cultivating talent within. Managers also worry about holding onto their positions in the newsroom amid editorial reshuffling and executives' shifting priorities.” Staffers say other management changes have gone over well, including an emphasis on getting out of the office more to build deeper source relationships and the dismantling of the long-running beat system that only rewarded stories impacting stock prices. One staffer said it seems clear management wants to build a news organisation that creates a lot more buzz and prestige. Some staffers believe that management expects to win Pulitzers in the coming years, following Reuters’ greater investment in enterprise and investigative reporting. Both Adler and Ingrassia, however, balk at any suggestion that there’s a Pulitzer mandate. “Prize-hunting, per se, is not the objective here,” Ingrassia said. “As I’ve said to the staff, we want to do work that is so memorable and so distinguished that it is recognised by our peers,” Adler said. “Winning awards is one measure of excellence but not an end in itself. We also want people talking about our journalism, sharing it with each other, and using it to make smart decisions and achieve fresh insights.” ● SOURCE The Huffington Post

Reuters to expand opinion offering

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-15T19:21:49+01:00

Reuters is substantially increasing the volume of its opinion articles and wants to offer commentary on all sorts of issues and news stories as part of an effort to make it more than just a wire service, one of its new editors said in an interview. There is a role within the traditional Reuters marketplace for opinion and commentary, said James Ledbetter, who joined a year ago as website editor from US online magazine Slate. Now Reuters op-ed editor, he told media magazine Adweek: “We are in the process of substantially increasing the volume of opinion material that we produce and the range of the issues that we want to offer an opinion about. We want to get ourselves in the midst of all sorts of issues and news stories that we know Reuters’ readers, existing and potential, care about … We really want to be a leader in the space of opinion and commentary, which has never really been an explicit goal for Reuters in the past.” Ledbetter was asked about Reuters’ “reliable model in being a straightforward wire service, without worrying about unique content or opinion pieces”. He replied: “I don’t see the two as in any way mutually exclusive. You don’t have to look very hard at the staffing levels of American newspapers to realize that places where you might have had local columnists or a local opinion staff commissioning pieces — in many places those jobs no longer exist. We think that there is a role within the traditional Reuters marketplace for opinion and commentary. Adweek said some people had expressed concern that big-name writers were going to go to Reuters and then disappearing. Ledbetter said: “Well, there’s a genuine issue there that’s not in any way exclusive to us, which is, ‘How do you make sure that the fantastic voices that you’ve gone to all this trouble and expense to hire get heard?’ Certainly, there are opinion aggregation websites where there are so many contributors that it’s hard to even name a single one. It is a genuine issue, but we have had some design changes in recent months that should help us prevent that kind of obscurity.” ● SOURCE Adweek

Thomson Reuters close to selling healthcare business

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-15T18:09:03+01:00

Thomson Reuters is close to selling its healthcare business to an Indian company for up to $750 million, an Indian newspaper reported on Thursday. Business Standard newspaper said Infosys Technologies, India’s second largest software company, was the front-runner for the business and an announcement was expected shortly. Both Thomson Reuters and Infosys declined to comment. Thomson Reuters said in June it planned to sell the business, which supplies healthcare data and analysis to companies, government agencies and health professionals. It had revenue of about $450 million in 2010. “It's public knowledge that we are selling the healthcare division but we’re not making any comment on the process,” a Thomson Reuters spokesman said. ● SOURCE Reuters

Pensioners press for automatic inflation increases

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-12T16:10:28+01:00

The Pension Review Group is once again focusing attention on its campaign to win automatic inflation rises for all Reuters pensioners. It has contacted the chairman of the Reuters Pension Fund trustees, Greg Meekings, and requested that members should be consulted before he signs a new deal with Thomson Reuters, which he expects to do some time in the next six months. “Our concern is that pensioners will be presented with a solution … which may not be acceptable to us," the group’s chair Angela Dean said in a letter to Meekings. Pensioners have had increases in only three of the last nine years, and the value of their pensions has been eroded by almost 20 per cent because of inflation. A growing number of the 8,000 members of the RPF are becoming extremely elderly and frail, living on small pensions and facing real hardship as inflation bites into what little they get, the group said. Thomson Reuters is one of the few major companies in Britain to have suspended inflation rises for its final salary pensioners. Most have inflation-proofing written into their pension fund rules. CEO Tom Glocer has expressed sympathy for the plight of Reuters pensioners. “We … look forward to reaching a solution that meets our common desire to secure pensioners’ retirements,” he wrote to the PRG last year. The rules of the current pensions agreement, established in 2006, allow for discretionary increases only when the Fund is in surplus. That agreement should have ended in 2010 but will remain in force until a new deal is negotiated with the company, which should be by next March. ● SOURCE Pension Review Group

The good old days, they're now - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-11T11:46:38+01:00

Forget talk about the good old days. These are the good old days, says Tom Glocer, and the best is yet to come in an information revolution which will outpace the industrial revolution. In the first update to his blog after what he says has been a busy summer, Thomson Reuters’ chief executive ruminates on an earlier, seemingly superior period in a perfect past “when kids were better dressed and better behaved, contemporary music did not sound like screaming Banshees and adults could make it through a meal without tweeting, texting or updating their online status”. He writes: “In our crisis-laden times, we would all do well to remember the blessings of our present Golden Age. I have been writing for some time about the dangers of the over-indebted, no growth western economies, but I believe we are in only the early years of an Information Revolution which will outpace the Industrial Revolution. The threat of terrorism and regional violence remains real; however, we have lived more than half a century without nuclear or world war. Finally, we have global warming, depleting natural resources and super bugs, but infant mortality and life expectancy have improved in most parts of the world, and we are poised for scientific breakthroughs in green energy and the fight against cancer. “These truly are the good old days.” ● SOURCE Tom Glocer's blog

New US West Coast bureau chief straight out of the bay

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-09T21:02:03+01:00

Reuters’ new US West Coast bureau chief is Jonathan Weber, editor-in-chief of ● The Bay Citizen, a local website launched last year in San Francisco. He will lead Reuters’ file from the West with a special focus on covering technology, the entertainment industry and the region's political and economic story, a Reuters announcement said. He will be based in San Francisco. Among previous roles Weber worked for the Los Angeles Times for eight years and was co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Industry Standard, launched in 1998 as a business magazine covering technology and the Internet. There he worked with James Ledbetter, now Reuters op-ed editor. San Francisco bureau chief Peter Henderson, who joined Reuters in 1996 as a correspondent in Moscow, will remain in San Francisco in the new role of West Coast enterprise editor. ● SOURCE SF Appeal

Another WSJ editor takes senior Reuters role

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-07T20:32:35+01:00

Reuters’ recruitment from The Wall Street Journal continues apace: the latest high-profile hire is Alix Freedman, pictured, a WSJ veteran who becomes Reuters’ third global editor for ethics and standards in five months. Deputy managing editor and page one editor at the Journal, Freedman previously oversaw ethics and standards of high-impact stories in the newspaper and on the Dow Jones newswires. She won a Pulitzer prize in 1996 for her tobacco industry reporting at the Journal, which she joined in 1984 in Philadelphia. She became the newspaper’s page one editor in May when Michael Williams left to become Reuters global enterprise editor. At Reuters she replaces Jim Gaines who joined in April and this week was appointed Americas editor. Previously the ethics job was held by Dean Wright who left the company in April. Stephen Adler, a former WSJ editor who became Reuters editor-in-chief in February, said Freedman was one of the world's most esteemed journalists. He told staff: “At Reuters, Alix will help fuel our drive for journalistic excellence by working closely with reporters and editors on major stories, final-reading many signature pieces, and holding us all to the high standards set out in the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles and the Reuters Handbook of Journalism. A long-time leader of ethics training at the Journal, Alix will also collaborate with our training team to make sure we provide the best possible instruction.” ● SOURCE The New York Observer | Media Bistro | Huffington Post

TRI hits new 52-week low in New York

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-07T08:59:17+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares hit a new 52-week low as they traded at $28.75, below the previous 52-week low of $28.91. Average volume has been 1.1 million shares over the past 30 days. The stock closed at $28.90 in New York and C$28.59 in Toronto on Tuesday. US financial blog The Street said the shares were down 19.8 per cent year to date as of the close of trading on Friday. The Street Ratings recently downgraded Thomson Reuters to hold from buy. It cited strengths in multiple areas, such as compelling growth in net income, revenue growth and impressive record of earnings per share growth. “However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, generally poor debt management and poor profit margins.” ● SOURCE The Street

Ousted markets chief Devin Wenig joins eBay

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-06T23:22:11+01:00

Devin Wenig, pictured, ousted seven weeks ago in a major management shake-up at Thomson Reuters, is joining eBay. He will be president of its global marketplaces unit, which includes the flagship auction site and the e-commerce company’s separate classifieds and online tickets businesses. Wenig, 44, a close associate of chief executive Tom Glocer, headed Thomson Reuters’ markets division, which includes Reuters news agency. He also led the integration of Reuters following its 2008 takeover by Thomson. Announcing Wenig’s hire, eBay trumpeted his business and strategic acumen. He will report to president and CEO John Donahoe, who said “Devin’s deep global operating and leadership experience, combined with his record of delivering innovation and of understanding global technology platforms and communities, makes him uniquely qualified to lead our eBay Marketplaces business”. Postscript: Website eCommerceBytes said eBay wooed Wenig with a $13.5 million package, comprising annual salary of $750,000 with bonuses; $2.4 million in stock options; $1.8 million in restricted stock units; a target award of $1.8 million performance based restricted stock units; another award of restricted stock units valued at $6 million and participation in eBay’s incentive plan with a target bonus of 100 per cent of base salary. Wenig, moving from the US east coast to the west, tweeted: “For sale on eBay. 3 dozen really nice ties!” ● SOURCE PaidContent | eCommerceBytes

Reuters picks up retrenched media columnist

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-06T21:21:46+01:00

Reuters’ latest high-profile recruit in an editorial hiring spree is a US columnist who was recently laid off as media critic of an online news, politics and culture magazine. Jack Shafer, pictured, based in Washington, will cover media and politics for Reuters. Prior to working at The Washington Post Company’s ● Slate website Shafer spent 11 years editing two alternative weeklies – San Francisco Weekly and Washington City Paper. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said in an internal announcement on Tuesday: “Jack’s arrival at Reuters adds to a rapidly strengthening opinion and analysis bench. Award-winning writers David Cay Johnston and David Rohde have recently joined Reuters as columnists, Felix Salmon continues to set the pace among financial bloggers, and the Reuters column line-up includes regular contributions from Larry Summers and Mohamed El-Erian.” New York magazine reported: “The deep-pocketed news service, which under the digital leadership of Chrystia Freeland has been on a hiring spree, began talking to Shafer in June, well before the surprise Slate layoff. No wonder Shafer's post-layoff interviews were so jovial.” Shafer, who was dropped by Slate only last month, said on Twitter that Reuters editors “interrupted my plans to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, and criticize after dinner with an offer — which I’ve accepted — to write about media and politics for Reuters. I’m damn happy. Thanks, oh, my tweeps.” ● SOURCE New York Magazine | Poynter | Adweek

Reuters names former magazine editor as Americas editor

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-06T11:47:02+01:00

Reuters has appointed a former editor of Time, Life and People magazines to oversee the work of all of its journalists in North America and Latin America. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler and his deputy Paul Ingrassia said in an internal message to editorial staff: “We’re delighted to announce that our search for an Americas Editor has reached a most welcome conclusion. Jim Gaines, whom we’ve all come to know and respect in recent months, will be moving into the Americas role.” Gaines, pictured, joined Reuters in April as editor for ethics, standards and innovation after a brief stint at News Corp’s The Daily, an iPad news application. He spent most of his career at Time Inc, where his last job was corporate editor. In his new role he will direct and coordinate coverage of major global stories when Ingrassia, who also joined in April, is absent. Gaines will continue to oversee, with Reinhard Krause in London, Reuters’ global photography department. Previously Gaines worked for Newsweek, radio station WNET, a digital multimedia general interest magazine called FLYP, and his own multimedia publishing company in Washington where he lives. ● SOURCE Reuters

Ex-Reuters men move into top jobs at FT

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-02T11:01:25+01:00

Two former Reuters correspondents have been promoted to senior jobs at the Financial Times. Tony Barber (left) and Hugh Carnegy (right) are appointed to the newly created roles of Europe editor and European managing editor. Barber, who also becomes associate editor, was previously the FT’s bureau chief in Brussels, Rome and Frankfurt. He joined the paper in 1997 as European news editor. Barber left Reuters in 1989 to join The Independent after serving as a correspondent in New York, Washington, Warsaw, Moscow and Belgrade. Carnegy, the FT’s executive editor, also becomes the paper’s new Paris bureau chief. His previous roles during 20 years at the FT include world news editor, financial news editor, international company news editor and deputy managing editor. He began his journalism career in 1978 at Reuters, where he stayed for seven years, working in the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Turkey and the Middle East. FT editor Lionel Barber said: “Hugh Carnegy and Tony Barber bring vast amounts of experience to their new roles at a time when the eurozone crisis remains one of the most important stories in the world.” ● SOURCE Press Gazette

Bugs aside, Reuters is halfway to full editorial system rollout

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-01T13:19:31+01:00

Despite setbacks, Reuters has reached a major milestone in plans to overhaul its news production systems, crossing the halfway point in the migration in August. The new Lynx Editor system, which replaces the decades-old System 77/Coyote, has been successfully adopted in Asia and much of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. More than half of Reuters’ text journalists now rely almost exclusively on Lynx Editor to write, edit and file copy. This is a big achievement, Adrian Dickson, pictured, global head, news product, said in a message to editorial staff. Deployment in Europe is due to be completed by the end of September before moving to the Americas in the last months of the year. Remaining national services in Asia, the Middle East and Europe as well as a handful of smaller teams will start migrating to Lynx Editor in the first quarter of 2012. “If all goes well by mid 2012 all Reuters journalists will be on the same editing system, capable of sharing stories and communicating with each other via screentop for the first time ever,” Dickson said. “We’re only halfway there but already it’s been a long journey and not without its challenges. Twice in the last month Lynx users in Asia were forced to shift back briefly to System 77/Coyote following a systems outage that temporarily prevented journalists from using Lynx to edit and file copy.” The first outage began with a small hardware failure that created instability in a data centre software system. The problem was compounded by errors in incident management. The second was caused by “errors in the release of a database script designed to optimize Lynx Editor performance … Fortunately technical teams learned the lessons of the previous incident and this time they were fast to shift users on to a support system.” Dickson said: “These setbacks are never welcome. But they’re not unusual in projects of this magnitude given their complexity and spread across several geographies. Nor should we be surprised if we face similar incidents in the future. Over time journalist, support and development teams will become more practiced at anticipating bugs and at reacting quickly and effectively when they arise… “We remain confident Lynx has the resiliency to manage the 10,000 plus stories that are filed over Reuters systems on most weekdays. We are also convinced Lynx is robust enough to continue to grow with us as demand for our news increases in the future.” ● SOURCE Reuters

How Reuters beat Irene

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-09-01T11:37:09+01:00

Reuters fielded more photographers to cover Hurricane Irene than on any other story in recent memory. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, thanking text, visuals staff and stringers for a strong performance, did not say how many photographers were out in the storm that shut down New York last weekend. The story provided a great opportunity to showcase Reuters’ breadth and expertise, he said. “Some of our journalists hunkered down near Irene’s path to chronicle the storm’s destruction. TV put out 23 live signals over three days, totaling more than 20 hours of live cover. We had more photographers in motion on this story than any other in recent memory. Text reported on the human impact of the story, the effects on power companies and their customers, the mass transit lockdown in New York City, the likely impact on Wall Street trading, the corporate winners and losers, the flooding across New Jersey and Vermont, and the costs to federal and state government, the economy and the insurance companies. “Staff in Miami, Washington, New York and Boston, tracked the storm’s path, reported on Irene’s effects locally, wrote our trunk stories, blogged for ● Reuters.com, edited and filed to our clients, and directed our coverage. Many spent the weekend in local hotels to ensure they could get to the office, some returning home later to deal with flooded basements. Other U.S. bureaus not directly involved in coverage and editing centers in London and Asia volunteered to help if necessary. And the editorial technical and facilities staff worked with us every step of the way to ensure we had what we needed to cover the story.” ● SOURCE Reuters

NZPA closes, three new wires fill gap

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-31T10:56:17+01:00

New Zealand’s national news agency, once a junior partner in the ownership of Reuters, ended an era of 131 years’ reporting on Wednesday. The New Zealand Press Association ceased operations following the withdrawal of its two competing major shareholders, Australian-owned newspaper publishers Fairfax Media and APN. Their move hastened a decline as the agency struggled with reorganisations in media ownership and technological changes affecting news media worldwide. Three new wires are filling the void – APN News & Media’s APNZ, its main rival Fairfax New Zealand’s FNZN, and a new Australian Associated Press service, NZN. Founded in 1880 as the United Press Association, the cooperative adopted the name NZPA in 1942. Together with the AAP, in 1947 it became a minority owner of Reuters alongside Britain’s Press Association and Newspaper Proprietors’ Association. As part of the deal, some Australian and New Zealand journalists became Reuters correspondents, especially in the Pacific area. NZPA correspondents in London worked out of Reuters’ headquarters, then at 85 Fleet Street. At its birth the New Zealand wire had 26 subscribing newspapers, rising to a peak of 74 by the end of World War I. But in recent years its client base had fallen back to 26. The NZPA’s final story, signed off by all of its journalists, read: Wellington, Aug 31 NZPA - This is the final message from the New Zealand Press Association. Since 1880 there have been hundreds of thousands of stories and hundreds of millions of words recording our country's development and daily doings. We now sign off. It has been a pleasure and a privilege. ENDS ● SOURCE Stuff | TVNZ | BBC

Thomson Reuters shares downgraded to hold from buy

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-29T18:34:04+01:00

Thomson Reuters has been downgraded by TheStreet Ratings to hold from buy. The US digital financial media firm said the company’s strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as compelling growth in net income, revenue growth and impressive record of earnings per share growth. “However, as a counter to these strengths, we also find weaknesses including a generally disappointing performance in the stock itself, generally poor debt management and poor profit margins.” TheStreet noted net income growth from the same quarter one year ago has significantly exceeded that of the S&P 500 and the media industry, but revenue growth trails the industry average. It said the company has underperformed the S&P 500 Index, declining 12.88 per cent from its price level a year ago. “Looking ahead, we do not see anything in this company's numbers that would change the one-year trend. It was down over the last twelve months; and it could be down again in the next twelve.” Thomson Reuters shares were 1.69 per cent higher at $30.64 in New York and 1.66 per cent higher at C$30.03 in Toronto. ● SOURCE The Street

Obituary: Ronald Harris

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-26T13:46:43+01:00

Ronald Harris, pictured, who died in June aged 86, was a former telegrapher and trades union activist who swapped sides to become a Reuters staff manager. An obituary in The Guardian written by his granddaughter, Sally Panter, said he was known for his grit, determination, intellect and good humour, all of which he used to improve the everyday lives of many. Born in Manchester, Harris’s first real act of self-will came at the age of 12 when he defied his father, an ardent Manchester City fan, and began to support United, to which he became devoted. “My great-grandfather stopped his pocket money for good, but in typical style, Ron got a newspaper round to pay for the admission and walked each Saturday to Old Trafford,” she wrote. His early career was interrupted by World War II, during which he served in the navy as a telegrapher. Called up on Christmas Day 1942, he was assigned to HMS Offa, part of a destroyer flotilla on Arctic convoys escorting merchant shipping to Murmansk and Archangel. “Ron was profoundly affected by his experiences of D-Day in 1944 and his time on the wartime Arctic convoys, and went on to become the chairman of the Russian Convoy Club in London,” his granddaughter said. After the war he told of the severe weather conditions, dangers from ice packs and German U-boats, and the poor prospects of survival if anyone went overboard. He returned to Normandy in 2009 for the 65th anniversary commemorations of the landings. After the war Harris used his telegraphy skills at the Post Office in Manchester, where he became a trade union activist, going on to serve as a senior official at the National Graphical Association. “His move to Reuters in 1976 did not win him many friends in the unions, but at Reuters he was fair and caring with a passion for improving working conditions.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

Disappearing headlines and other faults of flawed terminal

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-22T23:14:48+01:00

Problems with Thomson Reuters’ flawed new flagship desktop platform, part of a $1 billion technology upgrade, have been highlighted in an internal memo that acknowledges faults and goes some way to explaining why it has not been a runaway hit with financial professionals. Eikon was launched last September as a fundamental shift for the company and the financial services industry it serves. It incorporates social networking features like Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging and is available on multiple computer platforms and smart phones. It was intended to be a key milestone in Thomson Reuters’ strategy to replace dozens of disparate legacy products and build an open and connected global financial community. Customers were expected to take up Eikon quickly but with many financial businesses still struggling to recover from the global economic crisis, sales have not been spectacular. Six senior executives left the company in July and chief executive Tom Glocer took personal charge of the group’s main operating division. Thomson Reuters hoped that updated features allowing users to comment, chat and e-mail charts, stories and other data would challenge messaging and more intuitive search tools featured in the latest Bloomberg terminal. Within the organisation, more than 650 journalists have been using Eikon since the beginning of this year and usage data shows that between 50 and 60 per cent of them are using the new terminal on a routine basis. Users prefer it for enhanced corporate views pages, better market-monitoring tools, more powerful historical and analytical displays and a more intuitive navigation experience, said Adrian Dickson, global head of news product, in an internal memo obtained by The Baron. “However we, like Eikon customers generally, have also asked for improved speed, performance and urgent attention to bugs and defects. The Eikon team has acknowledged the platform’s shortcomings and over the next six months will focus on performance improvements over the introduction of new content and functionality. This means that many of the gaps that we and others see in the News Experience will remain until the core stability and functionality of Eikon is perfected.” Dickson said Eikon was much more demanding on data networks and on computer memory which can result in sluggish response times. “Eikon developers are prioritising improvements to overall speed and resilience, which in the case of News means improving the speed with which stories are retrieved as well as ensuring headlines do not randomly disappear.” Reuters stories are delayed up to two minutes to be made available for searches, Dickson said, adding: “Therein lies the problem.” He said the Eikon development team has made the disappearing story problem the top priority among issues to be repaired in the Eikon news space. “They plan to have a fix in place by early September.” Dickson listed other faults that had discouraged some journalists from migrating to Eikon for their regular reporting and editing tasks and said a fix was scheduled for mid-October. Other fixes will be in place in the first quarter of next year. New systems are being built that should allow editors to track what stories customers are clicking in near real-time, thus helping editors understand what stories drive traffic, at what times of the day, by which customer types and in what geographies. Journalists in New York, Washington, Chicago and Toronto were the first to be trained on Eikon earlier this year. London is next, followed by Paris and Frankfurt. Face-to-face training will also take place in Bangalore, Hong Kong and Beijing before the end of 2011. Singapore, Tokyo and Sydney will be completed by Q1 2012. Eikon will begin to be rolled out to medium and small bureaus in the second quarter. “There are flaws in Eikon, as the company has acknowledged, but the platform has rich tools that work in some of our key areas of coverage,” Dickson said. “As Eikon is stabilized and improved, journalists will become more confident using its multiple features which should help them produce more original and insightful stories… “The Eikon platform is critical to our future and all journalists need to understand how news is being displayed on the new terminal. Therefore we are planning to install at least one stand-alone Eikon terminal in every bureau throughout the course of 2012.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Erdmute Greis-Behrendt

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-16T12:19:50+01:00

Erdmute Greis-Behrendt, the legendary “Miss B” and pillar of Reuters’ 30 year-long presence in communist East Germany, died on Monday. Erdmute, pictured in the East Berlin bureau in the late 1970s, was 74 and died after a long, courageous battle against cancer, Annette von Broecker writes. She is survived by her son Max and husband Thomas. Erdmute, an East German graduate, joined Reuters in November 1959 and helped Peter Johnson set up Reuters’ and the western world’s first media bureau in East Berlin as an editorial assistant, her journalistic ambitions cruelly controlled and curtailed by East Germany’s foreign ministry. Erdmute kept the bureau going throughout the upheavals of Berlin’s recent history, from the building of the wall, alongside Adam Kellett-Long 50 years ago, to its collapse 28 years later. She then became a member of Reuters’ first united Berlin reporting bureau, retiring in 1997. Among the many Reuter correspondents who gained their first journalistic experience out in the cold war were, among others, the late Brian Horton, Jack Altman, Frederick Forsythe, Tony Grey, Colin McIntyre, Derek Parr, Mark Wood, Mark Brayne and, at the time of German reunification, Martin Nesirky and Paul Taylor. I am sure that everyone who had met Erdmute was impressed by her kindness, her devotion to her work and her reliability. I will remember her humour and her wonderful, crystal-clear laughter, her red hair and gentle smile. I saw Erdmute last June. We knew each other for 52 years, because I joined Reuters two weeks before her but on the other side of the iron fence – in West Berlin. We were friends. I am very sad. Erdmute will be buried in her husband's family grave in Thuringia on 2 September.

Thomson Reuters shares to go ex-dividend

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-15T16:06:47+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares go ex-dividend on 16 August. Owners of shares at market close in New York and Toronto on 15 August are eligible for a dividend of 31 cents per share. At a price of $31.76 on 14 August, the dividend yield is 3.9 per cent. Over the past 30 days, the average traded volume for the stock has been just under one million shares per day at 964,000. The group’s market capitalisation is $26.4 billion. As of the close of trading on Friday, the shares were down 15.4 per cent year to date. TheStreet Ratings rates Thomson Reuters as a buy. It says the company’s strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its compelling growth in net income, revenue growth, impressive record of earnings per share growth, good cash flow from operations and notable return on equity. “We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had lackluster performance in the stock itself.” ● SOURCE The Street

Thomson Reuters to expand new data system

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-15T15:30:48+01:00

Thomson Reuters is to add foreign exchange data and trading services to Elektron, its flagship high-speed market data system launched last year. The group hopes the addition can provide a bright spot in its markets division, which accounts for the majority of group revenues but has been performing below expectations, the Financial Times reported. Tom Glocer, chief executive, took over direct management of markets last month in a shake-up that involved the departure of the division’s chief executive, Devin Wenig, and other senior managers. “Banks need to find ways to cut costs but can’t ignore the technology infrastructure,” Jon Robson, president, enterprise solutions, told the FT. He added that Elektron would look to do more cross-asset class trading. “It’s primarily equities services at the moment, but it will do over-the-counter trading too,” he said. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Thomson Reuters Foundation partners The Baron

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-11T18:14:06+01:00

The Thomson Reuters Foundation has selected The Baron as a content partner for its TrustMedia news website. Articles published on The Baron will be featured on ● www.trust.org/trustmedia, which reports on Reuters journalism, media and development training programmes around the world. TrustMedia offers journalists the opportunity to learn the skills and values to succeed through training programmes. It also trains organisations to interact with the media. Increasing numbers of Reuters people past and present – as well as others – regularly visit The Baron to keep abreast of news about the organisation. Editor Barry May is delighted to welcome the Foundation’s 7,000 alumni to their ranks.

Reuters overhauls North American news pictures

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-10T20:44:56+01:00

Reuters is focusing its news pictures coverage more sharply on the United States and at the same time moving some photo editing jobs from Washington to a new North American picture desk in Toronto. The change reflects increased demand for pictures from the United States, says Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief. “In keeping with our desire to let journalists be journalists and separate content from operations, we have decided to make a few changes in the structure of Reuters photography,” he said in an internal message obtained by The Baron. “From now on, Regional Picture Editors will be aided by their respective general managers with operational and administrative tasks, from budgets to safety issues,” Adler said. The picture editors will continue to report to the global pictures editor, Reinhard Krause, who will run day-to-day photography and report to Jim Gaines, who joined Reuters in April from Rupert Murdoch’s digital tablet venture, The Daily, as ethics editor. Washington photographers and the picture desk in the US capital will now concentrate on the White House, US politics and other stories from the Washington, DC area, as well as the upcoming presidential campaign, including coverage of the primaries. Up to four jobs on Washington’s picture desk will move to a new North American picture desk in Toronto and several more will be added. The new desk will assign stories and “aggressively pursue pickup pictures”, Adler said. “The move to Toronto is part of a business development plan that includes major investments into our coverage of North America both for international and domestic markets.” Details will be discussed with The Newspaper Guild of New York in coming weeks. “Our motive for these changes is not only to respond to the marketplace for photography — where demand for pictures from the U.S. now exceeds the next most popular nation by a factor of more than two — but, even more important, to underscore our commitment to the highest standard of photojournalism,” Adler said. “Reuters’ photographers have already proven themselves among the most incisive, artful and intrepid in the field, and we are confident this structure will give them the support they deserve.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters changes kill rule after embarrassing error

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-08-01T18:09:03+01:00

Reuters is to change how it deals with retractions on its website after being embarrassed by a new columnist who stated wrongly that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation had received billions in tax refunds. The erroneous column two weeks ago was the first by a Pulitzer Prize-winning US tax writer who had just been hired by Reuters, David Cay Johnston. When Reuters learned the day after it had been published that the column was wrong, it posted an advisory on ● reuters.com saying the column had been withdrawn. The column itself, however, went untouched for another couple of hours, when it was removed. That evening, Reuters posted a follow-up column by Johnston in which he acknowledged his mistake and described how it occurred. James Ledbetter, recently appointed Reuters op-ed editor, said that in future a notice will be posted atop an incorrect article at the same time that the advisory goes out, and an editor will strike through the wrong portion of the article. If another article is pending, as in the recent case, the notice will say so. “In essence, Reuters will move from an approach that made sense when it was a wire service with no online publishing home to one commonly used by bloggers to update and correct their posts,” the Florida-based journalism school the Poynter Institute said on its website. “The correction/kill policy that is followed at Reuters is long-established by the wire service,” Ledbetter said. “There isn’t a procedure for taking down something that is wrong because for the vast majority of Reuters’ existence, there was nothing to take down.” Under the new policy, erroneous posts will remain online even after Reuters publishes a follow-up. “I think it stands as a transparent record of what occurred,” Ledbetter said. “I think to take it down – while I can see some argument for that – it’s not being fully transparent with our readers about the process, and it could be subject to abuse.” Poynter said one advantage of the new approach is that it retains reader comments, which disappear when a post is deleted. “In this case, user comments could have helped Reuters and Johnston identify a critical error within a few hours of publishing the original story,” Poynter said. Shortly after the column was posted on the morning of 12 July, a reader suggested in a comment that Johnston had misread News Corp’s documents. By the time that the writer had tracked his error and an editor made the call to issue a “kill order,” the column had been up for more than a day and National Public Radio had interviewed Johnston about his piece. The station brought him back the next day to explain his error. Johnston continues to write for Reuters. ● SOURCE Poynter | Reuters

Markets drag on 'healthy' Thomson Reuters results

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-28T14:17:33+01:00

Thomson Reuters reported sluggish growth in its markets division as the company struggles to accelerate adoption of a new flagship desktop for financial professionals. Second-quarter results released on Thursday followed a management shakeout that resulted in the sudden departure of the ailing division’s chief Devin Wenig and five other high-level executives last week. Chief executive Tom Glocer assumed direct responsibility for a turnaround in the division, which competes with Bloomberg, Dow Jones and FactSet Research. Division revenue excluding the impact of currency changes rose one per cent from a year earlier, slowing from the first quarter's gain of two per cent. Overall revenue and earnings per share were within ranges the company announced last week when it became clear that improving the performance of the markets division was a priority for the board and controlling shareholder, Canada's Thomson family. Glocer called the results “healthy” but noted this was due to strong growth in the professional division serving legal, accounting and other professionals. That unit’s revenue rose eight per cent excluding the impact of exchange rate changes. “Nonetheless, revenue growth in our markets division is below our expectations, and I have decided to accelerate the transformation in markets,” Glocer said in a statement. “I am confident that these changes will result in improved performance.” Total revenue excluding divestitures was $3.2 billion, up four per cent before currency adjustments and slightly ahead of the average analyst forecast. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 51 cents from 41 cents. Many financial clients are still recovering from the global economic crisis, with job cuts and pullbacks in spending. This is hindering sales of Eikon, a new desktop platform which is aimed at pulling together dozens of disparate legacy products. The company said it had sold more than 28,000 Eikon desktops since the launch last September. About 3,500 are to new users, meaning that only about 24,500 of the company's roughly 500,000 financial markets users have migrated to the new product. Reuters’ own coverage of the results said the organisational changes have thrown into question how quickly Thomson Reuters can fast-track growth in markets, which accounted for 59 per cent of the company's revenue in the second quarter. Glocer is preparing a plan to boost the division’s revenue growth rate and plans to present it to the board in the next two months, Reuters said. “He will have about a year to make it work, according to several people familiar with the board’s thinking.” The markets shakeup dominated Glocer’s earnings call with analysts who wanted to know how and when things will turn around. He pleaded for some patience in fixing the division and discussed a 30-day plan, which involves reorganising the roles of its sales staff, and a 90-day plan, which entails repositioning the product line. On top of that, there is a year-plus plan that calls for developing a broader strategy around Eikon and Elektron, an ultra-high speed data distribution network. “Any time you do this level of transformation, people need time to get their sea legs,” Glocer said. “So, in the short term, we expect some disruption. At the same time, we expect a lot of excitement on people moving forward with the new strategy in place.” Asked if his direct management of markets is an interim measure or a permanent one, he said, “Permanent is a long time. I’m the ninth chief executive of Reuters in 160 years.” Thomson Reuters shares, which have tumbled in recent days, rose by 3.5 per cent after today’s results. ● SOURCE Reuters | PaidContent

Reuters appoints new editors and bureau chiefs in Asia

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-27T14:03:34+01:00

Reuters announced new appointments to its Asia editorial team aimed at deepening specialisation, simplifying news editing and freeing “our best journalists to produce truly compelling, agenda-setting stories”. ● John Chalmers, editor, political and general news, Asia, takes on the new role of bureau chief South Asia, returning to New Delhi for the second time in his Reuters career. ● Lincoln Feast, deputy editor for Asia company news and head of the company news desk in Singapore, becomes bureau chief Pacific, based in Sydney. ● Mark Bendeich, Pacific bureau chief, joins the Asia top news team as a deputy top news editor. He will remain in Sydney. ● Michael Flaherty, Asia editor-in-charge, company news, based in Hong Kong, becomes financial services editor, Asia. ● Eric Burroughs, Asia financial markets editor in Hong Kong, takes on a new project to deepen market coverage across asset classes. “Eric will recruit and run a team that will use expert editing, smart reporting and cool technology to create a new stream of content that will support our desktop business,” said Dayan Candappa, Asia managing editor. “He will launch the project in Asia and then oversee the rollout across the world, working with colleagues in EMEA and the Americas. This is a critical project, one of the first commitments the new leadership team has made to the business and one that will help blunt challenges from Dow Jones and Bloomberg in the real-time commentary and analysis space.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Broker cuts Thomson Reuters for second time in four days

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-26T16:49:05+01:00

For the second time in four days, a Canadian brokerage has downgraded Thomson Reuters’ price target. Royal Bank of Canada's brokerage RBC Dominion Securities also removed its outperform rating and said the group’s markets division may not deliver five per cent revenue growth next year. “We now view the stock as largely range-bound, pending better visibility on the growth outlook for Markets,” analyst Drew McReynolds wrote in a research report. The company is likely to provide guidance with its fourth-quarter results in February 2012. “In the meantime, we expect sluggish 1 per cent to 2 per cent growth from Markets to be a headwind for the stock.” RBC downgraded its rating to sector perform and dropped its price target to US$42. It had cut the target from $48 to $46 on Friday. The stock is down 12 per cent since the end of April, and McReynolds suggests investors wait for a “more timely” entry point. ● SOURCE The Globe and Mail

Thomson family behind forced TR restructure - WSJ

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-26T17:35:28+01:00

The Thomson family, impatient with Thomson Reuters’ performance, pressed for a senior management shake-up that saw the sudden departure of six top executives last week, putting pressure on CEO Tom Glocer to pull off a turnaround, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. With Glocer now directly overseeing the markets division, which contributes almost 60 per cent of group revenue, the newspaper said the chief executive is in the line of fire if results do not improve. Markets includes Reuters news agency. The Journal quoted people familiar with the company saying it is not unusual for officials of Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s investment company, to have a say in setting strategy at Thomson Reuters, where they hold a 55 per cent controlling interest. But the family’s move to flex its muscle spotlights the uncertain payoff from the $17 billion deal that united Thomson Corp and Reuters Group, it said. Since the day after the merger closed in April 2008, the combined company’s US-listed shares have risen just 0.7 per cent. “Thomson Reuters is scheduled to release second-quarter financial results on Thursday, which will be a crucial day for Mr Glocer,” the Journal said. Investors have said publicly that they are looking for an explanation of Devin Wenig’s departure as chief executive of the markets division and more details about the division’s results. Wenig was a close associate of Glocer, who brought him into Reuters 17 years ago. The Journal said many investors and company executives had considered him to be a possible successor. Both men were former US mergers and acquisitions lawyers. The Journal said: “People familiar with the company said Woodbridge has methodically set financial goals for the Thomson family’s businesses, and then expects executives to meet them, or face losing their jobs.” Quoting informed sources, the Journal said that after discussions between Thomson Reuters management in New York and Woodbridge officials in Toronto, Wenig declined to go along with a broad overhaul. “It was left to Mr Glocer to push through a more drastic proposal that consolidated the division, and wiped away layers of what the company called duplicative executive positions.” The Journal said that, partly due to the weak economic recovery, Thomson Reuters and Glocer have been grappling with slow sales of products for investment banks, fund managers and other finance professionals. “But the investment industry also has been slow to embrace Eikon, a revamped financial-data product that Thomson Reuters spent heavily on to develop.” Eikon was launched last September as a next-generation desktop product for financial professionals incorporating social media features like Twitter. It brings together dozens of Reuters and Thomson legacy products. The company said at the launch that Eikon was intended to win customers from Bloomberg and other competitors. Clients were expected to take it up quickly, but that has not happened. The company has migrated only about 24,500 of the roughly 500,000 users of its legacy products to Eikon and it has brought in only 3,500 new users. Largely because of spending to develop the new product as well as other new offerings, Thomson Reuters posted a seven per cent decline in underlying operating profit last year. The payoff was supposed to come this year, company executives told the Journal. ● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal

Former German bank chief joins Thomson Reuters board

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-25T22:54:26+01:00

Thomson Reuters on Monday announced the appointment of Wulf von Schimmelmann, former CEO of Germany’s largest independent retail bank Deutsche Postbank, to its board of directors. David Thomson, chairman, said: “Wulf’s background in financial services complements our global strategy. We look forward to having his counsel as we continue to expand our businesses in strategic markets in Europe and around the world.” Von Schimmelmann, 64, is a director of Accenture and of Western Union; chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Post DHL; and a member of the supervisory board of Maxingvest. He began his career at McKinsey, working in Switzerland, the United States and Germany. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

London world desk gets new editors

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-22T20:56:20+01:00

Reuters’ London world desk, currently experiencing its busiest time in many years, is to get permanent day and evening duty editors to help cope with increasing pressure. Ralph Boulton, recently appointed editor, political & general news, Europe, Middle East & Africa, on Friday announced the appointment of Peter Millership and Angus Macswan to the posts of desk editors in charge. Boulton told deskers: “To improve co-ordination with bureaux and help ensure continuity on the desk itself, we will be making changes in the way WD operates. The position of World Desk head has been abolished. I will be overseeing the desk, but a team of Editors in Charge (EICs) will be responsible for general management of the file and staff. The EICs will be accomplished writers with broad experience of working both in the field and on the desk.” At the same time, Alastair Macdonald is appointed chief lead writer and Sonya Hepinstall becomes features editor. ● SOURCE Reuters

Major Thomson Reuters shake-up claims more scalps

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-22T18:56:35+01:00

A major reorganisation at Thomson Reuters saw the sudden departure of five more senior executives on Friday. Chris Ahearn, president of media, is leaving the company, along with four others in the markets division which includes Reuters news agency. Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets, left yesterday in a re-organisation that the company said aimed to accelerate growth in its financial data business. Second quarter growth in markets has been “somewhat slower than anticipated”, the company said on Thursday. The shares were down more than three per cent in New York on Friday. Susan Taylor Martin, president of global investment focus accounts, replaces Ahearn as head of media. Tom Glocer, chief executive of the entire group, takes on oversight of markets, assuming Wenig’s role as well as running the whole business. He said: “These changes are intended to accelerate growth as we flatten our organisation to operate as an integrated company and unleash cross-company capabilities and operating synergies.” Both Ahearn, a former investment banker, and Wenig were executives of Reuters when the company was taken over by Thomson in 2008. The Financial Times said Wenig’s exit was seen as a sign that Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s holding company, was seeking faster change after 12 months in which its shares have fallen by 9.9 per cent. The Thomsons, Canada’s richest family, own 55 per cent of the business. The FT said the Thomson Reuters board has been looking for new growth strategies as it came to the end of a three-year integration period following the takeover in which cost savings had driven results. Sources in New York said the Thomsons had decided to give the integration three years to bed down and then act if they thought performance was falling short of expectations. Glocer said he will manage the financial services business of markets through two closely aligned operating units: Financial Professionals & Marketplaces and Enterprise Solutions. The Financial Professionals & Marketplaces unit will come together over the coming months through the combination of the present Sales & Trading (S&T) and Investment & Advisory (I&A) units. This unit will be led by Shanker Ramamurthy, who joined in May from IBM where he was a general manager and currently runs S&T. “To give Shanker time to ramp up, I&A will report on an interim basis to Bob Daleo, CFO of Thomson Reuters, who will transition the business to Shanker in a careful and open process,” Glocer said. “Editor-in-Chief Stephen Adler will also report directly to me, reflecting the cross-company role of Editorial.” Glocer will chair a new markets executive committee. “This transformation is about driving growth, unleashing cross-company capabilities and making it easier to get things done,” he said. “Importantly, it’s also about accountability and transparency. As we work to create a performance-driven culture, let’s make it a culture where results speak the loudest and collaboration is the norm.” The other senior executives leaving are investment and advisory president Eric Frank, markets global sales and customer service managing director Joerg Floeck, markets chief marketing officer Lee Ann Daly and markets global head of human resources John Reid-Dodick. Glocer said he was not planning any further changes of this scale at corporate level or in the professional division, where a similar streamlining effort was carried out earlier this year. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters streamlines markets division, Devin Wenig bows out

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-21T23:37:10+01:00

Thomson Reuters reorganised its markets division, which includes Reuters news agency and where growth has been “somewhat slower than anticipated” in the second quarter, and said on Thursday the unit’s head Devin Wenig, pictured, is leaving the company. Chief executive Tom Glocer will assume responsibility for the division. The company reaffirmed its 2011 outlook and said it expects to report second-quarter ongoing revenues of between $3.1 billion and $3.2 billion, up four per cent. Wall Street is looking for $3.15 billion in the Q2 results due to be announced on 28 July. The markets division, which serves the financial services industry, will be simplified to three business units from four to help accelerate growth, the company said. The sales and trading, and investment and advisory units will be combined. The company gave no reason for Wenig’s departure beyond saying it was “coincident with these organizational changes”. He joined Reuters in 1993. Before becoming chief executive of markets he was chief operating officer of Reuters prior to the 2008 takeover by Thomson. Glocer said the changes were aimed at accelerating growth “as we flatten our organization to operate as an integrated company and unleash cross-company capabilities and operating synergies”. The Financial Times said Wenig’s unexpected exit was seen by industry members as a sign that Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s holding company that manages its 55 per cent ownership of Thomson Reuters, was seeking faster change after 12 months in which the group’s shares have fallen by 9.9 per cent. ● SOURCE Reuters | Press Release | Financial Times

Hacking scandal: Stephen Adler reminds staff about Trust Principles

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-19T15:34:17+01:00

Reuters’ editor-in-chief Stephen Adler has reminded staff about the organisation’s Trust Principles and warned “we flirt with disaster” if they imagine the News Corporation phone hacking scandal “can’t happen here”. The Trust Principles and Handbook of Journalism alone do not offer protection against such ethical violations as occurred at the News of the World, he said in a memo to editorial staff. The memo also bore the name of Jim Gaines, Reuters’ ethics editor. Both men are relatively new to the company: Adler joined in 2010 and was appointed editor-in-chief in February 2011. Gaines joined in April from The Daily, Rupert Murdoch’s digital paper for tablet computers, where he was managing editor. “Every one of us has an obligation to push back when something seems wrong, even in the happy event that it may turn out to be right after all,” they said. “When the fairness, balance or integrity of our journalism is in question, we simply must ‘pipe up’ – to a colleague, a manager, or, if that doesn’t work, to one of us.” Following is the full text of the memo: The News Corp. scandal is not an occasion for self-satisfaction, at Reuters or anyplace else. That much should go without saying. Journalists everywhere have lost some of our innocence, again. However flagrant the ethical violations of News of the World, we flirt with disaster if we imagine it can’t happen here. We are uniquely fortunate to have our Trust Principles, with their institutional protections for independence and integrity and their injunctions against bias and factional interest. We also have our Handbook, which exhorts us in specific ways to honor its “absolutes” of accuracy, transparency, rigorous sourcing and freedom from conflicts of interest. The Trust Principles and the Handbook have proven their uses in a thousand ways. But they alone do not protect us. Every one of us has an obligation to push back when something seems wrong, even in the happy event that it may turn out to be right after all. When the fairness, balance or integrity of our journalism is in question, we simply must “pipe up” – to a colleague, a manager, or, if that doesn’t work, to one of us. In a profession that requires us to pursue the truth wherever it leads us – whether into the teeth of controversy or cross-wise with authority and conventional wisdom – “this doesn’t seem ethical to me” may be the most important thing a journalist can say. We’re both happy to report that the evidence of our brief time here suggests this is widely understood at Reuters, but in the present circumstance it seemed to bear repeating. Best regards, Steve Adler and Jim Gaines ● SOURCE Reuters ● Trust Principles ● Handbook of Journalism ● Special Report - Inside Rebekah Brooks’ News of the World

Reuters kills high-flyer's debut column

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-13T23:07:36+01:00

Reuters has retracted the first article by a new Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist who wrote “a whopper of a mistake” about the tax affairs of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. “David Cay Johnston is having a rough day at work,” The Atlantic Wire reported. The veteran business reporter, pictured, who won his Pulitzer at The New York Times, filed his first piece as a Reuters columnist about News Corp making money on income taxes. He said News Corp received more in tax refunds over the past four years than it paid in taxes. The company had an effective tax rate of -43 per cent and collected over $10 billion in tax refunds over the past four years, Johnston wrote. That turned out to be incorrect. “Not just an embarrassing typo or a little bit off, but totally, absolutely wrong,” The Atlantic Wire said. “A full correction is coming soon, and it will detail how, exactly, Johnston misread a News Corp. financial statement but for now there’s this posting on Reuters’ Mediafile blog: ‘Please be advised that the David Cay Johnston column published on Tuesday stating that Rupert Murdoch’s U.S.-based News Corp. made money on income taxes is wrong and has been withdrawn.’ Which to any journalist reads as one big ouch.” “This is particularly painful,” Johnston told The Atlantic Wire. “I have been at this for 45 years. I have never, until now, had to do anything like this. I am assiduous about correcting the record.” Jim Impoco, executive editor for Thomson Reuters Digital, tweeted: "Can’t withdraw my tweets but will post DCJ’s mea culpa soon: David Cay Johnston column on News Corp taxes withdrawn.” In a replacement column, Johnston wrote: “Readers, I apologize. The premise of my debut column for Reuters, on News Corp's taxes, was wrong, 100 percent dead wrong.” He made no excuses for what he called “a bonehead error”. “Tax is my beat, and I was simply looking for what the record showed since Mr. Murdoch is much in the news these days. Some of his British journalists hacked into voicemails, paid off cops and interfered in a murder investigation. Having a long career writing not just about tax, but also about journalistic misconduct, I wondered if there was anything of interest in News Corp's annual disclosure reports... “I often write tart notes at the Romenesko blog for journalists, the Columbia Journalism Review, Nieman Reports and elsewhere about what I consider flawed reporting by others. I lecture to young reporters around the world on the duty of care they need to take with facts and teach how to check and cross check. Until now I have never made a big mistake, but this is a painful reminder that we all put our pants on one leg at a time. The measure of character, I say in my posts and lectures, is whether when an error is found you forthrightly and promptly correct. “So I hope readers will trust that while I made a whopper of a mistake, it has been corrected forthrightly and promptly.” ● SOURCE The Atlantic Wire | NPR | ABC News | Reuters

Improving the signal-to-noise ratio, by Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-13T23:11:17+01:00

In a world awash with data, the challenge for Thomson Reuters and other providers is to create an efficient path to information that helps businesses to do commerce, says CEO Tom Glocer. A huge trove of information is now free and this has disrupted the media landscape like nothing else in the industry’s history, he writes in Brunswick Review published by international corporate communications group Brunswick. The primary competitive advantage media companies had long held was their iron-clad grip over both the content they created and its means of distribution, Glocer says. That, coupled with the huge cost of entry into the business for would-be competitors, ensured a very powerful business model for newspaper publishers, TV networks, record labels, and movie studios. “But information alone isn’t enough, especially given how much of it there is these days,” Glocer writes. “Equally important is ensuring that the information we provide is valuable in terms of giving our customers the ability to find the information they require in a sea of data.” Describing the Reuters news wire as one of the oldest media outlets in the world, Glocer says: “I firmly believe that this flood of information plays to Thomson Reuters singular competitive advantage as an information provider. Our entire business model and strategy for growth rests on a basic assumption that relevant, actionable information and the tools to analyze and act upon it have value. We have found that professionals all over the world are willing to pay for information that they absolutely require to do their jobs and they want exactly that information, not more.” He adds: “In a world awash with data, the problem that professionals face is not, therefore, an overabundance of information, it is the lack of good filters. In an increasingly noisy world, Thomson Reuters improves the signal-to-noise ratio for professionals around the globe. We enable our customers to detect the often faint signals hidden in big noisy data sets that help them fulfill their goals. That is information worth paying for.” ● SOURCE Brunswick Review

US union staff at Thomson Reuters approve new contract

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-08T20:27:26+01:00

Journalists, technicians and other news staff represented by the Newspaper Guild of New York have ratified a three-year contract with Thomson Reuters, ending an often acrimonious two-and-a-half-year dispute. The union said on Friday that the compromise agreement was approved by 252 members while 68 opposed it and six abstained. More than 75 per cent of the 430 Guild members voted at meetings held between 29 June and 7 July in New York, Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Miami, Atlanta and Hauppauge. The new contract, which is already in effect, replaces work rules that had been in place for 18 months and were at the centre of litigation. It includes a guaranteed 1.5 per cent pay increase in each of its three years. The company had previously insisted that most or all raises be awarded solely at its discretion. Yet to be resolved is a charge by the National Labor Relations Board that Thomson Reuters’ social media policy violated federal labour law by restricting employees’ rights to openly discuss working conditions, and that it was unlawfully applied in connection with a tweet sent by a Guild-represented journalist. Talks on that matter continue. “It’s been a long battle and we’re happy that it is behind us,” said Guild president Bill O’Meara. “We have a new contract that rewards Guild employees for the critical work they do to make Thomson Reuters successful. I truly hope that this new contract sets the stage for a productive and positive relationship with the new Thomson Reuters management team.” ● SOURCE Poynter | The Newspaper Guild of New York

Reuters revamps website – again

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-07T16:40:01+01:00

Reuters unveiled another new look for its main website on Thursday, a year and a half after the last overhaul, to make it more “consumer-facing”. The revamp reflects recent changes put in place by Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief, and Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital. The bold red and white Reuters logo introduced in December 2009 is replaced by a more sober black, grey and white with gold touches, pictured. The facelift brings ● Reuters.com more closely into the Thomson Reuters family by adopting the group’s primary corporate palette across its online and mobile platforms. A joint memo to staff from Freeland and Keith McAllister, editor and publisher for Reuters’ Consumer Media, said only the home page would sport the new look as it would take a few weeks to move the rest of the site from the old system. The new look showcases numerous high profile hires and internal moves Adler has made since taking over in February. “The refresh is just the beginning of Steve’s pledge to develop a powerful consumer-facing digital presence for Reuters News,” Freeland told staff. “In recent weeks, we’ve added some brilliant new journalists to our already terrific team.” PaidContent website, which tracks the economics of digital content, said the stylistic update was part of Reuters’ keeping up with its rival Bloomberg, which unveiled a significant redirection for ● Bloomberg.com — “though it’s fair to say that Bloomberg had much farther to go in remaking its website than Reuters had to this time out”. Bloomberg, Reuters and Dow Jones have been working diligently on becoming more “consumer facing,” that is, appealing to wider professional audience than the financial markets professionals who subscribe to their respective services, paidContent said. “The feeling is that as the business of news is flattened on the web, where traditional print brands are effectively rendered equal in terms of distribution and reach, these financial information companies can expand their presence to both readers and advertisers, thereby enhancing their core services. “That’s why Reuters has gone on such a hiring binge and has been aiming for prestigious journalism prizes with its long-form ‘enterprise reporting’ and hiring star reporters… “These efforts are extremely expensive and at a time when traditional news outlets continue to shrink, it’s heartening to see any company expanding its news efforts. While all these companies have shown significant patience with building these operations, the measures for success appear vague — clearly, it will rest on some combination of traffic gains, brand awareness and, lastly ad revenue. But in terms of building up the core financial data products that these companies have been founded on, that will probably be more difficult to determine.” Freeland said the chief goal of the refresh was to display more of Reuters’ content and to provide a clearer hierarchy of news stories across its English language websites (US, UK and India). She added: “Sprucing up the homepage should help make the work of our new and old stars — and everything we do at Reuters — more visible, but it is just a small step in our broader effort to make ● Reuters.com and all of our digital platforms a fitting showcase for Reuters News and all of Thomson Reuters.” ● SOURCE paidContent

Reuters extends move into social media

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-07T00:00:24+01:00

Reuters has appointed a new social media editor with the aim of extending the brand, bringing more people to the ● Reuters.com website, and making Reuters the most recognisable name in news. Jim Impoco, executive editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, said the new editor, Anthony De Rosa, was “a product manager and technologist” who had turned a side project into one of the most potent social media platforms around. “Called ‘The undisputed King of Tumblr’ by the New York Times, De Rosa is creator of ● soupsoup.tumblr.com, which is among the top 25 of the over 2.3 million tumblogs tracked by Compete. NBC New York has chosen him as one of the top 20 people to follow on Twitter,” Impoco said in an internal announcement on Wednesday. Tumblr is a micro-blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to a short-form blog. De Rosa “will integrate what he calls the ‘ambient wire’ that exists on social networks, where news now breaks before anywhere else, into Reuters platforms,” Impoco said. “As part of his mission, he will help our journalists and editors use social media tools to monitor news, report news, and find leads.” Under his direction, social media “will extend our brand, bring more people to ● Reuters.com, and make Reuters the most recognizable name in news”. Impoco also announced the appointment of Paul Smalera as deputy op-ed editor. He has joined Reuters from ● Fortune.com, where he was a senior editor responsible for technology coverage and special projects including the online presentation of the Fortune 500. He will commission and edit opinion and commentary pieces. ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Clare McDermott

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-05T13:00:48+01:00

Clare McDermott, correspondent and editor during a 36-year career with Reuters, died overnight. He was 82. McDermott grew up in Edmonton, Canada, playing basketball, watching ice hockey and dreaming that one day he would be a sports writer. “That boyhood dream survived an apprenticeship on the night shift of the Ottawa Journal and it came true for me at Reuters,” he recalled long after retirement in 1990. “It turned to ashes when, as the sports editor, I reported the 1980 ‘joyless Olympiad’ in Moscow, where America led a boycott by 40 countries in protest against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. In the half century since I became a journalist, politics gnawed at the Olympic ideal like a hungry rat and, when the politicians stayed away from world sport, it was the turn of money and drugs.” Born in 1928, McDermott graduated from Carleton University and joined Reuters in 1954 on summer holiday relief during a hitchhiking tour of Europe. He served in London and Paris before being assigned to Beijing in 1960, later reporting from Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, Cyprus and Guyana and the United States before becoming editor in Asia, based in Singapore, in 1969. He was sports editor from 1973 until 1980, when he became editor, general news. After retirement as a corporate marketing communications executive in 1990 he taught journalism. “I wasn’t hired as a sports reporter, but I grabbed many chances to write about sport and early on in my time as a foreign correspondent: and – no – looking back, I know that there really was no excuse for being so sadly surprised at the way that politics intruded on those 1980 Olympics that I’d eventually cover as an editor under a sunny blue sky in Cold War Moscow,” McDermott recalled in Reuters’ 2001 book ● Frontlines: Snapshots of history. “In the early 1960s I was based in Beijing, when we had a foretaste of what would later be called ‘ping-pong diplomacy’. Mao's China built a magnificent new arena to stage the twenty-sixth World Table Tennis Championships. Britain and Australia competed, but the United States and many others boycotted the event. “It was a bizarre moment. I was out there writing about ping-pong, yet at the same time – forbidden to travel beyond Beijing and facing a wall of silence from Chinese communist officialdom – frantically trying to piece together scraps of information about the horrors of drought, famine and the chaos of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, when perhaps as many as 20 million people perished.” McDermott lived in Shropshire, England. Cremation will be on Friday 15 July.

Reuters switches sources for Hollywood news to include criticism

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-07-01T12:38:28+01:00

Reuters has dropped The Hollywood Reporter and Billboard as its lead providers of US entertainment news. Effective today, ● TheWrap.com takes over and the Hollywood website is expanding to meet Reuters’ needs. TheWrap, set up in 2009, began its relationship with Reuters last year with aggregation through Reuters America, a new wire that delivers breaking news, analysis, features and sidebars tailored to the needs of US publishers and broadcasters. The service includes national, regional and state-by-state reports. “This runs deeper,” PaidContent website reported. “TheWrap will provide reviews, along with coverage of movie, television, music and media news.” “Reuters clients need and expect reviews, so we needed to expand to meet that demand,” said Wrap founder Sharon Waxman, who began her career in journalism as a Reuters reporter in Israel in the 1980s. She has hired a lead movie critic and a lead music reviewer and reporter. ● SOURCE PaidContent

Gilbert Sedbon laid to rest in Paris

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-30T22:46:10+01:00

Former correspondent Gilbert Sedbon, who served Reuters for 48 years, was buried near Paris on Thursday in the presence of former colleagues who together represented an aggregate of several centuries’ service to Reuters. Some had been managers for entire continents; others had stayed in the Paris bureau throughout their careers as invaluable office assistants, Bernard Edinger writes. All were linked equally by their affection for their former colleague, who died on Saturday aged 94. His widow Yolande, sons Eric and Thierry and their families were joined by Reuterians who had worked with Gilbert: Jack Altman, Nguyen Khac Dung, David Lawday, Julian Nundy, Stephen Somerville, John Stephens, Paul Taylor, Ngo Thao, Pierre Tran and yours truly. Taylor attended both as a friend and as Thomson Reuters' representative. Also present were other journalists like Jonathan Randall of The Washington Post who had been close friends of Gilbert as well as of other Reuters correspondents in Paris and elsewhere. The funeral service, at the Cimetière Parisien de Pantin, was conducted by Rabbi Michael Williams, British head of one of the best known Jewish Reform congregations in Paris. This reporter, entrusted by the family with speaking on behalf of Gilbert’s former colleagues, recalled some of his legendary exploits such as the time he held up the Vietnam peace talks in Paris in the early 1970s. Ultra-conscientious as he was, Gilbert had entered the conference hall before the start of one day’s proceedings to check seating arrangements because changes sometimes indicated important diplomatic developments. Spotting a text on an empty table, he scooped it up and discovered it was an important statement scheduled to be made that day. Assuming it was an extra copy, he took it away and dictated a story to the Paris office for release once the statement was delivered. Meanwhile, delegates searched frantically for the document which turned out to have been the only existing copy of the statement. Photo, left to right: John Stephens, Nguyen Khac Dung, Ngo Thao, Stephen Somerville, Paul Taylor, Yolande Sedbon and Suzanne Edinger shortly before the start of the service.

Libya expels correspondent over Reuters' 'anti-government bias'

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-29T22:07:51+01:00

Libya has expelled a Reuters correspondent because of what it described as anti-government bias by the agency. Spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said the British journalist, Nick Carey, who arrived in Tripoli two and a half weeks ago, was asked to leave on Wednesday. He said the reason was that Reuters had been “deliberately anti-Libyan government” in its reporting. Ibrahim said Carey was not expelled for a specific story. Other Reuters journalists remain in the Libyan capital, where foreign reporters operate under government restrictions. ● SOURCE The Associated Press

Obituary: Gilbert Sedbon

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-26T10:35:14+01:00

Gilbert Sedbon, pictured, who is believed to have been Reuters’ longest-ever serving reporter, died in Paris on Saturday after a short illness. He was 94. Gil, as his numerous friends knew him, had served Reuters for nearly half a century. It was an extraordinary career by one of the most endearing people to have worked for Reuters, an organisation to which he was entirely devoted. Gil was born in Alexandria, Egypt, then under British rule, to a family of Tunisian Jewish origin and was therefore a French national, something of which he was intensely proud. He joined Reuters in Alexandria at the age of 18 and according to Stephen Somerville, in his ● review of Gil’s memoirs “From the Nile to the Seine: The lifelong story of a reporter in wars, revolutions and peacetime” published last year, his first job was reporting cotton prices, the main source of Egypt’s wealth, for Reuters’ economic services. World War Two gave him his chance to excel at reporting major international stories. One of the first was a wartime victory for secret diplomacy: a “gentlemen’s agreement” between British and French admirals to disarm Force X, the French naval contingent based at Alexandria, without bloodshed. An ingenious compromise, reached after tense negotiations, prevented the French warships from falling under German or Vichy French control. Gilbert pieced the story together from contacts he had made at the French Club Nautique in Alexandria. It made headlines around the world, long before the British government published the agreement. A sadder story that Gilbert recalled reporting was the wartime death of his first boss, ● Alexander “Jock” Massey-Anderson, manager in Alexandria, who was covering the Eastern Mediterranean as a naval correspondent. He drowned after his ship was torpedoed just outside Alexandria harbour. Gilbert’s report, based on interviews with survivors, ran prominently in the British and Allied press. “And so on, throughout the war and the troubled peace that followed, Gilbert pursues every story with the same enthusiasm and determination, as well as, by his own admission, an element of luck,” Somerville wrote. “His advice to newcomers to journalism is: ‘Chance often smiles on the reporter in the field – if he grabs it fast.’ His own natural curiosity and his ability to establish contacts at all levels were other key elements in his successive scoops. It was an anonymous contact who tipped him off by telephone to the Egyptian army’s coup d’état in 1952. International communications were immediately cut off but Gilbert managed to intercept the senior army officer who was about to broadcast news of the military takeover. The officer not only helped Gilbert to write an official English version of the Arabic announcement but then ordered the military censor to release his story, alone among the world news agencies. Gilbert had a global scoop plus a first rate contact: the officer was Colonel Anwar Sadat, later to become President of Egypt. “The news story that changed Gilbert’s life for ever was the Anglo-French Suez Canal expedition of 1956, when most foreigners were ordered out of Egypt. Together with his 20-year-old wife, Yolande, and their baby son, Eric, Gilbert was given 48 hours to wind up the affairs of a lifetime and fly off into exile. After brief stays in Rome and London, Reuters posted him to Paris for three months. It proved to be his base for the rest of his long career. But that’s another story. Book Two of these memoirs tells how Gilbert turns his reporting talents to the Cold War, defence and the aerospace business, while his young family – with the addition of a second son, Thierry – settle down, overcome some tough times and make France their new home. Paying tribute to his wife, he says: ‘Yo deserves all the praise and more.’ From the Nile to the Seine, the whole book is an impressive testimony to a man’s passion for his profession and devotion to his family.” After retiring from Reuters in 1983 as diplomatic correspondent in France, Gil continued to work as a stringer for British and Australian aerospace magazines, drawing on his multiple contacts in the aerospace industry. The funeral is on Thursday 30 June at the Cimetière Parisien de Pantin, 164 avenue Jean Jaures, in Pantin, adjacent to Paris. BERNARD EDINGER

Reuters mulls sports desk move to New York - report

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-24T11:28:28+01:00

Reuters is considering shifting the hub of its sports editing operation to New York from London, the Sports Journalists' Association (SJA) reports. Three senior sports editors are leaving in the coming months. Paul Radford, global sports editor for the past five years, is to stand down in 2012 and manage a transition to his ultimate successor while supervising coverage of the London Olympic Games, the SJA said. It will be Radford’s sixth Olympics in charge of Reuters’ award-winning sports coverage, in which he will oversee the work of 300 reporters, editors, photographers and support staff. The sports desk’s number three, sports production editor Kevin Fylan, had his leaving party last week, as he and Jon Bramley, deputy sports editor, are going to work on the Volvo Round the World yacht race. The SJA said the company’s American management is considering shifting its sports operation to the other side of the Atlantic. Such a move, were it to go ahead, would comprehensively shift the focus of Reuters’ internationally regarded sports coverage, with a New York office operating in a time zone five hours or more behind Europe. A job advertisement for global sports editor was posted this week. It said: “The successful candidate will lead a global team of specialist sports correspondents and editors and work with our wider bureau network to guarantee the scope and quality of our internationally recognized sports newsgathering team. The editor will be expected to contribute directly to the file through reporting, editing and analyzing major sports stories and themes… “Based in London; we will consider New York for an exceptional candidate. Local terms, no relocation.” The job advertisement said: “The successful candidate will work closely on a handover with our global sports editor, who is retiring in mid 2012, through the balance of this year before assuming sole responsibility for this ever popular area of coverage in the run up to the London Olympics.” Reuters’ sports editor has always carried massive influence in sports media matters, the SJA said. The late Steve Parry, Radford’s close colleague and predecessor as Reuters sports editor, served for many years on the International Olympic Commission’s press commission. Likewise, Radford has been on the commission for more than 10 years and was chairman of its working group at the Beijing and Vancouver Games, as well as working closely with the London Olympics committee. Reuters has also carried much weight in negotiations between media operators and other sports events, such as the football, rugby and cricket World Cups. Whether that would change, and Reuters’ sports coverage alter to focus more on NFL, NHL, Nascar and the like if they were run from New York is difficult to assess, the SJA added. Media blogger Roy Greenslade, writing in The Guardian, commented: “All interesting speculation, of course, but it’s hardly conclusive proof of a transAtlantic switch. And Reuters, incidentally, is keeping its counsel.” ● SOURCE Sports Journalists' Association | Reuters | The Guardian

Paper publishes story Reuters spiked

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-23T10:39:35+01:00

A controversial story that Reuters refused to run, leading to the resignation of editor Andrew Marshall, was published on Thursday, appearing in The Independent and on social networks. The story, based on confidential diplomatic cables sent by the US embassy in Bangkok and obtained by the website Wikileaks, is about the royal family of Thailand, where strict lèse majesté laws prohibit any discussion deemed harmful to the monarchy. Marshall, pictured, a senior editor in Singapore when he resigned three weeks ago, wrote in a sidebar headed “Why I decided to jeopardise my career and publish secrets” that the story is likely to be widely denounced. “It is a story that has already cost me a job I loved with Reuters, after a 17-year career. Once it is published, I will be unable to return to one of my favourite countries for many years. There is a risk – small, but real – that I will face international legal action. And several people who I consider friends will be dismayed, and probably never talk to me again.” Marshall said that as he read more than 3,000 US cables on Thailand he realised two things: “They could revolutionise our understanding of Thailand. And there was no way I could write about them as a Reuters journalist. “Reuters employs more than 1,000 Thai staff. The risks to them were significant. In my 17 years at Reuters I've covered many conflicts; I spent two years as Baghdad bureau chief as Iraq collapsed into civil war. Several friends in the company have been killed. I've always been proud to work for Reuters. When I was told my story could never be published, I understood… With great regret, I resigned from Reuters at the start of June to publish my article for anybody who wants to read it.” Having published the piece, Marshall said he was now a criminal in Thailand. A Reuters statement said: “Reuters didn’t publish this story as we didn’t think it worked in the format in which it was delivered. We had questions regarding length, sourcing, objectivity, and legal issues. Also, we were concerned the writer wasn’t participating in the normal editing process that would apply to any story Reuters publishes.” ● SOURCE The Independent

Reuters names new regional bureau chiefs and editors

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-22T23:29:19+01:00

Reuters has launched the first phase of an editorial re-organisation in Europe, the Middle East and Africa with appointments of regional bureau chiefs and editors. The new job “is firmly focused on delivering memorable news stories and overseeing a strong and competitive news file,” said newly-appointed EMEA editor Michael Stott, pictured. “Our regional bureau chiefs/editors will lead from the front, writing stories and conducting high-level interviews which showcase their expertise and set the news agenda,” he said in a message to staff. “They will be in the forefront of delivering the enterprise stories and big-picture analytical stories which will distinguish us from competitors. They are also tasked with leading news coverage from their regions, running the bureaux, recruiting, promoting, rewarding and retaining the best journalistic talent we can find.” The initial appointments are ● Samia Nakhoul as Middle East editor, initially based in London but likely to move to the region in due course. The Middle East, Gulf, Arab nations of North Africa, and Turkey report to her. Caroline Drees is Middle East/North Africa editorial region general manager. ● Alex Smith as financial industry editor, based in London. ● Noah Barkin as bureau chief, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, based in Berlin and Frankfurt. Olaf Zapke is general manager, based in Frankfurt. ● Tim Heritage as bureau chief, Central and Eastern Europe and CIS based in Moscow. Bureaux in Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria report to him. Olaf Zapke is general manager. ● Geert de Clercq as bureau chief, France/Benelux, based in Paris. Bureaux in Belgium, France, Netherlands and Luxembourg report to him. Mike Bergmeijer is general manager. ● Barry Moody as bureau chief, Southern Europe and Balkans, based in Rome. The region includes Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, and the Balkans. Mike Bergmeijer is general manager. ● Paul Taylor – European affairs editor, based in Paris, reporting to EMEA news editor Janet McBride. Stott said further announcements covering the remainder of the EMEA geography, London desks and EMEA news editing, would follow. ● SOURCE Reuters

Healthcare sale could raise $1 billion for Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-21T23:16:25+01:00

Thomson Reuters could reap $1 billion from the sale of its healthcare division to reinvest in professional information and services in faster-growing markets such as Latin America and Asia. Jim Smith, chief executive of the group’s professional division, told the Financial Times it had decided to sell the unit because expanding it to fit Thomson Reuters’ more international focus would have required heavy investment. Thomson Reuters has begun to use the Reuters brand and infrastructure to widen its reach, the FT said. “We could not have grown organically without the global footprint we acquired with Reuters. It made a profound difference to the way we think about ... our companies,” Smith said. Thomson Reuters has asked for offers for the whole business, which Bernstein Research and BNP Paribas have valued at between $850 million and $1.2 billion. The healthcare business has three main divisions, focusing on insurance claims data, analytics for hospitals and clinical content – all heavily skewed to the US market. The FT said Bernstein estimates disposals and free cash flow could allow Thomson Reuters to fund up to $5 billion of acquisitions by next year, but Smith said it was looking at smaller “fold-in” deals as well as potential investments in new products and services. The professional division accounts for 43 per cent of group revenues and spans legal, tax, accounting, scientific and regulatory information. Peter Warwick, the division’s chief operating officer, said it was looking to Latin America, India, the Middle East and China, where it faces less competition from traditional professional information providers. “The future really lies in a blend of information, applications and services,” he said. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Thomson Reuters shares cross moving average

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-21T22:43:32+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares have crossed bullishly above their 10-day moving average of $37.10 in New York, Financial News Network reported. Such a crossover often suggests higher prices in the near term, which may be confirmed by a close above this moving average level. TRI reached $37.39 on Tuesday before closing at $37.07, up 10 cents or 0.27 per cent. Thomson Reuters share prices have moved between a 52-week high of $42.15 and a 52-week low of $33.68 and are now trading 11 per cent above that low price at $37.32 per share. Over the last five market days, the 200-day moving average has remained constant while the 50-day moving average has declined 0.41 per cent. ● SOURCE Financial News Network

Reuters names new Washington bureau chief

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-16T22:53:34+01:00

Mary Milliken, pictured, West Coast bureau chief based in Los Angeles, is moving east to run Reuters’ reporting operation in Washington. Deputy editor-in-chief Paul Ingrassia told staff on Thursday that Milliken, who formerly covered emerging markets in South America and southern Europe, would take up her new assignment as Washington bureau chief after the US Labor Day holiday, 5 September. In Los Angeles since 2006, she has directed a team of 43 journalists in 17 states. In the same announcement Ingrassia said Jack Reerink, North America managing editor for the past nine months, is looking at other opportunities following the recent editorial reorganisation that eliminated the regional managing editor roles and established the new position of regional news editor for the Americas. “Jack has generously agreed, at the request of [editor-in-chief] Steve Adler and me, to assist with our transition to a regional news editor under the new structure announced in April.” Ingrassia also announced the appointment of Jed Horowitz, a 30-year veteran of Wall Street reporting and editing for Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and such publications as Securities Industry News and the American Banker, to the new post of financial companies editor. ● SOURCE Talking Biz News

Obituary: Shaun Best

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-13T17:44:09+01:00

Montreal-based photographer Shaun Best, pictured, died of a heart attack on Saturday night. He was 43. Best had just finished dinner with other photographers covering the Canadian Grand Prix and was driving home with his longtime partner, Montreal Gazette copy editor Denise Duguay, when he had the attack. “He came out of Winnipeg and saw the world with his camera,” said Mike Blake, a Reuters colleague. “He was friends with all photographers on the circuit, including those he competed with. It’s a sad day for all of us.” “He loved what he did,” Duguay said. “He was incredibly generous. He taught himself photography and computers and then taught anybody else who wanted to know, and that included me and colleagues all over the world." As a staff photographer, Best was what Duguay called “a stalwart” on the Reuters sports events team. Hockey and golf were his specialties. Gary Hershorn, news editor, Pictures America, remembered Best as a friend and gentleman. “He shot every assignment well and never hesitated to lend a hand editing whenever possible. We will miss his hands on approach to the file,” he said in a note to staff. “We all should consider ourselves lucky to have had Shaun on our staff at Reuters. We benefited from his talent, friendship and willingness to help so many people in so many ways.” ● SOURCE Montreal Gazette | Remembering Shaun Best | Portfolio

Reuters hires Harold Evans as editor-at-large

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-12T23:30:13+01:00

Reuters has hired veteran journalist Sir Harold Evans, 82, as editor-at-large in its latest attempt to widen the agency’s reach and journalistic aspirations. The Financial Times said on Sunday the former editor of The Sunday Times, founder of Condé Nast Traveler and publisher of Random House, would moderate events with political and economic figures, consult on new business travel and culture features on ● reuters.com, and advise editors on stories and newsroom issues. “Editor-at-large means you’re free to create as much havoc as they will tolerate,” Evans told the FT, saying that he would step back from a similar role at The Week magazine to focus on live events, debates about the media and highlight photojournalism at Reuters. Stephen Adler, editor-in-chief, said the appointment formed part of Reuters’ efforts to build its reputation with consumers through the website and mobile applications. “It’s partly about having a broad platform for our work where people can see the best of what we do. It’s also a way of connecting people to our brand. We want people on our paid site in the office but also want them taking us home with them,” he said. The FT said rising pressure from Bloomberg and from print and online competitors had pushed Reuters to make several high-profile appointments in its search for greater influence. Adler said Evans’ extraordinary contacts would make his live interviews a way of engaging with clients. “Thomson Reuters has a community of people we write about and people who use our content. Bringing them together is a part of what contemporary news organisations do,” he said. The FT said Adler would not disclose whether such hires had required an increased editorial budget, but said there was strong commitment from Thomson Reuters for changes such as his encouragement of long-form investigative reporting. “The opportunity to work with Harry Evans, who is one of the greatest journalists of our era or any era, is just one I would never pass up,” Adler said. Evans said the job represented a return to his roots with the Thomson family, which owned The Sunday Times and The Times before selling them to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. His first event this week will feature Henry Kissinger, former US secretary of state, and John Huntsman, former US envoy to China and possible Republican presidential contender. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Thomson Reuters rejigs journalist training for new security threats

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-07T21:12:49+01:00

Thomson Reuters is adjusting its journalist security training and protocols because of a shift from battlefield hazards to civilian threats. Photojournalist Larry Rubenstein, who recently became general manager for safety and logistics for editorial, said a sexual assault on former Reuters Television producer Lara Logan, now a CBS correspondent, at a Cairo demonstration earlier this year drove home the point that journalists must be prepared not only for the battlefield but also for all of the various new threats they face when covering the news. “But we’ve been seeing it for some time and are continually reviewing our training,” he told the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The CPJ issued new guidelines on the threat today. Rubenstein said the changes in Thomson Reuters’ security training and protocols changes include more training in cultural skills to help journalists navigate chaotic crowds. Security professionals who train journalists say they are adjusting their curriculum to reflect the challenges. For years, former military personnel – especially British Royal Marines who dominate firms such as Centurion and Tor International – have provided much of the security training for journalists, the CPJ said. But today civilian experts are taking a more prominent role in preparing journalists for risks that are particular to the field, including the threat of sexual aggression on the job. In the past 18 months, more journalists have been killed covering violent demonstrations and other non-military events than at any time since CPJ began keeping detailed records two decades ago. For decades the overwhelming majority of all journalists killed worldwide, nearly three out four, were murdered outright, CPJ said. Most were local journalists murdered in direct reprisal for their work. Fewer than one in five were killed in combat and about one in 10 were killed covering violent demonstrations. That seems to have changed, at least for the time being, said Frank Smyth, CPJ Washington representative and journalist security coordinator. The rise of street demonstrations and related violent clashes poses an emerging threat to journalists. ● SOURCE Committee to Protect Journalists

Reuters editor quits over unpublished story

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-06-03T16:18:44+01:00

Andrew Marshall, a senior editor in Singapore, has resigned over a story that he said Reuters refused to run. Marshall, who was formally disciplined in April over what Reuters termed an “insensitive and inappropriate” remark in a company Internet chat room, posted the following on Facebook and Twitter on Thursday: “I just officially resigned from Reuters, so that I can publish a very important story on Thailand they refused to run. Watch this space.” Marshall joined Reuters in 1994 as a graduate trainee and has reported from more than 25 countries, including conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories and East Timor. He was previously based in Jakarta, Bangkok, Baghdad and Dubai. In Singapore he was responsible for coverage of emerging and frontier Asia – Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South East Asia and Mongolia. The incident that prompted his reprimand also resulted in the summary dismissal of Jakarta bureau chief David Fox for making a crude comment in response to Marshall’s remark. Fox was on temporary assignment to Tokyo at the time. ● Andrew Marshall's blog

Reuters still stumps majority of Americans - poll

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-27T20:10:25+01:00

Three years after the takeover by Thomson and a major push into the United States, a majority of Americans still have trouble recognising Reuters as a global news agency, according to a poll. A combined 60 Minutes (CBS News) and Vanity Fair magazine survey found 42 per cent of respondents knew Reuters is a global news agency — not much more than the 36 per cent who couldn’t say what it is. “A fast-food chain? That college in New Jersey? Maybe it’s the airline that took you to Germany. No, a bank in London!” the US journalism website Poynter reported. Reuters had better name recognition – 68 per cent – among US college graduates, Poynter said. The poll of 1,021 randomly selected adults was conducted by telephone between 31 March and 3 April. ● SOURCE Poynter

Thomson Reuters boosts investigative journalism effort

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-24T17:57:05+01:00

Thomson Reuters has added Investigative News Network’s long-form investigative journalism to its media platform as part of its mission to create a one-stop news shop for publishers and broadcasters globally. “Publishers are telling us investigative news is extremely valuable, but seems to be the first thing cut when resources get tight,” Chris Ahearn, president of media, said on Tuesday. “The new relationship with INN is another step towards addressing the market’s need and providing our clients with stories they won’t find anywhere else.” A Thomson Reuters press release said INN is the newest component to the comprehensive coverage and delivery platform Reuters is building to meet the diverse needs of publishers and broadcasters around the world. It represents one additional step toward one stop fulfilment of its media client needs worldwide. INN is a growing consortium of non-profit news organisations in North America that produces non-partisan investigative and public service journalism on a local, regional and national basis. It is composed of more than 50 news organisations that create long-form and ongoing stories that keep communities informed on the issues they most care about. ● SOURCE Reuters ● Investigative News Network

Reuters editorial: back to the future

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-22T10:53:07+01:00

The new top team at Reuters is turning editorial back towards its former regional news structure. Rob Doherty, pictured, former Washington bureau chief, is returning to Reuters to head up the operation in the US capital. He left in 2008, since when he has been working for the Hatcher Group, a public affairs and communications firm that connects non-profit organisations and foundations to policymakers and the media. Michael Stott, global editor for the Top News Desk, is appointed regional editor for Europe-Mideast-Africa. He will oversee text journalists in the region with the exception of commodities and energy staff and the International Financing Review, which will continue to report to Richard Mably and to Dayan Candappa, respectively, on a global basis. Announcing the moves, deputy editor-in-chief Paul Ingrassia said Stott would continue in his present role on an interim basis, pending moves to further integrate the Top News Desk into the regional news structure. “The sum of these moves means that we are returning, in some respects, back toward the regional text news structure that Reuters had in years past,” Ingrassia said in a note to staff last week. Region-specific general managers will report to Stuart Karle, chief operating officer and former Wall Street Journal general counsel, who joined Reuters last month in an editorial restructuring announced by new editor-in-chief Stephen Adler. They will focus on “the critical role of supporting editorial operations, unencumbered by the demands of the file”. They will supervise operations, logistics, and safety, and coordinate editorial’s partnership with teams from human resources, public relations, legal, real estate and facilities, finance and security. Their role will include budgets, technology, and representing Reuters. The general managers are ● Sarah Edmonds – UK, Ireland and Nordic states ● Olaf Zapke – Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Balkans, Russia/CIS and Turkey ● Michael Bergmeijer, a new hire – France and Benelux ● Barry Moody – Southern Europe ● Christina Pantin – Bangalore ● Duncan Pitcairn – South Asia ● Phil Smith – North Asia ● Jean Yoon – South East Asia and Pacific ● Caroline Drees – Middle East ● Matthew Tostevin – Africa ● Saul Hudson – Latin America ● Michael Christie – Northern Latin America and US states on the Mexican border other than California ● Richard Baum – New York and Canada ● Rob Doherty – Washington DC and bureaus not covered by Baum and Christie. ● SOURCE Reuters This item has been corrected to make clear that the general managers report to Stuart Karle, chief operating officer, not Paul Ingrassia, deputy editor-in-chief – Editor.

Stay focused on business priorities, Stephen Adler tells staff

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-18T21:36:30+01:00

New editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, back in New York after visits to London, Paris and Berlin, has pledged to stay focused on business priorities across the company and ensure that Reuters editorial provides increasing value to customers and that it functions independently under the Trust Principles. “We are fortunate to work in an organization that recognizes that our work adds value only if it is accurate, unbiased, and impervious to external influence,” he said in a note to staff. Relaying some of the questions he and his deputy, new hire Paul Ingrassia who visited London and Frankfurt, heard most often and how they responded, Adler said one question was “Do you care about global coverage, or are you primarily focused on North America?” His answer: “There is no either/or here. Reuters global character is one of our biggest competitive advantages, and the huge financial and geopolitical stories of the past three months – from Japan to the Middle East, from insider trading to the royal wedding – illustrate the great value of our global capabilities in text and multimedia. But we can’t be truly global without increasing our presence and impact in the U.S.” The same sort of answer applies to the question “What do you value more: enterprise stories or snaps and market-moving stories?” “The short answer is: Both. We can’t be Reuters without the latter, and we can’t improve and grow without the former. Speed, accuracy, fairness, and relevance are our hallmarks, and must remain so. We need to be on the ground in Ivory Coast, witnessing the first shipments of cocoa leaving the port, and we need to be the first to report the arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn or the latest developments in the commodities markets. But our customers don’t just seek information; they also seek context and insight, and an enterprise piece that surfaces diplomatic cables to reveal the likely future of the Chinese government adds unmistakable value, not only for customers looking for investment strategies but for readers everywhere seeking in-depth understanding of world affairs.” Asked what he was going to do about bureaucracy, Adler said: “We heard this question everywhere! Several people told me that they had actually fled managerial roles because the procedures were so onerous. Our new structure, with its focus on separating operations from news, should help. But [chief operating officer] Stuart Karle, the new senior leadership team, and I are also aware that we have to simplify individual procedures and leave room for leaders at the local level to exercise judgment rather than merely follow rules.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters adds US yacht race to its sponsorships

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-17T22:17:04+01:00

Thomson Reuters is the primary sponsor of this year's Annapolis to Newport Race, a 473-mile offshore yacht race first contested off the US eastern seaboard 64 years ago. Eileen Lynch, global head of brand strategy, advertising and marketing, said on Tuesday: “Thomson Reuters is excited to sponsor the Annapolis-Newport Race, one of the premier offshore events in the U.S. Competitive sailing, like the other sports we sponsor, embodies our brand belief that the right information in the right hands leads to amazing things. It’s as true for the professional customers we serve as it is for the crews competing in this blue-water classic. We wish everyone a safe and swift race.” Thomson Reuters is also sponsoring one of the racing yachts, the 66-foot sloop Aurora. The race, which starts on 3 June, is organised by Annapolis Yacht Club and the New York Yacht Club Regatta Association aided by the Naval Academy Sailing Squadron and Ida Lewis Yacht Club. Thomson Reuters also sponsors the AT&T Williams Formula 1 grand prix racing team, Canadian golfer Mike Weir, and the British Lawn Tennis Association. ● SOURCE New York Yacht Club | Sail World

Thomson Reuters shares go ex-dividend

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-16T20:32:05+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares go ex-dividend on Tuesday 17 May. Owners of shares at market close today will be eligible for a dividend of 31 cents per share. Over the past 30 days the average daily volume for trading Thomson Reuters shares has been 654,100. The shares are up 4.5 per cent year to date as of the close of trading on Friday. The company has a p/e ratio of 31.7, below the computer software & services industry average of 31.9 and above the S&P 500 ratio of 17.7. TheStreet Ratings rates Thomson Reuters as a buy. It said the company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as compelling growth in net income, revenue growth, impressive record of earnings per share growth and notable return on equity. “We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows weak operating cash flow.” ● SOURCE The Street

Thomson Reuters urged to work with EU anti-trust regulators

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-16T20:27:32+01:00

The European Union’s anti-trust chief urged Thomson Reuters on Monday to work with regulators to resolve an investigation into its instrument codes for shares. The European Commission opened an investigation into the codes, used to identify specific stocks, in November 2009, saying the company may have breached EU rules on abuse of a dominant market position. “I take this opportunity to encourage the company to work with us for a speedy resolution of the case,” EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in the text of a speech prepared for the Cass Business School in London. He said it was time for regulators to examine the control and dissemination of market data to establish whether there was abusive behaviour by owners seeking to leverage privileged access to information to foreclose rivals or distort the market. Almunia said he was against any one group controlling essential infrastructure such as trading, clearing or pre-trading platform. Thomson Reuters markets division chief executive Devin Wenig told a panel at the same conference that he would not comment on directly on Almunia’s request, but he expressed optimism that the issue would be resolved. “For a hundred and fifty years we have worked cooperatively with regulators and we believe that we’ll reach an efficient solution this time as well,” Wenig said. ● SOURCE Interactive Investor

Thomson Reuters re-hires former manager as digital chief

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-11T22:35:39+01:00

Thomson Reuters has re-hired Steven Schwartz, general manager of consumer media and vice president of global business operations prior to the 2008 merger, as global head of business development, a role that manages partnerships, joint ventures and acquisitions. Schwartz, who returns from Rolling Stone publisher Wenner Media where he was that company’s first chief digital officer, “will develop strategic relationships that will expand Reuters Media’s offerings to ensure the company continues to provide media clients and digital consumers with the most comprehensive and agenda setting news coverage,” the company said on Wednesday. “This will further enhance Reuters’ ability to provide newsrooms globally with highly tailored news solutions enabling them to increase their efficiency, reduce costs and drive revenue.” Schwartz held posts at Readers’ Digest and the NewsMarket after leaving Reuters in January 2006. During his three years at Reuters he managed the company’s digital media business. ● SOURCE Yahoo | Paid Content

Bahrain expels Reuters correspondent

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-10T20:24:43+01:00

Bahrain said on Tuesday it was expelling Reuters’ correspondent in the Gulf archipelago, Frederik Richter, after officials complained Reuters had lacked balance in its reporting during the recent crackdown on pro-democracy protesters. Richter, who joined Reuters in 2007 and has been based in the capital Manama since 2008, was told to leave within a week. “Reuters regrets Bahrain’s decision to expel its correspondent,” editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said. “We stand by Frederik Richter’s reporting and we will continue to provide comprehensive and unbiased coverage from the country.” An official at the Information Affairs Authority, Sheikh Abdullah bin Nezar al-Khalifa, said: “We have no problem with Reuters. We’re not closing the office and (Reuters) can send in a replacement.” Popular protests across the Arab world have put authoritarian rulers under pressure, leading many to impose curbs on the media. In recent weeks Reuters correspondents have been expelled from Syria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. ● SOURCE Reuters ● Witness: Expelled from Bahrain, a nation now in fear

Obituary: John Lawrenson

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-04T21:24:53+01:00

John Lawrenson, who has died with his wife, was a former Reuters executive who co-wrote a book about events leading up to the 1984 flotation of the company in London and New York. Lawrenson joined Reuters in 1954 and was manager for European Economic Services when he resigned in 1971. After Reuters he founded Monitor Press, publisher of legal and business newsletters. The book he wrote with Lionel Barber, now editor of the Financial Times, was The Price of Truth: The Story of the Reuters Millions. Published in 1985, it was billed as “a story of greed and intrigue and of how a small group of men broke a solemn undertaking in their efforts to unlock a treasure house”. Lawrenson was 80. His wife of 47 years Caroline, 70, was believed to have been suffering from cancer. They died at their home in the village of Great Waldingfield, Suffolk on 23 April. A thanksgiving service will be held at St Lawrence church, Great Waldingfield on 11 May at 2:00 pm. Donations to St Nicholas Hospice, Bury St Edmunds. ● SOURCE The Times | Daily Mail ● The Price of Truth

Silence in Reuters newsrooms marks Press Freedom Day

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-03T16:19:32+01:00

Reuters newsrooms fell silent for one minute on Tuesday – World Press Freedom Day – to remember journalists killed in the pursuit of their profession. The minute's silence was observed at the most appropriate time for regions and bureaus. UNESCO has called for the mark of respect to take place every year to raise awareness about the safety of journalists who are exposed to violence as they go about their work. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said: "We are committed to making the working environment for journalists as safe as possible and are proud to support such industry-wide initiatives." The main international event was held in Washington on the theme 21st century media: new frontiers, new barriers. At Thomson Reuters' London offices, UNESCO and the International News Safety Institute hosted a panel discussion on the Arab Spring: freedom to report. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters taps top WSJ editor for global role

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-05-02T23:51:58+01:00

Another top Wall Street Journal editor is joining Reuters. Michael Williams, most recently the newspaper’s page one editor, is to be global enterprise editor, based in New York. During 19 years with the Journal, he was Europe editor, a Tokyo correspondent and Japan bureau chief. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, announcing the appointment to staff on Monday, described him as “a great conceptualiser, manager and editor of deeply insightful, agenda-setting stories” who “brings a truly global perspective that will resonate especially well with Reuters readers”. Adler, who spent 16 years at the Journal, said Williams was a gifted teacher and mentor who would work closely with journalists throughout the organisation, across beats and regions, “to produce the meaningful, high-impact journalism that our customers require”. He replaces Jim Impoco who becomes executive editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, a job that involves integrating online, mobile and digital properties with the wider news operation. Impoco is a former editor at The New York Times where he helped redesign and relaunch the Saturday and Sunday business editions. Previously he worked at Fortune magazine, Condé Nast’s Portfolio, The Associated Press, and U.S. News & World Report. He joined Reuters in September 2009. Last month Adler, who became editor-in-chief in February, brought two top WSJ executives into Reuters – Stuart Karle, former general counsel, as chief operating officer, and Reginald Chua, former editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal as data editor. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters and US union agree tentative contract

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-29T20:11:50+01:00

Thomson Reuters reached tentative agreement for a new contract with the Newspaper Guild of New York on Friday, opening the way to end a two-year battle over health benefits and wages. The preliminary agreement is for a three-year contract that includes a $7.6 million cash settlement for the union, a guaranteed 1.5 per cent annual wage increase, a limit on health care costs and a new social media policy. The US National Labor Relations Board had said it would file against Reuters on numerous issues, among them accusations that it violated a reporter’s right to discuss working conditions when a supervisor reprimanded her for posting a Twitter message that said, “One way to make this the best place to work is to deal honestly with Guild members.” The author of the post, Deborah Zabarenko, environmental reporter in Washington and head of the Guild at Reuters, sent that message to a company Twitter address after a manager had asked employees to send postings about how to make Reuters the best place to work. As part of the settlement announced by the Guild, Thomson Reuters agreed to negotiate a new social media policy that would include language protecting employees’ speech and right to engage in other concerted activity about working conditions, as provided under US federal law. The deal was negotiated under a new management team led by editor-in-chief Stephen Adler, who took over in February. Management's main negotiator was former Wall Street Journal general counsel Stuart Karle, who was appointed Reuters’ chief operating officer earlier this month. “They changed the whole tone of the negotiations,” Guild president Bill O’Meara said. “They wanted to get it done. Two years of battling was capped in two days of negotiations.” Both sides asked the board for a delay in filing its complaint. The union said it would ask the board to drop all charges if the new contract is ratified. “A lot of the credit for this settlement being able to be reached in relatively short order has to go to the new editorial management team,” O’Meara said. “We are very optimistic that we can have an improved relationship with Thomson Reuters going forward. This settlement I think will help set the stage for that.” Adler said, “This settlement will allow us to focus all our efforts on producing excellent journalism, which is what we all came here to do.” The 430 editorial staff who belong to the Guild have worked without a contract since early 2009. ● SOURCE Reuters | The New York Times

Revenue up, Thomson Reuters plans sales to raise cash for core business

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-28T13:18:33+01:00

Thomson Reuters' revenue growth accelerated in the first quarter as it reaped benefits from heavy spending on new products, and the company plans to sell two more businesses to fund further investment. It expects to raise about $1 billion from the sale of its enterprise risk management and investment accounting software businesses, the company said on Thursday, along with previously announced sales of its BARBRI legal courses product and Scandinavian legal and tax and accounting units. Chief executive Tom Glocer said the funds would be reinvested in the core business. Announcing Q1 2011 financial results, the company said revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.2 billion, up five per cent before currency adjustments, quickening from four per cent growth in the previous quarter. “I am pleased with our solid results for the first quarter,” Glocer said in a statement accompanying the results. “2011 is playing out much as we anticipated, with accelerating revenue growth which will drive expanded margins and higher cash flow as the year progresses... Based on our good start to the year, we are confident that we will deliver on our expectations for the full year.” The company reaffirmed its 2011 forecast for mid-single digit revenue growth. It also reiterated that the operating profit margin is expected to increase by at least 100 basis points this year. First quarter underlying profit increased one per cent, with a corresponding margin of 17.2 per cent. Excluding a $39 million one-time charge, the underlying profit margin was 18.4 per cent compared with 18 per cent in the same period last year. Adjusted earnings per share, including the one-time charge, rose to 39 cents from 36 cents in the same quarter last year. Professional division revenue increased eight per cent to $1.38 billion, driven by a 10 per cent increase in legal revenue. The WestlawNext legal database has been sold to more than 18,500 customers since its launch in February 2010, representing 34 per cent of Westlaw's revenue base, the company said. In the markets division, which competes with Bloomberg and Dow Jones, revenue rose two per cent to $1.87 billion. ● SOURCE Reuters

Integration phase over, Thomson Reuters built to last - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-26T21:00:00+01:00

Chief executive Tom Glocer has pronounced the Thomson Reuters integration phase over. “Culturally and as a management group, this thing’s been put together to last,” he said. But he is not ready to pack up his New York Times Square office quite yet, the Financial Times said in a report. “I promised the Thomsons I would stay to complete a job. My reckoning is that job isn’t completed, although we laid a really good foundation,” he said. Glocer, who became CEO of the combined group on completion of the takeover three years ago, said: “I think we have what may become the defining corporate structure of the best institutions for the next 20 years.” He hailed the continuity provided by a large family stake – Canada’s Thomson family holds 55 per cent of the group’s shares through its investment company Woodbridge – and a public quote in New York and Toronto that keeps management on its toes. “Without the discipline of the market you can become so long-term, it’s perpetual mañana,” he said. Investors are asking what comes next, the FT said. The group originally promised annualised savings worth $750 million but has steadily raised that forecast to $1.7 billion by the end of 2011. It has spent almost $500 million each year to achieve those savings, and some analysts worry that the group is returning to a pattern from Reuters’ history of repeated waves of investment and restructuring, but Glocer notes that integration expenses will fall to just $200 million in 2011. Within months of the takeover deal closing in April 2008, a whirlwind blew through the financial hubs on which the group’s $7.5 billion markets division depends, emptying many traders’ desks from Wall Street to the City of London, the FT said. The damage to Thomson Reuters was limited, however, by cost savings that were larger than expected, big product launches, the $5.4 billion professional information division that balances out the markets business and the group’s decision to abandon a listing in London, where investors were more bearish on its markets division. Glocer is an acquisitions lawyer who has studied the history of failed deals, concluding that cultural rifts were usually their downfall, the FT said. He decided from the start not to sugar-coat the message to his Reuters colleagues: this was not a merger; Thomson was taking them over. “When I hear the words ‘merger of equals’, ‘best of both’ or ‘two plus two equals five’ I think that’s a big short,” he says: “It’s a Thomson team complemented where necessary by people with a Reuters skillset.” The group spent $900 million on 30-40 small acquisitions last year, but Glocer says his focus is on reviving top line growth largely organically, improving margins and converting 100 per cent of operating income into free cash flow. “The longer-term goals have always been to deliver mid to high single-digit [revenue] growth, operating margins in the mid-20s and free cash flow somewhere north of $3bn. That’s work that’s still to be done and it won’t all be done this year either,” he says. Some of that growth will come from using Reuters’ international presence to expand the Thomson legal, tax, accounting, scientific and regulatory businesses from Latin America to the Gulf. In a sidebar, the FT said grinding pressure on advertising and circulation revenues at US newspapers and magazines was turning the newswires owned by Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg from training grounds for young reporters into refuges for senior print journalists. Referring to last week’s editorial restructuring in which four experienced recruits who had held senior positions at The Wall Street Journal, Time, Dow Jones and the South China Morning Post joined the company, it quoted editor-in-chief Stephen Adler as saying steady revenue from subscriptions to data services was a selling point. Growing competition for instant news has forced wires to expand from their just-the-facts origins, and Adler said his restructuring would emphasise explanation and insight, the FT added. ● SOURCE Financial Times | VIDEO ● CLICK to view the FT video - The Thomson Reuters merger: Three years on

Ronald Farquhar’s funeral

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-26T09:06:58+01:00

Some 30 family members and friends, led by his daughter Katherine (Katia) and step-daughter Helen, attended the funeral of Ronald “Ronnie” Farquhar at Geneva’s Saint George’s Crematorium and Garden of Remembrance on Thursday 21 April. Representing past and present Reuters colleagues were former general manager Michael Nelson, Geneva acting bureau chief and one-time Farquhar trainee Stephanie Nebehay, and former senior correspondent, Switzerland Bob Evans. From the UN’s European headquarters at the Palais des Nations came veterans Gordon Martin, a Reuters correspondent in the late 1950s and 1960s, and Laurent Mossu, formerly of Le Figaro and now reporting for Radio France International. Many other Reuterians had wanted to come but the ceremony had to be organised just two days after his death on Tuesday 19 April to avoid the long delay over Easter. Katia Farquhar read an account of his life, which she said had been dictated by her father when he was first taken to hospital in November last year, with strict instructions that it was all she should say about him at his funeral. It noted that Ronnie, whose own father was a journalist, wanted to go to university after school but World War II intervened so he went to work in a munitions factory. In 1942 he joined a tank regiment and served as a radio operator in North Africa, Italy, Greece and Austria. He survived a torpedo attack on his troop ship in the Mediterranean, a shelling of his tank in Tunisia when his burns put him in hospital for six months, and in Sicily the bombing of a house alongside the camp where he was billeted, putting him in hospital again. Demobbed in 1947, he ignored his father’s advice not to follow him into journalism, joined a civil service course for shorthand and typing aimed at training secretaries on which he was the only man, then went to work for the Lennox Herald in Dumbarton. In 1949, he moved south of the border to the Lincoln Evening News and then back again the next year to the Glasgow Evening Citizen, before joining Reuters in 1952. “He travelled the world, met famous politicians, and (Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei) Gromyko even recommended him for a salary rise. But he wanted to be remembered as ‘a young man from Reuters whose name I forget’ – a reference to him in a book on the 1956 Hungarian uprising, Window Onto Hungary, by Dora Scarlett,” was his own summary of his Reuters career. Nelson told mourners he had enjoyed the privilege of knowing Ronnie for 50 years since calling on his help in Belgrade where Ronnie was chief correspondent to renegotiate Reuters’ contract with the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug. Just before going to Yugoslavia, recalled Nelson, Ronnie had shown just how tough – and selfless – he could be when he went on record as telling the then top Reuters management that it should protest to the Chinese authorities over the arrest in Peking – after he had left – of one of his translators. Referring to the effective expulsion of his Peking predecessor Jack Gee three years earlier, Ronnie wrote in a letter still in the Reuters archives: “Reuters didn’t gain any prestige or face with the Chinese by pulling Jack out without demur as soon as they were asked to. That,” said Nelson, “was a courageous thing to do for a relatively young Reuter journalist hoping to develop his career. It showed his dedication to principle.” Evans recalled that when he joined Reuters in 1962 he was told by a senior editor: “If you ever want to become a correspondent behind the Iron Curtain, sonny boy, you’d better start reading the stories Ronnie Farquhar and Sidney Weiland file.” Both, though of totally different styles and personalities, said Evans, created their own informal schools of Cold War reporting, over two decades turning young journalists assigned to their bureaux into the reporters who staffed Reuters offices in the communist countries through the 1970s and 1980s as the Soviet empire slid into decline. Evans then read some of the tributes sent to Ronnie’s family by many of his former trainees. BOB EVANS Photo: Michael Nelson, Gordon Martin and Stephanie Nebehay ● Obituary

Obituary: Pat Caton

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-21T12:41:30+01:00

Pat Caton, who died of a brain tumour on 9 April aged 60, joined Reuters human resources department in 1981 to work with Rachel Addison and Ron Harris. She spent most of her career providing HR administrative support in London within the technical operations and development groups. Pat worked for a brief period for John Ransom and then Mary Talbot, before joining Marion Wale at Maple House and Centros House, and then Docklands. In the last few years before she left in 2003 she was a key member of the centralised HR administration function. Everyone who worked with Pat admired her efficiency, loyalty and professionalism. She always had a smile on her face and nothing was too much trouble. While she was working with the technical development department she organised the Christmas event at the Chiswell Street Brewery. Martin Davids remembers how, when the dancing started, Pat made sure everyone joined in. John Freeman, former head of personnel for Reuters Information, said: “In all the years I knew Pat at Reuters I can never remember an occasion when her sunny disposition did not shine through. She dealt with everything in a straightforward, efficient way and could always be relied upon to see the job through. After I retired, I used to see her at Reuter Society meetings and she always had a smile on her face. Such people are worth their weight in gold and she will be sadly missed.” Pat married her long-term partner John Banks in December 2009. He supported her at many Reuter events, even when she played hockey on a Sunday morning with a group of Maple/Centros House staff. MARION WALE

Obituary: Ronald Farquhar

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-19T22:47:52+01:00

Ronald “Ronnie” Farquhar, pictured, who covered the East-West Cold War for Reuters from almost every East European capital and Beijing in the 1950s and 1960s, died in Geneva on Tuesday, aged 88, his family said. A Scot from Glasgow who joined Reuters in 1952, he drove over 500 miles in fog on crumbling roads from Warsaw to Budapest in October 1956 to be on the spot to break the news when the Soviet Army put down Hungary’s anti-communist uprising. Over several days he dodged bullets amid fierce fighting on the streets, filing stories with the help of a trio of women who worked as telephonists in his hotel and once from an ancient telex machine in a rebel command post. Forced to take refuge in the British embassy when the Soviet command imposed a 24-hour curfew, he still managed to stay on in Budapest until January 1957, becoming one of the last Western reporters to leave when the new authorities ordered him out. A trooper in the British Army during World War Two, Farquhar survived the destruction of his tank by a German shell in Tunisia, suffering serious facial burns. When he joined Reuters after six years with local newspapers in Scotland and England, the burns effectively decided his career path after a doctor decreed that he should not expose his face to strong sun and must never have a tropical posting. A German-speaker, he was first sent to Frankfurt and then in 1955 to Czechoslovakia where he met his future wife Vera, an editorial assistant in the Reuters office in Prague. Like many Cold War romances between Westerners and East Europeans at the time, theirs ran foul of the communist bureaucracy. They were not allowed to marry and Vera was refused an exit visa when he was transferred to Warsaw in 1956. For five years they carried on a long-distance relationship, including during the two years he was in Beijing from 1958-60. Finally, the Czechoslovak authorities relented and they were married in Prague in 1960. In Beijing, he reported on the gradual estrangement between Communist China and the Soviet Union and the flaring of a border dispute with India. “It was a great place to be at the time, totally different to anything else I had known,” he once said. After Beijing, now with Vera, he went to Belgrade for four years, tracking not only Marshal Josip Broz Tito’s improving relationship with Moscow but also the decline of the “liberal” Yugoslav version of communism. Over the following years he was in Geneva, specialising in disarmament issues, again in Warsaw and the West German capital Bonn and then back to Geneva from 1973 to 1980. His last posting before retiring in 1983 was to Vienna where he followed the decline of the Soviet empire and the economies of the Eastern European countries, training many young Reuters journalists whom he infected with his love for the region. He and Vera, who died in 2008, settled in Geneva, and he worked part-time for Reuters until 1992. He is survived by the couple’s two daughters, Helen and Katarina. BOB EVANS

Thomson Reuters unveils major editorial overhaul

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-19T17:00:36+01:00

Thomson Reuters announced its most far-reaching editorial re-organisation in years on Tuesday, bringing in four top news managers from outside the company. Stephen Adler, pictured, editor-in-chief since February, said he aims to raise Reuters’ profile, streamline decision-making, and better exploit the resources of the company created by the takeover of Reuters by Thomson three years ago. A former Wall Street Journal editor who joined the company last year after leaving the top job at BusinessWeek magazine, he told staff in a memo: “My sole goal will be to make us the number one news provider in the world. I'm in favor of anything that helps get us there and against anything that gets in the way.” In a news release, Adler said: “We must be second to none in speed, accuracy, relevance, and fairness, but also – and crucially – in enterprise, insight, analysis and originality.” “News is central to what we do,” he told a Reuters reporter. “I think this structure enables us to concentrate on doing great journalism.” The new structure, unveiled after a 60-day review, eliminates a layer of editorial bureaucracy in order to compete more effectively and streamline decision-making. The new faces are ● Paul Ingrassia, former Dow Jones Newswires president and Pulitzer-prize winner who is appointed to the new position of deputy editor-in-chief. Based in New York, he will spend one week a month in London. ● Stuart Karle, the Journal’s former general counsel, becomes the news division's chief operating officer, a new position. ● Reginald Chua, former editor of the South China Morning Post and the Asian Wall Street Journal, becomes data editor. ● Jim Gaines, formerly managing editor at Time, Life and People magazines, will leave his job as managing editor of The Daily, Rupert Murdoch's digital paper for tablet computers, to join Thomson Reuters as ethics editor. They are part of a New York-based executive team that also includes Chrystia Freeland, editor of Thomson Reuters Digital, who joined the company last year from the Financial Times; Amy Stevens, executive editor of professional news, who was deputy page-one editor of the Journal; and Adrian Dickson, global head, editorial products. Hugo Dixon continues as editor of Reuters Breakingviews and will remain in London. As part of Adler’s effort to “tame the bureaucracy and clarify lines of authority,” the re-organisation eliminates roles such as global specialist editors who oversaw coverage of areas such as general and political news, and economic and companies reporting. Adler’s announcement confirmed the departure of Betty Wong, global managing editor, after 21 years at Reuters. He said the changes would help to achieve goals he outlined when he took over as editor-in-chief two months ago, namely: ● “To distinguish ourselves as the world's leading provider of news and insight; ● “To serve all Thomson Reuters customers across the divisions; ● “To create innovative digital offerings to showcase our work, brand, and values; ● “To tame bureaucracy and clarify lines of authority; ● “To develop a higher profile for our work; ● “To adhere enthusiastically to the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.” “Separating content and operations is really the heart of this restructuring and will enable us to plan coverage in a more unified and coherent way while strengthening the operations that are designed to support and promote it,” he said. In the new structure, the existing global managing editor job is divided between the chief operating officer, who will handle operations, support, and logistics; and the deputy editor-in-chief, who will oversee content creation in all media and absorb the responsibilities of global specialists editor as well. Pictures and Television will continue to report to Mark Thompson. Reuters Insider will be led by Chris Cramer. Richard Mably will continue to lead commodities and energy on a global basis. Adler said he was strongly committed to creating more attractive career paths for journalists who want to continue reporting and writing rather than become managers. “Eliminating the tier of global specialist editors will allow us to create senior reporting positions that will enhance our coverage in key areas. This is good for the staff and great for the file.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Bill Hartley

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-18T11:30:48+01:00

Bill Hartley, pictured, a sub-editor in London during the 1960s and 1970s, died suddenly at his home in Montreal, Canada, on 6 April. He was 73 and had been in good health. Most of his career at Reuters was spent on the Nordesk (North America) and later the Westhem (Americas) desk. Colleagues remember Hartley as always pleasant, amusing and amenable and a great jazz fan.

Major Reuters editorial shake-up to be unveiled

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-15T23:46:35+01:00

A major re-organisation of Reuters’ editorial operations that will streamline layers of editors and involve the departure of global managing editor Betty Wong, pictured, is about to be unveiled. The new editor-in-chief, Stephen Adler, is expected to announce the changes as soon as Monday. A former editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek magazine, now owned by Bloomberg, he replaced David Schlesinger as editor-in-chief in February. Adler said then he would spend the next 60 days evaluating news operations to determine what changes needed to be made to improve performance. Talking Biz News, a website run by the Carolina Business News Initiative, said that according to three current employees, “those changes will largely focus on editing positions and are seen as Adler putting his stamp on the organisation”. “When you look at the organisational chart, you see some editors with titles like managing editor of news research strategy for people you’ve never heard of and who are doing jobs similar to other positions at the company,” it quoted one editor as saying. Talking Biz News said Adler has apparently been advised on the re-organisation by Stuart Karle, former general counsel for The Wall Street Journal. It said one Reuters editor noted the company has three editor hierarchies – specialist editors such as those overseeing company coverage, stock market coverage, treasuries, commodities and other specialisations; bureau chiefs who oversee regional coverage; and a team of managing editors. There is also a group of editors called Top News. One of those levels is likely to be cut, said two staffers, with the reorganised editing team grouped under Top News editors. Talking Biz News said the changes were foreshadowed in an e-mail sent to staff on Friday in which Amy Stevens, executive editor of the Thomson Reuters professional news operation, and Tiffany Wu, editor of company news in the Americas, referred to organisational and physical moves at Thomson Reuters’ headquarters in Times Square, New York. Wong, one of the highest-ranking women in business journalism and the most prominent Asian woman in journalism, will formally leave the company at the end of May but is understood to have already gone. She deferred comment to Reuters PR staff but on her Facebook page wrote that, starting in June, she plans to begin work on a book about her great grandfather, a four-star general in Chiang Kai-shek’s army who was killed during the regime of Mao Tse-tung. A journalism graduate of New York University, she began her career at The Wall Street Journal in 1985 and joined Reuters in 1989, becoming managing editor and head of editorial operations in 2004 after a stint as global equities editor. Adler spent 16 years at the Journal. He joined Reuters at the beginning of 2010 after Bloomberg acquired BusinessWeek. ● SOURCE Talking Biz News

Thomson Reuters stock tops five leading publishers

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-15T18:21:55+01:00

Thomson Reuters is ranked top among the five leading companies in the publishing industry as measured by relative performance, stock analyst SmarTrend said on Friday. Its analysis of stocks that have the potential to outperform was based on Thursday's trading activity. SmarTrend gave the following ranking: 1. Thomson Reuters – 0.28 per cent gain 2. McGraw-Hill – 1.35 per cent loss 3. Gannett – 2.29 per cent loss 4. Meredith – 2.49 per cent loss 5. The New York Times – 3.93 per cent loss. ● SOURCE SmarTrend

RSF deplores Thai bid to transfer burden of probing cameraman’s death

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-15T10:30:07+01:00

Reporters Sans Frontières has deplored a Thai government suggestion that the investigation into Reuters cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto’s killing could be delegated to his employer. “By doing this, any witness to the crime might be daring enough to provide tip-offs to Reuters more than they would to the state officials,” Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation director-general Tharit Pengdit said after meeting two Reuters representatives on 11 April to discuss the investigation. Muramoto, based in Tokyo, was shot dead during clashes between government forces and anti-government demonstrators in Bangkok on 10 April 2010. The picture was taken shortly before he died. “The DSI’s proposal shows that the Thai government is refusing to identify those who were responsible for Muramoto’s death,” French-based RSF said in a statement. “A government that respects the rule of law has an obligation to establish the truth and to ensure that justice is done.” RSF said it recognises the importance of cooperation between Reuters and the authorities in charge of the investigation but cannot accept any attempt by the DSI to offload its responsibility. Reuters has not issued any statement about its meeting with Tharit. One year after Muramoto was killed, Thai authorities still have not said who shot him. ● SOURCE Reporters Sans Frontières

Reuters fires bureau chief over crude remark

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-15T11:02:59+01:00

Reuters has fired bureau chief David Fox, pictured, over a crude remark he made in an Internet chat room. Fox, who arrived in Indonesia in January to become Jakarta bureau chief, was on temporary assignment to Tokyo last month to cover the aftermath of the recent earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown in Japan. His offending remark was made in an overnight exchange with Andrew Marshall, a senior editor on the Asia desk in Singapore. At a disciplinary meeting this week Marshall was reprimanded and given a written warning for his part in the online exchange [● Reuters editor punished for chat room remark]. Other journalists, mostly in other regions, were also in the chat room, a virtual space created specifically for Reuters people involved in the Japan disaster story, and saw the remarks of both men. Fox, from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, was dismissed without possibility of appeal. He joined Reuters in 1991.

US panel sets date for action against Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-14T23:27:40+01:00

US authorities have set 29 April to issue a previously announced civil complaint against Thomson Reuters unless the company settles its long-running contract dispute with a union representing some editorial employees. The National Labor Relations Board said it would postpone its complaint, which is similar to an indictment, on charges that include unlawfully implementing pay and benefit cuts until after the Newspaper Guild of New York and management negotiators meet in a bargaining session with a federal mediator on 26 April. “However, if no settlement of the contract dispute is reached or if the Employer has not agreed to enter into an informal settlement with the (NLRB) by April 28, 2011, the complaint in this case will issue on April 29, 2011 in order to avoid further delays in the processing of this case,” the Board’s Manhattan acting regional director said on Wednesday in a letter to company lawyers and the union. Last week the Board told Thomson Reuters the complaint would accuse the company of illegally reprimanding a reporter over a public Twitter posting she had sent criticising management. In its latest letter the NLRB notified the union and management that it planned to add three more allegations to its complaint: that management illegally changed the health care and retirement savings plans and illegally applied a code of conduct to Guild-represented employees that was not negotiated with the union. The Guild represents some 420 Thomson Reuters staff. Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in contract talks with the Guild in January 2010. ● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York

Reuters editor punished for chat room remark

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-14T11:06:34+01:00

A senior Reuters editor has been punished for remarks he made in a company messaging chat room. Andrew Marshall, pictured, who is based in Singapore, was formally reprimanded and given a warning letter. Marshall is responsible for coverage of emerging and frontier Asia – Sri Lanka, Pakistan, South East Asia and Mongolia. His comment about radiation levels in Tokyo following the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown – “Is your hair starting to fall out?” – was directed to a bald colleague in Japan. It was in the middle of the night on the Asia desk in Singapore where he was alone on the overnight shift that had been started after the Japan crisis hit. There were about 25 to 30 people in the Reuters messaging chat room created specifically for journalists involved in the Japan disaster story. All were Reuters journalists, mostly in other regions. “I was feeling slightly miserable alone on the Asiadesk in the middle of the night watching images of death and suffering on multiple TV screens … I thought my message might raise a few smiles, and I know from extensive experience working in war zones and disaster areas how important this is for team morale,” he said. Told he would be disciplined, he was interviewed and given a written warning, the least severe of three formal disciplinary sanctions available to Reuters. Marshall was told his comment was “both insensitive and inappropriate”. “I consider the penalty to be excessive and inappropriate,” he said. Marshall joined Reuters in 1994 as a graduate trainee and has reported from more than 25 countries, covering conflicts in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, the Palestinian Territories and East Timor; political upheaval in Israel, Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and Burma. He was previously a correspondent in Jakarta, deputy bureau chief in Bangkok, bureau chief in Baghdad, managing editor Middle East, based in Dubai, and Asia political risk correspondent in Singapore. Reuters insiders in Asia said Marshall’s story is part of a wider saga, details of which are likely to be told soon.

Rupert Murdoch saw Reuters as a rival to the WSJ

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-11T15:51:07+01:00

Rupert Murdoch, a former Reuters director, gave high priority to competition with Reuters and other wire services when he acquired The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones Newswires in 2007, according to The New Yorker. Ken Auletta, in his Annals of Communications column in the 11 April issue, pictured, said that in March 2009 Robert Thomson, managing editor of the Journal and editor-in-chief of the Dow Jones New Wires, sent a letter to the staff that was dubbed the “Knackery Memo”. “Thomson understood that he was competing not just against newspapers such as the Times but against electronic services including the A.P., Reuters, and Bloomberg. He wrote that the old system of trying to quickly disseminate Journal news to Dow Jones wires – a reform labelled ‘the Speedy’ – wasn’t working. “A headstart of a few seconds is priceless for a commodities trader or a bond dealer…” Auletta quoted from Thomson’s memo. “Henceforth all Journal reporters will be judged, in significant part, by whether they break news for the Newswires. With these objectives in mind, we are sending Speedy to the knackery and saddling up a successor.” Members of the newsroom looked up the meaning of “knackery”, said Auletta, and found “any premises where livestock are slaughtered when they are worn out and useless. Reporters moaned that they were being asked to become wire-service reporters. Investigative reporting, which takes time and had not been a priority at Murdoch’s newspapers, was headed to the knackery. They thought that Thomson was dismissive of the Journal and its gloried past.” Many of the Journal’s most talented reporters and editors left for the Times, CNBC, Fortune, The Economist, or Bloomberg, Auletta wrote. “According to internal documents, Bloomberg has hired a hundred and six journalists from Dow Jones since Murdoch’s bid became public. Matthew Winkler, a former Journal reporter who left in 1990 to establish Bloomberg News, where he is editor-in-chief, says, “The Journal I came from, which focussed on in-depth reporting, is no more.” ● SOURCE The New Yorker

Thomson Reuters boosts its digital presence

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-07T23:08:10+01:00

Reuters has promoted its star journalist. Chrystia Freeland, global editor at large, has been named to the new position of editor, Thomson Reuters Digital, as the company puts more emphasis on Internet and mobile applications for its consumer news products. She will be responsible for online, mobile and digital properties including Reuters.com, reporting to editor-in-chief Stephen Adler. It is his first senior personnel change since he was named the company's top journalist in February. Adler has said his top priorities include focusing more on the Internet and mobile applications as a way to build readership. “With news users’ habits changing rapidly, and competitors getting better all the time, we have to be distinctive, creative and contemporary as we drive to distinguish ourselves as the world’s leading source for news,” Adler wrote in a memo to staff on Thursday. Freeland, who starts her new job on Monday, joined Thomson Reuters in March 2010. Previously she was US managing editor of the Financial Times, overseeing editorial for the newspaper's print and online editions. ● SOURCE Reuters

NZPA set to close by year-end

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-07T12:07:54+01:00

New Zealand's national news agency, formerly a part-owner of Reuters, is set to close by year-end after more than 130 years of operation. The New Zealand Press Association, which is owned by the country's daily newspaper publishers, said the future of its news wire was being reviewed after Fairfax Media, one of its major shareholders, gave notice of its withdrawal from the co-operative. NZPA chairman Michael Muir said the other major shareholder, APN, would be reviewing its own newspaper and online news services. A final decision on the future of NZPA would be made at the end of the month after staff feedback had been considered. It would be operating as usual in the meantime. Fairfax Media group executive editor Paul Thompson said the NZPA service was no longer as valuable as it once was. Fairfax’s New Zealand chief executive Allen Williams said the company had been investing heavily in the development of unique content. “News should not be treated as a commodity – media companies can and should establish points of difference with their coverage. Fairfax has made a choice to concentrate on development of its own unique content rather than subscribing for non-exclusive content from NZPA.” NZPA was founded in 1878 as the United Press Association. It adopted its present name in 1942. The New Zealand agency and the Australian Associated Press became junior partners in the ownership of Reuters alongside Britain’s Press Association and Newspaper Proprietors’ Association in 1947. NZPA bought 2,500 shares for £11,250, a useful cash injection to Reuters at that time. As part of the deal, Reuters accepted approved Australian and New Zealand journalists as joint correspondents, especially in the Pacific area. ● SOURCE Stuff | 3News

US labour panel to press Reuters over reaction to Twitter post

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-07T11:14:30+01:00

The US National Labor Relations Board told Thomson Reuters on Wednesday it plans to file a civil complaint accusing the company of illegally reprimanding a reporter over a public Twitter posting she had sent criticising management. It would be the first federal government case against an employer involving the social network. The board asserts that Reuters violated the reporter’s right to discuss working conditions when her supervisor reprimanded her for posting a message on Twitter saying, “One way to make this the best place to work is to deal honestly with Guild members”. The author of the post, Deborah Zabarenko, environmental reporter in Washington and head of the Newspaper Guild of New York at Reuters, sent the tweet to a company Twitter address after a supervisor had invited employees to send postings about how to make Reuters the best place to work. “The next day the bureau chief called me at home,” Zabarenko, pictured, told The New York Times. “He told me that Reuters had a policy that we were not supposed to say something that would damage the reputation of Reuters News or Thomson Reuters. I felt kind of threatened. I thought it was some kind of intimidation.” A NLRB official confirmed the board’s Manhattan office had informed Thomson Reuters and the union of the planned complaint. The official also confirmed it involved an accusation that the company had violated a worker’s federally protected right to engage in concerted, protected activity with co-workers to improve working conditions. The board usually warns parties before a formal complaint is filed, to encourage settlement of the dispute. If no settlement occurs an administrative law judge will hear the complaint. A Thomson Reuters spokeswoman said the company was surprised by the board’s complaint because it did not believe Zabarenko had even been disciplined. She said the company’s social media guidelines were straightforward and like those at many other companies. The Guild, which represents 420 Reuters employees, has been in contract talks with the company since before the old contract expired in January 2009. Peter Szekely, the Guild’s secretary-treasurer, said “Management unilaterally implemented a policy that restricts the free speech of its employees, and for a news organisation that’s inappropriate.” He said the NLRB had told the union it planned to file additional charges against Thomson Reuters over a new pay plan and other issues. ● SOURCE The New York Times

Tom Glocer: We have a clear sense of mission

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-07T00:54:10+01:00

Three years after the merger, Tom Glocer says Thomson Reuters is achieving a better focus on where it plans to be. “We could do many things, but we have a clear sense of mission. Our core mission is to take content and software, and provide it to professionals as part of their work, to allow them to make better decisions faster,” the chief executive said in an interview. The merger completed on 17 April 2008 went remarkably well “because we worked so hard at it”, he told the Dubai daily Gulf News. “Most people wrongly spend more time on the nuts and bolts of the physical aspects. But I think the long term determinants of success are the softer cultural issues on which I spent most of my time. As a result the company really feels like one company. “One of the reasons that the merger has gone well is because from the very beginning I was very clear that this was not a merger of equals,” Glocer said. It was very clear that Thomson acquired Reuters and the combined company was named Thomson Reuters. “The constituent parts of the whole were Thomson two thirds, Reuters one third. “This was only slightly confusing because I personally came from Reuters, where I was CEO, before I became CEO of the merged group. And we reversed Thomson Financial News into Reuters, so it looked as if Reuters acquired the Thomson Financial business. But for the group, the whole thing was very clear: it was an acquisition of Reuters by Thomson Corp.” Glocer added: “Providing news is integral to all of our services, even if the percentage of our revenues that come from the traditional Reuters news agency is well under five per cent of the total.” He said Thomson Reuters would expand the number of vertical industries in which it participates. For example, a new business area, which also illustrates Thomson Reuters’ global approach, is Point Carbon, a carbon trading and energy service launched last year. “We now have the leading content and software for capturing both carbon pricing and other important factors, for whatever carbon trading regime is used, whether it is cap and trade or any other.” ● SOURCE Gulf News

Peter Bale lands a top job at CNN

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-04T17:36:52+01:00

Peter Bale, former Reuters correspondent and editor, is joining CNN as head of its international digital operations. He will occupy a new post of vice-president and general manager of CNN International Digital based in London and lead its editorial and commercial functions outside the United States. Bale moves to CNN from Microsoft’s MSN where he was international programming director, having previously been a founder of FTMarketWatch.com and then online editorial director at News Corporation's Times Online. He joined Reuters in 1985 and after assignments in London and Bucharest was deputy news editor for Europe, the Middle East and Africa when he left in 2000. ● SOURCE CNN

Syria frees Reuters photographer after six days

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-03T18:05:53+01:00

Syrian authorities freed photographer Khaled al-Hariri on Sunday, six days after detaining him as he arrived for work at the Reuters bureau in Damascus. Hariri, 50, who has worked for Reuters for over 20 years in his native Syria, met colleagues in the capital after his release and told them he was well. “Reuters is relieved that Khaled al-Hariri has been released,” editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said. “We had not heard from Khaled for six days and were increasingly concerned about his safety and well-being. Thankfully he has now safely returned home to his family.” Hariri was one of four Reuters journalists held over the last week in Syria, where protesters have been demanding change. The other three, two Lebanese television journalists and a Jordanian correspondent, had already been released and obliged to leave the country. A fifth Reuters journalist, also Jordanian, was expelled by the Syrian authorities on 25 March after five years as correspondent in Damascus. Libya and Saudi Arabia also expelled Reuters correspondents last month. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters concerned for photographer held in Syria

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-02T16:11:24+01:00

Reuters is concerned for the safety of photographer Khaled al-Hariri, who has been detained by Syrian authorities for five days. Hariri, 50, has a condition which needs daily medication. A Syrian national, he was last seen when his wife dropped him off by car near the Reuters bureau in Damascus on Monday morning. A witness has told Hariri’s family that he was stopped by two men outside the office and taken away. A Syrian official told the family that he would be released by the authorities if there was “no evidence against him”. He gave no details. “We are deeply concerned about our colleague Khaled al-Hariri, who has been missing in Syria for five days now,” editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said on Saturday. “We continue to ask the Syrian authorities for their urgent assistance to help get Khaled home safely.” Hariri is one of four Reuters journalists to have been detained in the past week in Syria. The three others, all foreigners, have been released and expelled. A fifth Reuters journalist, Jordanian Khaled Yacoub Oweis, was not detained but was expelled on 25 March after five years as the news agency's correspondent in the Syrian capital. Two Lebanese television journalists, producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji, were detained in Damascus last Saturday. They were held incommunicado for two days before being deported to Lebanon. On Tuesday, Amman correspondent Suleiman al-Khalidi, a Jordanian, was arrested in Damascus, held for three days and then expelled on Friday. ● SOURCE Reuters

Detained correspondent returns home from Syria

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-01T16:39:15+01:00

Syrian authorities freed Reuters correspondent Suleiman al-Khalidi, on Friday but photographer Khaled al-Hariri is still missing. A week after Syria expelled another Reuters correspondent, Khalidi was released to cross back into Jordan, where he is based. There was no word of Hariri, a Syrian based in Damascus. He disappeared in the capital after being seen arriving at work on Monday morning. A Syrian official has said authorities were working to establish what had happened to him. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said: “Thomson Reuters is relieved that Suleiman is now free and has returned home. However, we remain deeply concerned about the whereabouts of Khaled and call upon the Syrian authorities again to help ensure his safe and timely return.” Khalidi, a Jordanian who covered unrest which broke out in the Syrian city of Deraa two weeks ago, has worked for Reuters for more than 20 years, in Jordan, Kuwait, Syria and Iraq. Hariri has worked in Syria for Reuters for more than 20 years. ● SOURCE Reuters ● CLICK to read Suleiman al-Khalidi’s account of his treatment at the hands of Syrian intelligence published on 26 May 2011.

Thomson Reuters rated one of Britain's top employers

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-04-01T13:56:19+01:00

Thomson Reuters is one of Britain’s top employers in a ranking judged by the Corporate Research Foundation Institute. The company was described as “exceptional for its strong ethics and social conscience, unparalleled opportunities to travel and work abroad and its flexible approach to work when, where and how you like”. The audited independent research into best human resources practice gave Thomson Reuters five stars across five HR areas: ● Primary benefits ● Secondary benefits and working conditions ● Training and development ● Career development ● Company culture. ● SOURCE HR Magazine

Reuters journalists under attack in Syria, Libya

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-31T13:17:54+01:00

Reuters is urgently seeking the safe return of two of its veteran journalists in Syria, one of whom was said to be in state custody while the other was reported missing. In Libya, a Reuters correspondent was expelled on Wednesday without explanation. Citing diplomatic sources, Reuters said correspondent Suleiman al-Khalidi, a 54-year-old Jordanian who has worked for Reuters for more than 20 years in Jordan, Kuwait, Syria and Iraq, had been detained in Damascus on Tuesday. The Jordanian foreign minister said in a Twitter post that he was monitoring the case closely. He was able to make two brief telephone calls to his wife on Thursday, saying he hoped to return soon. Reuters also said Damascus-based photographer Khaled al-Hariri, a Syrian who has also worked for Reuters for more than 20 years, has not been heard from since Monday. It said he was last seen at the Damascus bureau on Monday morning. Both journalists had been covering political unrest in Syria. “Thomson Reuters is deeply concerned about the whereabouts of our colleagues Khaled al-Hariri and Suleiman al-Khalidi,” editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said. “We call upon the Syrian authorities to help us urgently in ensuring their safe and timely release.” Syrian authorities have detained several local journalists and press freedom advocates in recent days, although some have since been released. Reuters journalists were among those targeted. On Monday, authorities expelled producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji after holding them incommunicado for two days. On Friday, Syrian authorities revoked the press credentials of another Reuters senior correspondent, Khaled Oweis, for purportedly “false” coverage. In Libya, authorities on Wednesday expelled Michael Georgy, who had been covering the conflict for several weeks, Reuters said. The Libyan government provided no justification for its action. Georgy, who was among a group of foreign journalists allowed to report from Tripoli under severe government restrictions, arrived in neighbouring Tunisia. He had been detained for several hours earlier this month while trying to reach Misrata, Reuters said. “We are concerned for the safety of our two missing colleagues and urge Syrian authorities to do everything to ensure their safety,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator. “We are also disappointed to hear that the Libyan government has expelled Reuters’ Michael Georgy, seemly without cause.” Two Lebanese Reuters television journalists who had been working in Syria since the previous week, producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji, were held incommunicado for two days before being released by Syrian authorities on Monday. They were expelled to Lebanon. Reuters correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis, a Jordanian who had been based in Damascus, was expelled from Syria on Friday for what a Syrian information ministry official described as his “unprofessional and false” coverage of events. Two weeks ago Saudi Arabia expelled correspondent Ulf Laessing from Riyadh. Prominent Jordanian journalists and rights activists staged a silent protest on the steps of Jordan’s Journalists Syndicate in Amman on Thursday over Khalidi’s detention. ● SOURCE Committee to Protect Journalists | Reuters

Reuters stringer killed in Iraq attack

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-29T16:44:49+01:00

A freelance journalist who worked for Reuters was among at least 20 people killed on Tuesday when gunmen attacked a local government building in Tikrit, hometown of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Sabah al-Bazee, 30, pictured, who had contributed to Reuters in Iraq since 2004 and also worked as cameraman for several other media organisations, suffered shrapnel wounds in an explosion, said his cousin Mahmoud Salah, who confirmed his death. Bazee was married with three children. He was from Salahuddin province, north of Baghdad. “On behalf of the entire team at Thomson Reuters, I wish to convey our sadness at the untimely death of Sabah al-Bazee," said editor-in-chief Stephen Adler. “He was a valued member of our team in Iraq and will be much missed by colleagues. This tragic incident shows yet again the risks journalists face daily in doing their jobs and to bring news to the world. Our thoughts are with Sabah’s family and friends.” ● SOURCE Reuters ● A tribute to journalist and colleague Sabah al-Bazee

Reuters journalists freed in Syria

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-28T19:44:06+01:00

Two Reuters journalists detained by Syrian authorities were released on Monday, two days after they were held in Damascus. Television producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji returned to their home base in Lebanon and said they were well. "Reuters is concerned that its journalists were detained and held incommunicado for so long. We are delighted by their release and look forward to welcoming Ayat and Ezzat back," editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said. "We would like to thank everyone who helped us resolve the issue." Basma and Baltaji, both Beirut-based Lebanese nationals, travelled to neighbouring Syria on Thursday to cover mass protests against president Bashar al-Assad’s 11-year rule. A Syrian official said the journalists were detained and questioned because they did not have a permit to work in Syria and had filmed “in an area where filming is not permitted”. ● SOURCE Reuters

Two Reuters TV journalists missing in Syria

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-27T20:20:51+01:00

Two Reuters television journalists have been missing in Syria since Saturday night, when they were due to return to Lebanon. Beirut-based producer Ayat Basma and cameraman Ezzat Baltaji had been expected to cross into Lebanon by road, where they had arranged for a taxi to pick them up from the border, at approximately 1830 GMT on Saturday. The last known contact was at 1722 GMT, when Baltaji sent a telephone message to a colleague in Beirut in which he said: “We will leave now.” Basma and Baltaji, both Lebanese nationals, travelled to Syria on Thursday afternoon to cover mass protests against President Bashar al-Assad. They have been unreachable by telephone since Saturday night. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said: “Reuters is deeply concerned about our two Reuters television colleagues who went missing in Syria on Saturday. We have reached out to the relevant authorities in Syria and have asked for their help in securing our colleagues’ safe return home.” A Syrian official told Reuters on Sunday that authorities were working on resolving the issue. A senior Reuters editor plans to travel to Damascus to discuss the matter formally with Syrian officials. Basma, who has gone on reporting assignments in Tunisia, Egypt and Iraq, has been with Reuters since February 2007. Baltaji has worked for the company since April 2008. On Friday, Syrian authorities expelled correspondent Khaled Yacoub Oweis, saying he had filed “unprofessional and false” coverage of events in Syria. Reuters said it stood by its coverage. ● SOURCE Reuters

Syria expels Reuters correspondent

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-26T23:07:43+00:00

Syria has expelled Reuters’ senior correspondent in Damascus Khaled Yacoub Oweis, saying he had filed “unprofessional and false” coverage of events there. Reuters said it stood by its coverage from Syria, where a week of protests in southern towns has presented President Bashar al-Assad with the deepest crisis of his 11-year rule. Oweis, a Jordanian national who had been based in Damascus since February 2006, was told to leave the country late on Friday. A senior information ministry official told him: “Your accreditation has been withdrawn and you are being expelled because of your unprofessional and false news. You have to leave immediately.” Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said: “We regret the decision by the Syrian government to exclude our correspondent. We stand by our coverage and are committed to continuing our accurate and impartial reporting about Syria.” Oweis was the first foreign correspondent to be accredited for Reuters in Damascus. He has also reported from Baghdad, Beirut, Amman and London. ● SOURCE Reuters

No proof Thai army killed Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto - police

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-24T09:09:36+00:00

Thai police said on Thursday they had no evidence to indicate troops killed Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto last year, backing a recent reversal of preliminary findings that a soldier may have fired the fatal bullet. After reviewing a report by Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation, police said they could not determine whether Muramoto, pictured, a 43-year-old Japanese national, was killed by troops while filming anti-government demonstrations last April. The DSI had said in November that a soldier may have fired the shot, but it now says the type of bullet was inconsistent with those used by soldiers that day. The latest police investigation has concurred with the DSI. “Based on what we have received (from the DSI), there is not yet any conclusive evidence or witness accounts to show that the authorities were responsible,” said Police General Ek Angsananond. “We have sent the report back to the DSI, which will continue with the investigation. If they find more and want us to look at it again, we will do so.” Muramoto was killed by a high-velocity bullet wound to the chest while covering chaotic clashes between “red shirt” protesters and troops in Bangkok’s old quarter. Witness accounts in a preliminary DSI investigation seen by Reuters in December said the fatal shot came from the direction of troops. A witness was quoted as saying he saw “a flash from a gun barrel of a soldier,” then watched Muramoto fall after he was shot in the chest while filming the troops. DSI Chief Tharit Pengdith has said investigators had not been able to determine who fired the shot that killed Muramoto. However, he said the police investigation had showed that soldiers were not responsible. “We will continue with the investigation. But at this level, it’s clear from the police investigation that members of the security forces were not involved,” he added. ● SOURCE Reuters

Armed men attack Reuters' Gaza bureau, beat staff

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-19T12:43:56+00:00

Armed men raided Reuters and other news bureaus in Gaza, assaulted journalists, and confiscated media materials on Saturday. The men told Reuters journalists that they came from the internal security services of Hamas, the Islamist group which governs the Palestinian enclave, but they showed no documents. A senior official of Hamas condemned the violence and denied that the group was involved in the attack. Following a demonstration in Gaza City, the men stormed the bureaus of Reuters, CNN and the Japanese news channel NHK, attacking journalists, confiscating tapes and destroying equipment, CNN and others reported. Security forces hit a Reuters employee with an iron bar, threatened to throw another out of a window of the high-rise building and smashed a television and computer keyboard, Crispian Balmer, bureau chief for Israel and Palestinian Territories, told CNN and The Associated Press. The group, which numbered about 10 men, smashed a television set and other equipment before leaving. A senior official of Hamas condemned the violence and denied that the group was involved in the attack. “Initial information shows these men were not from the government. We have arrested some of them and we are going to interrogate them and see who they were acting for,” interior minister Fathi Hammad told reporters. He added that he had told all security services to treat journalists with respect and prevent attacks on them. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said: “We are extremely concerned at this unwarranted assault on our staff and urge the authorities to ensure that journalists can work freely in Gaza.” The Reuters staff attacked were Palestinian. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the attacks and the efforts of authorities to prevent the world from seeing and reading about crucial international affairs. “Today's attack on media offices and working journalists in Gaza is a brazen attempt to censor the news,” said Mohamed Abdel Dayem, CPJ Middle East and North Africa programme coordinator. “Hamas must understand that violence against media, who are the eyes and ears of the people, will only erode its own legitimacy – both domestically and internationally.” Following the raid journalists held a sit-in to denounce the government’s treatment of media. It was the second attack on media in Gaza in less than a week by Hamas security personnel. On Tuesday Hamas security forces attacked journalists as they were covering demonstrations. Many journalists were injured and one was stabbed. ● SOURCE Reuters | Committee to Protect Journalists

Internet a basic human right - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-17T08:50:43+00:00

Internet access is a basic human right and government attempts to stop the free flow of information will fail dramatically, CEO Tom Glocer told a Middle East media conference. Speaking in Abu Dhabi, Glocer said: “I believe Internet access is a basic human right. Different governments have tried to stop the free flow of information, but eventually those tactics will fail in a dramatic and revolutionary way.” During the revolution in Egypt the authorities tried to stop Reuters from broadcasting, the chief executive said, but the company still managed to put out 117 hours by being inventive in the way they produced and distributed content. “We don’t try to legislate for what others should do, but when we publish news we do it as straight as humanly possible. But humans are biased so we rigorously edit to filter that out.” On the role of global news organisations, Glocer said that there was nothing wrong with campaigning media as long as people have a choice of sources. “I have a problem when I see opinions creeping deeply into what purports to be news,” he said. He said that while technology has allowed us to look over our own borders and realise “we are not so different from each other” he hopes cultural differences will still be reflected in regional media. ● SOURCE Gulf News Postscript: On 23 March Tom Glocer posted the following on his blog: Internet Freedom Finds a Fertile Crescent I participated in a fireside chat last week at the Abu Dhabi Media Summit in which I was interviewed by the talented Lebanese journalist, Raghida Dergham. Raghida writes a well-read weekly column in Al Hayat and is a close follower of political developments across the Arab world. Thus, I should have been on notice that our scheduled discussion on the future of media could not ignore the remarkable changes taking place across the region. During a wide-ranging discussion of the future of media (not an unfamiliar theme to the readers of this blog) and the role of social media in the popular uprisings sweeping the region, I stated that I believed that access to the internet was now a basic human right. By this, I did not mean to imply that governments should not regulate noxious material such as child pornography or hate speech on the internet, nor that all societies regardless of their current state of development needed to provide free universal internet access immediately, but simply that citizens would not stand to be deprived of the basic information and connectivity they needed to function as participating members of modern societies. Thus, President Mubarak’s clumsy attempt to shutdown the internet in Egypt only fanned the flames of the popular rebellion. I am not so naiive or optimistic to think that the online tools provided by Twitter and Facebook, can, in the short-run, protect individuals from the guns and tear gas of a totalitarian state. However, over time, suppression of the internet will undermine the legitimacy of any government and sow the seeds of its downfall. I also have the 160-year history of Reuters News as a guide. There have been brief periods when governments have sought to punish the company for adhering to our Trust Principles and reporting the truth. However, over the longer-term, by sticking to our convictions we have earned the trust of the societies in which we operate. So too the internet will triumph. Not thanks to a single publisher, no matter how respected, but via the loud and competing voices of a multitude of self-publishers. Fighting the tide of history is always a losing bet.

Thomson Reuters stock upgraded

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-17T08:48:50+00:00

Thomson Reuters shares have been upgraded by TheStreet Ratings to Buy from Hold. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its increase in net income, revenue growth, growth in earnings per share, good cash flow from operations and notable return on equity, it said. “We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company shows low profit margins.” ● SOURCE The Street

Thomson Reuters again rated one of world’s most ethical companies

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-16T13:17:14+00:00

Thomson Reuters has been recognised as one of the world’s most ethical companies for the fourth successive year. The award is made by the Ethisphere Institute, a New York-based think tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability. “Thomson Reuters is dedicated to a comprehensive global Corporate Responsibility programme, at the heart of which is a strong ethical backbone”, said Deirdre Stanley, general counsel for Thomson Reuters. “At the heart of our business are the Trust Principles: committing all employees to uphold standards of integrity, independence and freedom from bias. These works alongside our Code of Business Conduct and Ethics, providing principles and practical guidance for all staff.” "As companies strive to maintain a competitive advantage, good ethics translate into better business, and better business means better bottom lines. Thomson Reuters recognizes the important role that principled practices play in brand reputation, which ultimately is the most valuable asset for a corporation," said Alex Brigham, executive director of the Ethisphere Institute. ● SOURCE Ethisphere

Saudi Arabia forces Reuters correspondent to leave

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-16T11:00:24+00:00

Saudi Arabia has withdrawn the accreditation of a senior Reuters correspondent, obliging him to leave the country, after officials complained that a recent report on a protest in the kingdom was not accurate. Reuters said it stood by its coverage and welcomed an assurance given by the Saudi government that it would begin the accreditation of a replacement for correspondent Ulf Laessing. Saudi information minister Abdul-Aziz Khoja said on Tuesday: “We have been accustomed to exceptional precision from Reuters but its correspondent here in one of his reports lately did not relay the actual, precise picture we have been used to from Reuters. “In any case, his limited work permit in the kingdom has expired. We welcome any correspondent the company appoints and we will help and facilitate the mission of Reuters in having a new correspondent appointed in the kingdom.” Laessing joined Reuters in his native Germany in 1997 and has been based in Riyadh since 2009. He has also worked in Egypt and Kuwait. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler praised his coverage and said “Reuters is committed to accurate and unbiased reporting from Saudi Arabia. We are disappointed that Ulf Laessing must leave Riyadh but welcome the minister’s assurance that Saudi Arabia will now accredit a new correspondent.” Reuters became the first major international news organisation to have a foreign correspondent accredited to work in Saudi Arabia in 2003. ● SOURCE Reuters

Wisdom of Libya’s philosopher king, by Michael Nelson

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-12T15:14:02+00:00

Michael Nelson, former general manager, has added to newspaper correspondence with a telling anecdote about Libya. Nelson said a letter published by the Financial Times about the north African country’s last king, Idris, reminded him of a conversation he had in 1968 with British Major General Arundell Leakey, who had just retired as General Officer Commanding, Malta and Libya. “Leakey first met King Idris when he took over the command in 1967. He told the king that he was going to make his army the most efficient in the Middle East,” Nelson wrote in a letter published by the FT on Friday. “’Don’t do that, general,’ the king said. ‘They’ll overthrow me.’ “They did so in 1969,” Nelson added. That was when Muammar Gaddafi, a 27-year-old junior army officer, toppled the monarchy and seized power in a bloodless coup d’état. The king was abroad for medical treatment at the time. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Caroline Drees named world shaker

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-11T12:00:43+00:00

Caroline Drees, pictured, managing editor, Middle East and Africa, has been named one of 150 women “who shake the world”. The accolade was bestowed by Newsweek magazine. Drees has worked for Reuters as a reporter, editor, and manager across the Middle East, Europe, and the United States for more than 15 years. She recently served as Middle East editor, Cairo bureau chief, and ran a collaborative project between Reuters and the UNDP to launch Iraq’s first independent news agency. ● SOURCE Newsweek

Obituary: Michael Posner

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-11T13:45:46+00:00

Michael Posner died on Friday in Washington where he was a working reporter for half a century. He had been suffering from leukemia. Posner, 79, was a Reuters correspondent on Capitol Hill from 1972 until 1997, during which time he covered every major story in the Senate and the House of Representatives. He knew everyone on the Hill, from long-serving lawmakers to back-office functionaries, and everyone there knew him and regarded him with affection. His knowledge of the US Congress was encyclopaedic, as was his store of anecdotes about the movers and shakers of American politics. During congressional recesses he also covered politics, presidential election campaigns and presidential trips. Prior to joining Reuters Posner was with UPI from 1959. Even after retirement, he couldn’t stay away from congressional politics, and wrote for a Washington magazine group, National Journal’s Congress Daily. ● Good talk, big drinks and friendly fisticuffs – Michael Posner’s account of life in Washington journalists’ haunts. ● National Journal Photo: Andrea Posner

Thomson Reuters chief moves up list of world's super rich

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-09T11:02:40+00:00

Thomson Reuters chairman David Thomson has widened his lead over his financial news and data rival, Bloomberg owner Michael Bloomberg, among the world’s billionaires. Thomson, third Baron Thomson of Fleet and the richest person in Canada, rose three places to 17 with a fortune of $23 billion, while Bloomberg fell seven spots to 30 with $18.1 billion, in Forbes magazine’s annual listing of the super rich. The world's richest man, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, retained the top spot for the second year in a row and made more money than any of the world’s other 1,209 billionaires in the past year: $20.5 billion, taking his fortune to $74 billion. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates held on to second place, growing his wealth to $56 billion from $53 billion last year, and US investor Warren Buffett again came in third with $50 billion, up from $47 billion. Forbes ranked the billionaires' fortunes at the close of global stock markets on 14 February. ● SOURCE Forbes

Reuters adds paparazzi-type Hollywood video to new service

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-07T14:34:59+00:00

Reuters is to distribute paparazzi-type footage of Hollywood celebrities on its new Reuters America service. The company said on Monday that distributing footage of celebrities from video website Hollywood. TV would serve “a crucial role for entertainment programming needs and complement celebrity and entertainment coverage currently offered by Reuters”. Hollywood. TV produces celebrity footage in southern California and beyond. The revenue-sharing deal is aimed at enhancing Reuters America which is available via Reuters’ newly-launched unified content platform. ● SOURCE Paid Content | Poynter

Brazilian banker joins Founders Share Company

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-03-04T13:22:36+00:00

Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company announced on Friday that Brazilian banker Pedro Malan has joined the board. He is the first director from South America. Malan is a former president of the Brazilian central bank and a former minister of finance for Brazil. He is currently chairman of the international advisory board, Itaú Unibanco Holding in Brazil. Pehr Gyllenhammar, chairman of the Founders Share Company, said, “We are pleased with the diversity of our board, now representing five continents.” Directors of the Founders Share Company act as trustees of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. These govern the way in which the company carries out business throughout the world. The constitution of Thomson Reuters Corporation, ultimate parent company of the Thomson Reuters Group, includes provisions to safeguard the principles. Thomson Reuters has issued the Founders Share Company with a single founders share which enables it to restrict any shareholder action which threatens the principles. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters ● The Trust Principles

Reuters demands ‘full transparency’ over journalist’s killing

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-28T13:25:55+00:00

Reuters has called for full transparency in apparently contradictory Thai reports into the killing of Japanese journalist Hiro Muramoto during “red shirt” anti-government protests in Bangkok. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler said on Monday it was imperative that full transparency be brought to the investigation. Thai investigators earlier reversed a previous finding into the shooting of the 43-year-old Tokyo-based cameraman last April. Officials from the Department of Special Investigations said he was hit by a 7.62 mm round from an AK-47 assault rifle, a weapon not used by Thai soldiers. An earlier leaked report blamed the military for shooting him through his chest with a 5.56 mm M-16 rifle bullet fired from an army-held position. Witnesses at the scene agreed. “The apparent contradiction between the preliminary investigation and these reports makes full transparency about the process and the findings imperative,” Adler said. The military was unhappy with the result of the first investigation and army sources told reporters a military officer was assigned to help the DSI's investigation. Critics say investigations into how 89 people died in the protests have been hurt by interference. ● SOURCE Reuters | BBC

Obituary: Richard Williams

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-27T14:48:04+00:00

Richard Williams, who died on 11 February at the age of 56, had a 30-year career with Reuters before taking early retirement last year. He was a correspondent in Johannesburg during the apartheid years, in Bonn in the then West Germany and in East Berlin where Reuters correspondents were constantly monitored and shadowed by East Germany's Stasi secret police. Editors noted he was calm under fire and colleagues said he was someone you could always turn to for help, whether it was personal or work-related. Richard later worked as a chief sub-editor on the Features Desk and World Desk, as well as going on fireman assignments that included the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was duty editor on the night the US-led war in Afghanistan began in late 2001 and won praise for his usual calm and quiet handling of the story. Underscoring his popularity with colleagues, Richard was elected deputy head of the Reuters Chapel of the National Union of Journalists for many years. He and Chapel head Victoria Barrett formed a formidable negotiating team that was respected by management. Born in the Merseyside town of Wallasey, Richard went on to obtain a MA in History at Glasgow University and joined Reuters as a graduate trainee. He was fluent in French and German and had a good working knowledge of Russian, Spanish and Afrikaans. His dry and wry wit lightened many a day, and the words “loathsome creature” would trip off his tongue whenever he spotted anyone trumpeting how good they were to superiors or riding roughshod over colleagues. For Richard, Reuters was all about quiet team-work. The funeral took place at the crematorium in Colwyn Bay, north Wales on 24 February. A memorial gathering is planned in London in the near future for Richard's Reuters colleagues and will be attended by representatives of his family. Donations can be made to Richard's favourite charity: Amnesty International UK, The Human Rights Action Centre, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA, +44 20 7033 1500. RG

Thai investigators say army did not kill Reuters TV’s Hiro Muramoto

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-27T08:45:02+00:00

Thailand's Department of Special Investigation has concluded that Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto, pictured covering political protests in Bangkok last year, was not killed by security forces. DSI director-general Tharit Pengdith said on Sunday the bullet came from an AK-47 assault rifle, which did not match the weapon used by soldiers in the street in Bangkok that day. That contradicts a preliminary finding in a DSI report leaked to Reuters in December, which indicated the bullet that killed Muramoto on 10 April 2010 came from the direction of troops. “Now we know for sure the bullet that killed him was a Russian-made AK-47, which we do not have for military use,” Tharit told Reuters, adding there would be a news conference on Monday to outline the findings. Muramoto, 43, was based in Tokyo and had gone to Bangkok to help cover anti-government “red shirt” protests that lasted from March to mid-May. He was among 91 civilians and members of the security forces killed during the unrest. Army spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd was quoted in Sunday's Bangkok Post as saying soldiers did not use AK-47s on the day in question. However, the daily also reported “claims that the army chief of staff paid the DSI head a visit to complain about an initial department finding” that blamed soldiers for the journalist’s death. “The DSI is likely to face questions about why it changed its stance,” it said. It added that Tharit had denied meeting the army chief of staff. The Bangkok Post also quoted an unnamed army source as saying the army had imported about 20,000 AK-47s into the country two decades ago. “About 19,000 of them had been distributed for use at military camps nationwide, while the rest were kept at the army’s weapon storage site,” it said. ● SOURCE Reuters

Union asks TR to agree to mediation in stalled US contract talks

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-18T14:37:03+00:00

A union representing 420 mostly editorial employees at Thomson Reuters in the United States asked the company on Friday to agree to mediation to break long-deadlocked contract negotiations. The Newspaper Guild of New York suggested that, for at least 90 days, both sides turn to Martin Scheinman, a New York arbitrator who has mediated previous disputes with Reuters over the past 12 years. “As you know, the Guild and Reuters have had a great deal of difficulty in this round of negotiations,” Guild president Bill O’Meara said in a letter to Jay Krupin, the company’s external labour counsel. “You think it’s our fault, the Guild thinks it’s Reuters fault, and neither of us will convince the other that they are wrong. In situations like these, parties often turn to mediators. I think that makes sense here.” O’Meara said that if management accepted the concept but preferred another mediator the Guild would certainly consider it. “The Guild remains committed to achieving a fair contract for our members at Thomson Reuters, an agreement that doesn’t lower their standards of employment,” he said in a statement. The two sides last met on 6 January when management negotiators declined to make a counterproposal to a comprehensive package the Guild had offered in December. The union’s offer made what it called a major movement on management’s key demand for greater use of discretionary pay. The dispute is tied up in litigation, with the National Labor Relations Board investigating numerous Guild charges, including one that management broke the law by declaring impasse in the talks on 19 January 2010 and imposing work rules that the union says are costing its members a net total of more than $2 million a year. ● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York

Nart Bouran leaves to head new Arabic TV channel

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-15T04:45:51+00:00

Nart Bouran, pictured, Reuters’ director of television, is leaving to run BSkyB’s new Arabic service. He will have overall responsibility for the 24-hour, free-to-air news and current affairs channel Sky News Arabia. The channel will launch in Spring 2012 as a joint venture between Sky and Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation, a private investment firm owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family. BSkyB said the venture will offer a fresh, independent and innovative approach to broadcasting news in the Middle East and North Africa. It plans to employ 180 multimedia journalists and be based in the Twofour54 media zone in UAE capital Abu Dhabi with support from a network of news bureaux including offices in London and Washington. Bouran is a former Reuters sales manager in Abu Dhabi. He has held positions including director general of the Jordan Radio and Television Corporation, director of news for Abu Dhabi TV and APTN’s regional executive for the Middle East and North Africa. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Michael Nelson: Reuters translation was more accurate than BBC's

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-13T16:49:14+00:00

Michael Nelson, former general manager, has corrected The Economist to show that Reuters’ translation of a quote attributed to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was more accurate than that of the BBC. The weekly said in an article on BBC funding last month that Gorbachev, emerging from imprisonment by Soviet hardliners at his Crimean dacha in August 1991, credited an old short-wave radio with helping him resist the coup. “Loyal guards had rigged up an antenna enabling him to hear foreign news, Mr Gorbachev explained: ‘the BBC sounded the best’,” The Economist reported. Nelson’s correction, published as a letter in The Economist’s 12 February edition under the headline “Russian translation”, said: ● Mikhail Gorbachev’s quote that “the BBC sounded the best” while he was under house arrest in 1991 is not exactly right (“Dosvidaniya, London”, January 29th). That was the BBC’s take from the Russian. This is the translation used by Reuters: “We got BBC, best of all… they were the clearest signal”. Mr Gorbachev was referring to the technical quality of the radio transmission, not to the content. However, he did pay this tribute to the BBC at a press conference when he could not see its correspondent: “The BBC knows everything already”. Nelson is the author of a book about the role of Western broadcasting in the Cold War: War of the Black Heavens, published in 1997. ● SOURCE The Economist ● Michael Nelson’s books

Earnings up, Thomson Reuters forecasts higher revenue this year

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-10T15:24:11+00:00

Thomson Reuters’ 2010 Q4 profit jumped 27 per cent higher than a year ago and the company said it expects revenue to rise this year by a “mid-single-digit” percentage. Analysts on average expect that figure to be about four per cent. The improved outlook reflects signs that the group’s financial and professional customers are recovering from the recession. A year ago Thomson Reuters was under pressure as those customers cut spending and employees. “A shock like the world went through leaves a caution that hangs around for a while,” chief executive Tom Glocer said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday. “But there’s no question that the conditions themselves are getting better in many of our markets.” The improving economy and new services helped lift Q4 earnings to $225 million, or 27 cents per share, up from $182 million, or 21 cents per share, a year earlier. Q4 adjusted earnings per share of 43 cents missed the average analyst forecast of 46 cents. Revenue climbed three per cent to $3.46 billion. Analysts expected $3.44 billion. Full-year earnings came to $933 million, or $1.08 per share, up from $867 million, or $1.01 per share, in 2009. Revenue ended essentially flat at $13 billion. Highlighting the brighter outlook, the company raised its annual dividend by seven per cent to $1.24 per share. Thomson Reuters has invested heavily in new products such as financial desktop Eikon, online video news service Reuters Insider and legal database service WestlawNext. Glocer said these investments would pay off in 2011. “With this period of heavy investment now successfully completed and our markets improving, we have set our sights on accelerating growth and delivering strong returns on our investments,” he said in a statement. “We have targeted mid-single-digit revenue growth for 2011, accompanied by strongly expanding margins and increasing levels of free cash flow.” Thomson Reuters’ New York-listed shares have risen 11.6 per cent so far in 2011. The Toronto-listed shares are up 10.8 per cent. In an internal message, Glocer told staff: “I am proud of what we accomplished, but very clear that much remains to be done, and mindful that we need to accelerate the pace of change.” Growth and efficiency would remain priorities for 2011 “and we will aspire to excellence in all that we do. We have the ability, and therefore the mandate, to go from good – or in some cases maybe just OK – to truly excellent in areas such as: ● “Establishing a winning performance culture, and strengthening talent and engagement across the company; ● “Becoming hands-down the world’s best news organisation; the organisational changes I wrote about earlier this week will advance this goal; ● “Delivering customer service that truly delights our customers; customers are the ultimate judges of a company’s excellence; ● “Delivering the most innovative platform-based products which embody deep customer insight; and ● “Ensuring that our capital and talent is focused on the highest-value opportunities. “Our commitment to excellence should also extend to our respect for our colleagues, communities and the environment. If each of the 55,000 of us achieves his or her own personal excellence, and we align our efforts, we will be unstoppable. “We have turned the corner on growth. Now let’s reach for excellence.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | Reuters

Thomson Reuters names new editor-in-chief

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-02-07T14:44:39+00:00

Thomson Reuters appointed a new editor-in-chief on Monday to oversee the entire group’s news strategy and operations. He is Stephen Adler, pictured, who joined the company a year ago from BusinessWeek where he was editor-in-chief. He left the magazine after it was purchased by Bloomberg. Adler replaces David Schlesinger who held the post since January 2007 and now returns to China to oversee group strategy in that country as chairman of Thomson Reuters China. The moves are effective immediately. Chief executive Tom Glocer said the appointment of a relative outsider to the company’s top editorial job showed “not everything has to be invented here”. Adler, 56, a former investigative editor at The Wall Street Journal and one-time editor of The American Lawyer, joined Thomson Reuters in January 2010 to set up dedicated news services for its legal, tax and accounting and healthcare and science divisions, fulfilling a goal set when Thomson acquired Reuters in April 2008. He is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Law School. Glocer said Thomson Reuters’ fledgling professional news initiative, which employs 12 journalists, is “ready to be integrated into mother Reuters”. Pointing to AOL’s acquisition of Huffington Post and The Daily Beast’s Newsweek deal, he added: “If you look at the outside world, there’s a need to accelerate change even in venerable and well-respected news organisations.” “Journalistic excellence will continue to be our hallmark,” Adler said in a statement, “and our goal is to become a must-read among global professionals. To that end, we will continue to develop our extraordinary internal talent as well as hiring strategically from outside.” He told the Financial Times his appointment to the new role of executive vice president of news for Thomson Reuters, reporting to the heads of both the markets and professional divisions, signalled a decision “to view Reuters News as an asset for the whole company”. “There is going to be one news organisation to serve all the businesses,” Adler said. “The goal is to have a united news organisation.” Glocer said: “My biggest hope and goal for him is we maximise the amount of time and resource that truly goes to journalistic excellence. Reuters developed its reputation when no one could do what we did. We should do that again.” In a message to staff, Glocer said Adler would be a member of the executive committee and would report jointly to Devin Wenig and James Smith, chief executives of Thomson Reuters’ markets and professional divisions respectively. “This reporting relationship will help ensure that news will become a central asset for both divisions – the very heart of our company. Steve is the ideal choice to lead the next phase in the development of Reuters News as a core capability for Thomson Reuters.” Schlesinger, 50, joined Reuters in 1987 as a correspondent in Hong Kong. He is a fluent Mandarin speaker and former head of Reuters’ editorial operations in China. “He’s far better known in China than I am,” Glocer said, adding that it would have taken him 20 years to build the same level of trust within a market where relationships matter were he just visiting twice a year from his New York head office. Glocer said it was the perfect moment for Schlesinger to return to China in a senior strategic role to support the development of the group’s businesses in this key market. “David brings extraordinary passion and experience to this mission.” He added: “Our news organisation is now poised to advance to new levels of excellence in an industry which is moving very fast. Please join me in thanking David for getting us here and supporting Steve as he takes us forward.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | MarketWire

Thomson Reuters shares raised to 'sector outperformer'

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-31T07:18:58+00:00

Investment bank CIBC raised its rating on Thomson Reuters to “sector outperformer” from “sector performer”, saying it sees signs of a more concrete recovery for the group. With growth prospects on the horizon, product investments and Reuters synergy efforts, analyst Robert Bek said he expects the company to increase its revenue. “We expect Thomson Reuters to soon post outsized revenue gains, material operating leverage benefits, and large free cash flow generation,” he wrote in a note to clients. “The current valuation does not yet reflect this potential.” The company has invested $1 billion in initiatives including online financial video news service Reuters Insider and Eikon, a desktop trading terminal for financial professionals. The analyst said the company still trades light of its longer-term trends. He added that he sees room for reversion towards historical ranges as fundamentals firm up. “We continue to believe that Thomson Reuters should be a core holding for investors, with a handful of evidence pointing to a more concrete recovery and a fourth-quarter dividend increase expected,” said Bek, who raised his price target on the stock to $45 from $41. Thomson Reuters shares have gained about 12 per cent since mid-November, closing at just over $40 on Monday. Results for 2010 Q4 and full year are due to be announced on 10 February. ● SOURCE Reuters

Ron Sly: The final word

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-30T14:10:17+00:00

Ron Sly had the last word at his own funeral attended by family, friends and former Reuters colleagues on Friday. Sly, former chief sub-editor on the London World Desk, died on 6 January aged 83. Some of his poems were recited during the proceedings attended by Allan Barker, Mike Hughes, Derek Parr, Anne Sawyer and Peter Seymour, and at the end the following note, left by him with his Will, was read aloud by his son Christopher: I am dead. I couldn’t resist that dramatic opening and – since someone is now reading this piece – it must be a true statement. The act of dying is bound to be dramatic, posing as it does, the question: “What comes next?” It is the most exciting question ever asked because no living person can ever know the answer. I am dead and therefore finding out. So, please, try and share my excitement and don’t spoil it for yourselves by too much gloom and morbidity. There was more comedy in my life than tragedy (the disappointments only helped to make the satisfactions greater) and I see no reason why death should change the mood for long. And, do have a get-together. Good fellowship was one of the joys of my life. Let it ease the shock and lighten the load for those who have to tidy up after me. I had good fortune, a wonderful wife and family and plenty of fine friends. So, put on some music, raise your glasses and join me in saying: “Thank you for having me, life. It’s been great.” Ronald Sly

Tom Glocer sees multi-speed optimism for multi-speed world

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-27T15:02:39+00:00

Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer said on Thursday he generally shared rising business optimism, though "it's a multi-speed optimism for a multi-speed world". Glocer told Reuters Insider television at the World Economic Forum in Davos that in "Brazil, the Gulf, Asia the optimism is off the charts but it feels a little bit different at the periphery in Europe. On balance, given a balanced business like ours, yes it's very positive for 2011". Glocer said banks were rebalancing their activity. Fixed income desks had a rough time in the second half of last year but people were now positioning themselves for the long-term environment. Speaking about the company’s business generally, Glocer said: "In our world, Latin America is very strong for us, not only in the financial services world but in legal and in tax and accounting as well, so we're excited about it." Asked about other growth areas, Glocer said; "The Gulf has been strong right through, India and China are strong for us and also at the edges of Asia. Pretty much everywhere, even Japan has had a pretty good run for us in the last couple of years." ● SOURCE Business Standard

Thomson Reuters launches new corporate branding campaign

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-24T01:52:02+00:00

Thomson Reuters on Monday launched a new corporate branding campaign designed to further enhance the meaning, understanding and relevance of the Thomson Reuters brand to professional customers and leading decision makers. The campaign replaces the previous post-merger campaign titled Intelligent Information. It describes the impact and competitive advantage that professionals in the financial, legal, tax and accounting, healthcare, science and media fields can have when armed with the right information at the right time. “The Knowledge Effect campaign is an evolution of the Intelligent Information campaign we introduced when we launched the Thomson Reuters brand almost three years ago,” said Gus Carlson, executive vice president and chief marketing officer. “The Knowledge Effect is what happens when the right information – what we call intelligent information – is put in the hands of our professional customers. When they can make the right decisions faster  and with more confidence, they can accomplish amazing things. The Knowledge Effect campaign enhances the understanding and relevance of the Thomson Reuters  brand by explaining not just what we do and how we do it, but why it matters.” The company said that in addition to using traditional media, the campaign has a strong digital media component, leveraging a mix of digital display advertising, mobile  marketing, iPad applications, social content and a ● Knowledge Effect microsite. Campaign launch plans include activities around the World Economic Forum taking place in Davos, Switzerland this week as well as in key Thomson Reuters markets such as New York, London and Toronto. The budget was not disclosed. ● SOURCE MarketWire

Big Issue global network seeks ex-Reuters journalists

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-22T07:24:53+00:00

A web-based news interchange which links 115 Big Issue-type newspapers in 40 countries is seeking volunteer editors and correspondents with an international background to help select and create news and features of wide interest for global distribution and to help develop the network. The ● Street News Service (SNS) is the news agency of the ● International Network of Street Papers, a Glasgow-based charity which supports street papers like the UK's Big Issues. Reuters editor-in-chief David Schlesinger is honorary president and former managing editor Tom Thomson is honorary editor. Street papers, with a global circulation of more than five million, exist to tackle homelessness and poverty. Vendors buy their street papers at cost price and sell them at the cover price – generating an income for themselves. Street papers offer homeless and marginalised people the chance to earn a living. At the same time they are a distinctive and quality independent media. The news service is expanding. In particular, it wants to develop its English, Spanish, and German operations and is seeking editors either in the United States, Germany and Latin America or with a feel for current issues in these areas no matter where based. The role would involve: ● reading through a selection of street papers in each region, sent by pdf. ● picking the top three to five best articles from the region, appealing to an international audience ● editing them where needed for an international audience ● sending the edited story to the Street News Service Editor, ideally twice a month (but other periods negotiable) ● helping advise SNS on future developments on an ad hoc basis. The SNS is also interested in hearing from any former Reuters journalists who might like to help with articles or high-profile interviews. If anyone would like to help, SNS editor Danielle Batist would love to hear from you at ● d.batist@street-papers.org or +44 (0)141 225 8037. Tom Thomson can also answer any questions at ● tom_thomson@hotmail.com or +44 (0)7961 069307. ● The Big Issue

Citigroup downgrades Thomson Reuters to ‘Hold’

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-21T21:21:37+00:00

Equities research analysts at Citigroup downgraded shares of Thomson Reuters to a hold rating from a buy in a research note to clients and investors on Thursday. Zack Investment Research reiterated a neutral rating late last month. Thomson Reuters has a 52-week range of $31.60-$39.31. The stock’s 50-day moving average is $37.38 and its 200-day moving average is $37.26. On Friday the TRI closed at $38.64, up 1.36 per cent, in New York while in Toronto TRI.TO was C$38.39, up 0.95 per cent. On average, analysts predict Thomson Reuters will post $0.47 earnings per share next quarter. The company has a market capitalisation of $31.727 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 36.76. ● SOURCE American Banking News

Obituary: Ron Sly

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-15T13:50:06+00:00

Ron Sly, who was for many years a stalwart of Reuters' London World Desk, has died one month short of his 84th birthday. He had been admitted to hospital just before Christmas after a couple of falls and then contracted pneumonia. His son Christopher and daughter Jennifer said he died peacefully on 6 January with his family at the bedside. Sly joined Reuters in 1965 from The Associated Press in the first wave of a succession of experienced journalists who transferred from the American agency’s London office. At the AP he had established a reputation as a solid deskman and at 85 Fleet Street, then Reuters' headquarters, he was quickly recognised as an editor who could make the most mundane copy sing. He became a senior member of a strong editing team producing Reuters World Service. On retirement in 1987 he was a chief sub-editor. Michael Reupke, former editor-in-chief, remembers Sly as a constant bright light in the editorial department. “His wonderful smile and cheery greeting brightened even the gloomiest day.” Sly's widow, Morag, is herself in hospital. The funeral will be at Harwood Park Crematorium, Stevenage, on 28 January at 11:45 am. Postscript: Morag Sly died on 3 February. Photo: A World Desk party in 1988 shortly after Ron Sly’s retirement. Around the table, left to right, are Terry Blunsum, Ernie Mendoza, François Duriaud, Dave Matthew, Jim Flannery, Ron Sly and Peter Seymour.

Reuters appoints Midwest bureau chief to head new US service

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-11T20:21:15+00:00

Reuters America, a US general news service launched last month, will be headed by Peter Bohan, a veteran Chicago-based journalist who is currently Midwest bureau chief, the company announced on Tuesday. Bohan, pictured, becomes editor of the fledgling domestic offering of local general, political, sports and entertainment news. "In his new role, Peter will lead Reuters America Service in producing top local news of national interest in the US every day for newspapers and real time media," the company said. Bohan was instrumental in setting up a deal between Reuters and Tribune, several of whose papers, including the Chicago Tribune, reduced their Associated Press subscriptions in order that Tribune could become Reuters America's first official client. He joined Reuters in 1983 and has done stints abroad as Hong Kong editor and Singapore bureau chief. Reuters America will be served by staff journalists and stringers in about 100 US cities. It will include content supplied by other news organisations ranging from Sports Direct to US Presswire. ● SOURCE The Cutline

Tim Castle elected RPF trustee

editor@thebaron.info — 2011-01-07T17:22:30+00:00

Tim Castle, a correspondent in Reuters’ London bureau, has been elected a member nominated trustee of Reuters Pension Fund. He won 1,000 of the 1,265 votes cast, the balance going to Jane Payne, formerly senior technical director. One-fifth of the Fund’s 6,263 members voted in the election, which was caused by the retirement of Janice Watson. Castle previously served as a trustee from 2002 to 2009. At the Fund’s board meeting on 30 November he was appointed chairman of the RPF investment sub-committee. ● SOURCE Reuters Pension Fund

Reuters aims at AP with new domestic US news service

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-12-13T22:36:54+00:00

Reuters on Tuesday will launch Reuters America, a US news service aimed at taking on rivals by marching into territory traditionally dominated by The Associated Press. In a break with tradition, Reuters America will include content from partners, starting with sports results and news from Sports Direct; sports photography from US Presswire; game reports and team analysis from Sports Xchange; and fans’ coverage from SB Nation. It will also feature professional and amateur local reporting from Examiner.com; and entertainment coverage from The Wrap. “This is the beginning of Project Apollo; the transformation of our news agency business from being only about Reuters content to being about supplying clients with more of the content and services they need,” Chris Ahearn, president of Reuters Media, pictured, told the Financial Times. “We’re still committed to covering the world, but we don’t need to be all things to all people,” he said, adding that Reuters America would also serve as “a platform of exchange”, distributing content from local newspaper and broadcast customers for the use of others around the country. Ahearn would not say how many staff Reuters would add in its multi-million dollar investment in editorial and technology, but said the initiative would include significantly more freelance reporters. “This is about transforming what a news agency can offer, to really be a partner to newsrooms and have our clients think of us as an extension of their newsrooms rather than just as a content provider,” he said. “So the way we’re engaging with clients now is much more on a kind of solutions perspective, to say: What matters for you? What coverage do you need?” The initiative marks a shift from Reuters’ traditional focus on international and financial news for the US market, with a push into local political and general news and a drive to aggregate sports and entertainment coverage to fill gaps left by local newspaper and television newsrooms’ shrinking budgets. Reuters America aims to have staff or freelance reporters in 100 cities across all 50 US states, and to offer an on-demand service by embedding Reuters journalists in some customers’ newsrooms to understand their requirements. Its first client is Tribune, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun, which has signed a multi-year contract. Tribune said it will use less material from the AP and reduce its financial commitment to the US news cooperative. The new Reuters service will provide news, photo, digital, and graphics services for Tribune newspapers and all of its publishing and broadcast Web sites. It comes as Reuters examines how to reach a larger consumer audience through Reuters.com, mobile applications and other platforms. Tom Glocer, chief executive, told a conference in Paris last week that Thomson Reuters was examining whether it could “aggregate a serious international audience” such as Americans who listen to National Public Radio, watch the BBC or read The Economist, through a new consumer offering. ● SOURCE Financial Times | The Wall Street Journal | Chicago Tribune

AlertNet relaunch

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-12-11T22:27:10+00:00

AlertNet, the global humanitarian website run by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, has a new look with a range of powerful multimedia and interactive features.  “The Thomson Reuters Foundation has relaunched its AlertNet humanitarian website, putting multimedia storytelling and grassroots voices at the heart of the world’s favourite one-stop shop for crisis news and information,” the Foundation announced this week. “Thirteen years after starting life as a platform for aid workers to better coordinate relief efforts, our new-look AlertNet combines improved navigation with greater visual impact and powerful tools for anyone interested in humanitarian issues. “With an audience of more than 12 million visitors a year, AlertNet serves aid workers, donors, journalists, policymakers, researchers, teachers, students and the public. The award-winning site provides trusted information on conflicts, natural disasters, hunger, diseases and climate change and is the only site of its kind that the general public really engages with.” Highlights of the relaunch include videos and slideshows, climate change information, a dedicated area for the site’s more than 450 member agencies and “an interactive number cruncher for humanitarian statistics”. ● CLICK for more about AlertNet now. ● CLICK to see how the site looked in 1997 when Steve Somerville, then director of the Reuters Foundation, first launched it.

Are foreign correspondents redundant?

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-12-11T22:17:52+00:00

Are foreign correspondents redundant? This is the question addressed by a new research paper on the changing face of international news, commissioned by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Oxford University, and written by visiting fellow Richard Sambrook, former BBC director of global news. Sambrook introduced his 100-page analysis to an audience of news professionals at Thomson Reuters’ London headquarters at Canary Wharf on Wednesday and then took part in a panel discussion chaired by David Schlesinger, Reuters editor-in-chief. The other panellists were Lindsey Hilsum of Channel 4 News, John Owen of Al-Jazeera and City University, and Fran Unsworth, BBC head of newsgathering. Three main factors have contributed to the gradual demise of traditional foreign correspondents, according to Sambrook: ● Economic – cost cutting as the old business model of Western news organisations has had to adapt to tougher commercial pressures ● Technological – the impact of rapid change in international communications, digital reporting techniques and the Internet ● Cultural – globalisation, familiarisation and the rise of local reporters and “citizen journalists”. On balance Sambrook concluded that he found more reasons to be optimistic than pessimistic about the future of international reporting. Answering his own question, are foreign correspondents redundant, he replies in his paper: “By no means. But they will be very different from their predecessors and work in very different ways to serve the digital news environment of the 21st century.” The panel agreed on the need for new business models and new operating methods, while insisting on the fundamental responsibility of the media to bear witness through professional reporting directly from the scene – what John Owen called “ground truth”. They also agreed that the crisis in international news reporting was principally a Western phenomenon, with much greater growth expected in Asia and other rapidly developing societies around the world. ● CLICK to read more about the Reuters Institute at Oxford and Richard Sambrook’s research paper.

Thomson Reuters exploring consumer video service - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-12-10T13:23:13+00:00

Thomson Reuters may expand its news brands with a consumer video service, chief executive Tom Glocer disclosed. “We sort of have a consumer following, almost less by intention and more just because people find and, thank God, trust us in particular in crisis and in particular with respect to international serious news and economics, they turn to ● Reuters.com or some of the apps we have,” Glocer said at the Le Web conference in Paris on Thursday. “We are thinking about, whether we couldn’t, the time isn't right, to aggregate a serious international audience. “We’re a fairly serious company. We’re unlikely to put the pretty blonde on the couch to read news to you or to have banter back and forth about ‘Hey, you know, how was the game last night?’ And the challenge in traditional broadcast has been to reach a large enough audience to monetise the advertising or to pay back the cost of cable carriage, or even in the old days in newspapers to pay back distribution and the printing plant you had to go quite broad… “But the neat thing about what the Internet has done for us all is, it is now possible to aggregate the smaller proportion, let’s say, of Americans who listen to NPR, might watch the BBC, read The Economist, etc, and the equal or larger number of Germans and French who do, into an international audience. You still have the language issue, but, you know, this conference is in English, so we’re looking at whether there actually might now be a time to do more of it.”

Reuters’ Hiro Muramoto probably shot by Thai troops - report

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-12-10T10:26:18+00:00

Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto, killed while covering political protests in Bangkok, was probably shot by Thai troops, according to a leaked report. Muramoto, pictured filming in Bangkok shortly before he was shot, was killed by a high-velocity bullet wound to the chest while covering the “red shirt” anti-government protest movement in Bangkok's old quarter in April. Leaked state documents seen by Reuters show the Thai military played a larger role in the killing of civilians during the two months of unrest than officials have acknowledged. The report quoted a witness who said Muramoto, a 43-year-old Japanese national based in Tokyo, collapsed as gunfire flashed from the direction of soldiers. The Thai government has not released the report into his death despite intense diplomatic pressure from Japan. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger called for the immediate public release of the full report. “The Thai authorities owe it to Hiro's family to reveal exactly how this tragedy happened and who was responsible,” he said in a statement. Tharit Pengdith, director general of the Department of Special Investigation, said the DSI had concluded its preliminary investigation and passed the results to the police but had not publicly disclosed the contents. “The investigation report is a sensitive issue to talk about or to confirm its authenticity,” he said. “It’s an official secret. To confirm the authenticity of the report sent to police would affect the rights of the people whose names were in it.” He would neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of two reports seen by Reuters but said police will now investigate the case of three people believed to have been killed by Thai special forces at a Buddhist temple designated a safe zone for women, children, the elderly and the infirm, along with three others, including Muramoto, possibly killed by troops. The results of the police investigation will be sent to the DSI and government prosecutors. Ninety-one people were killed and at least 1,800 were wounded during the unrest in April and May. More than 30 buildings were set on fire. It was the worst political violence in modern Thai history. ● SOURCE Reuters ● Hiroyuki Muramoto memorial

Tom Glocer: We’ll end uncertainty over pension increases

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-12-08T08:38:32+00:00

Thomson Reuters is trying to end uncertainty over discretionary increases in the two legacy UK pension plans, chief executive Tom Glocer said on Tuesday. The plans – Reuters Pension Fund and the Supplementary Pension Scheme – are currently about 90 per cent funded. The company’s last major injection of funds was in 2006. A more permanent method of increases has got to be the right approach, Glocer told members of The Reuter Society. The issue was what was a fair result. “It’s more an issue of the deficit, and an issue of what the company can contribute. It’s more an issue of what the company can do. “I’ve told them, find some way so we don’t just leave people with uncertainty… It doesn’t sit well with me and it doesn’t sit well with Thomson colleagues as well.” Glocer said he was mindful that there had been no inflation increase to pensions in the last two years, adding: “I care a lot about our obligations to our pensioners and all our pension plans around the world. “We’ll do whatever we need to do,” Glocer said at the Society’s 2oth anniversary meeting in London. “It’s not some black hole that nobody cares about. I do, the finance director does, and more important, the treasurer does.” Answering questions put by Michael Cooling, former corporate relations manager, Glocer said he had spent a lot of time on the cultural fit between the Thomson and Reuters sides of the company. “In the longer term it’ll be the cultural dogs that don’t come back to bite.” The CEO also made these other points: ● The financial services side of the company – the markets division’s 60 per cent of the business – was challenging and banks were not forecasting profit growth next year. Growth on the professional side of the company in 2011 would be somewhat stronger than in markets and the whole of the company could grow by five to seven per cent. ● The adoption of the Reuters Trust Principles by the entire merged company was “a pretty good test of character”. ● The resignation of columnist Neil Collins over trading in shares he owned and wrote about on the commentary service Reuters Breakingviews was less damaging than a series of issues in the Middle East. “What he did knowingly and on multiple occasions was to break the rules of the Reuters Principles and Breakingviews as well. I’m quite confident he wasn’t trading on inside information. The facts of the case were pretty straightforward. I worry more about our neutrality and independence in reporting from Israel and the Palestinian Territories because people scrutinise every word from there.” ● The Thomson Reuters Alumni group will be re-established but budgets are really tough for next year and an electronic structure will be built before events can resume, possibly in 2012 or perhaps the second half of 2011. To make it effective there had to be a proper plan to ensure communications between the disparate elements of the Thomson Reuters group. Photo: Left to right, Reuter Society chairman Stephen Somerville, Tom Glocer and Michael Cooling.

Thomsons are richest Canadians for 12th year

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-12-03T22:31:45+00:00

The Thomson family, which has a controlling interest in Thomson Reuters, kept a strong grip on their status as the wealthiest Canadians this year, seeing their net worth increase by 6.2 per cent to more than C$23 billion. They were far ahead of the second richest Canadian, grocery store magnate Galen Weston with C$8.5 billion, according to a survey by Canadian Business magazine. It was the 12th year in a row that the Thomsons have held the top spot. The list was calculated based on the real and estimated value of investments held at the end of September. ● SOURCE Reuters

Pink Floyd man remembers dead Reuters news staff on Wall tour

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-11-30T23:02:23+00:00

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, pictured, honours two Reuters news staff members killed in Iraq on his global tour of The Wall, named after the British rock band’s 1979 best-selling double album. The two-hour show is a harrowing journey through death, destruction and despair, Los Angeles correspondent Dean Goodman reported on Tuesday. Photos of victims of violence frequently flash across a wall. Waters, 67, formerly the band’s bass player and lyricist, screened leaked US military video showing two Reuters news staffers being killed in an attack by Apache helicopters. “Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, we will remember you,” a banner read. Noor-Eldeen, 22, photographer, and Chmagh, 40, his assistant and driver, were killed in Baghdad on 12 July 2007. ● SOURCE Reuters | Roger Waters | Memorial Book

Kurt Schork award winners honoured in London

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-11-25T13:57:43+00:00

Winners of the ninth annual Kurt Schork awards in international journalism were honoured on Wednesday in a ceremony at the London offices of Thomson Reuters. They were Adrian Mogos of the Bucharest-based daily newspaper Jurnalul National who was recognised for an in-depth investigation into human rights violations on the illegal immigration trail from eastern to western Europe, and British freelancer Stephen Grey for a series of articles on Afghanistan. A panel comprising Jeremy Bowen of the BBC, John Burns of The New York Times, Sir Harold Evans, former editor of The Times and The Sunday Times, Rana Husseini, author and human rights activist, and Michela Wrong, author and former Reuters correspondent, selected the two winners. The judges said Mogos provided an excellent in-depth investigation into issues of compelling importance. They felt he showed great initiative, persistence and ingenuity, backed up with excellent research to expose human rights violations. The judges were particularly impressed with the quality of Grey’s articles on Afghanistan, saying they represented some of the best coverage anywhere, combining maturity with excellent analytical skills, and making a complex war more understandable. The awards are made by the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund, created in March 2001 in honour of Kurt Schork who was killed in a military ambush while on assignment in Sierra Leone for Reuters in May 2000. They are administered by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and recognise fearless freelance news reporting and those journalists who report from their own countries at great personal risk and sacrifice. The awards were presented by Sean Maguire, Reuters editor, political and general news. Bowen recalled Schork as "razor sharp, he was leader of the pack…a great guy, greatly missed". Schork's partner Sabina Cosic attended the event. Photo: Stephen Grey (L) and Adrian Mogos with their 2010 Kurt Schork awards.

Reuters people most numerous in roll of slain journalists

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-11-22T18:22:10+00:00

Twelve Reuters people – more than from any other news organisation – were named in a roll call of 48 who have died covering conflicts for the British media since 2000. Samia Nakhoul, a Reuters correspondent who was wounded in Iraq, helped read the roll at a special memorial service at St Bride's, the journalists' church in Fleet Street, London. Sunday Times journalist Marie Colvin delivered the address and insisted that war reporting must continue despite the dangers. "Despite all the videos you see from the Ministry of Defence or the Pentagon, and all the sanitised language describing smart bombs and pinpoint strikes… the scene on the ground has remained remarkably the same for hundreds of years. Craters. Burned houses. Mutilated bodies. Women weeping for children and husbands. Men for their wives, mothers children,” she said. "Our mission is to report these horrors of war with accuracy and without prejudice. We always have to ask ourselves whether the level of risk is worth the story. What is bravery, and what is bravado? “Journalists covering combat shoulder great responsibilities and face difficult choices. Sometimes they pay the ultimate price. It has never been more dangerous to be a war correspondent, because the journalist in the combat zone has become a prime target." She added: "Today we must also remember how important it is that news organisations continue to invest in sending us out at great cost, both financial and emotional, to cover stories." The Reuters people whose names were read out at the 10 November service were: Harry Burton, Saeed Chmagh, Mazen Dana, Azizullah Haidari, Waleed Khaled, Adlan Khasanov, Hiro Muramoto, Dhia Najim, Namir Noor-Eldeen, Taras Protsyuk, Kurt Schork and Fadel Shana. Photo: Samia Nakhoul (left) with the rector of St Bride's the Venerable David Meara, and television journalist Mark Austin. ● SOURCE Press Gazette

US appeals court upholds decision against Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-11-19T23:35:03+00:00

A US Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court ruling that forces Thomson Reuters to allow The Newspaper Guild of New York to seek arbitration to settle contract disputes. The Guild, which represents 420 employees in the United States, is challenging Thomson Reuters’ decision to suspend automatic collection of union dues. The company had maintained it was not required to go to arbitration since the contract that guaranteed that right expired in February 2009. “Simply put, we won the battle with Thomson Reuters about our right to fight for our members,” the Guild of New York said in a statement after Thursday’s ruling. The union and the company will go before an arbitrator on 13 December. Other hearings over disciplinary cases will be held early next year. Jack Reerink, managing editor for the US and Canada, said in a note to staff explaining management’s position after the ruling: “The Guild wanted to make its case before an arbitrator. We went to court because we don’t like to be forced to arbitrate a dispute if we don't really have to.” He added that the company looks forward to making its case and that management hopes “this will not detract from the Guild’s willingness to agree to the fair labor deal we have offered”. Thursday’s decision did not address the company’s declaration last January of an impasse in contract talks and the subsequent imposition of work rules that included changes in overtime pay and work schedules. Thomson Reuters and the union recently resumed negotiations after a 10-month break. Among the issues dividing them are the company’s desire to impose a merit system for pay increases and increased contributions for health care coverage. The company has offered a $1 million ratification bonus to be spread among the 420 unionized employees if an agreement can be reached before 15 December. “Reuters is committed to negotiating a fair deal for everyone – an agreement that includes flexibility, rewards for excellence and more equal sharing of health costs, all of which are needed not only to remain competitive, but to keep growing,” a spokeswoman said. “Reuters stands behind its position, and looks forward to the day when the Guild returns to the bargaining table with a meaningful counterproposal.” ● SOURCE Crains New York Business

Thai forces may have killed Hiro Muramoto - investigators

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-11-16T18:22:38+00:00

Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto may have been shot by Thai security forces when he was killed during a street protest, state investigators said on Tuesday. They called for a new probe into his death in Bangkok in April. “Since there was possible involvement by government officers, we have to start from square one by letting police investigate further,” Tharit Pengdith, director general of the Department of Special Investigation, told a news conference. Muramoto, 43, a Japanese journalist based in Tokyo, was killed by a high-velocity bullet that hit his chest while he was covering clashes between anti-government protesters and troops. “I hope the investigation can be completed swiftly so that all who care deeply about Hiro Muramoto’s death can have clarity about what precisely happened, David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said in a statement. “His family and colleagues need to know who was involved and what the circumstances were that led to this tragedy.” Twenty-five people, mostly protesters, were killed and hundreds wounded on 10 April. Television footage showed Thai troops opening fire on protesters, while soldiers came under attack from grenades and black-clad gunmen moved among the demonstrators. The DSI said Muramoto was among six people whose deaths will be further investigated because it was unclear if he was shot by security forces, protesters or unidentified “armed militants”. A senior police official who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue told Reuters on Tuesday that Muramoto was likely caught in crossfire and there was a “high possibility” that he was shot by the security forces although the case remained inconclusive. “Given the line of fire and eyewitness accounts, there is a high possibility but this is in no way conclusive which is why we need further investigation,” the official said. ● SOURCE Reuters

Hugh Pain: 'Everything is interesting'

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-11-09T18:39:17+00:00

Colleagues of the late Hugh Pain remembered him on Tuesday as a serious person with an extensive range of interests, passions and fascinations. “Everything is interesting”, Ian Jones recalled his friend saying. Kind in an unsentimental way, he was an exceptional person. “It was a privilege to have known him,” Jones said at a memorial service in Fleet Street, London. Pain (Reuters 1977-2003), pictured, died of lung cancer in hospital near his home in Crete on 25 February aged 69. Books and literature were central to his life – he cherished an extensive collection of first editions. “He was wonderful company not only for the range and depth of his knowledge but for his sense of humour,” Jones said. Readings were given by Geoffrey Cornford and Peter Griffiths. Other colleagues at the guild church of St Dunstan-in-the-West who celebrated Pain’s life and mourned his passing were Tony Austin, Richard Balmforth, Allan Barker, John Bartram, David Christian-Edwards, Peter Gregson, Robert Hart, Michael Hughes, Paul Iredale, Roger Jeal, Ian Jones, Geert Linnebank, Jeremy Lovell, Sean Maguire, Barry May, Angus MacSwan, Colin McIntyre, Bernard Melunsky, Ingrid Montbazet, Barry Moody, Brian Mooney, Donald Nordberg, Manfred Pagel, Tim Pearce, Bill Saltmarsh, Len Santorelli, Paul Smurthwaite, Philip Wardle and Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi. ● Obituary

Thomson Reuters resumes contract talks with union in New York

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-11-04T09:05:22+00:00

Contract negotiations between Thomson Reuters and The Newspaper Guild of New York resumed on Thursday after an impasse of nearly 10 months. The previous contract expired in February 2009. In January 2010 Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed new work rules. The union said they were aimed at eliminating the Guild, which represents 420 reporters, editors and technical staff, at the company. The Guild says changes to health care benefits including the doubling of payroll-deducted costs, due to take effect on 1 January, are illegal. It says it returned to the talks in an effort to stave off, or mitigate, the changes. Guild president Bill O’Meara presented Thomson Reuters management with ideas for a compromise package on pay and health care that the union said would benefit both sides. ● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York

Thomson Reuters’ Q3 profit up 65% as revenue resumes growth

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-28T18:52:50+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ third-quarter profit jumped 65 per cent as revenue started growing for the first time in a year, the company reported on Thursday. Raising its full-year revenue forecast, Thomson Reuters said that, based on year-to-date performance and improved momentum, it now sees 2010 revenue being flat to slightly up rather than flat to slightly down. The company has been slowly recovering from last year's downturn, which squeezed the financial companies and law firms that subscribe to its services. The rebound is moving faster than it had forecast. “We're past the bottom and on the way back up,” said Tom Glocer, chief executive. Underlying operating profit fell four per cent to $681 million, mainly due to investment in new products, causing the operating profit margin to slip slightly to 21 per cent. Thomson Reuters has invested $1 billion in initiatives including Insider, an online financial video news service, and Eikon, a desktop trading terminal that it sells to financial professionals. The markets division, which includes financial products such as trading terminals and the Reuters news service, suffered the worst of the recession as the hard-hit financial sector shed jobs. It saw a modest one per cent revenue uptick during the quarter, excluding the effect of currency swings. Including currency, revenue slipped one per cent to $1.85 billion. The professional division, which includes services for law, tax and accounting firms and for the health care and sciences industries, grew revenue five per cent to $1.41 billion. Overall, the company reported net income rose to $268 million, or 32 cents per share, in the quarter ended 30 September, up from $162 million, or 19 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings per share rose to 49 cents from 43 cents a year earlier because of lower integration costs related to Thomson's purchase of Reuters in 2008. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 44 cents per share. Revenue edged up one per cent to $3.26 billion from $3.22 billion a year ago. The average forecast was $3.2 billion. “People who understand how our subscription model works will figure out that positive net sales this far into the year will imply revenue growth next year other than in the most extraordinary circumstances,” Glocer said. ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Aubrey Higgs

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-27T23:01:35+01:00

Aubrey Higgs, former sports news editor who worked with sports editor Jack Davis for most of his career, died on Tuesday at the age of 93. John Freeman remembers him as one of the nicest people you could ever meet and absolutely devoted to Reuters. “The love of his journalistic life was tennis. He lived close to the Wimbledon courts and ran our coverage impeccably for more years than I can remember,” Freeman said. “He was conscientious to a fault – making young upstarts like me adhere to the basic Reuters tenets of speed and accuracy.” Jon Henderson, who worked with Higgs for five or six years before he retired at the age of 59 in the mid-1970s, remembers him as an extremely nice, courteous and straightforward man and the last of a generation of sports desk grandees that also included Vernon Morgan and Claude Richardson. “One of his great contributions to Reuters was his tennis coverage. He was a regular at Wimbledon for many years and also covered the French Open at Roland Garros.” ● Gallery of Aubrey Higgs in Reuters-related photos

Analysts expect $0.45 per share on TRI Q3 results

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-25T22:53:15+01:00

Analysts, on average, expect Thomson Reuters to report earnings of $0.45 per share on sales of $3.2 billion when the company announces third quarter results on Thursday, stock analysis and trend trading system SmarTrend reported. For the full year, analysts expect earnings per share of $1.77. In the year-ago period, EPS was $0.31 on sales of $3.2 billion. In the previous quarter, the company reported EPS of $0.47, missing consensus estimates of $0.49. In an earnings alert, SmarTrend said it is bullish on TRI shares. It alerted its subscribers to Buy on 3 September at $36.49. Since then the stock has risen 5.4 per cent, closing on Monday at $38.50. ● SOURCE SmarTrend

Commentary service ends probe into staff share trading

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-25T18:06:19+01:00

Reuters Breakingviews, the financial commentary service in the spotlight over its columnists’ potential conflicts of interest, has concluded its investigation and Reuters as a whole is reviewing its own procedures and training to minimise the chance of anything like it recurring, the editor of the service said on Monday. Hugo Dixon said that, where necessary, appropriate action had been taken. Columnist Neil Collins resigned recently after multiple breaches of the Thomson Reuters code of conduct on dealing in shares he wrote about. “Reuters Breakingviews is more used to commenting on other organisations' behaviour than to having its own actions put under the microscope,” Dixon wrote in an online letter to subscribers. “But in the last week, as a result of retroactive disclaimers we made to a series of articles in order to clarify potential conflicts of interest, we have rightly been under scrutiny.” He noted that Reuters' ● Handbook of Journalism forbids journalists from dealing in "securities about which they have written recently or about which they intend to write in the near future". It also requires them to notify their manager before writing about a company in which they have a financial interest. The purpose of these rules is to avoid actual or apparent conflicts of interest. “Late last month, a journalist told one of our editors that he had acquired BP shares near their trough following the Gulf of Mexico blow-out. The columnist had written about BP around the time he bought the shares. After further inquiries, it emerged that he had traded in six other stocks (of which four involved taking up his rights in rights issues) within one month either side of writing about them. He also disclosed that he had written about another eight stocks in which he had a significant financial interest. In total, 15 stocks were affected and 39 stories were re-filed with disclaimers. Although we found no evidence that the columnist had abused his journalistic position for financial gain, we view this as a serious matter. The journalist resigned.” All other Breakingviews columnists have been asked whether there were any potential conflicts of interest, Dixon said. As a result, stories by two columnists were re-filed with disclaimers. “In one, the journalist dealt in securities once within a month either side of writing about them, although the size of the investment was not significant. In the other, disclosure was made to the journalist's then-manager – complying with Reuters policy – but an inconsistent approach was taken in disclosing this to readers.” The process is now concluded and, where necessary, appropriate action has been taken, Dixon said, adding: “Reuters as a whole is reviewing its own procedures and training to minimise the chance of anything like this recurring. In the meantime, Breakingviews will enforce the existing code vigorously.” ● SOURCE Reuters Breakingviews

Broker reiterates neutral rating on TRI, sets $40 target

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-21T18:35:29+01:00

Goldman Sachs reiterated its neutral rating on Thomson Reuters shares and $40 price target going into the company's Q3 results at the end of this month. In a note to clients, the broker said it expected the third quarter results on 28 October to pace in line with expectations as top line growth improves owing to steady, but not accelerating progress in end-market fundamentals and easier year-on-year comparisons at the Markets division. It forecast earnings of $0.55 per share, in line with consensus, and expects 2010 revenue and operating income guidance to remain unchanged. ● SOURCE Bezinga

New York Guild and Thomson Reuters to resume stalled contract talks

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-19T22:38:20+01:00

Contract talks between Thomson Reuters and The Newspaper Guild of New York, stalled since January when the company declared an impasse, are to resume next month. The union, which represents 420 reporters, editors and technical workers at Thomson Reuters, told company managers on Monday it would resume “on-the-record bargaining” for a new contract. It said this follows a recent exchange of correspondence with the company. The previous contract expired in February 2009. In January 2010 Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed new work rules. The union said the new rules were aimed at eliminating the Guild as the employees' representative. Guild president Bill O’Meara said recent events had changed the picture. Company managers had said they planned drastic changes in benefits, including spiking health care costs, switching vendors for dental, vision, prescription and other coverage and eliminating many of the funds now available in retirement savings accounts. “We felt these changes would hit members so hard that we had to at least try to do what we could to stop or mitigate them.” O’Meara said he had asked editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, a member of Reuters’ management’s bargaining committee in 1998-2000, to join the talks when they resume on 4 November. ● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York

Crossing the line at Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-19T09:42:29+01:00

Reuters crossed a line when it started running comment on its news wire, a financial commentator said on Tuesday. The blurring between fact and opinion undermines the credibility of the wire service, Daily Mail City editor Alex Brummer wrote in a commentary on Monday’s disclosure that columnist Neil Collins had resigned from Reuters Breakingviews over his share dealings ● [Reuters columnist quits after ‘multiple breaches’ of trading code]. “The big question which arises from the share dealing disclosures at Reuters Breakingviews is for the news agency itself,” Brummer wrote. “Newspapers and broadcasters worldwide have long looked to Reuters and the other major news wires as a reliable sources of verifiable information. “When Reuters started running comment on its news wire – mixed up with actual news reporting – it crossed a line. “It deepened the error when it opted to buy Breakingviews and bring all the comment, including that by Neil Collins – one of Britain's respected financial wordsmiths, under one roof. The line between fact and comment was blurred. “There was a clear case of this muddle last week when a Breakingviews journalist wrote a report suggesting that Barclays was looking at a new form of debt issue to augment its capital. “Because this appeared on the Reuters wire it was taken as reliable information even though there was no verification from Barclays. This kind of blurring between fact and opinion undermines the credibility of the wire service.” It was right that Reuters enforced its own disclosure code on share ownership and dealings, Brummer said. As soon as Collins became aware that he might have breached the code he did the honourable thing and resigned. Brummer added that if Reuters' excursion into the world of comment were to be used as an excuse to bring the curtain down on the free exchange of information between journalists, financial firms and other actors in the markets that would be a serious misjudgement. In the London Evening Standard, Simon English said Collins had paid a high price for ignoring his own advice to Daily Telegraph reporters about a decade ago about how not to fall foul of rules regarding journalists buying shares in companies they might find themselves writing about. English added: “It would have been braver and more honourable of Reuters to have decided whether the journalist had done anything actually wrong (as opposed   to something that infringes their awkward rules) before they hung him out to dry, but this was apparently beyond them. “The idea, proposed by some, that financial journalists should be entirely banned from any share-dealing, seems absurd. The test for wrongdoing ought to be whether the editorial might move the share price.” English said it was important that the Financial Services Authority, which should quickly satisfy itself that there was no wider case to answer, did not use the incident as an excuse to force through new rules regarding the passing of information between journalists and people in the City. “One of the premier financial journalists of the age is paying a high price for a minor misdemeanour,” he added. “He needed to listen to his own advice more closely.” ● SOURCE Daily Mail | Evening Standard

Reuters columnist quits after ‘multiple breaches’ of trading code

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-18T10:58:49+01:00

A columnist at Reuters Breakingviews has resigned after multiple breaches of the Thomson Reuters code of conduct on share dealing and cases involving other commentators are being investigated. Reuters did not identify any of the journalists involved but the Financial Times said Neil Collins, pictured, former City editor of The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times and the London Evening Standard, had volunteered his resignation after realising he had breached the company’s rules guiding journalists’ conduct. "While we have no evidence the journalist was abusing his position for financial gain, we take such breaches extremely seriously and that journalist resigned with immediate effect during our investigation," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said in a note to staff on Monday. He added that several other cases had come to light as a result of questioning Reuters Breakingviews staff where disclosures to readers or managers could or should have been made. Investigations continue. “A fundamental foundation of our principles is that we avoid conflicts of interest in our reporting and that we are honest and transparent with our readers when those conflicts occur,” Schlesinger’s e-mail said, according to The Guardian. Thomson Reuters’ ● code on disclosing financial conflicts forbids journalists from writing about shares they own unless they notify their interest to their manager and from dealing in shares about which they have written recently or intend to write in the near future. Schlesinger said it was vital that everyone looked to their own market participation to be sure they complied with the spirit and the letter of the rules. “This is about our compact with our readers; it is about our individual reputations; and it is about ensuring that Reuters and Thomson Reuters live up to the standards set both by our long, proud history and our Trust Principles,” he added. The FT said Thomson Reuters had identified 37 articles published between February 2009 and July 2010 in which columnists wrote about companies in which they held shares, and 16 articles in which journalists wrote about companies before or after trading in their shares. Schlesinger said the columnist wrote commentary about companies in which he had a financial interest and made trades shortly afterwards. The code of conduct forbids journalists from writing about shares they own unless they notify their interest to their manager and from dealing in shares about which they have written recently or intend to write in the near future. Breakingviews will be adding a disclaimer to all relevant archived columns to say whether the commentators held shares in the companies at the time and if they traded them shortly before or after publication. For example, on 25 May Collins wrote a column headed “Time for BP to share the pain”. According to the refiled version of the article, he owned shares in BP when he wrote the piece and bought shares shortly before and after. The FT said that in an e-mail to Hugo Dixon, editor of Breakingviews, Collins said he had made no attempt to conceal his activities from his colleagues, and had voluntarily contacted Reuters as soon as he realised he might be in breach of the company’s rules. “I am saddened and embarrassed by my breaches of the rules and hope that you will shortly be able to draw a line under this unfortunate episode,” he wrote. Collins was hired by Reuters in the spring of 2009 to join its original commentary team. Thomson Reuters acquired Breakingviews for £12 million last December and the two teams were merged. ● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times | The Guardian | Breakingviews | The New York Times

TR offers trip to South Pole as Eikon prize

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-13T21:12:24+01:00

Thomson Reuters is offering a trip to the South Pole in a competition to promote its new desktop terminal, Eikon, launched in September. The winner will become a member of a three-person team attempting to set a new world record for the journey from the coast of the Antarctic to the South Pole. The current Guinness World record stands at two days, 21 hours, 21 minutes. The attempt to break it will be in a new polar vehicle, pictured, powered by bio-fuel. Setting off on 12 December 2011, the expedition will aim to arrive at the pole on the centenary of the first successful attempt by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen on 14 December 1911. The competition is open to residents of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Japan, Hong Kong, India, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Entrants have to say in up to 40 characters each what they would like to see both more of and less of in the new era of financial markets. Runners-up will win a luxury holiday. Best entries from each eligible country will win an iPad. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Two contest RPF trustee vacancy

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-10-13T13:14:27+01:00

Two candidates are contesting a vacancy as a member nominated trustee on the management committee of Reuters Pension Fund. They are Tim Castle, correspondent, London bureau, and Jane Payne, former technical manager. The vacancy on the seven-member board arose due to the retirement of Janice Watson, who had chaired the RPF investment sub-committee, at the end of her term. Castle is an active member of the Fund who served as a trustee from 2002 to 2009. Payne is a deferred member who worked at Reuters from 1985 to 1991 and from 2001 to 2006 and is now senior technical director with another company. Voting in the election conducted by Electoral Reform Services closes on 29 October.

Reuters and IHT launch new Mideast supplement

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-29T13:21:45+01:00

Reuters and the International Herald Tribune are jointly launching a special supplement that will be inserted into the newspaper's Middle East editions on a weekly basis. The first four-page issue of Middle East with Reuters, to be published on Thursday, will contain regional news, opinion and coverage of culture. It will draw on the output of more than 200 Reuters journalists who cover the Middle East at a local and international level. Over the last 18 months, Reuters has recruited dozens of new journalists to its Middle East bureaus, doubling the amount of original Arabic-language news it produces. IHT publisher Stephen Dunbar-Johnson said: "We are excited to be expanding our collaboration with Reuters to provide even more analysis and fresh insight for our readers in the Middle East. There is a thirst here for the IHT's brand of high quality, independent journalism as reflected in our growing circulation numbers." The IHT has a new regional headquarters in Dubai. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Reuters cracks down on reader comment

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-27T23:06:14+01:00

Reuters is installing a new system aimed at blocking inappropriate comments filed by readers of stories on its website. The new process gives special status to readers whose comments have passed muster in the past. It’s an important step towards a more civil and thoughtful conversation, Dean Wright, global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards, said on Monday. Wright said he had become increasingly concerned about the quality of discourse in comments on news stories on ● reuters.com and on other major news sites. “On some stories, the ‘conversation’ has been little more than partisans slinging invective at each other under the cloak of anonymity.” Richard Baum, global editor for consumer media, pictured, said that like many major news publishers, Reuters had agonised over how to balance enthusiasm for reader comments on stories with belief that few people would benefit from a free-for-all. “Most of our readers respect our request for comments that ‘advance the story,’ by submitting relevant anecdotes, links and data or by challenging our reporting when they think we’ve fallen short of our editorial standards. It’s rewarding, sometimes even exhilarating, to see the way our audience builds on our coverage. “Where we struggle is with comments that we believe contribute nothing useful to the conversation. I’m not talking about obscenities and spam — we have software that aims to block the publication of those — but something more subjective.” The type of comments that fall foul of Reuters’ moderators are ● racism and other hate language that is not caught by software filters ● obscene words with letters substituted to get around the software filters ● semi-literate spelling ● uncivil behaviour towards other commentators ● incitement to violence ● comments that have nothing to do with the story ● comments that have been pasted across multiple stories ● comments that are unusually long, unless they are very well written ● excessive use of capital letters “Until recently, our moderation process involved editors going through a basket of all incoming comments, publishing the ones that met our standards and blocking the others,” Baum said. “This was unsatisfactory because it delayed the publication of good comments, especially overnight and at weekends when our staffing is lighter.” The new process grants “VIP status” to people who have had comments approved previously. Every time Reuters approves a comment, the reader scores a point. Once the reader has reached a certain number of points, they become a “recognised user” whose comments will be published instantly. Editors will still review comments after publication. “It’s not a perfect system, but we believe it’s a foundation for facilitating a civil and rewarding discussion that’s open to the widest range of people,” Baum said. ● SOURCE Reuters

Tom Glocer: Building on a year of achievement

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-23T13:24:55+01:00

Thomson Reuters is motoring ahead with continuing improvement in net sales, new product platforms gaining momentum and large transformation projects, including the Reuters integration, performing to plan, Tom Glocer has told staff. The Thomson Reuters Board, meeting in London last week, heard detailed updates on technology initiatives, talent programmes and acquisition strategy. The chief executive said disclosure rules kept him from sharing details on the last item, but on the other two subjects he did not need to be so guarded. “Our approach to technology seeks to balance investment in innovation on the one hand with scale-efficiency projects on the other, both within and across our divisions,” Glocer said in a message circulated to the group’s 55,000 employees. “This balance enables us both to grow revenues through new and improved products and to improve customer service and time-to-market while reducing costs through greater leverage of technology platforms. Getting this balance right is not easy and requires constant attention, but it is one of the most important elements of our success. We must stay agile and ‘light on our technology feet’ (as I describe it to my fellow directors), while still placing large bets on technology infrastructures such as data storage and distribution which give us a competitive advantage.” The Board was also presented with a detailed review of the group’s various talent programmes, “which are intended to ensure that we have a robust pipeline of future leaders and the right development opportunities in place to motivate and stretch them”, Glocer said. He said he was proud of the company’s many investments in talent. “Next month, for example, we'll be launching a Career Development Month in the Americas, a UKI diversity week and other people initiatives around the globe. Most of what the company spends, we spend quite rightly on people and technology.” London was also the setting for the launch of Thomson Reuters Eikon, “which targets the new generation of financial professionals who are distinguished by their affinity for technology, greater demand for real-time information and an outlook that transcends social, geographic or language barriers”. It offers these professionals a single place to turn for comprehensive, critical content, Glocer said. “Three years in the making, Eikon is truly a ‘new tool for a new era’.” He called Eikon “a real game-changer” and congratulated Devin Wenig, markets division chief executive, and “the entire Markets team for delivering one hot platform”. Early sales results confirm that the company has another winner on its hands. In addition to Eikon and WestlawNext, which sets the standard for what the new generation of legal professionals need to do their jobs, Thomson Reuters also released Reuters Insider, an interactive on-demand video platform, and Elektron, an ultra-high speed data distribution network, in 2010. A global tax workstation called ONESOURCE and Advantage Suite 5.0 for healthcare are scheduled for launch in the fourth quarter. “I am very proud that we continued to invest through the ‘Great Recession’ of 2008-2009, and we are now set to reap the rewards of this strategy,” Glocer said. “It is important that we prove to our shareholders, other stakeholders, and especially to ourselves, that we can reap these rewards. We have had the rare permission over the past two years to keep investing in the projects that we believe in, but now we must show that we can turn this confidence into revenue and profit growth. “This balance between investment and return, over the short and the long term, is another balance we must get right. It is with this in mind that we have begun to prepare the 2011 budget. “In the coming quarter there's much to be done to realize the full potential of this year of achievement and prepare for 2011. Building on the strongest roster of products we have ever had, I have no doubt we will succeed.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Thomson and Reuters 'a matter for the next generation' - David Thomson

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-18T09:35:02+01:00

Thomson Reuters chairman David Thomson, pictured, has faith in the digital media future but is taciturn about whether the Thomson name will remain twinned with Reuters. “Canadian media family executive David Thomson rarely ventures outside his Toronto hometown, but he was in London for a board meeting of Thomson Reuters followed by drinks and dinner with the City’s movers and shakers,” the Financial Times reported on Saturday. “At the British Museum event midweek, he expressed faith in the digital media future, ahead of a relaunch of the family’s Globe and Mail publication in Canada. But he shrugged off the question of whether the Thomson name would remain twinned with Reuters as a matter for the next generation.” The FT gave no further details about Thomson’s remarks at the event. It said chief executive Tom Glocer welcomed HSBC chairman and UK trade minister designate Stephen Green, who was a fellow panellist at a conference held during the week by strategic advisory group Oxford Analytica on global risk and the global economy. Thomson, 53, grandson of the family media empire’s founder the late Lord Thomson, became chairman of Thomson Corporation in 2002 and chairman of the merged entity after the acquisition of Reuters in 2008. He does not use his hereditary title of 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet. Forbes magazine ranks him and his family the richest in Canada and 20th richest in the world with a fortune of C$19 billion. Lord Thomson founded a media dynasty, ensuring that control passed to his son, Kenneth who died in 2006, and his son, David. In his 1975 autobiography, Lord Thomson wrote: “David, my grandson, will have to take his part in the running of the Organisation and David’s son, too. With the fortune that we will leave to them go also responsibilities. These Thomson boys that come after Ken are not going to be able, even if they want to, to shrug off these responsibilities.” ● SOURCE Financial Times

Tom Glocer on Eikon: You too can make it sing

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-17T12:53:13+01:00

Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters CEO, opened a study zone at London’s Cass Business School on Friday showcasing the latest product, Eikon, and acknowledged that previous tools needed a huge amount of client training. Glocer and the Cass dean, chief operating officer Alex Fraser, pictured, cut an orange ribbon in the new Thomson Reuters zone at the school which is decorated in the company’s orange livery. “With the previous products it took a huge amount of training to make it sing,” Glocer said. Eikon, by contrast, uses new tools like web-style navigation and social networking. “You can do what I do; just play with it and explore,” Glocer said. The zone initially has just one Eikon terminal with some data on a 15-minute delay but a separate room at the school with 3000 Xtra workstations, which Eikon replaces, is set to be converted later. A further room at the school has Bloomberg machines. A Thomson Reuters trainer showed highlights of Eikon – marketed with the slogan “New era. New tools” – to a small group. He stressed that there was no need to set up and save sheets, as with 3000 Xtra, though this function is available. He showed how easy it was to click between user-friendly displays of news, data and graphs and import data into Excel. The trainer joked that it was likely to put trainers out of work. The first Cass student to use the terminal, who was familiar with Bloomberg, said he found Eikon much friendlier because of the familiar web-style links. A Thomson Reuters salesman said privately that converting clients would be a major focus for the sales force in the next three years. Although clients do not pay extra for Eikon, many have complex systems of their own with which it needs to be integrated, he said. ● Eikon at Cass Business School | VIDEO

Thomson Reuters refinances bonds at lower rate

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-16T21:11:32+01:00

Thomson Reuters raised C$750 million from an issue of 10-year bonds, almost double the C$400 million minimum targeted. The Wall Street Journal reported that the issue was priced at 143.6 basis points over the government of Canada 3.5 per cent June 2020 benchmark bond for a yield of 4.398 per cent. The bonds carry a coupon of 4.35 per cent. Thomson Reuters said the offering is expected to close on 30 September. It plans to use the net proceeds from the offering, available cash and/or other resources to repay other corporate debt – EUR 500 million principal amount of 4.625 per cent medium term notes upon their maturity in November 2010. The Globe and Mail of Toronto said the old debt was the last of Reuters PLC paper that was absorbed when Thomson and Reuters merged in 2008, according to Moody’s, which assigned the debt a Baa1 rating. After the refinancing, all of the company’s debt will bear the Thomson Reuters name. Fitch Ratings assigned the new note an A- rating, reflecting the company’s cash flow generating ability, sound balance sheet and consistent and conservative financial policies. It said it believes Thomson Reuters “has the flexibility to address upcoming maturities, make smaller prudent acquisitions and participate in some share repurchase activity”. In August Standard & Poor's lifted its outlook on Thomson Reuters to stable in response to the company's improved operating performance. ● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal | MarketWatch | The Globe and Mail

Thomson Reuters improves brand ranking

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-16T17:19:55+01:00

Thomson Reuters edged higher in a survey of the world’s 100 best global brands, rising to 39th place from 40th last year and 44th in 2008. The 2010 survey by Interbrand, the world’s largest brand consultancy, estimated Thomson Reuters’ brand value at $8.976 billion, six per cent higher than last year. "Thomson Reuters’ continued investment in the brand is beginning to show dividends across the portfolio as all offerings are being streamlined and tied closer to the brand,” Interbrand said. “Product launches continue to be significant proof points for the brand and the platform of ‘intelligent information’. The company continues to anticipate market requirements and advance the technological capabilities of its products to stay ahead of the competition.” Interbrand evaluates brand value on the basis of its economic value to the company. The ranking process includes companies’ financials and analysts' projections. High-ranking brands are better able to attract new customers, achieve greater customer loyalty and command a price premium for what they uniquely offer. By growing and expanding brand strength, they generate more revenue for the business. Coca-Cola tops the 2010 list with a brand value of $70.452 billion, followed by IBM, Microsoft, Google and GE. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | Interbrand

Thomson Reuters shares top five leading publishers

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-16T14:14:25+01:00

Thomson Reuters tops a list of the five leading companies in the publishing industry as measured by their shares’ relative performance, the website SmarTrend said on Thursday. Its ranking was based on Wednesday's trading activity in SmarTrend’s search for stocks that have the potential to outperform. SmarTrend uses stock analysis software to scrutinise more than 5,000 securities traded on major US exchanges in real-time to predict future trend direction. Thomson Reuters shares closed on Wednesday at $37.59 in New York and C$38.59 in Toronto. Rankings: ● Thomson Reuters - 0.48 per cent gain ● Gannett - 0.45 per cent loss ● McGraw-Hill - 0.56 per cent loss ● The New York Times - 0.72 per cent loss ● Valassis Communications - 1.36 loss. ● SOURCE SmarTrend

New desktop a ‘fundamental shift’ - Devin Wenig

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-14T18:25:51+01:00

Eikon, Thomson Reuters’ new flagship desktop launched on Tuesday, is a fundamental shift for the company and the industry, said markets chief Devin Wenig, pictured. "Today's generation of financial professionals demand tools that are intuitive, rich in data and analytics, and highly connected, to give them an edge. Eikon is a fundamental shift for our company and our industry. It will constantly adapt to help customers thrive in this new era. The launch signifies another key milestone in our strategy to build an open and connected global financial community," said Wenig, markets division CEO. Eikon places the most comprehensive market information, news, analytics and trading tools available into a desktop as simple to use and collaborative as the Internet, Thomson Reuters said. It said the new desktop had won the support of more than 300 clients. A company press release said Eikon was designed “to catapult market data into the 21st century and leverages information into easy-to-use web style search, aggregates the best of social networking technology, and allows for seamless mobile interchange from the office, home or while on the move. Eikon is available on multiple computer platforms, Blackberry and iPhone devices with a single sign-on to access information anywhere, at anytime". Eikon’s semantic tagging technology removes the need to remember instrument codes or use complex interfaces. It is delivered by Internet technology and so can be downloaded and installed in seconds. With seamless upgrades, the technology enables a single powerful desktop to evolve and keep apace with rapidly changing markets and customer needs. A core innovation harnesses social networking technology like Facebook, Twitter and instant messaging for financial markets and connects financial professionals around the world to create communities. The new desktop completes a three-part, $1 billion overhaul of Thomson Reuters’ product portfolio for financial professionals. It follows the recent launch of Elektron, an ultra-high speed data distribution network, and Reuters Insider, an interactive on-demand video platform. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters press release | Eikon

New Thomson Reuters desktop aims at Bloomberg

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-13T19:22:04+01:00

Thomson Reuters' next generation desktop product for financial professionals (pictured above) incorporates social media features it hopes will help win customers from Bloomberg and others. Eikon, to be launched on Tuesday, incorporates dozens of disparate products that provide data, news, analytics and trading tools, as well as social media applications familiar to users of Twitter, instant messaging and Facebook. It accounts for the biggest part of a $1 billion investment in new financial products. Others are video news service Reuters Insider and data network Elektron. Along with improved search, customers will also be able to access Eikon on the iPhone, BlackBerry and similar mobile devices. "What we are trying to do is take the best learning from the consumer media world and apply that to professional tools," said Devin Wenig, markets division chief executive. "Our clients say 'you've got great stuff but we can't get at it because it's in too many places’. And they say the whole industry is looking a little tired and it's time for a refresh." The new desktop is designed to be more cost-effective for the company and easier to install and upgrade. "Eikon really simplified the plumbing issues," said Doug Steiner, a consultant to investment bank Scotia Capital, one of 1,000 clients that took part in beta testing the product. Thomson Reuters will continue to support existing products but expects clients to take up Eikon quickly, Wenig said. They can migrate at no extra cost unless they upgrade. Bloomberg launched an upgraded version of its desktop in the summer, offering user-friendly features such as more intuitive search. Thomson Reuters is betting that updated features allowing users to comment, chat and e-mail charts, stories and other data will counter Bloomberg's messaging. Thomson Reuters’ Q2 results were lower than expected partly because investment in new products reduced its operating profit margin to 20.4 per cent from 24.2 per cent a year earlier. ● SOURCE Reuters | Eikon

Obituary: Vladimir Raitz

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-10T18:23:17+01:00

Vladimir Raitz, who has died aged 88, interpreted foreign radio news broadcasts for Reuters in the 1940s but was best known for pioneering the all-inclusive no-frills package holiday in the days of Britain’s post-war austerity and rationing. Born into a middle class Jewish family in Moscow in 1922, in 1928 he emigrated with his mother, a dentist, to Berlin where her parents had fled, leaving behind his father, a doctor, whom he would never see again. His mother remarried and they moved with her second husband to Warsaw. His stepfather was one of the Polish officers murdered at Katyn. Raitz arrived in London in 1936 speaking Russian, Polish, French and German, but no English. After graduating from the London School of Economics, where he read history, he joined Reuters in 1943 and monitored foreign news broadcasts. He was still working for Reuters when, in 1949, his grandmother died, leaving him £3,000. He left the agency, using his inheritance to establish Horizon Holidays with an office in Fleet Street. He had the idea when staying with a baron in Corsica. On Horizon’s first trip to Corsica in 1950 holidaymakers paid £32 10s all-inclusive for a six-hour flight aboard a government-surplus Dakota DC3 to a holiday in the sun with a canvas tent on the beach, "delicious meat-filled meals and as much local wine as [you] could put away". At first he was permitted to carry only teachers and students – other occupations were banned – who could take only £50. Raitz knew he had started a social revolution, not only giving the man in the street holidays abroad but also making him more cosmopolitan, broadening his mind and his palate with a taste for wine and foreign food. In 1970 he invented Club 18-30 which under subsequent ownership became a byword for booze and sex in the sun. Horizon Holidays, battered by the oil price shocks, folded in 1974. Raitz remained one of the principal players in the British tour operating business for 25 years, acquiring Skytours and Riviera Holidays on behalf of the Thomson organisation to form Thomson Holidays. Raitz was always a proud Muscovite with a fondness for vodka and Russian songs, a ready laugh “and a stubborn urge to organise”. He was co-author, with Roger Bray, of Flight to The Sun: the Story of the Holiday Revolution, published in 2001. Raitz died on 31 August. ● SOURCE The Economist | The Daily Telegraph

Academic data project sends TR shares higher

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-08T19:16:30+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ New York shares were up around 1.9 per cent to about $36.90 before easing slightly on Wednesday after the company announced a global institutions and research facilities project. The company said it has collected data on hundreds of such facilities. The result is the Global Institutional Profiles Project, described as "the most advanced data-driven view of globally significant universities and research institutions available". "We've developed a data and analysis system that provides the best informed and most effective resource to build profiles of universities and institutions around the world," said Jonathan Adams, director of research evaluation. "Providing institutions with a rounded profile of their activity allows them to compare themselves with peers rather than global averages. This converts data into truly useful management information." The data will allow universities and research organisations' administrators to change their approach to institutional comparisons. The Times Higher Education weekly magazine is the first to use a customised dataset from the project to produce an improved version of their annual World University Rankings to be published on 16 September. ● SOURCE The Street | Thomson Reuters | Global Institutional Profiles Project

Thomson Reuters New York shares cross critical 50-day moving average

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-09-03T23:55:12+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares traded in New York have crossed above the critical 50-day moving average of $36.51. The location of a stock price when analyzed against the moving average can aid in predicting future short term momentum, the website Market Intellisearch reported. Trading activity for the shares may indicate that TRI may head higher assuming that the moving average continues upward direction. The volume of shares exchanging hands is less than average daily volume of 1,236,350 of shares. Other relevant figures to examine are the support and resistance levels for TRI. Thomson Reuters settled at $36.61 $0.61 (+1.69%), based on the pivot points, the current support and resistance levels are $36.15 and $36.99 respectively. If the resistance point price is broken in an upward movement, then the bullish trend is likely to continue and vice versa. ● SOURCE Market Intellisearch

Peter Millar spills the beans on secrets of Berlin

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-24T16:25:33+01:00

Former correspondent Peter Millar entertained, informed and amused a near-capacity audience at the Edinburgh International Book Festival with a graphic account of living as a foreign journalist in East Germany, James Forrester writes. Quoting excerpts from his highly-regarded book 1989 The Berlin Wall: My Part in its Downfall, he spoke in the Pepper Theatre about the realities of life in a society where surveillance of the individual was the norm, though he did point out that not all was gloom and doom. “Of course, people were poor,” he said. “But there was pretty general acceptance of that because everyone was poor.” One example of the surveillance he endured exposed the attention the Stasi secret police gave to his movements. After the fall of the wall Millar obtained access to his Stasi records which gave details of the watch on the flat where he lived and which also served as the Reuter office. One day’s Stasi report showed that a car with two occupants parked outside the flat at 7 am. An initial complaint that Millar and his wife were late risers was followed by an almost minute by minute account of their activities, including such minute details as that his wife carried a bag when they left the flat, that they went to a store and returned to the flat with packages. The final report was timed at 7 pm when the car left. “This left us free to go to the neighbouring pub for an evening drink without being followed,” Millar said. After the fall of the wall, Reuters had the flat scanned for “bugs” and found 37 microphones buried in the walls. They also found that the adjoining flat was not a residence but a Stasi listening post. East Berlin was the first assignment for Millar after completing Reuters’ graduate training course. He was unmarried and awaiting the arrival of his fiancée, a fact that enabled him to escape the “honey trap” familiar to almost every foreign correspondent in Eastern Europe at that period. “The staff, supplied by the authorities, included a very dishy young blonde cleaner,” he said. “She collared me one day and said: “Your predecessor. We lived together like man and wife.” It was noteworthy, Millar said, that after my fiancée arrived and we married that the enticing blonde was replaced by a considerably older cleaner. Millar refused to name his predecessor but under pressure from the chairman said: “He went on to become head of ITN. You can work it out.” Photo: Peter Millar c1983 ● REVIEW 1989 The Berlin Wall: My Part in its Downfall

Thomson Reuters tipped to outperform

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-23T16:10:29+01:00

Thomson Reuters heads a list of five US publishing industry companies with the best relative performance, the stock analysis website SmarTrend said. The top five with potential to outperform are Thomson Reuters, Valassis Communications, Meredith, Gannett and McGraw-Hill. SmarTrend says its stock analysis software can identify when US shares are beginning a major trend, up or down. ● SOURCE SmarTrend

Mark Wood to head special-interest publisher in UK

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-23T13:46:04+01:00

Mark Wood, former Reuters editor-in-chief, is to run the UK business of Future Publishing, an international special-interest media group. He will take charge of titles including Fast Car, Classic Rock and Guitar World. Wood became a non-executive director at Future in April 2009 but will step down from the board when he takes up his new post as UK chief executive at the end of August. He has held a number of part-time posts since September 2008 when he resigned from ITN, where he had been chief executive for nearly six years. Since 1998 Wood had been chairman of ITN, in which Thomson Reuters has a stake. Wood joined Reuters in 1976 and was a correspondent in Vienna, East Berlin, Moscow and Bonn between 1977 and 1987. He was editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2000 when he took charge of Reuters strategic media investments and alliances as managing director of Reuters Content Partners. Future's biggest-selling magazines include T3, Total Film, Digital Camera, Fast Car, Classic Rock, Guitar World, Official Xbox Magazine, Official Playstation Magazine, Nintendo Power, Maximum PC and MacLife. ● SOURCE The Guardian | Future

Michael Stott named global top news editor

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-19T20:15:44+01:00

Moscow bureau chief Michael Stott has been appointed Reuters’ global top news editor. Based in London, he will be responsible for driving the news editing and publishing of the top global stories each day with effect from October. He will lead regional top news teams which will be the core of Reuters news editing operation. Stott joined Reuters from Cambridge in 1986 as a graduate trainee. His previous roles include bureau chief Mexico and Central America, chief correspondent UK and Ireland and editor, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Prior to moving to Moscow in 2006 to lead coverage of Russia and the CIS republics he spent three years working for sales and divisional operations in London developing the marketing of domestic news services worldwide and driving their revenue growth. ● SOURCE Reuters

S&P lifts Thomson Reuters outlook on improved performance

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-19T21:10:16+01:00

Standard & Poor's lifted its outlook on Thomson Reuters to stable from negative, citing improved operating performance. The ratings agency noted other positive developments including the view that the Reuters integration will be successfully completed next year and that credit ratios will remain in line with S&P's expectations in the medium term. Thomson Reuters' A- rating largely reflects what S&P views as the group’s strong business-risk profile, expanded product portfolio following the $16 billion acquisition of Reuters in 2008 and geographic diversity. In S&P's opinion, the benefits of the integration are partially offset by Thomson Reuters' credit protection measures, which it said are somewhat weak for the ratings, and the sizeable annual dividend, which reduces free cash flow. S&P said it could consider raising the company's ratings if Thomson Reuters was able to demonstrate continued strengthening of its operating performance and credit measures. A downgrade could occur if the group’s performance falls below S&P's expectations or if the company faces significant difficulties completing the Reuters integration. In July Thomson Reuters reported its second-quarter profit fell 8.6 per cent to 35 cents per share from 38 cents a year earlier on lower revenue from its markets division, although the company said it expected total revenue to grow in the current quarter. The stock is up 9.6 per cent this year. The company's next quarterly earnings report is scheduled on 28 October. ● SOURCE Business Week

Thomson Reuters nominated for two online documentary awards

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-16T16:24:35+01:00

Thomson Reuters has been nominated for two multi-media projects as part of the second France 24 - RFI Web Documentary Award. Times of Crisis and Surviving the Tsunami: Stories of Hope will compete against seven other interactive multimedia journalism projects from France and Italy for the €8,000 prize. Times of Crisis comprises an interactive timeline of text, videos and images documenting the 365 days after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Surviving the Tsunami was created by the Thomson Reuters Foundation and combines videos and interactive maps to show the impact of the 2004 disaster. The winner will be announced on 1 September. ● SOURCE Journalism | France24

Thomson Reuters revises staff social media guidelines

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-06T18:49:35+01:00

Thomson Reuters issued revised guidelines for staff use of social media aimed at helping to protect the group's reputation and credibility. Professional use of social media on behalf of the company as well as personal use are covered by the new guidelines. They apply to "employees and contractors who create or contribute to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds or other social media. Whether you use Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, Wikipedia or MySpace – or comment on blogs or online media stories – these guidelines are for you". Adherence to the group's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics and the Trust Principles are among the basic principles for staff who use social media. "Be accurate, honest and genuine and take responsibility for your mistakes,” staff are told. “A conversational, personal tone often works best – similar to how you'd speak. If you make a mistake, or someone questions a statement or claim you make, it's your responsibility to investigate it. If appropriate, you should quickly correct any mistakes or provide any necessary clarifications." Employees are instructed to respect others in their posts and discussions. “Social media networks and online communications shouldn't be used to attack or insult Thomson Reuters, fellow employees, customers, vendors, contractors, suppliers, competitors or others. “Be sensible. Don't make posts or comments that may be considered defamatory, obscene, libelous, threatening, harassing or embarrassing to others.” Staff must not comment on Thomson Reuters legal matters, stock price, financial performance, competitors, strategy or rumours unless specifically authorised to do so. Incidental personal use of Thomson Reuters computer systems at work may be acceptable under certain circumstances, but excessive use for social media networks, personal blogging or creating other types of online content could result in the company limiting employees’ ability to engage in these activities during work time and/or taking disciplinary action. “If you violate these guidelines, we may require you to correct, edit or remove a post or statement. In addition, violations of these guidelines by employees can result in disciplinary action, including termination of employment.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Deutsche Bank downgrades Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-06T18:06:50+01:00

Deutsche Bank analysts downgraded Thomson Reuters shares to hold from buy, saying that the markets division – which contains the financial and media businesses – continues to struggle. In a research note to investors, the bank kept its $42 price target for the stock. The markets division serves financial services and corporate professionals globally, with Reuters media serving professional and consumer media markets. It delivers critical information, supporting technology and infrastructure to a diverse set of customers. TRI shares trading in New York were down more than two per cent on Friday, hitting $36.78. ● SOURCE American Banking & Marketing News

Thomson Reuters wins $20.8 million New York tax breaks case

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-08-03T23:53:08+01:00

New York City's Industrial Development Agency (NYCIDA) on Tuesday approved Thomson Reuters' application to transfer up to $20.8 million in unused city and state sales tax subsidies from its 3 Times Square headquarters to seven other properties in Manhattan. The application had been opposed by the Newspaper Guild of New York which is in a contract dispute with the company. The previous contract expired in February 2009 and in January 2010 Thomson Reuters declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed new work rules that the union said were aimed at eliminating the Guild as the employees' representative. The union, which represents 420 reporters, editors and technical workers at Thomson Reuters, had sought to persuade city officials to delay the tax breaks until the company explained its job creation record and cleared alleged labor violations. The Industrial Development Agency is the city agency in charge of approving discretionary tax subsidies to local businesses. Under a new NYCIDA deal, Thomson Reuters must increase its base employment commitment from the current 1,800 jobs to 3,744 and grow its overall headcount in the city above 4,210 to access all of the tax breaks. The approval is also contingent upon Thomson Reuters resolving eight outstanding charges of unfair labor practices – some of which deal with the contract negotiations – pending before the National Labor Relations Board, failing which the company would lose the subsidies, a spokeswoman for the city's Economic Development Corporation said. Subsidies totalling $28 million were originally agreed in 1998 for construction of the 3 Times Square tower with Reuters as the anchor tenant. Construction of the 30-storey building on Seventh Avenue between 42nd and 43rd Streets was completed in 2001. Under the agreement Reuters committed to remain at the location – known as 3XSQ – to 2021, retain its 1,800 employees in the city and add another 2,348 jobs. But the promised jobs did not materialise, leading to Reuters paying back $330,000 and forfeiting $1.7 million in sales tax breaks. Some $20 million in tax credits were not used. At a public hearing last week the Guild's parent union, the Communication Workers of America, argued that Thomson Reuters had failed to meet the standards of good corporate citizenship in its treatment of Guild-represented employees. It said that instead of adding jobs, Thomson Reuters’ track record was cutting jobs, including transferring work to Bangalore and Canada. Thomson Reuters marketing president for the Americas Chris Perry said the new deal was needed to "get the commitment of the merged company to stay in New York City”. He added: "We have several unused facilities that include Stamford, Connecticut, Hauppauge, New York, Nutley, New Jersey, and Jersey City, all of which are available to look at as options." Failure to approve the subsidy "will cause us to re-look at our real estate strategy", Perry said. Chief executive Tom Glocer, in a letter to New York City’s public advocate Bill de Blasio, said the Guild had failed to make a substantive counterproposal after Thomson Reuters made a proposal to reconcile a year ago. He said the Guild “never made a proposal for wages and benefits, two of the core issues of the negotiations,” and that the NYCIDA was not the right department to handle labor disputes. Glocer said the company remained positive and hopeful of reconciliation with the Guild. ● SOURCE Crain's New York Business | IDA Report

Thomson Reuters Q2 profit falls, sees Q3 revenue growth

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-29T14:34:05+01:00

Thomson Reuters reported lower quarterly profit and revenue slightly below Wall Street expectations on Thursday but said sales trends pointed to a return to revenue growth this quarter. The second quarter results show that the group is gradually emerging from the shadow of the financial crisis, which triggered layoffs on Wall Street and cancellations of subscriptions to trading terminals and products for legal professionals, Reuters reported. Underlying operating profit fell 17 per cent in Q2 to $655 million, and adjusted earnings per share fell to 47 cents from 58 cents a year earlier, slightly below analysts’ forecasts. Revenue from ongoing businesses fell two per cent to $3.22 billion. "While our markets are only slowly improving, we have seen accelerating results in terms of revenues, net sales and customer uptake of our new products," chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement. "Based on these encouraging trends, we expect that Thomson Reuters will return to revenue growth in the third quarter." The company reiterated its forecast that 2010 revenue would be flat to slightly down compared with 2009, and that net sales would strengthen this year. While net sales improved, revenue was still down year-on-year due to the delayed impact of cancelled subscriptions. In the markets division, which serves the financial industry, revenue fell four per cent from the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue from the division was up from the first quarter, excluding adjustments for currency, marking the second consecutive quarter of sequential growth. Revenue rose two per cent in the professional division, which sells databases and other information reservoirs to lawyers, accountants, scientists and healthcare workers. The Reuters news agency business reported a three per cent fall in revenue, but net sales turned positive after it won a contract with CNN. ● SOURCE Reuters | Thomson Reuters press release | Earnings call transcript

CPJ calls for Thai government action on slain TV cameraman

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-29T09:15:38+01:00

Lethal recklessness by security forces and protesters during political unrest in Bangkok led to the death of a Reuters cameraman shot whilst covering the violence, an investigation by the Committee to Protect Journalists has found. Hiro Muramoto, pictured shortly before he was killed, was one of two journalists who died during armed confrontations between security forces and "red shirt" anti-government protesters over nine weeks in April and May. The other was Fabio Polenghi, an Italian freelance photographer. Nine other reporters and photographers were injured. Both sides claimed to have exercised restraint in the clashes, in which at least 90 people were killed and more than 1,800 injured. The Thai government has done little to bring anyone to account, the CPJ said on Thursday. The New York-based journalist safety watchdog said that in several instances troops fired in a random manner into crowds of apparently unarmed demonstrators, frequently in areas where reporters were present. Journalists’ news reports and interviews with CPJ also highlighted the presence of heavily armed, black-clad protesters who fired gunshots and launched grenades at troops deployed in areas where journalists were positioned. "Preliminary government investigations into the violence have been incomplete and opaque, as have the autopsies of the two journalist victims, CPJ has found. Private investigations launched by concerned news organizations, foreign embassies, and family members of the deceased have been obstructed or denied access to key information in the government’s possession. Thus far, no one has been brought to account for the killings and the other critical injuries." The CPJ said a recently completed private investigation commissioned by Reuters has moved more swiftly despite official obstruction, according to people familiar with the situation. Muramoto, 43, based in Tokyo, was shot and killed while covering the first armed clashes on 10 April. "While positioned with the military that evening, Muramoto had captured on film a grenade attack that had killed and severely wounded a number of troops,” the CPJ said. “He was later seen on the side of the protesters, four of whom were photographed by the local Daily News newspaper carrying his limp body away from the frontlines at around 9 p.m. "Reuters’ investigation, which drew on information from two unnamed eyewitnesses, found that Muramoto 'was shot almost certainly by a high velocity bullet fired at street level while standing in a street between Thai troops and red shirt protesters.’ A summary reviewed by CPJ said that Muramoto 'was not shot at close range' and that 'both troops and protesters had high velocity weapons at the time of Hiro’s death and there were casualties on both sides that night'." The CPJ said those findings contradict earlier government suggestions that Muramoto may have been shot from above by a sniper positioned on a nearby rooftop. What remains unclear, however, is which direction the fatal bullet was fired, according to Reuters’ Bangkok bureau chief Jason Szep. "An initial government autopsy revealed only that a bullet fired from a high velocity rifle entered under Muramoto’s right armpit and exited through his back. The veteran reporter most likely died from massive internal bleeding and his pulse had already stopped when he arrived at the hospital, according to Szep,” the CPJ said. "The bullet, which if found would carry important clues in determining whether Muramoto was shot by troops or protesters, has not been recovered – or least not made available for inspection to outside investigators, according to people familiar with the situation. “'Our initial concern was that he was targeted,' Szep said, referring to his bureau’s original fear that Muramoto may have taken footage perceived as sensitive by one side. 'Now, we don’t think he was. All signs point to him being at the wrong place at the wrong time at a very dangerous moment.'" A CPJ source familiar with one private investigation into Muramoto’s death claimed that the government is “dragging its feet” in finalizing the results of its forensic investigation. He noted that a Bangkok Post report published in late April quoted a forensics official saying that Muramoto was most likely killed by a soldier’s bullet. As of July, the government still had not released the full results of the official autopsy. Among a series of recommendations the CPJ called on the government of Thailand to complete the official autopsy and police investigation into the death of Muramoto. Where criminal liability is found, file charges and prosecute the perpetrators. Where military forces acted outside accepted standards, subject the individuals to military discipline. It also urged the government to cooperate with independent investigations probing the circumstances surrounding the killing and wounding of journalists. Where no legal impediments exist, disclose the results of official autopsies and police investigations. Make available all closed circuit television footage and other relevant forensic evidence now in the government's possession. ● SOURCE CPJ

Obituary: Duncan McWhirter

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-23T17:40:26+01:00

Duncan McWhirter, a Winnipeg-born Canadian who worked on Reuters World Desk in London from 1964 to 1968, died in Vancouver on 20 July, aged 75, after a stroke and a succession of complications. In addition to being a journalist of wide experience, McWhirter was a novelist, short-story writer and cartoonist. His cosmopolitan lifestyle took him to continental Europe, North Africa and Latin America between long residential stretches in London’s Islington district and diverse parts of western Canada. Through his mother, Duncan was half Icelandic and Reykjavik featured both on his international itinerary and his fiction. His novels include such Canadian settings as Winnipeg, too, and the rugged northern Ontario region of Thunder Bay, where he spent part of his youth. McWhirter received a rousing educational boost at the University of Toronto. He graduated with an honours degree in English and Modern History after studying under such mentors as Canada’s most provocative historian, Donald Creighton. His news agency career started with stints in 1962-64 at The Canadian Press in Toronto and Montreal. As a CP man myself, I first met him in the latter news cauldron. There I helped him cover an event even rowdier than the Quebec separatist furore of the time – the 1964 invasion of Montreal by The Beatles. We were both left all-shook-up by this searing experience. The adventurous McWhirter, by this time privately crafting an assortment of hard-edge short stories, headed for Swinging London in 1964 and landed a sub-editor’s post at Reuters. His four years there were ones of all-round World Desk service together with enjoyment of the period’s mellow social scene in both Fleet Street and Islington to the north. Islington had yet to descend into gentrification and McWhirter led me, as a visitor from Montreal, on fascinating rounds of the earthy local pub circuit from his raffish Essex Road flat next door to a funeral parlour. Plainly, his environs were a rich and raucous feeding ground for this droll observer’s evolving interest in fiction-writing. Having left Reuters in 1968, he took up globe-trotting along with spells of work as a writer and cartoonist for papers in western Canada. Back in London, he spent time on a smaller news agency and performed journalistic duties for British Columbia’s busy office in the UK capital. It was there that he encountered the legendary leader of the Canadian Pacific province, WAC Bennett, later telling of how the visiting “Wacky” loudly insisted on being addressed as Prime Minister of BC rather than by his official designation as a Premier. By 1979, McWhirter had gone to the Overseas Press Section of the British government’s Central Office of Information, where he stayed until his return to Canada in 1998. He’d met his wife, Jody, in Victoria, BC, in 1976 while doing research on aboriginal Indian land claims for the provincial government – another instance of his versatility and a useful outlet for his university training in historical investigation. It wasn’t till 2000 that Duncan the novelist was published for the first time. Trafford of Victoria issued White Houses, the story of a torturous love relationship that unfolded against backdrops ranging from Morocco and Iceland to the American enclave of Point Roberts, bizarrely located within British Columbia’s territorial spectrum. Evident all through White Houses and two later McWhirter novels published by Trafford – The Paper-Boy and The Girl in the Grass – was a born travel-writer’s skill for evoking weird, far-away settings and a Graham Greene-like gift for magnifying the plight of the forlorn loners who swarm in the modern city’s seedy barrens. One of my most memorable jaunts with Duncan was a trip to the haunting shoreline near Vancouver once inhabited by the English novelist Malcolm Lowry, of Under the Volcano fame. As a poet, Lowry spoke of finding no path forward for the world’s rootless outsiders, there being only “a river in spate/Where drowning forms, downswept, gesticulate.” In recent years, Duncan and Jody lived in a handsome central Vancouver apartment, where he was working on successors to his first three novels when taken to hospital in May. All through our friendship, Dunc often addressed me, with mischievous jocularity, as “Fo”, a legacy from the Montreal days when erratic teletype operators somehow mangled my byline of Cy Fox into Cy Sox, C. Fox, Cy Cox or a nice oriental variant, Cy Fo. I won’t soon forget that unique McWhirter salutation, “Hello, Fo!” CY FOX ● Duncan McWhirter’s books

Tom Glocer: Lack of cost of living pension increase 'an important issue'

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-19T18:30:15+01:00

Tom Glocer says he is “very sympathetic” to the important issue of pensions and the lack of a cost of living increase in pension payments is an important issue to him, “the company and, of course, Reuters pensioners”. In a letter to Angela Dean, chairman of the Pension Review Group, Thomson Reuters’ chief executive addressed issues raised by Reuters pensioners and other former staff. Dean had raised matters of concern to members of Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme in an e-mail to the CEO. “As for the important issue of pensions, I am very sympathetic,” Glocer replied. “As you are aware the current Funding Agreement was reached with the RPF trustees in 2006 pursuant to which Reuters paid off the pension deficit and a mechanism was put in place which allowed discretionary inflationary increases when the Plan is in surplus. Fortunately, increases have been granted each year since 2006 other than January 2009 – when fallout from the global financial crisis on Plan assets did not permit the trustees to approve an increase and January 2010 because RPI was negative. We are committed to continuing to work with the RPF trustees on these issues and look forward to reaching a solution that meets our common desire to secure pensioners’ retirements. “I would like to emphasize that we have the highest regard for our retirees and other alumni in London and around the world, not only as important stakeholders but also for their part in helping to build Thomson Reuters into the global leader it is today. We are currently evaluating options for launching a global alumni program that will support more frequent communication between the company and its alumni and bring current and former employees together in London and our other major centers. It is my sincere hope that this forum, alongside the long-standing Reuters Society, will come to be highly valued by our wider retiree community.” On the matter of the discontinued pensioners’ lunch, last held in London in April 2008, Glocer said “…it feels inappropriate to me to continue pensioners’ lunches in London for only legacy Reuters pensioners when staff all over the world have given service to Thomson Reuters and its constituent companies. We did look at the cost of organizing similar events in the now numerous locations in which we have a large population of retirees; however, this proved too expensive in the current environment…”

Reuters people named in top 100 media movers and shakers

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-19T12:11:15+01:00

Three Reuters people past and present are among this year’s MediaGuardian 100 – defined as the most powerful people in television, radio, newspapers, magazines, digital media, media business, advertising, marketing and PR. They are John Witherow, John Makinson and Ilicco Elia. A panel of experienced media watchers from the worlds of politics, journalism, advertising, television and the internet judged entrants using three criteria: cultural influence, economic clout and political power. ● Witherow, 58, trainee correspondent from 1977 to 1980, is placed at 56 in the top 100. Editor of The Sunday Times since 1994, he is the longest-serving editor in the history of Rupert Murdoch's newspaper empire. He joined the paper in 1984 and has been its Focus editor, foreign editor and managing editor (news). ● Makinson, 55, former journalist and a new entry at 76, is chairman and chief executive of Penguin Group. He wants to re-invent publishing for the digital age. "The definition of the book itself is up for grabs," he has said. "The transition from physical to digital is a momentous moment for the industry," said Makinson, who compared the rise of the ebook to the 15th-century invention of the printing press. "The decisions that we take now on behalf of authors will determine the future of publishing." ● Elia, pictured, 39, global head of mobile, Reuters Consumer Media, enters the list at 94. He has pioneered a new relationship between professional journalists and bloggers, sharing technology and incorporating social media techniques into Reuters’ newsgathering operation. He joined the company in 1990 after studying civil engineering and has had a variety of roles including corporate brand manager, head of online experience for Reuters.com and experience manager for Reuters next-generation trading products. Elia oversees a team of product managers in New York, Mumbai and Tokyo and works with development teams in North America, London and China and sales teams in New York and London. He has also worked closely with journalists and bloggers to help them adopt new digital technology and techniques in the field, as well as inviting prominent bloggers and Twitter users to Reuters' social media events such as election news conferences. "You might not know the name but he makes things happen," said The Guardian’s panel. “Ilicco Elia has championed how important it is for traditional journalists to work with bloggers. He sees the blogosphere as a laboratory for the future of mobile journalism – just as the principles of journalism filter through to the bloggers, so their innovative techniques filter back to Reuters.” The MediaGuardian list is topped by Steve Jobs, chairman and chief executive of Apple, displacing Sergey Brin and Larry Page, co-founders of Google, who held first place for the past three years. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Reuters multi-media show nominated for Emmy

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-16T11:45:30+01:00

A Reuters multi-media production has been nominated for an Emmy in the annual awards of the US National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Times of Crisis, a multi-media narrative on the global impact of the financial crisis in the year following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, is up for an award for new approaches to news and documentary programming: current news coverage. Launched in September 2009, it was produced by the same team that was behind Bearing Witness about the war in Iraq which was nominated for an Emmy award last year. Winners are due to be announced at a presentation ceremony in New York on 27 September. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger won a lifetime achievement Emmy in 2008. ● Times of Crisis | VIDEO ● SOURCE Emmy Online

NY Guild invokes Bloomberg in TR contract dispute

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-12T21:48:37+01:00

Thomson Reuters staff in New York have appealed for help from the city’s mayor Michael Bloomberg, pictured, in their stalled contract negotiations. They want him to block part of a multi-million dollar tax break awarded to Reuters as an incentive to build its new office in Manhattan, now the combined company’s global headquarters. The Newspaper Guild of New York, which represents some Thomson Reuters employees, has recorded a radio spot to be aired on stations WINS and WCBS AM asking listeners to complain to Bloomberg, founder and owner of Thomson Reuters' main rival financial information business. The 30-second spot says: "Media giant Thomson Reuters was supposed to create hundreds of new jobs to get $26 million dollars in New York tax breaks. But now the company is cutting pay and benefits for hundreds of its employees." It asks why a foreign company should get tax breaks in tough times and says voters ought to call the mayor's office to protest. The union says Thomson Reuters has asked New York City’s Independent Development Agency to divert an unspecified, unused portion of the $26 million it received in 1998 to seven leased Manhattan locations. The tax breaks were given to Reuters to persuade it to build its US headquarters at 3 Times Square ten years before the 2008 takeover by Thomson and were intended to spur job creation. The Guild lists ten reasons why the company’s request should be denied. Among those reasons are that the company does not need the money. "Unlike New York City and State right now, Thomson Reuters is a healthy, profitable company." Also, says the union, Reuters has moved hundreds of jobs out of the city to other US and Canadian locations and covers Wall Street from Bangalore, India. Instead of beefing up its New York-based financial reporting team, says the Guild, the company created more than 100 reporting jobs in Bangalore where it has said wages are one-fourth to one-sixth of those in New York. Most of the Bangalore journalists report on US-based companies and, recently, US commodity markets, the Guild said. Guild president Bill O’Meara said the purpose of the tax subsidies was to encourage good employers to stay in New York and provide good jobs for the people who live there. “By cutting the compensation of our members and shipping good jobs out of the city, the company has been anything but a good employer deserving of scarce public resources at this difficult economic time.” Earlier this year the union filed a complaint with the US National Labor Relations Board accusing Thomson Reuters of planning to cut wages of reporters and other employees by an average of 10 per cent this year without Guild consent. Thomson Reuters disputed the figure, saying it was guaranteeing a 0.5 per cent increase for the 400-plus US journalists represented by the union at Reuters News. Some would get bigger raises. The New York Daily News on Monday quoted Thomson Reuters spokeswoman Courtney Dolan saying: “Since October 2008 the Newspaper Guild of NY, which represents approximately 440 employees out of more than 3,700 Thomson Reuters employees in NYC, has refused to put a single, comprehensive offer on the table. As a result, Reuters declared an impasse in January 2010 in accordance with applicable law. Reuters stands behind its position and is committed to moving the organization forward. We look forward to the day when the Guild directs its efforts to returning to the bargaining table with a meaningful counterproposal to our best offer instead of creating misleading videos and radio ads.“ ● SOURCE New York Daily News | Reuters Exposed | AUDIO

US charges soldier over leaked video of killings in Iraq

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-07T12:26:47+01:00

The US military has charged a soldier in connection with the leak of a classified video showing a helicopter attack that killed two Reuters news staff and ten other people in Baghdad. Bradley Manning, 22, faces two criminal counts including allegations he disclosed classified national defence information, exceeded his authorised access to US computers and transferred classified data onto his personal computer, the military said in a statement on Tuesday. The charges were brought under the military code of justice and could result in a trial by court martial. Manning, a US Army specialist, was deployed to Baghdad and was held in pre-trial confinement in Kuwait, US officials said when they announced a month ago that he had been detained. The gunsight video, which shows an attack by an Apache helicopter on a group of men in a square in Baghdad, was made public in April by WikiLeaks, an Internet group that promotes the leaking of information to fight government and corporate corruption. Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40, were among those killed in the attack. The leaked video showed an aerial view of men moving through a square in Baghdad. The helicopter opened fire, killing several people and wounding others. A military spokesman said the helicopter crew mistook a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The video also showed the helicopter opening fire on a van carrying unarmed civilians who tried to help those wounded in the first burst of fire. WikiLeaks said at the time it had obtained the video from military whistleblowers and had been able to view and investigate it after breaking an encryption code. ● SOURCE Reuters

Kieran Doherty and Dylan Martinez win news photography prizes

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-07-01T11:10:12+01:00

Reuters photographers Kieran Doherty and Dylan Martinez have been honoured in the 2010 Press Photographer’s Year awards. Doherty won first prize in the news category with this picture: A young girl stands with other mourners as the hearses carrying the coffins of five British soldiers are driven through the streets of Wootton Bassett. Lance Sergeant Dave Greenhalgh, Lance Corporal Darren Hicks, Kingsman Sean Dawson, Rifleman Mark Marshall and Sapper Guy Mellors were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan’s Helmand province earlier in February. 18 February 2009. Martinez won first prize for features with this picture: A dog walker strolls through an earthquake-damaged district of Padang, Indonesia’s West Sumatra province. 7 October 2009. Now in its fifth year, the competition showcases outstanding press photography taken for and use by UK media. It aims to demonstrate that even in an age of rolling television news, Internet and satellite communication, the traditional still image burns the keenest, fastest impression on the public conscience and is the most effective way to show the world the world as it really is. Some 317 photographers based in more than 20 countries throughout Europe, Japan, South Africa, India, Australia and the United States submitted more than 7,000 photographs. Previous winners have included Reuters photographers Nir Elias for photo essay in 2006, Yonathan Weitzman for live news in 2007, and Darren Staples for sports features in 2008. The awards were presented in association with the British Press Photographers’ Association. Winning photographs can be viewed online and will also be exhibited in the Lyttleton foyer of the National Theatre, London, from 10 July to 10 September. ● SOURCE The Press Photographer’s Year | SLIDESHOW

Expanded digital media roles for Thomson Reuters executives

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-30T21:47:08+01:00

Thomson Reuters has promoted two executives to lead a push into digital media. Alisa Bowen, who as global head of consumer publishing had a leading role in the redesign of the ● Reuters.com website and development of mobile applications for the BlackBerry, iPhone and iPad platforms, was made global head of business operations. She joined Reuters in 2001 as a business analyst for media strategy. Keith McAllister, former global editor of Thomson Reuters' online projects, becomes editor and publisher of consumer media. Before joining Reuters in April 2009 he was chief executive of an online syndicator and also worked for CNN where he was senior executive in charge of newsgathering. His new role will consolidate management of Reuters’ editorial and business teams. Christoph Pleitgen, managing director of Reuters news agency, is appointed head of client operations. The appointments follow the creation of a new team of managing editors for five editorial regions. “The new team structure reflects the growth of our news organisation, and the increasing demand we’re seeing from our customers for news and information from emerging markets,” said global managing editor Betty Wong. In the past year Reuters has added columnists with its acquisition of commentary website Breakingviews, invested in enterprise journalism, and launched Reuters Insider, a video service for financial professionals. A key task of the new managing editors will be to ensure Reuters makes the best use of its new investments and technologies while supporting collaboration across the various platforms. The new managing editors, who will report directly to Wong, are: ● Caroline Drees, Middle East editor since late 2008, becomes managing editor, Middle East and Africa in mid-July and will remain based in Dubai. Drees joined Reuters in 1994. On secondment to the Reuters Foundation in 2006/7 she ran a project to help set up Iraq's first independent news agency. ● Sarah Edmonds, continental Europe editor since 2008 and deputy EMEA managing editor, becomes managing editor, Europe in mid-July and will be based in Frankfurt. She was previously bureau chief of the Nordics and Baltics, based in Stockholm. Edmonds began her Reuters career 18 years ago in her native Toronto as a financial markets and telecommunications reporter. ● Saul Hudson, Latin America editor since April 2009, becomes managing editor, Latin America in mid-July and will remain based in Sao Paulo. He previously worked with Reuters for 13 years in The Americas. ● Jack Reerink, global company news editor, becomes managing editor, United States and Canada in September and will remain based in New York. He led coverage of company news and stock markets in the Asia Pacific region from 2002 to 2007 with a short stint as Asia treasury editor. Reerink joined Reuters in 1997. ● Brian Rhoads, Americas managing editor based in New York since September 2008, will move to Hong Kong in July to become managing editor, Asia. Previously, he worked for Reuters in Asia for 12 years, eight of them in China. ● SOURCE Media Bistro | Paid Content | Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters Foundation launches pro bono legal service

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-22T22:25:52+01:00

The Thomson Reuters Foundation on Tuesday launched what CEO Tom Glocer called “an ambitious and transformative global service” for lawyers to promote pro bono legal work around the world. TrustLaw provides a free online matching service promoting the practice of pro bono legal work. It will also become the first international information hub on anti-corruption and governance issues. Glocer told staff in an internal message: “Here's how it works: If you are an NGO, a social entrepreneur or even a government in need, you can contact TrustLaw Connect and be put in touch with leading law firms with specialist skills in the area where you need help. They will give you some of the best legal advice available, for free. This is the essence of pro bono – offering a free service for the public good.” TrustLaw creates a new free international marketplace for pro bono projects. “I've spoken to a number of legal managing partners and they are really getting behind TrustLaw as a way to meet their social responsibilities,” Glocer, himself a lawyer, said. “Big name law firms including Freshfields, Clifford Chance and Baker & McKenzie are among some 190 organizations signed up to TrustLaw Connect already.” Glocer said the idea for TrustLaw first came from Thomson Reuters’ own clients. “We asked NGO members of our AlertNet humanitarian website what service they needed most that we could assist them with, and they told us it was legal advice. “Foundation CEO Monique Villa and her team have done an outstanding job in turning this idea into a reality. It adds to the Foundation's excellent work in launching its Emergency Information Service to help the people of Haiti after January's earthquake, and to the long-established program for training journalists in developing countries.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters ● TrustLaw

Thomson Reuters in top 100 US firms for IT professionals

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-21T22:37:56+01:00

Thomson Reuters is in the top 100 best places to work in the United States for IT professionals, according to an annual survey. Computerworld magazine placed the company at 56 in its list headed by USAA, a financial services company based in San Antonio, Texas. "Out of all the categories measured, we were recognized for retention and career development," Thomson Reuters said. "Retention measures assessed the frequency of employee satisfaction surveys, turnover rates and promotions, morale and employee satisfaction with flexible hours, job sharing and telecommuting programs. Career development looked at mentoring programs, tuition reimbursement and opportunities for career growth. "We're a 'go to' destination for IT professionals who want to tackle challenges, work with state-of-the art and advanced technologies, drive results and innovation and pursue their passions. And to keep our best and brightest employees engaged, we are working harder to present a clear career path and exploring ways to promote cross-company collaboration.” The survey looks at company information including benefits, rewards, employment statistics including retention, training and development, and the percentage of women and minorities in IT staff and management positions. A random sample of US-based full- and part-time IT staff was also surveyed on topics including satisfaction with training and development. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | Computerworld

CNN drops AP, resumes using Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-21T22:44:45+01:00

CNN dropped The Associated Press on Monday and said it would use more of its own resources to cover breaking news and features, supplemented by Reuters. The Cable News Network’s president Jim Walton, in a memo to staff, said that starting immediately CNN itself would be the "primary source of all content for all of our platforms and services". He said CNN had entered into a new deal with Reuters to supplement its breaking news coverage. A Thomson Reuters spokeswoman confirmed the arrangement, which re-establishes some ties after CNN and Reuters ended a long-term partnership in 2007. CNN's decision to drop AP's pictures, articles and video came after the two organisations failed to reach a new licensing agreement. "It is unfortunate that CNN's viewers will no longer have access to the breaking news and worldwide reporting resources of The Associated Press," AP spokesman Paul Colford said. CNN announced in 2008 that it planned to distribute its own content, its first step in pulling back from its reliance on wire services. Walton said in Monday's memo that CNN is launching an aggregation and distribution service called CNN Share for its editorial content. ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Thomas Ingham

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-20T16:35:53+01:00

Thomas Ingham, who has died of cancer in Thailand, was an information technology linch-pin during a period of exponential growth at Reuters. He joined the company in the early 1970s, along with Dennis Moore, Mike Gharibian and a few others, at the start of a new period in Reuters, Doug Bliss remembers. “Until he joined, only the 4th floor workshop at 85 Fleet Street ran a 24/7 operation. The shifts were expanded and three new groups were formed – Editorial, Communications and Retrievals. Each group was made up of Peripheral Technicians, Computer Technicians and Engineers. Tom was, as to be expected, one of the elite in the new Retrievals group, looking after the Quotes and Monitor systems. Tom was one of the shift leaders at nights and weekends and spent much of the day shifts teaching and helping the up-and-coming young techies, such as me, Bert Plummer, Peter Blake, et al in the new ways of the world. Tom was not the only helpful one, all the new guys were really supportive in our new roles and we have much to thank them for.” Towards the end of the 1970s, the company began to expand exponentially and two new groups were formed, Communications Systems Group and Retrieval Systems Group, the latter under Phil Arnett and Dredge Liversedge. “Both Tom and I joined RSG, and that began a whole new chapter in both our lives,” Bliss said. “Tom was with Phil running major systems upgrades and projects, I was with Dredge on country expansion projects. The first overseas trip I did was with Tom, to visit the Paris Bourse and the Reuters Data Centre. At the end of the first, gruelling day, Tom suggested we find somewhere to eat. Great, I thought, a nice meal in a swanky Parisienne restaurant, just the ticket after a hard day of fact-finding. We ended up in the latest craze to hit Paris – a McDonalds! I haven’t been to one since.” RSG and CSG eventually outgrew their usefulness and were disbanded in 1981. Ingham was a first class engineer and soon after joinging from ICL became a specialist on the Second Generation Slave, which was then Reuters’ new cutting edge quotes system, Ken Pratt recalls. At this time Reuters was also introducing the Reuter Monitor and new communications systems. “It was soon realised by Patrick Mannix that there was a need for a small team of specialist engineers to provide worldwide support for these systems and the operations engineering group was formed. Later I took over this group and it became clear that the members of the group were losing their expertise by not being involved in the systems on a day to day basis. Patrick decided that it would be better to pay the best engineers a retainer to keep up to date on their systems worldwide and to give a commitment to provide support for any data centre within 24 hours. Tom was the obvious choice to support the SGS and was very well respected for his expertise. The group became known as the sandbaggers after a popular TV show of the time. “In true Reuters tradition Tom was totally dependable, great fun socially and very proud to have been part of those pioneering days.” Ingham took over the RA technical liaison role from Doug Bliss in 1985. “Together with Steve Somerville on the management side, Tom became the rock in London on whom we all depended,” said Phil Arnett, former director of product quality. “The Reuters Asia area at the time included the Middle East and the less sophisticated South East Asia markets. The needs were complex and the countries demanding. I cannot remember Tom failing to sort out a problem be it sourcing parts or providing information for generally obstructive PTTs. For the last two years of his career he was mainly based in Hong Kong continuing to provide the support for which we had all been so grateful.” "Tom worked with me in Peter Job's 'Asian Embassy' in London,” Stephen Somerville said. “An engaging character with a huge network of contacts, he was invaluable as chief fixer at Head Office for all Reuters Asia's technical innovations. He turned the job into an art form." After his passing on 27 May, Ingham's body was taken to the Sri Phan Temple in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand, where he lay adorned with flowers and two large pictures of him in golfing clothing and sunglasses. A Buddhist ceremony was held and after cremation his wife Ann scattered his ashes on the River Ping, which flows through Chiang Mai. Colleagues of Tom Ingham are to meet at The Old Bell, Fleet Street from 4:30 pm on Thursday 24 June to remember him.

Volume spike detected as Thomson Reuters shares move higher

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-14T22:51:33+01:00

Above average volume of trading in Thomson Reuters shares on Monday may signal a potential turning point, stock analysis website SmarTrend said. The New York shares traded up 1.79 per cent to $37.43 on above average volume of 943,314 compared with average 30-day volume of 357,000 shares. Spikes in volume can validate a breakout or signify a potential turning point, SmarTrend said, adding it will continue to monitor TRI to see if this bullish momentum continues. In Toronto, Thomson Reuters closed at C$38.66, some 75 cents or 1.98 per cent higher. SmarTrend is bullish on Thomson Reuters and on 10 June alerted its subscribers to buy at $36.33, since when the stock has risen more than three per cent. ● SOURCE SmarTrend

Chairman David Thomson named Canada's richest billionaire

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-14T17:52:59+01:00

Thomson Reuters chairman David Thomson is the richest Canadian with net worth of US$19 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Thomson, who turned 53 on Saturday, ranks 20th overall on Forbes’ annual list of billionaires, edging out Michael Bloomberg, founder of the eponymous financial news service and mayor of New York. “Thomson avoids the spotlight despite his substantial media holdings (which includes Reuters, acquired in 2008, national newspaper of record The Toronto Globe and Mail, and Canada’s CTV television network) and his gaudy title (3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet),” the website MarketWatch reported. According to a plan devised decades ago by Thomson Corporation founder Roy Thomson, control of the family fortune passed to David Thomson when his father Kenneth died in June 2006. David Thomson became the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet, a British peerage, on his 49th birthday. "David, my grandson, will have to take his part in the running of the organisation and David's son, too," Roy Thomson wrote in his 1975 autobiography. "With the fortune that we will leave to them go also responsibilities. These Thomson boys that come after Ken are not going to be able, even if they want to, to shrug off these responsibilities." The Thomson family is the richest in Canada and 20th richest in the world according to Forbes. David Thomson’s son from his first marriage is the designated heir to the family business empire. ● SOURCE MarketWatch

Foundation hikes funding for Oxford Institute

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-11T10:00:47+01:00

Thomson Reuters Foundation has increased its core funding for the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, an Oxford University programme. It announced a 19 per cent increase over three years which it said would further strengthen collaboration between academics and practising journalists. The Foundation will give £1.25 million for 2011-2013 to the Institute, which is based in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford. This is an increase of £200,000 over a three year period compared with current funding. "This renewal (of funding) underscores The Thomson Reuters Foundation’s commitment to building the global reputation of The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) at Oxford University as an international centre of excellence for research and debate in journalism," a Foundation news release said. The Institute was established in November 2006 with an initial five-year grant from the Thomson Reuters Foundation, building on the Reuters Journalism Fellowship Programme funded by the Foundation since 1983. The Fellowship Programme remains at the core of the Institute, a globally recognised research centre in the comparative study of journalism which has an international perspective. It provides a forum for scholars from a wide range of disciplines to engage with journalists from around the world. Monique Villa, Foundation chief executive, said: “We are very proud of our long association with Oxford and see our support for the Institute as a critical part of the Foundation's mission to improve the standards of journalism worldwide. At a time of considerable turmoil in the international media industry, the role of the Institute in producing high quality research and as a forum for public debate between practitioners, academics and policymakers is increasingly valuable and important.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters Foundation ● Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

UK pensioners tell Thomson Reuters they feel they are 'a costly irrelevance'

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-06-03T09:04:21+01:00

Retired UK staff feel they are marginalised and are regarded by Thomson Reuters as a costly irrelevance, pensioners have told chief executive Tom Glocer. The chairman of the Pension Review Group, Angela Dean, was denied an opportunity to ask a question at Thomson Reuters’ annual shareholders meeting; the traditional pensioners’ lunches have been “stealthily axed”; and alumni network meetings seem to have been severely cut back, if not cancelled altogether. Dean, in a letter to Glocer, said: “Reuters UK pensioners have had no cost of living increase for five of the past eight years, resulting in significant erosion of living standards.” She attended the AGM at Canary Wharf, London on 14 May with the intention of putting the following question openly and directly to the Thomson Reuters board: "In the past eight years, because of the iniquitous system of discretionary annual awards – a complete change of practice from the previous 30 years – UK pensioners have suffered a real decrease in the value of their pensions, impacting most severely on those reliant on just a small retirement income from the company. If UK retail price inflation continues at the latest March rate of 4.4 per cent, this deficit could be well into double figures by the time of our next review. “When is Thomson Reuters going to do the decent thing and rescue its British based pensioners from the threat of increasing hardship?" Although the AGM was held in Toronto, UK shareholders had been assured in the meeting notification that there would be a video link. “Just before the start of the meeting, we were informed that there was no interactive link to Toronto, though no reason was given, and we would have to submit any questions in writing, and they would be answered in due course,” Dean said. “The AGM opened with a fleeting acknowledgement to shareholders in London and after that there was no other reference to this invisible group that had made the effort to attend the meeting at 5pm on a Friday. Indeed, one was left with the impression from attending that meeting, of being on the margins; we were a small number of shareholders who were probably only pensioners anyway, who did not warrant the financial outlay of an interactive link, and least of all the courtesy of making those in London feel they were part of the larger meeting and the Thomson Reuters Group.” Dean said she handed in a written copy of the question but as yet has had no reply. “Apart from this affront, I was left with the impression that the London shareholders who took the trouble to attend not only were invisible but non-existent. If my recollection is correct there was just one passing reference at the outset to a presence in London,” she told Glocer. She added: “This kind of treatment does not befit a significant, wealthy international organisation with supposedly altruistic values.” ● Pension Review Group

Reuters shuffles top editorial team

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-21T22:45:46+01:00

Reuters has appointed a managing editor for multimedia to oversee the development of its television, pictures and graphics units. Mark Thompson, managing editor, Europe, Middle East and Africa, will take up the new post at the end of June. He will remain based in London and report to Chris Cramer, global editor, multimedia. Thompson, pictured, is tasked with providing leadership, managerial oversight and strategic editorial direction of Reuters TV and pictures and their associated units such as graphics. "I am thrilled to ask Mark to partner with me to drive the next phase of our multimedia strategy" Cramer said in an announcement on Friday. "His management experience and journalistic integrity are coupled with a keen appreciation of our client and customer needs." Reuters restructured its multimedia division in February 2009, bringing five global editorial groups – television, pictures, Reuters financial video service, online and agency – under its remit. Earlier this month the division launched Reuters Insider, a business-to-business video news platform. Brian Rhoads, managing editor, The Americas, is appointed to the vacant Asia managing editor’s job formerly held by Adrian Dickson. Rhoads will move to Hong Kong from New York in July to oversee editorial operations of more than 500 journalists across Asia. He will continue to report to Betty Wong, global managing editor. Rhoads became managing editor for the Americas following Wong’s promotion two years ago. A Mandarin speaker, he was previously Beijing-based North Asia editor responsible for China, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong and China bureau chief, Shanghai bureau chief and a senior editor on news production desks in Hong Kong and Singapore. "Brian will take his experience and talent running a complex editorial operation back to his old stomping grounds,” Wong said. “News from the established and emerging markets in Asia is of keen interest to our readers and customers and Brian will help keep Reuters competitive edge there". ● SOURCE Journalism | Web Wire

Tom Glocer, blogging again, defends lawyers

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-18T23:47:41+01:00

Tom Glocer, criticised for publicly supporting a major Thomson Reuters client under investigation by US authorities for alleged fraud, returned to his blog on Tuesday to argue in defence of lawyers. "For those of you who thought that my recent post on Goldman Sachs was controversial, you will no doubt decide that I have certifiably lost my mind to come to the defense of lawyers. Of all the undeserving species that roam the earth, none is as commonly reviled as Lawyer Americanus," the CEO wrote. Glocer’s original post on 22 April attracted the attention of The New York Times and drew unfavourable comment from more than half the readers who wrote in to his blog as well as from some visitors to this website and the Newspaper Guild of New York (which is in contract dispute with Thomson Reuters). Glocer, a former mergers and acquisitions lawyer who joined Reuters in 1993 as deputy counsel, Reuters America, acknowledged the legal profession is often viewed as loathsome, saying "lawyers are a pain in the ass because life can be a pain in the ass". "Most of the lawyers I know, and I readily admit they include more big firm attorneys, judges, general counsels and law professors, are kind, decent people who were often attracted to the law in the first place by an enhanced sense of fairness or justice, and who will listen and respond to rational argument. There are also a certain number of moral retrobates (sic) who prey on the weak and the innocent and produce nothing of socially-redeeming value while billing at a high hourly rate, but, in my experience, they are generally the exception. "I have tended to keep these thoughts to myself over a career now split about equally between time working as a lawyer and time working as a manager. However, for the last two years I have had the good fortune to be reunited with the law, through the Legal business of Thomson Reuters. We employ so many attorneys to produce and support our services for legal professionals, that we would count among the 20 largest law firms in the US. This has given me not just the excuse, but the obligation, to get back in touch with the people and substance of my professional roots, and this has been both rewarding and enjoyable. "So the next time you feel ready to garrotte ‘the other guy’s’ lawyer, just ask yourself the question whether it is not her principal you should strangle instead, and reflect on whether this highly ritualized form of battle is not preferable to the law of the jungle." ● SOURCE Tom Glocer's blog: In Defense of Lawyers

Thomson Reuters named Canada's top brand by value

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-17T18:54:22+01:00

Thomson Reuters is the biggest winner in a ranking of Canada’s best brands by value, soaring to first place from nowhere among the top 25 publicly-traded Canadian companies. Consulting firm Interbrand put a brand value of C$9.4 billion on Thomson Reuters, measuring its valuation on the contributions to the bottom line made by the brand alone, discounted in part for the inherent riskiness of the brand's ability to maintain demand for its product or service. Thomson Reuters rocketed straight to first place, leapfrogging all other Canadian companies “by virtue of a merger that has gone almost seamlessly”, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported. Last year's top brand, BlackBerry, was pushed into fourth place, behind Toronto-Dominion Bank and Royal Bank of Canada. ● SOURCE Globe and Mail

Expect revenue growth in 2nd half, Tom Glocer tells shareholders

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-14T23:52:02+01:00

Thomson Reuters has weathered the economic storm and expects to return to revenue growth in the second half of this year, CEO Tom Glocer said on Friday. He told shareholders at the group’s annual general meeting in Toronto that Thomson Reuters stood to gain from this year's new products, including software for the financial services industry, tax professionals and lawyers, as well as Reuters Insider, a new Web-based business news television service launched this week. "While many companies had to slash their R&D budgets just to be able to survive the recession, we had the financial strength and determination to keep investing in product development," Glocer said. "... These investments are now beginning to bear fruit and it's very exciting. I strongly believe that the combination of improving market conditions that we see now, new flagship offerings and scalable infrastructure, positions our company very well to grow and deliver shareholder value in 2011 and beyond," he added. In comments after the meeting Glocer said the company was still looking at acquisitions, although he did not predict any deals with more than a $1 billion price tag. “Our history has been to make a number of small to medium-size fold-in acquisitions, and that’ll be true this year as well ... There’s more in the pipeline,” Glocer said. Shareholders voted in favour of a plan to freeze base salaries for Glocer and four other key executives this year, in a so-called “say on pay” resolution. Glocer’s $1.55 million base salary was a small fraction of his total 2009 compensation of $36.6 million, which included performance pay. The company said the results of the vote would be released next week. At last year’s AGM, 17.7 per cent voted against top executives' pay packages. About 53 per cent of the company's stock is owned by Canada’s Thomson family. Asked about an ongoing labour dispute with 420 journalists in New York, Glocer said contract negotiations begun in October 2008 with The Newspaper Guild of New York had reached an impasse. The union has accused the company of trying to impose an illegal pay cut on its members. The company disputes this. Glocer said he was still hopeful the two sides could reach a negotiated settlement but added "we have to be tough on costs". “We are in a very delicate place right now,” Glocer said in response to a question by Lise Lareau of the Canadian Media Guild. “ ... I’m comfortable that legally and ethically the company has acted properly.” ● SOURCE The Canadian Press | The Globe and Mail

No more pensioners’ lunches - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-13T17:40:41+01:00

The pensioners’ lunch, for decades a popular fixture on the calendar for retired Reuterians, is history. The company can no longer justify it and it would be too expensive and unmanageable to extend it to the rest of the group, says chief executive Tom Glocer. Mike Dixon sent an e-mail to Glocer about the lack of a pensioners’ lunch this year. The lunch was originally held in London every year and then cut back to every other year. The last one was held on 28 April 2008, ten days after Thomson completed its takeover of Reuters. More than 600 people attended. The CEO replied to Dixon: “We took the decision (reluctantly for me) not to continue pensioners lunches for only the Reuters part of our company in London. “With 55,000 current staff in locations all over the world, and despite the strong historic ties to London, I felt we could no longer justify only holding these events in London. We did look at the costs of expanding the events to every location where we have a few thousand employees, but this proved too expensive and unmanageable. “I am sorry to be the kill sport here.” Fellow pensioner Roy Langley commented: “Kill Sport or Kill Joy, this was the one occasion when we could get together with old colleagues. It didn't have to be such a grand do, it's not much to ask for the thousands of years of service all the pensioners have given.”

TRI shares hit 52-week highs in New York and Toronto

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-12T23:47:28+01:00

Thomson Reuters reached 52-week highs on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges, closing up 1.2 per cent at $38.88 on NYSE and 0.76 per cent at C$39.60 on TSX. In New York, TRI shares have risen 7.4 per cent in the past month and 32 per cent in the past year, more than the S&P 500. Of researchers following Thomson Reuters, ten rate the stock buy, 11 hold and two sell. Royal Bank of Canada projects a target of $45, Bank of America expects the stock to climb to $41. ● SOURCE The Street

Thomson Reuters said to be interested in buying Newsweek

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-11T22:28:19+01:00

Thomson Reuters has expressed interest in buying Newsweek magazine, put up for sale a week ago by The Washington Post Co, The New York Observer reported. "We do not comment on market rumours," a spokeswoman for Thomson Reuters was quoted as saying. Others who may be interested include AllBritton Communications, owner of Politico, and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, although a spokesman for the latter said "Not us" when asked about being on the short list, the Observer said. Newsweek editor Jon Meacham also said he would consider trying to pull together an offer with investors. "Of the names that have emerged on the short list so far, Thomson Reuters is the most surprising,” the Observer said. “The company, a huge player in Europe, has only recently stepped up its game in the U.S., and has never before been a contender for a U.S. property with Newsweek's profile. "Last year, when Bloomberg was about to purchase BusinessWeek, Thomson Reuters threw itself into that bidding very late in the game, joining up with ZelnickMedia to make a play for the business weekly. Bloomberg, a rival to Reuters, ultimately bought the magazine.” The Observer said that while Reuters is best known for business media it also has been beefing up its consumer reporting, a buildup that would fit in well with a Newsweek purchase. "The company lets finance blogger Felix Salmon do what he likes, and last year it hired Jim Impoco, from Condé Nast Portfolio and The New York Times before that, to beef up its long-form reporting team. "And what would Thomson Reuters want to do with a magazine like Newsweek? Perhaps the company is just kicking the tires, or maybe there's a plan at work that is more substantive. Last year, Newsweek cut its rate base from 3.1 million to 1.5 million, hoping to serve a far more elite audience. Maybe the people at Thomson Reuters feel like they can have their own version of The Economist. "Staying competitive with Bloomberg, which has a monthly and just added a weekly magazine to its holdings, could be another reason.” Bloomberg told The Times last week that it didn't have interest in the newsweekly, but one person familiar with the Newsweek sale said that it may be reconsidering, especially after Thomson Reuters decided to throw itself into the mix, the Observer said. Bloomberg didn't show interest in BusinessWeek until a week before the deadline approached for bids. ● SOURCE The New York Observer

Reuters launches Insider - 'YouTube for traders'

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-11T11:45:30+01:00

Thomson Reuters on Tuesday launched an online interactive financial video service, Reuters Insider – dubbed "YouTube for traders". The service, two years in the making, is aimed at half a million financial subscribers who will pay up to $2,000 a month to receive a stream of 3,000 online news clips a week. It will be available on desktops, BlackBerries, iPhones and iPads, live or on-demand. Thomson Reuters hopes Insider will shape the future of news. It is part of a $1 billion technology investment at the group, which wants to embed itself more firmly into customers’ daily work and differentiate itself further from Bloomberg and other competitors. About 15 per cent of the content will come from Reuters’ own studios in Hong Kong, London and New York and desktop nodes while the rest will come from media outlets like CNBC, Sky and Forbes, along with content from analysts. “The trend that we are seeing in professional information is not all that different than consumer media,” said Devin Wenig, chief executive for the markets division – essentially the old Reuters business plus Thomson Financial. “People are increasingly visual, and they expect to access information in that way. They want to be able to look at a chief executive and see the expression on the analyst’s face.” The rise of the Internet means that traders today are more familiar with clicking their way through YouTube than memorising codes for using Reuters’ trading screens and information feeds. “You see very different behaviour from a 25-year-old just out of the London School of Economics to a 55-year-old who has been trading for the last 25 years,” said Wenig. “People who grew up with Google have totally different expectations of how to interact with information and media. We can’t ignore that.” “What if this becomes the way people consume news?” Mike Stepanovich, managing editor of Insider, said. “What if all news providers decide to come together to share content and syndicate information?” The idea is to harness Insider’s technology, which allows videos to be searched in real time, to create what he calls a marketplace for news. News organisations that signed up could submit video, pictures and text to the Reuters platform. They would not pay for the exposure, and Reuters would not pay them for their material. Stepanovich agreed with The Times that “once someone aggregates lots of sources ... the value of having a global news organisation [such as Reuters] kind of goes away”. But he added: “If someone’s going to disrupt your business model, it had best be you. This is the future of the agency business.” Financial customers are the priority for Insider but Stepanovich said a consumer-orientated product was being considered under which anyone could access searchable video content from a variety of publishers. As part of the initiative, Reuters is sharing a suite of tools for desktop video production, "even if some of the footage that comes back looks like a hostage video," The New York Times said. It sounds wonderful, and probably will be one day, but the density and relevance of information still need work, The New York Times said. Thomson Reuters says it will iron out glitches as they occur. "It’s not exactly ‘Glee.’ It’s not even ‘Mad Money.’ But it beats downloading and reading the PDF of the latest media research report by a mile,” the newspaper said. "The breadth and depth of Reuters global editorial coverage has allowed us the opportunity to create something truly unique," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. "By leveraging our 2,800 journalists worldwide, Reuters Insider provides our clients with global financial market news and the credibility that accompanies local access and knowledge." Reuters Insider is a key part of Thomson Reuters’ New Era, New Tools programme designed to address the challenges faced by the financial services community. It follows the recent launch of Elektron, a new high speed data distribution network, and will be fully integrated into Eikon, the company's next-generation information desktop offering due to launch later this year. Eikon aims to create a common platform for all of Thomson Reuters’ 200 financial products. It is likely to look and feel more like a conventional web portal and all the group’s 500,000 customers will be moved on to it, replacing 3000Xtra as the flagship product. “We are not going to be the greatest technology company in the world and nor should we be,” said Wenig. “But technology is an enabler. We have to put money into it. We can’t just talk about it. I don’t want to turn us into a consumer company but you ignore at your peril what YouTube and Twitter have done to online behaviour.” Wenig said in a launch message to staff: "As I've said before, we have started down the road of making a number of radical transformations – to our products, our platforms and how we run our business – that will make an enormous difference for our customers. Congratulations to everyone who made today's exciting next step possible." ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | The Times | The New York Times | Financial Times | Fast Company | Market Watch | Thomson Reuters marketing VIDEO | Thomson Reuters VIDEO

Thomson Reuters adds tennis to its sponsorships

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-10T20:48:33+01:00

Thomson Reuters has become an official sponsor of Britain's Lawn Tennis Association. An LTA announcement said the company had signed a three-year deal as the LTA's official statistics and information partner. The deal gives Thomson Reuters a strong presence at major LTA events in June and status as the official scoring partner of the AEGON British Tennis Series. Gus Carlson, Thomson Reuters’ executive vice president and chief marketing officer, said: “We are delighted to be partnering with the LTA, bringing our world-class global expertise in intelligent information to the exciting world of competitive tennis. Supporting the tennis stars of today and tomorrow, Thomson Reuters is looking forward to further exploring how information and technology can drive elite performance and sporting success” Thomson Reuters also sponsors Formula One motor racing team AT&T Williams and Canadian golf champion Mike Weir. The company says both embody Thomson Reuters' core values: global business collaboration is key; people make the difference; and performance matters. ● SOURCE Lawn Tennis Association

TRI shares reach 52-week high in Toronto

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-06T20:11:50+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares set a new 52-week high in Toronto on Thursday, reaching C$39.56 before slipping back to close 2.21 per cent higher on the day at C$38.86. TRI.TO’s lowest price on the Toronto Stock Exchange over the past 12 months is C$32.11. Morgan Stanley earlier raised its price target for the stock to C$39 from C$36. In New York, TRI reached $38.11 but closed 0.43 per cent lower at $36.84 after Wall Street suffered a sharp correction over worries about European sovereign debt. On Tuesday, Thomson Reuters reported lower first-quarter profit but reiterated that net sales would strengthen throughout this year and that 2010 revenue would grow again in the second half. ● SOURCE Reuters

Tom Glocer: I'll carry on blogging

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-05T10:59:29+01:00

Tom Glocer has defended his comment on US fraud charges against Goldman Sachs and said he stands by what he wrote about the case on his blog. He will continue blogging, the Financial Times reported. The chief executive was speaking to the FT in New York on Tuesday where Thomson Reuters presented its 2010 Q1 financial results. The newspaper's reporter noted that the US investment bank was a large client and said Glocer's comments were "a subject of intense scrutiny by journalists at Reuters and elsewhere". "His warning of a 'rush to judgement' by 'our media-driven society' and suggestion that Goldman’s problems may only be the fault of 'a couple of bad apples' angered some Reuters journalists, but Mr Glocer told the FT: 'I stand by whatever I wrote.' "'It’s a personal blog and I write about what interests me,' he said. Nobody at Goldman had asked him to make his remarks, he said. 'I guess the question is: Can the CEO of Thomson Reuters have a blog at all and if so can he ever comment on a client. I’m comfortable with where it is,’” the FT said. Glocer added that he would not censor negative comments on the blog, it said. Behind the scenes the dialogue is getting downright personal over Glocer's defence of Goldman Sachs and also over complaints by former staff of the perceived lacklustre company response to the leaked military footage showing two Reuters people shot dead in Iraq by the US military, said Philip Stone, a former Reuters media executive based in Geneva. Stone wrote a commentary headed "Reuters Old British Guard None Too Enamored With The New Guard Thomson Reuters American Senior Team", on his own blog, Follow the Media, which covers media issues worldwide. "That Glocer would go public defending Goldman Sachs was a break in tradition for the news agency that had been British-operated until Glocer and his American team took over in July 2001, eventually overseeing in 2008 its majority sale to the Canadian Thomson family with his team transferring to the new company," Stone wrote. "The unwritten rule had been that management didn’t comment on news events for fear of perceptions of bias in the editorial reporting of those events. So now questions are publicly asked whether Glocer’s comments will be seen by the news side as a message to go easy with a major client. "In actual fact the opposite is true. If Glocer had been looking for a way to actually tell his news people to hit Goldman Sachs as hard as possible, and then some, he could have found no finer way of doing it than by publicly supporting the Wall Street firm. One thing that has not changed with ownership is ferocious editorial independence and the various corporate governances protecting that independence." It is very doubtful that editorial were best pleased by Glocer’s comments, Stone said, but now that he has spoken so publicly editorial will go overboard to ensure there are no perceptions of its going easy on the story. But statements by the Newspaper Guild of New York and news items by the likes of The New York Times were something that the news organisation didn’t need. "News reputations get built over the years; they can be lost overnight." Commenting on what he called Glocer's quiet diplomacy approach to the US authorities in the case of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh, Stone said it seems that whereas Glocer does not want “to shout from the rooftop criticising the killing of two Reuters staff because he doesn’t think that would do any good, he does shout from the rooftop about the innocence of a major client, so he thinks Goldman Sachs will benefit from that particular shouting? It’s that very perception that the CEO of a very proud news organization should always, not sometimes, strive to avoid,” Stone wrote. "Many years ago an old Reuters sage once advised a new manager, 'Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean that you actually go and do it.' It was good advice then; it’s good advice for even a CEO to remember today." ● SOURCE Financial Times | Tom Glocer’s blog | Follow the Media

Thomson Reuters Q1 net profit falls 31% to $555 million

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-04T15:10:53+01:00

Thomson Reuters reported lower quarterly profit on Tuesday, reflecting lingering effects of the financial crisis on sales to business and legal clients. The company reiterated that net sales would strengthen this year and that revenue would grow again in the second half. "The tentative recovery in our net sales that we began to see in the second half of 2009 has firmed and accelerated in the first quarter of 2010," chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement. First-quarter underlying profit was $555 million, down six per cent from $590 million last year. Adjusted earnings per share fell to 36 cents from 40 cents in the same quarter last year, but beat the average analyst forecast of 31 cents. Revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.14 billion. Analysts expected $3.11 billion. Foreign exchange rate movements excluded, revenue fell two per cent. The company stuck to its February forecast, saying net sales would strengthen throughout 2010. It also repeated that this year's revenue would be flat to slightly down and that underlying free cash flow would be down slightly from 2009 as it invests in new products and platforms. Thomson Reuters said it would spend more than $1 billion on new technology and products. Among them is Eikon, a new desktop for financial and trading clients. MARKETS DIVISION ● Revenue was flat in the markets division, which includes the news service and data products for financial industry customers. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, revenue fell four per cent. Markets revenue depends heavily on long-term subscriptions. The financial crisis, which crested in early 2009, triggered massive layoffs and cancellations of trading terminals. While the economy has improved, many of these cancellations have shown up in recent quarterly results. PROFESSIONAL DIVISION ● Revenue rose two per cent in the professional division, which sells databases and other information reservoirs to lawyers, accountants, scientists and healthcare workers. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, this revenue rose one per cent. Many law firms cut staff as they struggled in the recession, and cash-strapped clients sought lower legal bills. Legal revenue slipped three per cent before currency adjustments. ● SOURCE Reuters | Transcript of Thomson Reuters call with analysts

Abi Sekimitsu named editor, Japan

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-05-04T14:41:13+01:00

Abi Sekimitsu, editor, Bangalore since 2004, has been appointed editor, Japan. Nelson Graves, acting managing editor, Asia and editor, Japan, said the appointment was recognition of the outstanding work she had done growing and managing the Bangalore operation. "It will be great having a native Japanese speaker in the top editorial job in Tokyo. Her move is also an illustration of the kind of career opportunities that our top talent can enjoy and is an inspiration for all of us." Sekimitsu previously worked in New York, London, Tokyo and Hong Kong. In Bangalore, she took over a fledgling, pilot project of a handful of equities reporters, news researchers and polling analysts and built it into one of editorial’s largest operations worldwide. She now oversees 120 staff in a strategic newsroom producing equities news, polls, newsletters and research serving clients in North America, Europe and key emerging markets such as the Gulf, Africa and Latin America. Thomson Reuters employs 6,000 people in Bangalore in activities including data, technology, news, proprietary research, global accounting and customer service. In Tokyo, Sekimitsu will be responsible for editorial operations in Japan and translation desks in Sydney and Toronto. ● SOURCE Reuters

CEO’s Goldman defence threatens Reuters objectivity - NY Guild

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-28T23:05:14+01:00

Tom Glocer’s defence of Goldman Sachs over Securities and Exchange Commission charges of fraud puts Reuters objectivity at risk, the Newspaper Guild of New York said on Wednesday. It urged editor-in-chief David Schlesinger to reconsider a union suggestion to direct the board of trustees, upholders of the trust principles, to appoint an independent ombudsman to act as an advocate for editorial within the organisation. “Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer shook our venerable media company’s hallowed commitment to objectivity last week when he devoted a blog post to a lengthy defense of besieged Goldman Sachs, a significant client accused by federal regulators of rigging a financial instrument to favor a big customer without informing other investors,” the Guild, which represents unionised employees, said. The chief executive wrote on his ● personal blog: “Perhaps (Goldman) will eventually be found liable of these charges, although I rather doubt it.” What’s wrong with the top officer of a global news and information company exercising his First Amendment rights in a public forum, the Guild asked. “First of all, it tells Reuters reporters and editors who are covering the Goldman story that the boss is on Goldman’s side. In the newspaper business, press barons and their modern-day corporate successors regularly use the editorial pages to express their opinions about controversial issues. But they have firewalls between news and editorial sections that are widely accepted in the business, even if they’re not so well understood by the public. “Not so at TR. Without those historic firewalls, the CEO’s publicly expressed opinion could easily be taken as guidance by the reporting staff on how to cover the Goldman story. Fortunately, U.S.-based reporters and editors working on the Goldman story are Guild-covered, which enables them to chase the story without fear of retribution. But for the unprotected frontline supervisors and middle managers who oversee and direct the Goldman coverage, there’s no telling whether the CEO’s latest blog will prompt them to order up certain stories just because they fit Glocer’s opinions. “Then, there’s public perception. The 160-year reputation of Reuters news as objective and reliable through wars, financial upheavals and natural disasters is one of the reasons clients pay as much as they do for the service and one of the reasons journalists choose to work for Thomson Reuters. Having the CEO take public stands on controversial issues can do nothing but tarnish that hard-earned reputation – and that could threaten sales.” Debby Zabarenko, Washington-based environment correspondent and head of the Guild unit at Thomson Reuters, said: “What happened to the prized principles of maintaining the appearance and the reality of objectivity? Our members and the company’s clients deserve nothing less.” The Guild noted that the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles say, among other things, that “the integrity, independence and freedom from bias of Thomson Reuters shall at all times be fully preserved”. Does Glocer’s defence of Goldman Sachs violate the principles? Former editor-in-chief and general manager Michael Reupke seems to think so, the Guild said. It quoted ● Reupke’s letter to The Baron on Tuesday in which he said “It is quite outrageous … for any executive of Reuters, and now surely equally of Thomson Reuters, to express an opinion on the Goldman Sachs affair. Are the Trustees too sleepy to think of stepping in here? If this had happened in my day I doubt whether he could have survived in his job.” Zabarenko said Glocer’s “extremely inappropriate” comments “could not only tarnish the company’s reputation but that of all Reuters journalists who work hard at being objective. He should disavow his comments immediately.” The Guild urged Schlesinger to reconsider a union suggestion in February that he issue a statement to the staff and to the public asserting that it shall be the company's policy that no high-level Thomson Reuters executive, sales executive or any other non-editorial manager shall interfere with, or even inquire about, any news story or project that is in the works or being contemplated, and direct the Board of Trustees to appoint an independent ombudsman to act as an advocate for editorial within the organisation. “By reporting directly to the Trustees, this Editorial advocate would be unfettered by the chains of command in the corporate structure and could credibly monitor, report on and advise on matters affecting editorial integrity,” it said. ● SOURCE The Newspaper Guild of New York

The New York Times raises an eyebrow at Tom Glocer's blog

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-26T23:26:58+01:00

Tom Glocer, often praised as one of the few chief executives who writes his own blog, has attracted the attention of The New York Times over his latest posting – a defence of Goldman Sachs in the investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission into its mortgage deals. Glocer's posting is an unusual step for a media executive, the Times said on Monday under the headline Thomson Reuters CEO Has a Sympathetic Ear for Goldman Sachs. The New York-based global investment banking and securities firm, a Thomson Reuters customer, has been criticised for its role in the deals. The SEC has accused Goldman Sachs of fraud relating to the structuring and marketing of a synthetic collateral debt obligation (CDO) offering. "But Mr Glocer – whose firm serves clients in the financial-services industry, and who oversees the Reuters news service – said such criticism wasn't yet merited," the newspaper said in its Media Decoder blog. “It just seems too easy and too politically expedient to jump on this bandwagon,” Glocer wrote. “Perhaps the firm will eventually be found liable of these charges, although I rather doubt it. But what happened to our prized principles of maintaining innocence prior to being proven guilty?” Glocer said “Goldman does not need me to defend them – they have far better lawyers on retainer. But when most of the world is ready to convict and condemn before trial, my sense of fairness suggests we should suspend judgment until the full story emerges.” Among comments posted on Glocer's blog, Dolly wrote: "Your argument is very weak. Did not expect this from you." A Very Loyal TR employee said: "For every job 'right sourced' to India there is a mother or father who worked hard to build Thomson Reuters. The business world could be many things but fair." ● SOURCE The New York Times | Tom Glocer's blog

Brian Horton, former editor-in-chief, remembered at memorial

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-23T22:30:38+01:00

Family, friends and former colleagues gathered in Fleet Street on Friday to celebrate the life of Reuters’ former editor-in-chief Brian Horton on what would have been his 77th birthday. Horton, who died suddenly at his home in Spain on 25 July 2009, was remembered as outstanding in appearance and intellect. He became editor-in-chief in 1968 at the age of 35 and resigned from Reuters in 1973, going first into the wine business in Spain and then returning to London in 1981 as foreign editor and then managing editor of The Times before returning to Spain in 1986. At Reuters Horton played the leading part in the introduction of a pioneering computerised message storing and switching system that made possible the editing of English-language regional services from one central position, the World Desk, rather than from numerous regional desks. He was also instrumental in the launch of German and French language services. Horton’s son Robert read a message from Mohsin Ali, former diplomatic editor now resident in North Carolina, in which their work together covering East-West summits and international economic and arms control conferences was recalled. Another speaker described Horton, a linguist born in the UK of New Zealand parents, as “not an Englishman abroad but a true European”. Reuters people gathered at St Bride’s Institute to honour his memory included Robert Elphick, Jonathan Fenby, Barry May, Michael Nelson, Manfred Pagel, John Ransom, Peter Smith, Mary Talbot, Bob Taylor and David Ure. ● Obituary

Reuters shares in £2.5 million insider dealing case

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-22T22:56:31+01:00

Reuters shares traded in the run-up to the 2008 takeover by Thomson were among those involved in a £2.5 million insider dealing investigation, Britain's largest, a London court heard on Thursday. Prosecutors said seven defendants were charged with 13 counts of insider dealing investigated by the Financial Services Agency in an operation codenamed Tabernula, Latin for “little shop”. The seven are accused of using confidential information gleaned from the London printers of Swiss Bank UBS and UK brokerage Cazenove, in a case dubbed Saturn. The FSA is seeking the extradition of an eighth suspect. The prosecution said it had discovered documents that contained evidence the defendants had tried to crack the codes used by the banks to protect their clients’ names using Internet search engines such as Google. The court set 3 May 2011 as the start date for the trial, which could last three to four months. The men face up to seven years in jail if found guilty. ● SOURCE Toronto Star

Reuters UK website gets 'gorgeous' new look

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-23T08:26:56+01:00

Reuters' UK website has a gorgeous new look, in the words of editor-in-chief David Schlesinger. It follows the design of reuters.com which was re-launched in a new livery of red, white, black and blue in December. Reuters is a news power house with 2,800 journalists in 190 different bureaus dedicated to being the indispensable news source, Schlesinger said in a welcome message. "News has been in our blood for more than a century and a half, but we’ve always been restlessly innovating and always looking to the future. “For Reuters.co.uk, the future is now…We want this to be the world’s best website covering business and finance news, analysis, and opinion. Full stop." The redesign took more than a year to produce. "We’re proud of our new home, and hope you like it. And this is just the beginning. In the coming months, we will continue to roll out new features and functionality,” Schlesinger added. ● SOURCE Reuters

David Schlesinger: What I want from the Pentagon

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-21T22:54:26+01:00

David Schlesinger on Wednesday demanded justice for journalists killed covering war and called for acknowledgment, transparency and accountability from the Pentagon. The editor-in-chief wrote in The Guardian about a growing furore over a recently leaked video of the deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh in Iraq three years ago. His article, published under the headline “War journalists have a right to safety”, follows in full: When Wikileaks published the harrowing video of the deaths in Iraq of my colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, the world finally had the transparency it should have had about this tragedy. It was impossible for me to watch and not feel outrage and great sorrow – but this is not about trying to tell anyone else what to feel. This is about trying to find out exactly what happened and how to ensure it doesn’t happen again. What I want from the Pentagon – and from all militaries – is simple: Acknowledgment, transparency, accountability. Acknowledgment means both understanding at headquarters and training in the field that journalists have a right to be on the battlefield, and not just those embedded with a military unit. A journalist’s mission is to provide understanding, provide context and provide the reporting that citizens deserve. That mission requires journalists cover the story from multiple angles, including ones that potentially put them in harm’s way. A war prosecuted in darkness is a war without accountability. The journalist’s role is vital for a democracy and it must be acknowledged. Then, there must be acknowledgment that true journalists come in every race, both sexes and a multitude of nationalities. Within Reuters, our 2,800 journalists come from 80 different nationalities. They all have a right to safety. As too many tragic deaths, including those of Namir and Saeed, have proven, soldiers in tense warfare repeatedly mistake cameras and tripods for weapons. They’re not. There must be a way of training soldiers to distinguish the forms. It is imperative to have the consciousness that the shape in the scope might not be a threat. Transparency is vital. This is the honesty for all to learn lessons from what has transpired. Soon after the incident, Reuters editors were shown only one portion of the video. We immediately changed our operating procedures – the first portion of the video made clear that anyone walking with a group of armed people could be considered a target. We immediately made it a rule that our journalists could not even walk near armed groups. However, we were not shown the second part of the video, where the helicopter fired on a van trying to evacuate the wounded. Had we seen it, we could have adjusted our procedures further. Transparency saves lives. We have been trying for more than two and a half years to get this video from the military through formal legal means without success and in fact have an appeal to their last denial of our request still pending; now it transpires that officials who repeatedly told us that what the video contained was important enough for security reasons to withhold it from us, made no efforts to secure it and weren’t even clear where it was. It took a whistleblower to make sure the world had the transparency it needed and deserved. I want the Pentagon to join me in a search for thorough and complete transparency. Finally there is accountability. There are rules of war as there are in peace. The lack of transparency has meant there’s been absence of accountability. Let’s dig behind the video. Let’s fully understand the rules the military were operating under. Let’s have a complete picture of what was going through the fliers’ minds. Let’s hear the Pentagon explain its interpretation of the rules of engagement and the Geneva Convention and how the actions either did or did not accord with them in its view. And importantly, let’s keep in mind that while we focus on this particular tragedy, it is the rare circumstance that when a journalist is injured or killed in a conflict area, there is a video of the death, and even more rare as this case demonstrates, for the public to see such a video. And then let’s have the debate. Seeing the hundreds of articles and thousands of comments in the wake of the video’s release, it’s clear that people on every side of the issue have strong feelings. Let’s have a debate based on fact and not on emotion. Acceptance, transparency and accountability – these add up to true justice. And that, in the end, is what I am after. I want justice for the journalists who lost their lives. Justice is not vengeance. Justice is about holding all to account to make sure that proper lessons are learned, that mistakes aren’t repeated and that tragedies don’t happen again. ● SOURCE The Guardian | Reuters Editors

Reuters to relaunch UK website, may charge for some content

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-21T20:25:27+01:00

Reuters newsrooms around the world fell silent on Monday as journalists stood by their desks and observed a minute's silence in memory of cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto who was killed during violent clashes in Bangkok on Saturday. Based in Tokyo, he had arrived in Thailand on Thursday. He was shot in the chest while covering clashes in the Thai capital between anti-government "red shirt" protesters and security forces. ... The picture shows him working on Saturday only hours before he was shot. Muramoto, 43, had worked for Reuters since 1992, first as a freelance cameraman before becoming a full-time employee in 1995. His wife Emiko and other family members arrived in Bangkok late on Sunday night and on Monday were taken to the hospital where Muramoto's body lies. A note written by her during the flight from Tokyo was read by a Reuters colleague on her behalf. It said: "It is a great shame that Muramoto could not come home with his usual smile. It happened all of a sudden, and I am at a loss as to what to do. In the eyes of our family, he was the best husband and father.” Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, in a message to staff, linked the death of Muramoto to the newly leaked video of the 2007 deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh in Iraq and said he was devastated. Japan bureau chief Rodney Joyce told staff: "This is a time to support each other and grieve. Our thoughts are with Hiro and his family. Yes, there are many questions and efforts are being made to answer them. ...Muramoto’s camera was returned to Reuters by the protesters. Seven minutes of footage shot by him show how a scrappy street protest turned lethal. The footage starts behind army lines, with soldiers framed by the Democracy Monument, scene of Bangkok's worst street violence in 1992 near the Phan Fah Bridge in the city's old quarter. Soldiers in full riot gear are standing with their rifles pointing in the air. ... One soldier glances at Muramoto twice in a nervous but non-threatening way. Then an explosion just yards in front of where Muramoto is standing sends at least four soldiers to the ground in a spray of sparks and smoke. ... Another television cameraman runs frantically into Muramoto and past him. Soldiers carrying riot shields jostle into him as they, too, get away. ...The camera focuses on a soldier lying on the ground with a bloody wound to the neck. ... In the next frame, troops drag a soldier, obviously in pain, by the arms, his rifle scuffling along the road alongside him. ... The camera focuses on a trail of blood on the tarmac that shines in the street lights under the banners celebrating this week's Songkran festival, one of the happiest holidays in the Thai calendar. The soldiers retreat and suddenly the camera angle changes to show the red shirt ranks. Most are carrying sticks and some are wielding shields apparently taken from the soldiers. Many are waving, beckoning someone from behind the camera. Some are frantically talking to soldiers, others are throwing objects in the air, one of which catches bunting overhead and falls harmlessly to the ground. No one in sight is paying any attention to the camera, which keeps rolling. But it is around this point, at an intersection, that TV footage from other sources show gunmen on the run, dressed not in red shirts or green army fatigues, but in black and dark civilian clothes. The Thai government has talked of a "third force" involved in the protests and has promised to investigate the circumstances surrounding Muramoto's death. Muramoto was active in charity projects and in 2008 and 2009 participated in an event that entails walking 100 kilometres of mountain trails in two days in areas surrounding Mount Fuji to raise money for impoverished communities in Africa. He had planned to return to Japan on 22 April to take part in this year's event due to begin the following day. The entire Thomson Reuters group is to observe a minute's silence on Tuesday. Schlesinger, in his e-mail, said Muramoto died for the story. "That is not a price we ever want to pay. "There is no more important cause for us as a company and for us as professionals than journalistic safety. "To have Hiro die just after we watched on the newly leaked video the 2007 deaths of our colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh is devastating to me; I’m sure most of you feel similar emotions. "We know that covering the story forces us to rush towards danger when others rush away. We know that death can come from anywhere. We know how dangerous the places we cover are. "Yet, we’re never prepared for the dreadful reality when a colleague loses his life. ..."If death is caused by military action, then we must work tirelessly to influence the generals and the civilians who command them to recognise the vital work journalists do, to provide full investigations and transparency whenever tragedies occur, and to enable true justice and accountability. "If death occurs in the midst of chaotic rioting, then we must strive to review our procedures and training again to make sure we are doing absolutely everything we can to make the dangerous work safe. "Our mission as journalists is to tell the story. "Our mission as a company is to make sure our journalists can tell that story safely. "This is a time of great sadness. But it is also a time of great resolve to redouble our efforts for journalist safety throughout the world." ...

Thomson Reuters launches high-speed global network

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-20T08:06:15+01:00

Thomson Reuters launched a global, high-speed network on Tuesday for financial firms to access real-time data as well as share information with each other directly. The new network, called Elektron, includes hosting centres in New York, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Tokyo and Singapore, with more to come in Hong Kong, India and Brazil later in the year, all connected by a fibre optic ring. As trading decisions are made increasingly by computers, the difficulty has been to execute ideas at high speed that require trades in multiple markets, said Jon Robson, Thomson Reuters’ president of enterprise. "This provides the infrastructure, technology and connections to different markets so that trades can happen quickly," he said. Elektron will provide any Thomson Reuters client of any size equal access to high-frequency markets, Robson said. It will also serve as a neutral distribution platform for participants to exchange research, prices, business ideas or transactions. Thomson Reuters plans to migrate all of its content to Elektron over time as well as use its greater bandwidth to add deeper levels of market information, Robson said. Larry Tabb, chief executive of research and consultancy firm TABB Group, said the Elektron system changes the whole paradigm of how people receive and deliver information. "It allows people to communicate more seamlessly, who would otherwise have to rely on slower channels or somebody remembering who gets what," he added. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters reveals long-term targets

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-19T16:01:26+01:00

Thomson Reuters on Monday revealed long-term targets for mid-to-high single digit revenue growth rates, operating profit margins in the mid-20 per cent range, and free cash flow in excess of $3 billion. "The severity and duration of the 'Great Recession' of 2009 has meant that it will take us a little longer to reach these goals, but they appear no less achievable to us," the company said in its latest annual report. A joint message to shareholders from chairman David Thomson and chief executive Tom Glocer said that despite the most challenging economic conditions they had seen in their business careers the company delivered resilient operating and financial performance in 2009. "We would characterise our results as being excellent on a relative basis and acceptable, but far short of what we believe Thomson Reuters has the potential to achieve, on an absolute basis." They said they were very proud that while they had worked hard to reduce costs and realise savings through the integration of the acquired Reuters businesses, they had been able to continue and, in fact, increase investment in strategic new product platforms and in the international expansion of the business. “We are well ahead of plan in the integration of Reuters, and by year-end 2009 we had achieved combined run-rate savings of $1.1 billion from our integration and legacy savings programs. We now expect to achieve some 2.5 times greater savings from the Reuters integration ($1.2 billion) than originally forecast." The Reuters integration had also continued to outpace expectations in terms of bringing new content, technology and services to customers, combining the best elements of the cultures of the legacy organisations, and providing new opportunities for Thomson Reuters’ 55,000 employees. This year, Thomson Reuters could continue and accelerate the process of taking its businesses global – especially to tap higher growth rates in rapidly developing economies, and add other market sectors where professionals need its special combination of must-have content and technology to do their jobs. "In 2010, we are following both of these paths to restart growth in our businesses that have been hardest hit by the global recession and accelerate growth in our units that have continued to grow right through the crisis… "Over the longer term, we believe that our business can achieve mid-to-high single digit revenue growth rates, operating profit margins in the mid-20% range, and free cash flow in excess of $3 billion. The severity and duration of the 'Great Recession' of 2009 has meant that it will take us a little longer to reach these goals, but they appear no less achievable to us." The report is in a new multimedia format – an online mix of video, text, pictures and animated graphics. "Going digital has made us a much greener company," Glocer said in a video message. "No trees were chopped down in the making of this annual report, unless fossil fuel was consumed in delivering it to you." Thomson Reuters shareholders annual general meeting is to be held in Toronto on 14 May. ● CLICK to view Thomson Reuters 2009 annual report

Funeral of Hiroyuki Muramoto

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-18T13:51:55+01:00

Reuters cameraman Hiroyuki Muramoto, killed in bloody clashes in Bangkok, was cremated in Tokyo on Sunday after a service attended by about 500 family members, friends and colleagues. "We never want such a tragedy to occur again," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said at the service, pictured, adding that seven minutes of video recorded before Muramoto was shot in the chest on 10 April had shown his sense of mission. In Facebook postings, Schlesinger said it was an extraordinary funeral – “the Reuters family was never more in evidence as friends and colleagues from around the world gathered with his family”. A wake on Saturday evening was “sad, dignified, special”, he said. A compilation of news footage shot by Muramoto during his 15-year Reuters career was screened at the service. ● SOURCE MSN News/Agence France-Presse

Reuters boycotts Cannes film festival launch

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-14T20:50:48+01:00

Reuters is to boycott Thursday's press launch of the Cannes film festival in a dispute over restrictions to media coverage. Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Getty Images have agreed to boycott the launch, considered critical to gaining worldwide profile for the event as the film line-up is revealed. Hundreds of media clients rely on feeds from the agencies. News agencies are protesting against restrictions on coverage, access and usage of video linked to a contract between the Cannes film festival and French broadcaster Canal Plus and pay-TV service Orange. "Reuters will not cover the Cannes press conference tomorrow because of the unfair restrictions being placed on coverage," said Christoph Pleitgen, global head of news agency for Thomson Reuters, pictured. "We invite the rights holders and organisers to clearly spell out the suggested terms and look forward to a constructive discussion." The festival runs from 12 to 23 May. The news agencies have told clients they may be forced to suspend their presence at the festival altogether if agreement cannot be reached. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Thomson Reuters turns to web for major product revamp

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-14T15:36:12+01:00

Thomson Reuters is overhauling its markets division in the biggest technological change since the 2008 merger. A series of launches will bring together products from the former Reuters and Thomson Financial for the first time into two simplified platforms – one aimed at enterprises such as large banks, the other at individual users such as small hedge funds. It amounts to a radical change for both parts of the business. The web-based platforms will replace traditional terminal commands with Internet-style online search. They are part of a drive to cater to “the 23-year-old at Goldman Sachs who grew up with Google”, said Devin Wenig, markets chief executive, pictured. They also aim to distinguish Thomson Reuters from Bloomberg and its one-size-fits-all terminals. Thomson Reuters had to “radically slim the company down”, Wenig told the Financial Times. This would not be by cutting jobs – it plans to increase headcount quite a lot this year – but by reorganising its sales and support staff so that “everybody in the company is going to be working on one of these two platforms”. Since the financial crisis began, big banks had consolidated, mid-sized customers struggled, but a long tail of smaller customers had grown, Wenig said. To cater for smaller clients cost-effectively, online training and customer support would be introduced. The enterprise platform will launch next week and claims to offer faster delivery of data to clients, many of whom will be able to locate Thomson Reuters servers alongside their own to reduce delays, as Bloomberg does. Wenig said the group would not change its pricing, but enterprise clients would find the platform cheaper to run. Next month Thomson Reuters will make Insider, an online video platform it has been testing since last year, available to all its customers. In addition to the company’s own media staff, Insider will allow outsiders such as brokerages to offer videos of their analysts. In the autumn a desktop platform called Eikon will offer a wider range of data, greater personalisation, and improved risk management, collaboration and emerging markets features. “The industry is in a hugely different place from where it was in April 2008, and we think a lot of the changes are permanent and structural,” Wenig said. “Big banks are disappearing but we’ve created 1,000 new accounts in ... six months.” ● SOURCE Financial Times

Pentagon chief hits back over leaked attack video

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-13T23:03:44+01:00

US defence secretary Robert Gates criticised the Internet group WikiLeaks on Tuesday for releasing a video showing a helicopter attack that killed a dozen people, including two Reuters news staff, in Baghdad. Gates, who said on Sunday that the video was painful to see, said today there was no context explaining the situation. "These people can put out anything they want, and they're never held accountable for it. There's no before and there's no after." The Reuters people killed in the attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40. Images in the US Army Apache helicopter gunsight video of the 12 July 2007 attack and recorded crew conversation have caused shock since its release on 5 April. Some international law and human rights experts say the crew may have acted illegally. The US military said an investigation shortly after the incident found American forces were unaware of the presence of news staff and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Referring to civilian casualties, Gates said "We take these things seriously". WikiLeaks promotes leaks to fight government and corporate corruption. It said it obtained the encrypted video from military whistleblowers. The website disputed Gates' contention the video failed to provide context. In an e-mail, it accused the US military of making "numerous false or misleading statements," including the contention there was an active firefight between US forces and those killed. "Classified records which we will shortly release show that there was a report of small arms fire at 9:50 a.m., somewhere in the suburb of New Baghdad, shooter and location UNIDENTIFIED. There is no reference to U.S. forces having been hit by the fire. The same records report that at 10:18, 28 minutes later, the crowd was seen and the killing commenced." ● SOURCE Reuters 

Thomson Reuters shares cut by Morgan Stanley

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-12T23:25:52+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares were cut to equalweight from overweight by Morgan Stanley. The broker cut its rating on the group’s extra investment plans and a still sluggish legal market. TRI was unchanged on NYSE at $36.21. In Toronto, TRI.TO fell 1.04 per cent to C$36.29. ● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal

Newsrooms fall silent in honour of slain cameraman

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-12T17:19:12+01:00

Attack video painful to watch, Pentagon chief admits

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-11T18:43:32+01:00

Video showing US Army helicopters killing two Reuters news staff and 10 other people is painful to watch but a military investigation into the attack was very thorough, US defence secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday. "It's unfortunate. It's clearly not helpful. But by the same token, I think – think it should not have any lasting consequences," Gates said. The US forces involved were in combat and were operating in split-second situations, he said in Washington on the ABC News television programme This Week. The Reuters people killed in the 12 July 2007 attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40. The graphic helicopter gunsight video of the attack has been viewed around the world on the Internet since its release on Monday by WikiLeaks, a website which promotes leaks to fight government and corporate corruption. WikiLeaks said it obtained the encrypted video from military whistleblowers. Some international law and human rights experts say the Apache helicopter crew may have acted illegally. Many have been shocked by the images and some of the fliers' comments on the video. Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident. "It's obviously a hard thing to see. It's painful to see, especially when you learn after the fact what was going on. But you – you talked about the fog of war. These people were operating in split-second situations," Gates said. The US military said an investigation shortly after the incident found that US forces were unaware of the presence of news staff and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. "We've investigated it very thoroughly," Gates said. The military's central command said last week it had no plans to open a new investigation. David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I urge the secretary of defence to meet with me to help ensure a tragedy like this never happens again. We need to have transparency, accountability and an acknowledgment of the vital role journalists play in telling the story of war." ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters journalist killed in Bangkok street clashes

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-10T17:58:36+01:00

A Reuters television cameraman was shot dead in a violent clash between Thai troops and anti-government protesters in Bangkok on Saturday. "I am dreadfully saddened to have lost our colleague Hiro Muramoto in the Bangkok clashes," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. "Journalism can be a terribly dangerous profession as those who try to tell the world the story thrust themselves in the centre of the action. The entire Reuters family will mourn this tragedy." Tokyo-based Muramoto, 43, had been covering fighting between troops and protesters in the Rajdumnoen Road area where soldiers opened fire with rubber bullets and tear gas, as well as live rounds into the air, in Bangkok's worst political violence in 18 years. He was shot in the chest and arrived at Klang Hospital without a pulse. The hospital's director, Dr Pichaya Nakwatchara, said the bullet had exited his back. An army spokesman said protesters were armed with guns and had been throwing petrol bombs and grenades at troops. At least 521 people, including 64 soldiers and police, were wounded in the fighting near the Phan Fah bridge and Rajdumnoen Road in Bangkok's old quarter, a protest base near government buildings and the regional UN headquarters. Four civilians and four soldiers were killed, deputy governor of Bangkok Malinee Sukavrejworakit said. After the shooting all Reuters staff covering the violence were taken off the streets pending a reassessment of the situation on the ground. Muramoto, pictured, had worked for Reuters in Tokyo for more than 15 years. He was married with two children. ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Amy Corcoran

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-09T10:14:46+01:00

Amy Corcoran, a Reuters TV producer for more than 15 years in Washington, Moscow and Singapore, died suddenly in Doha on Wednesday. She had recently settled in Qatar with her husband, former Reuters correspondent Terry Friel, working for Al-Jazeera’s English channel. "A lasting friend to many in Reuters, Amy will be remembered not only for her great professional skill but also her warmth, humanity, and great enjoyment of life," said Jeremy Smith, Reuters deputy news editor, television.

Tony Winning elected SPS pension fund trustee

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-08T13:17:06+01:00

Tony Winning, a member and former chairman of the Pension Review Group, has been elected a trustee of the Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme (SPS), the smaller of the two Reuters UK final salary pension funds. He succeeds Michael Cooling as a member-nominated director of the SPS trustee company for a five-year term. Winning, 65, who lives in London, worked for Reuters editorial for 32 years as a correspondent and editor. He served in four continents and ended his career as Editor Asia based in Singapore.

No new probe into killing of Reuters news staff - US military

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-07T23:15:12+01:00

The US military's Central Command said on Wednesday it has no current plans to reopen an investigation into a helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff. The two Reuters staff killed in the 2007 attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40. The graphic helicopter gunsight video of the attack has been widely viewed around the world on the Internet since its release on Monday by the group WikiLeaks. The footage includes an audio track of the conversation between the helicopter crew. Many who have seen it have been shocked at the images and at some of the fliers' comments. International law and human rights experts who have watched the leaked video – obtained from military whistleblowers – say the Apache helicopter crew in the footage may have acted illegally. Two US military officials told Reuters on condition of anonymity that lawyers at Central Command have been reviewing the hitherto secret video, which was revealed on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption. "We're looking at a reinvestigation because of a question of the rules of engagement. Were all the actions that are depicted on that video in parallel with the rules of engagement in effect at the time?" one of the officials said. But Rear Admiral Hal Pittman, director of communications at Central Command, said in a statement to Reuters: "Central Command has no current plans to reinvestigate or review this combat action." Other officials said Central Command was seeking to play down its role in determining whether to reopen the case because the unit involved was no longer based in Iraq, shifting the onus to Army and Pentagon leaders to make the decision. Detailed rules of engagement are generally kept classified to avoid tipping off adversaries about tactics on the battlefield, Pentagon officials said. David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I would welcome a thorough new investigation. Reuters from the start has called for transparency and an objective inquiry so that all can learn lessons from this tragedy." The US military has said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that US forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Human rights lawyers and other experts who have viewed the footage say they are concerned about how the helicopter fliers operated, particularly in opening fire on a van that arrived on the scene after the initial attack and whose occupants began trying to help the wounded. Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army officer who has conducted war zone investigations, said knowing what rules of engagement the pilots were operating under was critical to understanding whether they had acted appropriately. But firing on those who came to help the wounded appeared to be a breach of the laws governing military conduct in war, he said. "That is the element that is blatant. That is against all humanitarian law and the rules of conflict – most definitely and without a doubt," he told Reuters. Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident. ● SOURCE Reuters

IFJ urges Obama to probe US killing of Reuters news staff

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-07T15:05:05+01:00

The International Federation of Journalists has called on President Barack Obama to open a fresh investigation into the actions of the US Army, which has been implicated in killings of journalists in Iraq. It follows the release on Monday of graphic video footage showing a US helicopter attack on civilians, including two Reuters news staffers, photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh. "This is evidence of calculated, cold-blooded and horrifying violence," said Jim Boumelha, IFJ president. "The United States cannot ignore this atrocity and the killings of unarmed civilians. We insist on a completely new review of these and all the killings of journalists and media staff in the Iraq conflict." The July 2007 attack was filmed from an Apache helicopter flying over Baghdad. The video was released by WikiLeaks, a US website, which decrypted a version obtained from military whistleblowers. The IFJ said it reignites the controversy over American military attacks on journalists during the conflict, which were highlighted on 8 April 2003 when US forces fired on Baghdad's Palestine Hotel killing Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman working for Reuters, and José Couso of the Telecinco network in Spain. Earlier that day US forces attacked the offices of Al-Jazeera in Baghdad, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. “Altogether there have been 19 unexplained killings of media staff at the hands of US soldiers,” said Boumelha. “The administration of Barack Obama cannot duck its responsibility to set aside the white-wash of self-exonerating reporting by the US army. Justice requires that there is no impunity and that the US military is held to account for its actions in Iraq.” The Brussels-based IFJ represents more than 600,000 journalists in 125 countries. ● SOURCE International Federation of Journalists

Thomson Reuters seeks Pentagon meeting over slayings

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-06T22:52:31+01:00

Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger and chief executive Tom Glocer are seeking a meeting with the Pentagon to discuss the need to learn lessons from the killing of two Reuters staffers in Iraq. Namir Noor-Eldeen, photographer, and Saeed Chmagh, driver, died in a burst of cannon fire from a US Army Apache attack helicopter over Baghdad on 12 July 2007. A classified military video recording of the killings as seen through the helicopter gunsight was released on Monday by the website WikiLeaks, which said it obtained the encrypted footage from military whistleblowers. The Pentagon confirmed its authenticity. WikiLeaks called it a case of “collateral murder”. The video shows a US Army Apache repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included Noor-Eldeen, 22, and Chmagh, 40, and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men. None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the US Defence Department’s initial cover story. Schlesinger told staff there was no better evidence of the dangers each and every journalist in a war zone faces at any time. "We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the men and women of Reuters news who put themselves on the front line to tell the story; we mourn and remember each of our colleagues who has died – our books of remembrance that we keep in our main offices are grim reminders of the sacrifices too many have made over the many decades and many conflicts." It is impossible to watch and listen to the video dispassionately, Schlesinger said. "I struggle with my emotions the way I’m sure many of you struggle as well," he added. "I believe that we as an organization and I as an individual must fight for journalists’ safety. I will continue to campaign for better training for the military – to help as much as possible to teach the difference in form between a camera and an rpg or between a tripod and a weapon. I will continue to press for thorough and objective investigations. I will continue to insist that governments the world over recognize the rights of journalists to do their jobs. I will continue to ensure that our rules and operating procedures are the safest in the industry. "In this particular case, Tom Glocer and I want to meet with the Pentagon to press the need to learn lessons from this tragedy. "These stories are not easy for us to report or to be involved in. They test our commitment to viewing events and actions objectively. "What matters in the end is not how we as colleagues and friends feel; what matters is the wider public debate that our stories and this video provoke." ● SOURCE Reuters | Collateral Murder ● Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh Memorial ● Staff tributes ● Namir Noor-Eldeen tribute | SLIDESHOW

Video released showing US Army's killing of Reuters news staff

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-04-05T20:42:44+01:00

Graphic footage of the killing of two Reuters news staff by US forces in Baghdad three years ago was released in Washington on Monday. The classified military video depicting the killings on 12 July 2007 was released by the website WikiLeaks, which called it a case of “collateral murder”. It said it obtained the video as well as supporting documents from military whistleblowers. Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, unveiled the video at the National Press Club. He said the crew of the attack helicopter approached its job as if it were a video game, not something involving human lives. Their desire was simply to kill, he said. "Their desire was to get high scores on that computer game." Video of the incident from two Apaches and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in Baghdad on 25 July 2007 in an off-the-record briefing.  Reuters had been seeking release of the video, shot from a helicopter gun-sight, through the US Freedom of Information Act. After demands by Reuters, the incident was investigated and the military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own rules of engagement. The military did not reveal how the Reuters staff were killed, and stated that they did not know how two young children were wounded. The video shows a US Army Apache repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, pictured, both Iraqi, and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men. None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon's initial cover story. They were milling about on a street corner. Crew members can be heard celebrating their kills. "Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards," says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30 mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies in the street. A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: "Come on, let us shoot!" Two crewmen share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses. And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one crewman can be heard saying: "Well, it's their fault bringing their kids to a battle." The New York Times reported the military's official cover story as follows: The American military said in a statement late Thursday that 11 people had been killed: nine insurgents and two civilians. According to the statement, American troops were conducting a raid when they were hit by small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The American troops called in reinforcements and attack helicopters. In the ensuing fight, the statement said, the two Reuters employees and nine insurgents were killed. "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," said Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl, a spokesman for the multinational forces in Baghdad. Reuters chief executive Tom Glocer said in a statement after the slayings: “Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh’s outstanding contribution to reporting on the unfolding events in Iraq has been vital. They stand alongside other colleagues in Reuters who have died doing a job that they believe in.” David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said in a statement today: “The deaths of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh three years ago were tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones. We continue to work for journalist safety and call on all involved parties to recognise the important work that journalists do and the extreme danger that photographers and video journalists face in particular. The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result." ● SOURCE Collateral Murder | Reuters | The New York Times ● Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh Memorial

Tom Glocer: it's not just about money

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-31T15:22:34+01:00

It’s not just about money: there are other things involved in keeping the stars in the business, says Tom Glocer. “We want incredible, high-performing, successful people but within the boundaries where the company matters more than I. There'll be another chief executive. There've been nine before me at Reuters and, if you think in longer terms, it puts a bit of perspective just on how bright is your candle power,” the CEO said in a radio broadcast. “It's not just about money, but there is a market out there for talent. People are more aware of it than they think. To pretend that it's no issue at all and that people will just stay for the joy of it, I think, ultimately, is insulting but, conversely, if you believe you can bribe people to stay in a hostile environment or money's the only thing that motivates them, all of the research, all of my experience, shows differently. In fact what the best research show is that the single highest correlating factor to retaining employees and job satisfaction is: my manager understands me, cares about me, maybe knows the names of my children and is interested in my work and helps me achieve my goals. But don't try and pay me half the market rate, 'cos you'll just, you know, you'll diss me.” Glocer described a cycle which he said was true for human beings, for companies and for governments where success and high achievement breeds pride, “that's OK, then breeds arrogance, not OK, then breeds complacency, egotistical behaviour, and then the downfall, and you see that cycle over and over again. “And it is the rare individual and the rare company that can stay when it's at the top of the game. How paranoid are you? … You need to keep that humble questioning, otherwise eventually you'll just believe your own PR.” Glocer was speaking in a panel discussion on BBC Radio 4 programme The Bottom Line, first broadcast on Sunday 28 March. Interviewer Evan Davies also asked Glocer about the motivation for Thomson’s 2008 takeover of Reuters. Was it that Reuters suddenly found itself facing the most intense competition in the most lucrative bit of the market from players like Bloomberg? Was Reuters getting a bit desperate? Glocer’s reply: “No, Reuters went through – I arrived in the UK and took on the job as chief executive in the summer of 2001 and the period 2001 to 2003 was the near-death experience for Reuters, and it was really difficult. You know, we had to do some very unpopular things. I had to do some things that I still find hard to this day. We let a lot of people go which substantially restructured the company, we sold a lot of units, but until the time we agreed to the Thomson acquisition we had come through that hole and were growing nicely again. The fit with Thomson was just so good, and their willingness to come at the right moment and pay a substantial premium for Reuters was there, that we jumped.” Asked about the decline of newspapers, Glocer said: “At the margin, the traditional Reuters news agency selling to media customers is now about two per cent of the $13 billion annual revenues of the firm… It's very visible, we care about it a lot, it's still a profitable business but, you know, the shift in our revenues reflects where we find profitable opportunities, and yes, the newspaper world is going through a terrible, wrenching transformation. Part of it, I think, is because people can't wrap their brains around a pretty straightforward transition which is: newspapers don't have to be on physical wood paper pulp technology, right? It just so happens that the current processes lasted for so long no one can think about what does journalism mean in an iPad world, or son of iPad, and what will it look like. So, I think this is not the death knell of journalism, it is the death knell of people who insist that journalism has to be about printing on dead trees.” ● CLICK to view a video version of the radio broadcast (available only in the UK) | VIDEO

Two multimedia productions win top US awards

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-26T19:06:48+00:00

Two multimedia Reuters productions have taken first and second place in the 2010 best of photojournalism awards in the United States. Reuters won first place in the news/feature multimedia category for Times of Crisis, charting 365 days of economic and financial upheaval, and second place for Surviving the Tsunami, a Thomson Reuters Foundation production with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The annual contest is run by the US National Press Photographer’s Association and the Florida-based Poynter Institute. ● CLICK to view Times of Crisis ● CLICK to view Surviving the Tsunami

Thomson Reuters again rated among world's most ethical companies

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-24T22:03:09+00:00

Thomson Reuters has again been rated one of the 100 most ethical companies in the world. The designation, awarded by the New York-based Ethisphere Institute, recognises companies that go beyond making statements about doing business ethically and translate those words into action. The designation is awarded to companies that have leading ethics and compliance programmes, particularly compared with their industry peers. Companies were judged on their ethics and compliance programmes, governance and corporate responsibility. They were measured against seven categories: corporate citizenship and responsibility; corporate governance; innovation that contributes to the public well being; industry leadership; executive leadership and tone from the top; legal, regulatory and reputation track record; and internal systems and ethics/compliance programme. Thomson Reuters is listed in the media, publishing and entertainment section alongside Time Warner. ● SOURCE Ethisphere Institute

Reuters’ social media rules stir online debate

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-12T19:19:42+00:00

Reuters has been taken to task for attempting to control what its staff write on the Internet and attention has been drawn to the fact that the editor-in-chief did what journalists are now told not to do: “Don’t scoop the wire”. Reuters’ publication this week of new ● guidelines for social media like Facebook and Twitter in its ● Handbook of Journalism has attracted wide attention in the blogosphere. The online magazine Salon said the guidelines suffer from many of the same problems as similar policies set last year by The New York Times and the The Washington Post. “All of these flaws boil down to one thing: A desire to control something that fundamentally can’t be controlled, and a fear of what happens when that control is lost,” it said. Reuters’ guidelines state: “The advent of social media does not change your relationship with the company that employs you — do not use social media to embarrass or disparage Thomson Reuters. Our company’s brands are important; so, too, is your personal brand. Think carefully about how what you do reflects upon you as a professional and upon us as an employer of professionals.” Salon commented: “The overwhelming message is that, while social media is great and useful for many things (although none of those things are ever mentioned), it is a minefield of potential dangers and even a potential threat to the company’s traditional media business… “Right at the end of the new policy, Reuters says something that cuts to the heart of all the difficulties with social media guidelines. The policy baldly states: ‘Don’t scoop the wire.’ So I mentioned on Twitter that Reuters’ own editor-in-chief, David Schlesinger, (pictured), did exactly that when he was tweeting from Davos last year and posting about a number of newsworthy events [● David Schlesinger: all a-twitter and scooping Reuters]. Schlesinger responded that “some stuff belongs on the wire first. some stuff belongs on tweets. some stuff you can’t always tell immediately.” That phrase could just as easily be applied to all of the other potential negative outcomes that Reuters is trying to avoid with its policy, Salon said. Some things are bad to say on Twitter, and some things are not — and some stuff you can’t always tell immediately. It added: “If you trust your writers and editors, whom you presumably hired and continue to employ because they are smart and capable, then let them use social media for what it was meant for: engaging with readers in as many ways as possible. Don’t get consumed with fear about a loss of control over them — embrace it.” The blog Techdirt, in a commentary headed “Reuters Social Media Policy Gets It Half Right, Half Wrong”, said the rule that hard news content must be broken first via the wire doesn't really make much sense. “It also goes against what some at Reuters have successfully done. You can still ‘scoop the wire’ and then publish a full report on the wire. In fact, if you use Twitter correctly, you can build a lot more interest in the upcoming full story. “While there are plenty of reasonable and useful suggestions in the Reuters social media policies, some of it seems to go against what Schlesinger said last year: “‘The old means of control don't work. “‘The old categories don't work. “‘The old ways of thinking won't work. “‘We all need to come to terms with that. “‘Fundamentally, the old media won't control news dissemination in the future. And organisations can't control access using old forms of accreditation any more.’” ● SOURCE Salon | Techdirt

Reuters media chief outlines vision for future news network

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-11T04:08:59+00:00

Reuters has given a sneak preview of its vision for a future news network that aims to draw on the experience of online social networks. Project Apollo involves creating a content network that could be both a resource for newspapers requiring specialised information and a means of syndicating their own stories, said Chris Ahearn, president Reuters media, pictured. “The media is not a one-way street anymore, so why should professional networks be any different from the way the consumers are consuming news?”  he said at a conference in Abu Dhabi. The new project aims to bring together lessons from social media networks and from Thomson Reuters’ primary business of professional information subscriptions. In the latter realm, the company has learned that “metadata matters”, Ahearn said, referring to the information used to tag and sort media to make it easily searchable. The Apollo project aims to move away from selling clients Thomson Reuters-only products, which “sounds like a very 20th century model to me”, he said. “What sounds far more interesting to us and our clients is how do we move from a single-source provider to thinking about a professional news network that allows you as a journalist, or your institution, to have access not only to Reuters material, but to a variety of other potentially more specialised information about sport or entertainment, or other areas where we are never going to be as good as someone else.” At the same time, he said, this network would allow news organisations “to take content that you already paid to produce once, and you already monetised, and see if there’s another market for it in a non-competitive way”. “Creating that network is going to be the future for us.” Ahearn said the company made these investments because last year’s doldrums would not last. “Advertising’s not dead,” he said. “We had a tough year, and advertising was down across the world, but advertising is not going to dry up in the media experience. In some areas of the world, we are going to see growth, like India, China, and despite a bit of a retrenchment here [the Middle East] over the last year, I bet growth comes back.” ● SOURCE The National

Thomson Reuters ranks #2 in Fortune list

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-12T03:33:58+00:00

Thomson Reuters ranked #2 for financial data services in this year's Fortune world’s most admired companies list. Within this industry the group was ranked first overall for innovation, social responsibility and global competitiveness. Top of the ranking was Automatic Data Processing with a score of 6.69, just ahead of Thomson Reuters’ 6.54. Fortune gave Thomson Reuters the following industry rankings for key attributions of reputation: ● Innovation 1 ● People management 2 ● Use of corporate assets 3 ● Social responsibility 1 ● Quality of management 5 ● Financial soundness 3 ● Long-term investment 3 ● Quality of products/services 3 ● Global competitiveness 1 ● SOURCE CNN

Thomson Reuters files its 2009 annual report

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-11T17:26:20+00:00

Thomson Reuters filed its annual report for 2009 on Thursday. It contains audited financial statements, management's discussion and analysis and other disclosures. The report is available on ● www.thomsonreuters.com in the Investor Relations section. CLICK this link to download it directly ● Thomson Reuters 2009 Annual Report Hard copies may be obtained, free of charge, by contacting Thomson Reuters Investor Relations at ● investor.relations@thomsonreuters.com or by phone at + 1.800.969.9974. Thomson Reuters reported its 2009 results on 24 February. Profit for the last quarter was 68 per cent lower and financial customer losses were expected to continue to hurt revenue this year. The next quarterly results are due to be announced on 4 May. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Reuters publishes social media rules for journalists

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-10T21:53:06+00:00

Recognising the spread of social media on the Internet, Reuters published guidelines for its journalists’ use of Facebook, Twitter and other networks and pointed out some risks of the brave new world of online information. The rise of social media has brought journalists some powerful new storytelling and information-gathering tools, but these new opportunities have brought new risks, said Dean Wright, global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards, pictured. “At Reuters, we have just published some social media guidelines that lay out some basic principles and offer recommendations that should prove useful as journalists navigate what can sometimes seem a chaotic landscape.” The new guidelines for using Facebook, Twitter and other social media networks embrace these basic principles: ● Journalists are encouraged to use social media approaches. ● Accuracy, freedom from bias and independence are fundamental to Reuters’ reputation. These values and the Trust Principles apply to journalism produced using social media just as they have to all other journalism produced by Reuters. ● Reuters is distinguished by the trust invested in its journalists to rise above personal bias in their work and to apply common sense in dealing with the challenges offered by social media. Wright said some news organisations have been more proscriptive with their rules or guidelines for journalists using social media – “and it’s tempting to provide the rule-hungry with specific latitudes and longitudes of what’s acceptable. But I think that approach sells short the ability of journalists to use their brains and to see – and report on – a world that’s changing every day. “That’s why I think of the Reuters Handbook of Journalism as a living document, one that helps us navigate that changing world with an eye on the future while being grounded in the ethical behaviour and high standards that have brought us so far.” The new guidelines state, inter alia: “We want to encourage you to use social media approaches in your journalism but we also need to make sure that you are fully aware of the risks – especially those that threaten our hard-earned reputation for independence and freedom from bias or our brand.” The recommendations offer general guidance with more detailed suggestions for managing journalists’ presence on the most popular social networks. Journalists are encouraged to think about the following principles whenever using social media. ● “Accuracy, freedom from bias and integrity are fundamental to the reputation of Reuters and your ability to do your job effectively. The advent of social media changes none of this and you should do nothing that would damage our reputation for impartiality and independence. We reserve the right to change your beat or responsibilities if there are problems in this area. In the case of serious breaches, we may use our established disciplinary procedures. ● ”The advent of social media does not change your relationship with the company that employs you – do not use social media to embarrass or disparage Thomson Reuters. Our company’s brands are important; so, too, is your personal brand. Think carefully about how what you do reflects upon you as a professional and upon us as an employer of professionals. ● “The distinction between the private and the professional has largely broken down online and you should assume that your professional and personal social media activity will be treated as one no matter how hard you try to keep them separate. You should also be aware that even if you make use of privacy settings, anything you post on a social media site may be made public. ● “While it is not practical to always apply the 'second pair of eyes rule' for journalists using social media, especially Twitter, in a professional capacity, you should consider that a 'virtual second pair of eyes rule' applies under which your manager and/or senior editors will retrospectively review your professional output. ● ”Remember, too, that your sources, colleagues, peers, competitors and even future employers also can and will look at your output.” The guidelines add: “We’re in a competitive business and while the spirit of social media is collaborative we need to take care not to undermine the commercial basis of our company.” ● SOURCE Reuters | Reuters Handbook for Journalists

Gordon Brown, in pre-election mode, uses Thomson Reuters platform

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-10T21:31:12+00:00

British prime minister Gordon Brown chose to use a Thomson Reuters platform to announce some major pre-election political news, including a public sector pay freeze on senior civil servants and the military. Brown was speaking on Wednesday at Thomson Reuters' London office at Canary Wharf as an invited guest in an occasional series of talks by "newsmakers". His speech received wide media coverage, and Thomson Reuters got some credit as a newsmaking location – non-partisan, of course. The Guardian newspaper noted that Brown was "speaking at Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf, the same venue where the Tory leader, David Cameron, attacked Labour's record on the economy last week." ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters staff mark International Women's Day

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-08T00:58:29+00:00

Thomson Reuters staff marked International Women's Day on Monday with a global "follow the sun" project that enables participants to contribute to a live blog throughout the day. IWD, first observed in 1911, celebrates women’s economic, political and social achievements. It is a public holiday in China, Russia and some other countries. The project, a collaboration involving the Reuters UK Online desk and the ● women@thomsonreuters network, is open to external guest contributors. The live blog began with the observance of International Women's Day in Kiritimati, Kiribati. It is being anchored by different Reuters bureaus around the world including those in Singapore, India, Switzerland, Dubai, Britain, Canada and the United States. Organisers say it is the first time something on this scale has been attempted at Reuters. They believe the "follow-the-sun" live blog format could provide a template for covering other global news events online and in real time. Other events covered by live blogs include the Winter Olympics 2010, the United Nations COP15 meeting. Although the duration of these events was much longer they were not covered around the clock and around the world. Online events include: ● A special coverage page "Women in Focus" http://uk.reuters.com//news/globalcoverage/womenInFocus ● A live follow-the-sun blog platform to which all are free to contribute http://live.reuters.com/Event/International_Womens_Day_2010_2 ● A slide show of Reuters images http://online.thomsonreuters.com/womensday/ ● Reuters is powering the Aurora International Women's Day site for the second year http://internationalwomensday.com ● A series of guest great debate blogs http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate-uk/tag/iwd/ ● A special Twitter feed http://twitter.com/Women_on_IWD

Reuters caps award-winning week with more prizes

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-06T00:32:37+00:00

In addition to its own journalist of the year awards [● Reuters honours its journalists of the year], Reuters has won seven awards by the Society of American Business Editors and Writers in its best in business annual competition, a record for the agency. “Some contend that good business journalism is dying. Judging by the winners of the contest, nothing could be further from the truth,” said Greg McCune, SABEW president and Thomson Reuters training manager. “Study this list of winners and you may notice the emergence of a fresh and vigorous online business media, as well as continuing excellence from some traditional media we rely on.” There were 163 winners out of a total 793 entries. The awards are to be presented on 20 March at the Society’s annual conference in Phoenix, Arizona. AWARDS ● BREAKING BUSINESS NEWS REPORTING Maggie Fox and the Mexico City bureau for H1N1 Flu: The Global Story. ● REAL-TIME NEWS ORGANIZATION SPECIAL PROJECTS Jonathan Spicer and Herb Lash for Lifting the Veil on High-Frequency Trading ● REAL-TIME NEWS ORGANIZATION SPECIAL PROJECTS Nick Carey for Route to Recovery ● BUSINESS NEWS COLUMN WRITING Matthew Goldstein ● REAL-TIME NEWS ORGANIZATION COLUMN WRITING Felix Salmon ● GENERAL EXCELLENCE FOR A SMALL WEBSITE Breakingviews.com ● CREATIVE USE OF ONLINE BY A SMALL WEBSITE Breakingviews.com downloadable calculators. ● SOURCE Reuters | SABEW

Reuters honours its journalists of the year

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-05T20:16:32+00:00

Reuters has honoured its best journalists of 2009 in its annual Journalists of the Year awards. Winners of 11 awards were honoured for their exceptional work at a ceremony in New York on Thursday attended by Thomson Reuters chairman David Thomson. The news year demanded the best out of journalists and out of news organisations, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. “I’m proud to say the 2,800 men and women of Reuters delivered. The world’s economies began a slow climb out from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression; the new administration in Washington faced tough new political realities; the war in Afghanistan escalated; and the debate over climate policy grew more heated. China flexed its economic and diplomatic muscles; the Gulf experienced the shuddering growing pains emerging economies can have; the competition for resources saw major players jockeying. Through all of this, our journalists were the eyes and ears of the world, doggedly and often bravely telling the globe’s stories.” AWARDS ● PHOTO OF THE YEAR Carlos Barria, photographer based in Miami, for his photograph of a US soldier taking a break during a night mission in the Pesh Valley in Afghanistan. ● EDITOR OF THE YEAR Eric Burroughs, Asia financial markets editor based in Hong Kong, and Vidya Ranganathan, deputy Asia financial markets editor based in Singapore, for driving innovation and excellence and showing superb leadership in a year of focus on markets expertise. ● VIDEO JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR Roystan Chan, video journalist based in Shanghai, for impeccable video storytelling in China. ● COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR John Kemp, commodities and energy columnist, for numerous agenda-setting commentary pieces. ● PHOTO JOURNALIST OF THE YEAR Toby Melville, photographer based in London, for his photographs documenting daily life in the United Kingdom. ● REPORTER OF THE YEAR Emma Graham-Harrison, correspondent based in Beijing, for consistently excellent reporting across asset classes. ● VIDEO STORY OF THE YEAR Afghanistan team, for consistently delivery outstanding team coverage of Afghanistan news in trying circumstances. ● SCOOP OF THE YEAR The US financial services team, for an exclusive with former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld. ● MULTIMEDIA STORYTELLING OF THE YEAR Larry Downing, senior staff photographer at the White House, for his photo essay on Arlington National Cemetery's Section 60. ● STORY OF THE YEAR Iran team coverage, for comprehensive coverage of a turbulent year in Iran. ● EDITOR’S CHOICE Markets Buzz/The dealing room team, for pioneering new ways of storytelling. “We talk a lot about ‘new ways of storytelling’,” Schlesinger said. “By bringing chat rooms to life and to the fore editorially, this group actually did it. “Editorial innovation has a very simple definition: using new tools in new ways to make the traditional craft of journalism relevant to customers in a new age. “The team we honour – represented by Stuart Brown, Eric Burroughs, Dayan Candappa, Andrew Goldner and Phil Smith – brought journalism into the chat room, brought community building and management into the tool kit of the journalist, and made the snap and crackle of instant messaging an arm of storytelling. “By creating a chat room ethos where hundreds of clients could lurk and then participate with Reuters journalists, with each other and with invited guests, this team showed that valuable new content could be created at the intersection of journalists and customers, where one-way traditional information-giving met the two-way street of information-sharing. “This team understood the value we could create by forging a community of professionals with shared interests, passions and spirit. “From the first tentative instant messages flowing into what seemed a void, they've created a new form of Reuters journalism that is becoming vibrant, important, valuable and a marketplace of ideas. “Because of the imagination and innovation of this group, the Reuters journalist of the future will be as at home in the chat room as she is in the press conference, as conversant in the style of instant messaging as he is in the style of an analysis – and both our journalism and our service to clients will be richer as a result.” Footnote: The master of ceremonies at the awards pronounced the name of the agency “rooters”. Members of the audience quickly corrected the howler. ● CLICK the link below to read other comments by David Schlesinger on the award winners. ● SOURCE Reuters

TRI rated buy and 5th best media stock

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-03T15:17:26+00:00

Thomson Reuters was rated buy on Wednesday and placed fifth in a list of best media stocks. The rating by markets website The Street is based on a ranking of fundamentals and performance. It noted that the stock has advanced 52 per cent over the past year, trailing major US indices. TRI trades at a price-to-book ratio of 1.5, a discount to media peers. The shares offer a 3.2 per cent dividend yield with an excessive payout ratio of 113 per cent. The Street’s ranking of best media stocks is: 1. Daily Journal Co 2. Interactive Data 3. DreamWorks Animation 4. John Wiley & Sons 5. Thomson Reuters. ● SOURCE The Street

Reuters hires top FT editor as global editor-at-large

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-03-01T23:41:03+00:00

Reuters has hired the US managing editor of the Financial Times as its global editor-at-large, a newly-created position. It said Chrystia Freeland, pictured, will be based in New York and report to David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. She will help plan Reuters editorial strategy, play a key role on forthcoming financial video service Reuters Insider, serve as Reuters’ principal television pundit, be senior contributor to Reuters.com and play a leading role in Reuters Summits and in Thomson Reuters global Newsmaker series. Prior to her tenure as the FT’s US managing editor Freeland was the newspaper’s deputy editor in London, editor of the weekend edition, editor of FT.com, UK news editor, Moscow bureau chief and Eastern Europe correspondent. She began her career as a stringer in Ukraine, writing for the FT, The Washington Post and The Economist. "Chrystia has proven herself an excellent reporter and an original thinker whose views are respected and listened to," said Schlesinger. "Her work will be a great complement to that done by the 2,800 journalists at Reuters worldwide." Lionel Barber, FT editor, said: "Chrystia has been a driving force behind the FT's success in the US for the past four years, and has contributed to the FT's global profile in many other senior roles in London and Moscow. I wish her the very best with her future endeavours." Freeland’s replacement at the FT is Gillian Tett, assistant editor for markets coverage. ● SOURCE PR Newswire

Obituary: Hugh Pain

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-26T17:44:34+00:00

Hugh Pain, who as a correspondent survived an anti-tank mine explosion and sniper fire, died on Thursday after a two-year battle with lung cancer. He was 69. His condition had deteriorated about three weeks ago. Pain was in a Reuters armoured Land Rover that ran over an anti-tank mine in Bosnia in January 1993. Both his heels were shattered and he came under fire from a sniper. His dry sense of humour remained intact, however, and he began his report on the incident as follows: “I had often wondered what it would be like to die. “Now I know, or near enough to satisfy curiosity,” he wrote from Vitez, Bosnia-Herzegovina under the headline: “The sensation of a huge force...” “The anti-tank mine that detonated on Monday in the west-central Bosnian town of Gornji Vakuf, where we had gone to report on fighting between Moslems and Croats, had up to three kg (6.6 pounds) of explosive in it. “It was enough to reduce our armoured Land Rover to a twisted heap of wreckage as it ran over it. “And more than enough to kill us all, according to British army engineers who inspected it afterwards. “The good news from the near-death front is that you don't have time to be scared.” Corinne Dufka, photographer, and Kevin Sullivan, UPI correspondent, were travelling with Pain and were also wounded. Pain was an avid collector of first edition books and before his war injury a keen tennis player. Previous assignments included Italy, Iran and India. Later, he worked as an editor on the business news unit and other production desks in London including the world desk. He had joined Reuters in 1977 and retired in 2003. Pain’s elder son Nick said that his father had been in Heraklion hospital since 8 February and was his normal, perfectly lucid self for much of the time. At around 8:00 pm on Wednesday Pain took his oxygen mask off and said "D'you know, I'm getting really rather bored with this." He died at 5:45 am the following morning. Burial is on Saturday close to his home in Agia Galini, Crete, where he lived with his wife, Caroline. A memorial service will be arranged later. ● CLICK to read Hugh Pain’s account of being blown up in Bosnia.

Paul Mylrea lands top media job at BBC

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-26T15:29:47+00:00

Paul Mylrea, pictured, former correspondent and editor of the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s AlertNet, has landed the top media job at the BBC. He will become head of press and media relations in April. Mylrea, whose 20-year career at Reuters ended in 2002, is director of communications at the British government’s department for international development. Previously he was director of group media relations at Transport for London and head of media at Oxfam GB. He is also president-elect at the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Mylrea will lead the BBC press office and strategic communications function and be part of a ten-strong communications steering group. He will also be the BBC's official spokesman. The job specification states that it sits at the heart of reputation management for the BBC. "Paul is a terrific hire for the BBC," the corporation's director of communications, Ed Williams, said. "The combination of 20 years at Reuters, along with proven experience at the hard end of public sector communications, is excellent preparation for leading media relations at the BBC." ● SOURCE BBC | PR Week

TRI downgraded to underweight from neutral

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-25T15:44:51+00:00

Thomson Reuters shares were downgraded to underweight from neutral on Thursday, a day after the company reported sharply lower 2009 Q4 profit and signalled revenue growth would not return until the second half of this year. Investment bank Piper Jaffray issued the downgrade and cut its price target for the share to $31 from $33. Thomson Reuters closed on Wednesday at $34.51 on volume of 656,288 shares, above the average daily volume of 390,839. The stock is currently above its 50-day moving average of $33.25 and above its 200-day moving average of $32.04. Piper’s analyst said: “Increased investment spending, higher integration costs associated with Reuters, and still anemic revenue trends will translate into lackluster earnings on a near-term basis. We see limited catalysts for the share over the next six months given the uninspiring earnings outlook and, accordingly, lower our rating to Underweight from Neutral. We still like Thomson Reuters’ franchise, management team, and long-term growth prognosis, but within our coverage universe we see more attractive opportunities elsewhere within the next six months.” The website SmarTrend, reporting the downgrade, said it was bullish on Thomson Reuters. SmarTrend alerted its subscribers to watch for a reversal of this month’s 2.6 per cent increase in the value of the stock since an Uptrend alert on 1 February at $33.63. ● SOURCE SmarTrend | Street Insider

TR Q4 earnings down 68%, more revenue pain expected this year

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-24T15:33:01+00:00

Thomson Reuters reported profit for the last quarter of 2009 down 68 per cent and signalled that financial customer losses would continue to hurt revenue in 2010. But the company also said on Wednesday net sales were positive from October to December, and it forecast a return to revenue growth in the second half of this year. The impact of net sales on revenue is delayed because of the company's subscription model. "We've already seen the net sales picture improve significantly through the last quarter and into the first quarter of this year," chief executive Tom Glocer said in a Reuters interview. The company earned $177 million in the three months from October to December, down from $560 million a year earlier. It forecast 2010 revenue to be flat or slightly lower, and underlying free cash flow to be slightly down from 2009 as it continues to invest in new products and platforms. Fourth quarter underlying profit fell 16 per cent to $661 million. Adjusted earnings per share slipped to 44 cents from 50 cents a year earlier, but this was a cent above the average Wall Street estimate. For the year as a whole, revenue from ongoing businesses rose one per cent to $3.35 billion, slightly above the average analyst forecast of $3.32 billion. Excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, revenue fell three per cent. "I am pleased with the resilient performance of the company in 2009,” Glocer said in a prepared statement. “Despite the worst global operating environment any of us has faced, Thomson Reuters was able to hold or improve on our prior-year results, with revenues comparable to 2008 and underlying operating margin and free cash flow up on the prior year. I am also pleased that our net sales performance improved significantly through the year, with the fourth quarter recording positive net sales for the company as a whole." Glocer said he was confident 2009 was the bottom of the sales cycle. "I expect that we will return to revenue growth in the second half of 2010," he said, and 2010 would be the final year of heavy integration spending in the markets division. Annualised savings from the merger between Thomson and Reuters reached $1.1 billion last year, $300 million more than the company estimated when it closed the deal in April 2008. The company raised its 2011 annualised savings target by $200 million to $1.6 billion. It said $1.2 billion of that would come from the savings of integrating the company, and the rest from older savings programmes. The board approved a four cents increase in the annual dividend to $1.16 per share. Thomson Reuters’ US shares have risen about nine per cent so far this year, closing at $35.06 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. After today’s results announcement the shares lost nearly four per cent of their value before closing down 1.57 per cent in New York and 1.83 per cent in Toronto. ● SOURCE Reuters | PR Newswire | Washington Post/The Associated Press

Health and safety hotel checks for hacks in Haiti

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-21T20:41:42+00:00

Reuters correspondents arriving in Haiti after the earthquake were ordered to carry out a health and safety audit of their hotel before checking in, according to The Independent newspaper. Under the headline “Regime change for foreign hacks”, it reported on Sunday: "The days when war reporters lived off their wits, whisky and a threadbare mattress are over. Reuters correspondents arriving in Haiti immediately after the earthquake are said to have been under orders to carry out a health and safety audit of their hotel before checking in. The insensitivity of reporters arriving in disaster zones is notorious, best summarised by the title of Edward Behr's memoirs: Anyone here been raped and speak English?" ● SOURCE The Independent

TRI uptrend spotted, moving averages set to climb

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-21T22:21:42+00:00

An uptrend in Thomson Reuters shares has been spotted, a US website that analyses trading patterns has told its subscribers. Moving averages are set to climb to confirm the group's upward momentum. SmarTrend said it identified the upward trajectory using automated pattern recognition technology at $33.63 on 1 February and in the following three weeks Thomson Reuters shares returned 5.8 per cent as of the latest price on the New York Stock Exchange, $35.59. TRI is currently above its 50-day moving average of $33.03 and above its 200-day moving average of $31.95, SmarTrend said, adding "Look for these moving averages to climb to confirm the company's upward momentum”. The shares hit a 52-week high of $36.07 last week. Thomson Reuters is due to report its 2009 Q4 and full year results on Wednesday. ● SOURCE Fox Business

Devin Wenig sees more media sector mergers

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-19T22:55:02+00:00

Thomson Reuters is still integrating following the April 2008 acquisition and while merger activity has fallen off smaller deals will continue, Devin Wenig, pictured, said at a media conference on Friday. Wenig, chief executive of the group’s markets division that includes Reuters news agency, predicted the return of media sector merger activity. “We’re a b-to-b [business-to-business] company but marriage of content and distribution has been critical… Reach and original content production can sit together. I would not be surprised at seeing mergers and acquisitions coming back.” Wenig said the company is still integrating its own big merger so won’t be making massive acquisitions of its own, but expect smaller deals — like its recent purchase of Breakingviews — instead. Wenig said the company would add paid services to its reuters.com news site this year. The site gets 30 million unique users a month. He said Thomson Reuters would soon begin to syndicate third-party content and make it available to its customers. “When we talk to clients they say that’s what we need.” As part of that, the company would also syndicate some local content (although it has no plans to produce local content of its own). Outside the conference venue in New York, demonstrators protested about prolonged contract negotiations between Thomson Reuters and the Newspaper Guild of New York, representing editorial employees. Asked about labour issues, Wenig said: “We’re not cutting either staff or salaries.” He said the company was thinking about structuring compensation in order to “play to win”. ● SOURCE PaidContent

iKick for reporter who got too close to Apple supplier in China

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-18T11:05:56+00:00

Guards at a high-tech complex in China scuffled with a Reuters journalist taking photos at the factory gates. He escaped with threats and a kick to the leg to write about the encounter – and the obsession with secrecy of Apple, US producer of computers, iPods and iPhones. The Foxconn International factory at Longhua in Guanlan, southern China, supplies parts for Apple, which takes security so seriously that some of the California company’s contractor compounds resemble industrial fortresses. Inside the “walled city” at Longhua – one of several compounds run by Foxconn – employees are provided with most of their daily needs, from dormitories, canteens, recreation facilities, banks, post offices and bakeries. As the Reuters journalist stood on the public road taking photos of the front gate and security checkpoint, a guard shouted, Reuters reported under the joint bylines of James Pomfret and Kelvin Soh. “The reporter continued snapping photos before jumping into a waiting taxi. The guard blocked the vehicle and ordered the driver to stop, threatening to strip him of his taxi license. “The correspondent got out and insisted he was within his rights as he was on the main road. The guard grabbed his arm. A second guard ran over, and with a crowd of Foxconn workers watching, they tried dragging him into the factory. “The reporter asked to be let go. When that didn't happen, he jerked himself free and started walking off. The older guard kicked him in the leg, while the second threatened to hit him again if he moved. A few minutes later, a Foxconn security car came along but the reporter refused to board it. He called the police instead. “After the authorities arrived and mediated, the guards apologized and the matter was settled. The reporter left without filing a complaint, though the police gave him the option of doing so. "’You're free to do what you want,’ the policeman explained, ‘But this is Foxconn and they have a special status here. Please understand.’ Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger made the story his choice “must read”. ● SOURCE Reuters | CNN Money

TRI shares hit 52-week high in New York

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-17T22:16:30+00:00

Thomson Reuters hit a 52-week high of $36.07 on the New York Stock Exchange, but closed down 0.1 per cent. The last trade of the day was $35.60, down two cents or 0.06 per cent. TRI has increased 6.2 per cent during the past month. The company is scheduled to report its 2009 fourth quarter and full year results on 24 February. In Toronto, Thomson Reuters shares closed at C$37.25, up 0.16 per cent on the day. US website TheStreet.com rated Thomson Reuters buy and noted the stock soared 51 per cent during the past year, beating US benchmarks. "The shares are undervalued relative to those of media peers based on projected earnings and book value. They are costly based on sales and cash flow," it said. ● SOURCE TheStreet

US military frees Reuters photographer in Iraq after 17 months

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-10T13:56:40+00:00

US forces in Iraq freed Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam, pictured, on Wednesday, almost a year and a half after snatching him from his home in the middle of the night and holding him without charge. "How can I describe my feelings? This is like being born again," Jassam told Reuters by telephone as he was greeted emotionally by his family. "I still cannot believe that my son is next to me," his mother, Fadhila Alwan, said. "Thanks be to God. I cannot speak. I will keep him in my arms for days but I will not be able to get enough of him." US and Iraqi forces smashed in the doors to Jassam's house in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, in September 2008 and whisked him away. He spent time in a desert prison on the Iraq-Kuwait border, called Camp Bucca, and the smaller Camp Cropper detention centre near Baghdad airport. The US military never said exactly why it detained him and locked him away for so long, saying the evidence against him was classified. Jassam worked for Reuters as a freelance TV cameraman and photographer. He was one of several Iraqi journalists working for foreign news organisations who have been detained by the US military since the 2003 US invasion. None has ever been charged, triggering criticism from international journalism rights groups. "I am very pleased his long incarceration without charge is finally over," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. "I wish the process to release a man who had no specific accusations against him had been swifter." The US military has asserted Jassam was a "security threat". The accusations had to do with "activities with insurgents," it said last year, without giving any specifics. The term insurgents generally refers to Sunni Islamist groups. Jassam is a Shi'ite Muslim. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled that there was no case against Jassam. A month before arresting him, US forces detained Reuters cameraman Ali Mashhadani and held him for three weeks without charge, the third time he was detained. Mashhadani was held for five months in 2005. ● SOURCE Reuters

Mark Wood heads new Scottish news consortium

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-08T09:14:41+00:00

Mark Wood, former Reuters editor-in-chief, has been appointed chairman of a consortium bidding to run a regional news pilot in Scotland. The Scottish News Consortium comprises newspaper groups DC Thomson, the Herald & Times, Johnston Press, and Mentorn Scotland, a television producer. "The consortium will transform the way television and broadband news is covered in Scotland and create a new model for partnership between newspapers and broadcasters," said Wood. "Our ground-breaking plans for a truly multiplatform and interactive TV/web news service and this is a dramatically new way of engaging Scottish viewers with national regional and community news." Wood joined Reuters in 1976 and was a correspondent in Vienna, East Berlin, Moscow and Bonn. He was editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2000, then took charge of strategic media investments and alliances as director of Reuters Content Partners. After Reuters he was chief executive of Independent Television News from 2003 and also its chairman from 1998. He left ITN last year. ● SOURCE The Guardian

The origin of Reuters dot-matrix logo, by Michael Nelson

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-06T16:02:36+00:00

Reuters old dot-matrix logo, one of the world's most recognised brands for over 40 years, was not based on the ticker tape of newswires, as some believed, but rather on the holes in teleprinter tape. Michael Nelson, former general manager, has written to the Financial Times to set the record straight. An article in the newspaper about an exhibition on the logo's designer, the late Alan Fletcher of the design partnership Pentagram, said the typeface, pictured, "evoked the ticker tape of the newswires". "That is not correct," Nelson wrote. "Ticker tape carried stock market prices. The Reuter typeface evoked the holes in teleprinter tape which was used to drive teleprinters. I attended the Reuter management meeting with Alan Fletcher to discuss his design in the mid-sixties and expressed reservations about it. I said that the technology on which it was based would be obsolescent in twenty years and the Reuter logo needed a longer life than that. I was right about the timing of the obsolescence, but am glad we adopted it because it was a brilliant design, which lasted Reuters in modified form for over 40 years until the company was acquired by Thomson in 2008." A section of teleprinter tape is shown at right. Reuters itself made the same mistake as the FT. This is what the company said about its logo before the takeover by Thomson: "Times have changed since Julius Reuters first started using carrier pigeons to fly stock quotes between Aachen and Brussels. And as the company has evolved, so has the way we represent ourselves. "The updates and revisions to our logotype through the years are important, because they provide insight into Reuters history. "Perhaps the best-known of these iterations is called, simply, the dot logo. But most people are unaware that there were actually several versions of dot logos, beginning as early as 1965. And while some at Reuters are aware that those dots were intended to represent the output of old ticker-tape machines, few know where the other, round element came from, or why the type used to spell 'Reuters' changed. "The rounded piece – or roundel – was developed in 1996 as an icon to increase Reuters visibility on computer and TV monitors, and as a way to brand our on-screen services using far less space. "As originally conceived, the roundel was intended to resemble an abstract globe, representing not only the worldwide nature of Reuters business, but also the continuous collection, processing and distribution of information, 24 hours a day (with the dots representing information, and the two hemispheres of the globe representing day and night). Moreover, the left side of the roundel was meant to refer to the openness and transparency of our company; a visual way of portraying Reuters integrity. "But in 1999 the dots in the name were joined to create greater recognition, particularly on screen where the dot logo often disintegrated in its former form. The typeface was designed especially for Reuters and called, appropriately, Julius. "Today, the dots live on in the roundel, and our logo is more visible – and more relevant – than ever before." ● SOURCE Financial Times | Letter in FT | CUBE

Reuters editor quits over discredited story

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-06T08:24:05+00:00

The editor who wrote a story discredited by the White House has quit Reuters a month after she joined. Terri Cullen, pictured, wealth management editor, has gone only days after Reuters was forced to kill her story claiming the White House’s deficit reduction plan relied on raising taxes against the middle class by allowing tax cuts to expire. The story ran on Monday and was withdrawn that night after the White House complained. Numerous errors were discovered. On Wednesday, a senior Reuters editor sent a memo stating, “This is an important reminder about our second-pair-of-eyes rule… Any content intended for reuters.com needs to be run past an editor PRIOR to publication. This applies to any and all content, including that intended for the blog platform.” A Reuters spokeswoman confirmed Cullen’s departure but declined further comment. She apparently resigned, the website Talking Biz News said. Reuters had trumpeted Cullen’s hiring. She was picked to serve as both editor of personal investing coverage on reuters.com as well as the editorial lead for Reuters wealth management initiative, a new service due out later this year that it said "will leverage Thomson Reuters business to business wealth assets in an effort to create an online consumer offering for Reuters.com's vast audience of affluent, business professionals”. Based in New York, she reported to Richard Baum, global editor of consumer media. The reminder about the need for a second pair of eyes was sent by Keith McAllister, global editor of online, to blog editors and the global online staff. ● SOURCE Talking Biz News

Union accuses Thomson Reuters of illegal pay cuts and Twitter curbs

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-05T22:59:18+00:00

A union filed a complaint against Thomson Reuters alleging it is illegally imposing pay cuts and restricting what employees can write on their Twitter accounts. In a complaint filed with the US National Labor Relations Board, the Newspaper Guild of New York charged that Thomson Reuters plans to cut wages of reporters and other employees by an average of 10 per cent this year without the union's consent. Thomson Reuters disputed the figure, saying it is guaranteeing a 0.5 per cent increase for the more than 400 US journalists represented by the union at Reuters News. Some will get bigger raises, based on how well they do their jobs, Thomson Reuters said in a statement. "We believe such a system is fairer than a lockstep system and is essential for Reuters' future," the company said. The union's complaint alleges that on 19 January Thomson Reuters improperly declared an impasse in the negotiations, which have been running for more than a year. Other media companies, mostly newspapers, have been lowering wages and requiring unpaid leaves of absence during the past year as a severe advertising slump dried up their main source of revenue. The Newspaper Guild contends Reuters has not been hit as hard because it is not as dependent on advertising as newspapers. "This dispute is really about saving quality journalism in this country," said New York Guild President Bill O'Meara. "If a healthy company like Thomson Reuters – whose CEO made almost as much in 2008 as our 420 members' annual salaries – cuts pay, it will cause less healthy news organizations to cut even more, and pretty soon many of the journalists our democracy depends on won't be able to afford to stay in the business." The complaint also alleges that Thomson Reuters has not followed proper procedures for drawing up its policy governing its employees' use of Twitter, the online social networking tool for broadcasting brief messages. Thomson Reuters bars its workers for posting anything "that would damage the reputation of Reuters News or Thomson Reuters." A union activist was reminded of the policy after responding to a senior manager's call to "join the (Twitter) conversation on making Reuters the best place to work" with a tweet that said: "One way to make this the best place to work is to deal honestly with Guild members." ● SOURCE The Associated Press | Newspaper Guild of New York

Internet abuzz over Reuters story killed after White House complaint

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-02T22:55:05+00:00

Reuters has again attracted the attention of media and political blogs in the United States – this time over a story it withdrew following a White House complaint. US blogs have been abuzz over the story, which suggested President Obama would cut the US budget deficit through backdoor taxes on the middle class. Media Matters said the conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh “was very excited about a Reuters article that was so riddled with errors that the wire service withdrew it after it was released”. Business Insider quoted the offending story, filed on Monday, in part: While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases. The White House complained about inaccuracies in the story and Reuters withdrew it, saying a replacement story would be coming later in the week. Later it said the story was wrong and there would be no substitute. Business Insider said it was told by a Reuters representative that the story was withdrawn “due to significant errors of fact…The story was wrong on multiple points and should not have gone out.” Talking Points Memo Livewire said “Obama administration aides appealed to the Reuters White House reporting team to kill a story by another reporter of the news service that suggested the president’s new budget blueprint included ‘backdoor’ tax hikes”. An administration official said the Reuters White House team “worked to quickly remedy the situation and helped get the story completely withdrawn”. The discredited backdoor taxes story was noticed by The New York Times’ Media Decoder blog. And The Christian Science Monitor commented: “It says something about the state of partisanship in America when the biggest budget story of the day is a nonstory. Literally.” The media blog Gawker pointed out that it was the second story Reuters had killed in as many months “but, on the bright side, the first actually bad one”. In December a story about a billionaire hedge fund manager was spiked after he complained to Thomson Reuters’ markets division chief executive Devin Wenig. ● SOURCE Media Matters | Business Insider | Talking Points Memo | The Christian Science Monitor | Gawker

TR hires US diplomat to strengthen government affairs in the Americas

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-02-01T21:23:32+00:00

Thomson Reuters announced it is hiring a senior US diplomat to strengthen the company’s government affairs in the Americas. Ambassador Paula Dobriansky, a former under secretary of state, joins the markets division as senior vice president and head of government affairs for the Americas. "With more than three decades in key government and diplomatic roles, Paula will leverage her experience, expertise and influence to ensure Thomson Reuters has a stronger Washington presence and a seat at the table on important discussions that affect our financial and media businesses," said Nancy Gardner, executive vice president and general counsel, Thomson Reuters markets. Dobriansky will be responsible for designing and implementing Thomson Reuters markets strategy in Washington and other key Americas capitals. She joins a global government affairs team across both the markets and professional businesses which identify risks and opportunities presented by potential regulation and maintain strategic lines of communication with government bodies. Before joining Thomson Reuters Dobriansky was under secretary of state for democracy and global affairs from 2001 to 2009, and received the secretary of state's highest honour, the distinguished service medal, for her work. ● SOURCE Marketwire

Reuters closes last office in Fleet Street area

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-27T08:28:50+00:00

Reuters has closed its last office in the Fleet Street area – London Bureau has moved a mile east, closer to the main UK office at Canary Wharf. The new address, Aldgate House, 33 Aldgate High Street, is adjacent to Aldgate Tube station. It was officially opened by Lord Sebastian Coe, former Olympic champion middle distance runner now chairman of the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games. The bureau was previously in Kildare House on Dorset Rise off Fleet Street. Reuters sold its long-time headquarters at 85 Fleet Street and moved to Canary Wharf in London’s Docklands in 2005.

Tom Glocer says he's seen 'marked uptick' in sales, TR well placed for acquisitions

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-27T08:39:03+00:00

Tom Glocer said on Wednesday Thomson Reuters saw a marked uptick in sales as it progressed through the end of 2009. The CEO told Reuters Insider television that because of the company's subscription model it would take time for the weakness earlier in the year to work through the system but that it was now well placed. Thomson Reuters was in a strong position to make acquisitions and to invest in its businesses and had opportunistically refinanced debt over the summer, he said. There was "a tonne" of good businesses coming onto the market. Glocer is attending the World Economic Forum in Davos. He said that at the WEF a year ago it was "near professional suicide" when he had expressed some optimism but now in the technology world in particular, businesses were cautiously beginning to invest. ● SOURCE Reuters ● Tom Glocer | VIDEO

Citigroup raises Thomson Reuters to buy

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-25T22:46:21+00:00

Citigroup raised Thomson Reuters to buy from hold. Among 27 analysts following Thomson Reuters, three now rate the stock a buy, seven outperform, 11 hold, three sell and three have no opinion. TRI.N closed at $32.37, 1.98 per cent higher, TRI.TO at C$34.22, up 1.85 per cent. The upgrade coincided with the launch of a new service aimed at high-frequency traders in London and Chicago. Thomson Reuters NewsScope Direct will provide the fastest access to market-moving machine readable news content. The company said its microsecond delivery enables clients to buy and sell financial instruments before the information moves the market. ● SOURCE Citigroup

How to make money out of the Internet, by Hugo Dixon

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-25T14:47:28+00:00

Hugo Dixon, who made more than £3 million out of the sale of his Breakingviews financial commentary website to Thomson Reuters, has some tips for those who want to make money from the Internet. Thomson Reuters paid £12 million for the business, with £3 million of that sum covering Dixon's shares and options. A further retention bonus keeps him in place for another three years. "You have got to have distinctive, value-added content and in an era of budget cuts that gets harder and harder," he said in an interview. "The temptation if you've got to cut costs by five per cent is just to salami slice and everyone works a bit harder and quality just deteriorates a little bit more. What you end up with when you finally decide to put it behind a paywall is something that's not good enough to persuade people to pay for." Dixon, now global editor of the re-branded Reuters Breakingviews, says media groups have got to focus much more clearly on what is their unique selling point – "keep the investment there, possibly increase the investment there, and everything else, which may be necessary as part of a package, because a newspaper is a package, they don't have to produce themselves, they can buy that in," he told The Guardian. He says Rupert Murdoch should never be underestimated but he will have a tough time succeeding with a paywall for his newspaper sites in the UK given the free alternatives. Prior to founding Breakingviews in 1999 Dixon was a correspondent, leader writer and an editor at the Financial Times. At 46 he is "a trim figure with an air of donnish abstraction about him, and a cerebral manner” The Guardian says, and “looks slightly out of place in the corridors of Reuters' glitzy Canary Wharf HQ. He and his US editor, Rob Cox, are the only survivors of Breakingviews' early days as a dotcom startup. With the bet finally paying off, Dixon can afford to dispense advice. But he is not, on the surface, given to self-doubt and former colleagues say he was not always emollient with those without such a high IQ. "One former ally less pleased by the deal was Jonathan Ford, Breakingviews' co-founder and another ex-FT staffer. Having left the site in 2007 after the two men fell out, he was signed up the following year to run Reuters' fledgling commentary operation, a rival to Breakingviews. Reuters' decision to buy Dixon's business effectively put Ford out of a job, and unsurprisingly he left." Ford returned the FT last week chief leader writer. The Reuters deal has allowed Breakingviews to beef up its offices in London and New York, add a second columnist in Hong Kong and Washington and another in Moscow and to seek columnists for Dubai, Mumbai, Tokyo and Frankfurt. It also has people in Paris and Madrid and syndicates columns to 15 newspapers including The Daily Telegraph, The New York Times and Le Monde. The 30-strong team of Reuters Breakviews columnists includes Neil Collins, former City editor of The Daily Telegraph and Peter Thal Larsen, former banking editor of the FT. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Thomson Reuters audits global food operations, says New York now safe

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-20T13:17:38+00:00

Thomson Reuters is auditing food operations at its offices around the world following citations for hygiene violations at its global headquarters in New York. The cafeteria at 3 Times Square is now safe, according to an internal memo to employees from the internal communications team. The company is monitoring the situation, however. Media columnist Jeff Bercovici, who broke the original story last week, quoted the internal memo thus on the website Daily Finance: “You may have seen an article called ‘The Dirtiest, and Cleanest, Cafeterias in the Media Business’ that has been circulating on the Internet the past few days. Among its comments on various cafeterias, the article references a November 2009 NYC Health Department inspection of the 3 Times Square cafeteria which cited concerns related to equipment maintenance and food handling. Since that inspection, Aramark -- the company which operates the cafeteria -- has strengthened its processes focused on food handling and equipment. The cafeteria passed a subsequent inspection in December. Aramark has released a statement describing the actions it has taken (see below) and states full confidence in the safety and cleanliness of the food service operations at 3 Times Square.” The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene had cited failure to vermin-proof the facility at 3 Times Square, “potential contamination sources, and, Other General Violation”. It awarded the cafeteria 32 violation points, mostly concerning food temperature and operating conditions. The executive dining room at 3 Times Square was cited for eight violations. The internal memo added: “To further support ongoing compliance with standards, Thomson Reuters Facilities group is conducting a close review of Aramark's quarterly internal health inspection reports, annual Health Department inspections, the inventory and maintenance records of cafeteria equipment and the overall state of the cafeteria. We are also conducting audits of other food service operations serving our offices around the globe to ensure that our people have access to healthy food prepared according to strict standards.” The Aramark statement said: "The circumstances that led to this situation are not reflective of our high standards. We take these matters very seriously and immediately took corrective action to address the situation. "On November 11, the NYC Board of Health performed a routine inspection of the kitchen and found violations. "We immediately developed and implemented a plan to take corrective action, which included personnel changes, refreshed employee training, and a full implementation of our sanitation and food safety procedures. "On December 29, 2009, the NYC Board of Health returned to the kitchen and found the corrective action taken to be effective and the kitchen passed its reinspection. "Our senior leadership team continues to monitor this location closely to ensure that this remains a clean, safe, and high-quality dining establishment." ● SOURCE Daily Finance

Foundation launches free information service for Haiti quake disaster

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-17T14:39:28+00:00

Thomson Reuters Foundation launched a first of its kind, free disaster information service for the people of Haiti. The service allows survivors of Haiti's earthquake to receive critical information by text message directly to their mobile phones. To register, survivors subscribing to the Digicell network, largest in the Caribbean, text their location to the SMS shortcode 4636. By return, up to date, reliable, actionable information in French and Creole will be sent to them wherever they are in Haiti, helping them to reach shelter, aid and loved ones. The service will cost them nothing. The service also acts as a news and information gathering mechanism, whereby survivors can report information directly into the Foundation’s new Emergency Information Service team of specialist journalists. The EIS team will collate this information and it will by made available to agencies, emergency teams and local media. People outside Haiti and the quake zone can register their loved ones' mobile phone numbers on their behalf. The SMS shortcode is dependent on local telecommunications infrastructure; if the infrastructure fails, the local SMS service will not work. The EIS also aims to get critical information to survivors via local media, especially radio. The Foundation already has a team of expert humanitarian journalists in Haiti to collect and disseminate information. Foundation chief executive Monique Villa said: "In times of major natural catastrophes, information itself is aid, as crucial as shelter or blankets. All forms of communication in Haiti have been impaired and the EIS team will help fill the communication void providing reliable, actionable information to the disaster affected population.” The Emergency Information Service is a first service of its kind, launched by the Thomson Reuters Foundation in December 2009. The EIS will be deployed when major natural disasters strike communities around the world, leaving them with no reliable communication infrastructure. EIS Action-Units will be deployed within hours of a disaster and upon arrival in the disaster zone will seek out, collate and disseminate life-saving information to disaster-hit populations. ● AlertNet ● Thomson Reuters Foundation

News chief in Trust Principles pledge to staff after ‘minor uprising’

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-15T22:52:12+00:00

Thomson Reuters news chief Devin Wenig, pictured, has assured staff he would never jeopardise the Trust Principles, following what was described as a “minor uprising” after editors killed a story. Employees would be proud to hear how one of their executives handled hedge fund billionaire Steven Cohen, the New York Post reported on Friday. “At least, that's how Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division, is telling it,” it said. As head of markets, Wenig leads the group’s global financial services and media businesses. If they could see a transcript of his call with the founder of SAC Capital Advisors in December, staffers would be pleased, Wenig told staff during a conference call on Wednesday, the Post said. “The comments come on the heels of a minor uprising at the news agency, after reporters discovered that editors killed a story looking into Cohen's trades after the hedge funder called Wenig to complain,” it said in a report under the headline “Reuters CEO defense killed Cohen story”. Reporters Matthew Goldstein and Svea Herbst-Bayliss have been looking into allegations that Cohen engaged in insider trading in the 1980s. After Cohen's complaint, Wenig called editor-in-chief David Schlesinger and the story was subsequently killed. Wenig assured staff he would never jeopardise the company’s 150-year history or the Trust Principles, under which Reuters acts at all times with integrity, independence and freedom from bias, the Post said. “Wenig also defended Schlesinger, saying he has 30 years of unblemished record under his belt. The CEO explained that he receives similar complaints at least once a week and always refers them to Schlesinger or the appropriate editor.” In a conference call a week earlier, staff questioned Schlesinger about the spiked story. US media blogs characterised the call as tense and said the editor-in-chief faced down a string of angry and confused journalists demanding to know precisely why their boss spiked it. The episode was said to have severely demoralised staff. Schlesinger denounced “false blog stories” accusing Reuters of caving in to a wealthy hedge fund manager and berated staff for “running to a blog and spreading[ing] tittle-tattle” instead of raising concerns internally. “Keep it within editorial, and don’t go running to a blog,” he was quoted as saying. A Schlesinger e-mail to staff that found its way to blogs referred to journalists’ concern over the reports and said: “…never doubt the commitment of this company and of me to our Trust principles and journalistic ethics”. ● SOURCE New York Post ● Reuters Trust Principles

Reuters cited for dirtiest media cafeteria in New York

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-14T23:44:17+00:00

Reuters has the dirtiest media cafeteria in New York, according to recent inspections by the city’s health department. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene cited failure to vermin-proof the facility at 3 Times Square, “potential contamination sources, and, Other General Violation”. It awarded the cafeteria 32 violation points, mostly concerning food temperature and operating conditions. A score of 27 or less is needed for a restaurant to pass the inspection. The average violation point total for all New York City restaurants on their most recent inspection is 14. The health department said “the Notice of Violation issued for this inspection was resolved by a hearing, or a pleading of guilt and a fine payment, or a default judgement”. The executive dining room at 3 Times Square – Thomson Reuters’ global headquarters – was cited for eight violations noticed on 30 November. New York Magazine, under the headline “Never Accept an Invitation to Lunch at the Reuters Cafeteria”, said that after The New York Times shut down its cafeteria because of a gastro-intestinal outbreak last year, the website Daily Finance looked at the rest of the media cafeterias in the city. The cleanest media cafeterias belong to Google, which earned five points from inspectors, “while ever punctilious Bloomberg managed a sterling four points – surely a relief to employees there, who are strongly encouraged never to leave the building”, media columnist Jeff Bercovici wrote on Daily Finance. ● SOURCE New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene | Daily Finance | New York Magazine | The New York Observer

Obituary: Christian Wiessner

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-12T21:01:01+00:00

Christian Wiessner, a stalwart of the commodities and energy file in New York, died on Tuesday of cardiac arrest a day after being admitted to hospital with pneumonia. He had just celebrated his 46th birthday. Wiessner’s partner Ellen Wulfhorst, a general news journalist in New York, was with him. Wiessner joined Reuters in January 1990, initially covering the coffee market. Colleagues described him as a talented editor who brought considerable expertise and a deft touch as a writer to everything he produced. He did so with an unfailingly good humour, a brusque charm and a diplomat’s ability to broker the best edit from every story. A passionate musician, Wiessner brought life and light to the newsroom. He is survived by his wife Kelly and children Kati, 17, and son James, who turns 16 this month. Photo: Christian Wiessner with partner Ellen Wulfhorst ● SOURCE Reuters

Brouhaha in the blogosphere over spiked story

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-08T21:28:12+00:00

Editorial staff have questioned editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, pictured, over a story that was spiked after a hedge fund manager complained to a top Thomson Reuters executive. The manager, Steven Cohen of SAC Capital Advisors, called Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division that includes Reuters news agency, last month to complain about a story by reporters Matthew Goldstein and Svea Herbst-Bayliss who had been looking into allegations that Cohen engaged in insider trading in the 1980s. The brouhaha has quickly been taken up in the blogosphere. “Wenig passed Cohen's concerns onto Schlesinger, who put the kibosh on the story, raising question about what, precisely, the point of Reuters is if rich people can quash inconvenient stories with a phone call,” Manhattan media blog Gawker said. Schlesinger said in a conference call with staff on Wednesday it was not a bad story and could have run. The call was tense, according to Gawker, which obtained a recording of it. Schlesinger faced down a string of angry and confused Reuters journalists demanding to know precisely why their boss spiked the story, it said. During the conference call Schlesinger also fielded questions about contract negotiations with the Newspaper Guild of New York and the controversial redesign of the reuters.com website. “To judge by the conference call, the Cohen episode has severely demoralized the wire service's staff, which was already preoccupied by bitter contract negotiations between its union members and management,” said another blog, Talking Biz News. “Schlesinger acknowledged that Wenig had called him about the Cohen story, and that after reading it at Wenig's request, he told his deputy Jack Reerink that he had problems with it. But he denounced the ‘false blog stories’ accusing Reuters of caving to a wealthy hedge fund manager and insisted that his concerns had nothing to so with Cohen's complaint. And he lambasted his staffers for ‘running to a blog and spreading[ing] tittle-tattle’ … instead of raising concerns internally. “Editors make judgments. You might not always agree with those judgments, and that’s fine,” Schlesinger said in the call. “If you disagree with those judgments, then come to me. Keep it within editorial, and don’t go running to a blog.” At one point near the end of the call the editor-in-chief interrupted one staff member who said that his editorial judgment was on trial. ”My judgment is not on trial here,” he said, apologizing for losing his temper. “It was a question of judgment, and that judgment is not up for a vote or trial.” Gawker reported: “When Reuters media reporter Robert MacMillan asked his boss what actually happened, and what was wrong with the story, Schlesinger immediately became testy, and bizarrely seemed to say that there wasn't anything wrong with it: ‘We're not going to do news editing by plebiscite...so I'm not going to go into the details of it. The story could have run. I mean, it was not a bad story. It could have run. But I had questions about it.’ Schlesinger said that the decision to kill it wasn't actually his — he raised his questions with Reerink, who made the ultimate decision: ‘I was actually in Tokyo. I said, look, it's up to you, I'm going to bed. He made a decision not to run it. That's it.’” Schlesinger declined to explain his decision beyond saying “You obviously have a choice — you can either believe me or not. And if you don't believe me, fine. But I'm telling you that I was hired as an editor to make judgments. And I make those judgments free of pressure.” Talking Biz News said Reerink, global company news editor, wrote a note to staff on Friday in which he mocked the blogs and said: “In the real world, we live by the trust principles. In the real world, we kick back stories for more reporting, balance or insight. In the real world, we don’t run every story just because we wrote it. “Are we going to be right all the time? No. But we’ll try very hard. And we’ll learn from our mistakes. (and this was not a mistake, by the way).” Talking Biz News published what it said was an e-mail sent by Schlesinger. It said: “There’s been blog chatter in the US this week that I spiked a story because Devin told me to after he got a call from the story’s putative subject. I know many of our journalists have been concerned by the reports and even wondered if they were true. “Don’t believe them. “We make decisions on stories for editorial and journalistic reasons only. “Those decisions, by their nature, are judgement calls and you of course are always free to question the judgement or debate the issues. But never doubt the commitment of this company and of me to our Trust principles and journalistic ethics. “In my three years as Editor-in-Chief (and in the three years before that when I was running editorial operations), neither Tom [Glocer, chief executive] nor Devin has ever asked me to kill a story or to run a story. I would have objected loudly if they had.” ● SOURCE Gawker | Talking Biz News | The Business Insider

Bank of America initiates TRI coverage, sees $39

editor@thebaron.info — 2010-01-06T20:38:08+00:00

Bank of America initiated analyst coverage on Thomson Reuters with a Buy rating and set a price target of $39. In November, Barclays initiated coverage with an “equal weight” rating. TRI.N traded three per cent higher at $33.35 in New York on Wednesday. In Toronto the share was 2.5 per cent higher at C$34.47. ● SOURCE Street Insider

Avoidance of debt said key to success of Thomson Reuters deal

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-29T20:55:14+00:00

Thomson’s takeover of Reuters fared better than other media deals that have since turned sour because the Canadian group avoided taking on vast debts, says Geoffrey Beattie, the combined group’s deputy chairman. Beattie, who is also president of the Thomson family’s investment company Woodbridge – 55 per cent shareholder in Thomson Reuters – said that by using “super profits” from selling college textbooks arm Thomson Learning to private equity buyers, “we went in completely financially hedged”. Thomson worked on tax planning for the cash and stock deal for two years, Beattie told the Financial Times. Since then, “in the darkest days of last year”, Woodbridge has bought back C$500 million of stock at depressed valuations. Thomson Reuters has been one of media’s most resilient performers, and avoided the shocks delivered by peers such as Reed Elsevier, the FT said. Canada’s richest family shocked their industry by selling The Times and The Sunday Times to Rupert Murdoch in 1981, but after the crisis of the past two years the unsentimental decision to trade out of print media for better long-term opportunities looks like part of a pattern, the FT said. “Having pocketed $7.75bn, $2bn more than outsiders had expected, Thomson revealed a £7.9bn offer for Reuters, in the same month as Mr Murdoch’s News Corp doubled up on newspapers with a $5.6bn bid for Dow Jones. The deal transformed its Thomson Financial division into a market data leader on a par with Bloomberg and diversified a portfolio focused on professional information systems for lawyers, scientists and accountants.” Thomson Reuters has not been immune, however. The former Thomson Corp share price, which topped C$50 in early 2007, now stands below $34. Beattie describes the difference between the family’s fortunes and those of others as the difference between building and trading. Whether or not a controlling shareholder represents a family, “when you have big illiquid positions, you have to be much more focused on risk management and longer-term market cycles”. The typical institutional shareholder may hold a stock for less than six months, but families cannot trade in and out of their investments, he notes. The advantage is they avoid trading costs, think more carefully about the merits and proper risk-return ratio of their assets, and know that “from time to time there will be opportunities where the market gets ahead of itself”. “We know there are always bumps in the road but long-term investors win over short-term investors. It’s a kind of religion [with the family]”, adds Roger Martin, a Thomson Reuters director and dean of Toronto university’s Rotman management school. He notes that there is a difference between family investors such as Woodbridge, whose economic stake matches their voting control, and those who use super-voting rights to magnify their power over their groups. “There’s a nice moral authority point there. It’s not just a management that doesn’t own any shares in the company saying, ‘Don’t worry about the share price, we’re doing everything we can.’” ● SOURCE Financial Times

Tom Glocer upbeat at close of 'a particularly memorable year'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-22T23:30:13+00:00

Tom Glocer delivered an upbeat end-of-year message and said he feels renewed confidence in Thomson Reuters’ ability to build on its strong 2009 performance by continuing to invest in the key projects that will help restart growth and deliver long-term value to the company’s stakeholders. “This has been a year of unprecedented challenge and equally unprecedented achievement for Thomson Reuters,” the chief executive told the group’s 50,000 staff on Tuesday. “Over the past 15 months, the world came frighteningly close to economic collapse. But even though all signs in the global economy and in our business suggest the worst is behind us, nobody knows for sure what shape the economic recovery will take. “To cope with this economic uncertainty, we are building on our company's strong 2009 performance by continuing to invest in the key projects that will help us restart growth and deliver long-term value to our stakeholders. I feel renewed confidence in our ability to do this. I have just returned from visiting many of our offices and customers in China, the UAE, India and Japan, and at each stop I found new growth opportunities and met with employees whose talent and passion for the business convinced me that we will capture those opportunities. Even in areas where growth has slowed or stopped for the moment, we have opportunities to take share and the people who can make it happen. “I’ll have more to say on this as the new year begins. But now, as we reach the end of a particularly memorable year, I just want to take a moment to say thanks. Your dedication, hard work and skill drove great progress on our 2009 priorities.” Glocer listed these as ● “Integration – thanks to an amazing performance in Markets, we're running ahead of target and schedule on the Reuters integration program ● “Globalization – we've taken bold steps to expand our position in the world's fastest growing markets such as building out our Westlaw business internationally and expanding our Scientific markets ● “Whole greater than the sum of its parts – there have been many successes here including the growing impact of the Thomson Reuters brand, which entered the top 40 of the world's most valuable brands this year, and the development of best-in-class product platforms such as Cobalt, Utah and the Global Tax Workstation. “You accomplished all this in the face of the toughest economic conditions any of us have ever experienced. Year's end is also an appropriate time to reflect on all that you have done to benefit our communities. As I see it, being a world-class company isn't just about hitting our numbers, important though that is. It's also about the values we uphold and what we stand for in the wider world. On that front, I feel incredibly fortunate to work for this company.” ● SOURCE Reuters

World in transition to Asia's century says Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-22T15:38:21+00:00

The world is living through the transition from America's century to Asia's says Tom Glocer, but Thomson Reuters’ chief executive remains optimistic about the United States. "…it does feel to me as if we are living through the transition from America’s century (20th) to Asia’s century (21st). (Europe’s century was obviously the 19th),” he writes in his latest blog posting. “Despite all our challenges, I remain optimistic about the United States. Sure we need to begin living within our means and not treating the roofs over heads as a revolving credit facility, but the productive and innovative capacity of the country is still great and Asia’s rise need not be a zero sum game. Nonetheless, America’s reign as the world’s only superpower will have been short-lived." He added: “Don’t count out the Gulf. While Dubai’s current problems are well known, it would be wrong to conclude that Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Bahrain are all one large palm-shaped sand bar stretching into the sea. Anyone for the 22nd being Africa’s century with the Gulf its major trading hub?" In India, Glocer told an interviewer that Thomson Reuters is moving more international jobs to India and other Asian nations as the developed world is still emerging from the worst recession after the credit crisis. Glocer wrote his blog on the long way home to New York from a 12-day end-of-year trip to Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. "While Asia and the Gulf are regular destinations for me, I seldom try to cover this much ground in such little time,” he noted. “Fun for the aging body it is not." ● Tom Glocer’s blog

Thomson Reuters limits 2010 price increases

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-18T18:52:35+00:00

Thomson Reuters will increase the price of most of its data products by three per cent instead of 4.75 per cent in 2010, reflecting tighter budgets for market data, a senior company executive said. “An annual Thomson Reuters price adjustment is part of our standard operating procedure and is well understood and anticipated by our customers,” said Simon Lee, global head of commercial operations. Thomson Reuters raised its prices by 4.75 per cent in 2009. The former Thomson and Reuters groups separately hiked their prices by four per cent in 2008. The three per cent increase for 2010 will be imposed on all datafeeds related to market data, such as Reuters 3000Xtra, Thomson One Investment Management, Thomson One.com Investment Banking and Thomson ONE Wealth Management. Reuters Dealing, the foreign exchange trade platform, will not be increased because it was already “appropriately priced”, Lee said. The decision to minimise any price increases for datafeed products was communicated to customers in October and did not reflect any concerns about competition, Lee said. ● SOURCE Securities Industry News

Thomson Reuters Foundation launches humanitarian news lifeline

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-15T14:05:39+00:00

The Thomson Reuters Foundation launched its Emergency Information Service (EIS), a humanitarian news lifeline designed to help the survivors of major natural disasters. The free service will supply fast and practical information from all available sources, such as help in finding shelters, drinking water and missing relatives. “The aim is to provide accurate and actionable information to the affected population,” Monique Villa, chief executive of the Foundation, told a launch event at Thomson Reuters’ London office at Canary Wharf. An EIS team of journalists based in the disaster zone will collect information and disseminate it in local languages using all available communications, from SMS text messages and radio to “zero tech” methods such as posters, leaflets and megaphones. Tim Large, editor of Alertnet, the Foundation’s humanitarian news service, said the teams would comprise Alertnet and Reuters-trained reporters working with local media and NGOs. They would also cooperate with the Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, a major supporter of AlertNet since it was founded in 1997, as well as other NGOs. The inspiration for the EIS came from the 1994 Tsunami disaster, which killed 226,000 people and demonstrated on a massive scale the victims’ need for vital information. To mark the fifth anniversary, AlertNet and the Red Cross have teamed up to pay tribute to the survivors in a film called Surviving the Tsunami: Stories of Hope, which was shown at the launch event. Watch the trailer, right, or click on the link below to see the whole film. ● Emergency Information Service ● AlertNet ● Reporter’s Notebook by Dean Yates ● Surviving the Tsunami | VIDEO

Thomson Reuters seeks more office space in London’s Docklands

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-14T18:44:16+00:00

Four years after Reuters moved to London’s Docklands, Thomson Reuters is searching for more office space at Canary Wharf. The company is consolidating from its City of London buildings occupied by the former Thomson group into space closer to the 283,000 square feet building at 30 South Colonnade to which Reuters transferred in 2005 after selling its landmark headquarters at 85 Fleet Street. The website Need Office Space said likely properties for the relocation include 5 Churchill Place, which was sold last week for £208 million, and 328,000 square feet at 30 North Colonnade. The Thomson arm of the group occupies almost 200,000 square feet in the City, including 56,000 square feet at Aldgate House, 50,000 square feet at 1 Mark Square, 46,000 square feet at 71-80 Hatton Garden and 42,000 square feet at 58-64 City Road. ● SOURCE Need Office Space

Thomson Reuters moving more international jobs to Asia - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-13T11:50:43+00:00

Thomson Reuters is moving more jobs to India and other Asian nations as the developed world is still emerging from the worst recession after the credit crisis, says Tom Glocer. "We are moving more international jobs to the region," the chief executive said. "HSBC and Standard Chartered have done much better than the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds, in part, because of their presence in the Asian markets and developing markets," he said in an interview. "We have more people in India than in any other country, except the US," Glocer told The Economic Times of India. "Legal business is building up and we have an important role to play with partners in the development of the Indian judicial system," he said. The head of Thomson Reuters' investment advisory and wealth management business, Eric Frank, is relocating to Hong Kong from New York to run the wealth management business from Asia because "the opportunities are so significant" Glocer said. "It is a good period for stronger institutions," Glocer said. "That doesn't mean that any of them are going to go on a spending spree. But it does overall help, if the financial system improves." Glocer said the global economic recovery would be uneven. He pointed to the theory of Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of advertising agency WPP, who believes recovery in Europe will be L-shaped, in the U.S. it will be U-shaped – low and slow – while in countries such as China and India it will be V-shaped, which means rapid recovery. "I don't want to pretend that all are bouncing back," Glocer added. "I also think that the darkest hour before the dawn is not the right time to predict the colours of the next 48 hours.” ● SOURCE Trading Markets / The Economic Times

World trade chief appointed a Thomson Reuters trustee

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-07T20:11:20+00:00

Thomson Reuters Founders Share Company announced on Monday that it had appointed Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, to its board of directors. Founders Share Company directors act as trustees of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles which govern the way Thomson Reuters Corporation conducts business. Lamy, 62, began his career in the French civil service at the Inspection Générale des Finances and at the Treasury. He then became an advisor to the Finance Minister Jacques Delors, and, subsequently, to Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy. In Brussels between 1985 and 1994, he was chief of staff to the president of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, and later CEO of the restructured French bank Credit Lyonnais. He was also commissioner for trade at the European Commission under Romano Prodi and since September 2005 he has been director general at the WTO. Pehr Gyllenhammar, chairman of the Founders Share Company, said, "I am delighted to welcome Mr Lamy to the Founders Share Company. I first worked with Mr Lamy when he was Chief of Staff to the President of the European Union, Mr Jacques Delors, and later when he was Commissioner for Trade at the European Commission and I am very much looking forward to working with him again. Mr Lamy will bring a wealth of invaluable global experience to our distinguished Board." Lamy said, "I look forward to working with the members of the Board to help uphold the values of integrity, independence and freedom from bias contained within Thomson Reuters Trust Principles." The constitution of Thomson Reuters Corporation, ultimate parent company of the Thomson Reuters Group, includes provisions to safeguard the Principles. Thomson Reuters has issued the Founders Share Company with a single Founders Share which enables it to block any shareholder action which threatens the Principles. ● SOURCE PR Newswire

Reuters website unveils bold new look to mixed reception

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-04T20:43:20+00:00

Reuters unveiled a bold new design for its main online presence on Friday – and drew a loud raspberry from many visitors. For Reuters.com, the future is now, said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. “We want this to be the world’s best website covering business and finance news, analysis, and opinion. Full stop.” In addition to a bolder logo – a red background replaces the washed-out grey look - the new website presents a less-cluttered home page and a slimmed-down toolbar offering a choice of News & Markets, Sectors & Industry and Analysis & Opinion, with a long list of topic sections under each. The site looks leaner, cleaner, brighter and more inviting. “This site is for you; we want it to be your ticket to a wealth of news, information, and analysis presented in a cutting-edge format, including text, video, pictures, graphics, user interaction, and personalization features (try the new toolbar at the bottom of every page),” Schlesinger said. But many respondents to Schlesinger’s message damned the facelift and some said they would be looking elsewhere for their news. Schlesinger responded: “Wow - it’s great to read the passion of some of these comments, even when they hate what we’re doing! I feel really gratified that people take Reuters so seriously and are moved to write when we make changes. “To those who love the new site – thanks, and we promise to continue to make it better and easier to use. And from the editorial side, we promise to continue to improve the multimedia content to make this a compelling experience. “To those who hate the new site – thanks to you, too. I understand that your views are motivated by your loyalty to the old design and for how it served you. I can simply promise you that we’ll work to make this new design live up to its potential. I would urge you to experience with what we’ve got – I personally find the pop out market displays and the pop down menus, all filled with information, to be pretty exciting and useful.” Alisa Bowen, Thomson Reuters’ head of consumer publishing, said: “We’ve only been in consumer publishing for the past six years, and the old version of the site reflected that. The new site reflects all the assets that were brought together with Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters in the spring of ‘08. We regard this as more than just a facelift.” Redesigned websites in the UK, India, Japan and China as well as 13 additional local language markets will follow next year. ● SOURCE Reuters | David Schlesinger

Thomson Reuters hires former BusinessWeek editor-in-chief

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-02T14:47:58+00:00

Former BusinessWeek editor-in-chief Stephen Adler will join Thomson Reuters as editorial director of the professional division, the company said on Wednesday. Adler, who left BusinessWeek after McGraw-Hill said it would sell the struggling magazine to Bloomberg, will design and edit news and editorial content for the Thomson Reuters division that serves legal, healthcare, science, tax and accounting professionals. He will report to Jim Smith, who runs the professional division, and will work with David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, who said Adler's background "is perfect for helping us create news packages that are relevant to the customers (that) the businesses within Professional serve”. Adler became BusinessWeek's editor-in-chief in 2005. Previously he worked for 16 years at The Wall Street Journal, including posts as legal editor, investigative editor and deputy managing editor, and edited The American Lawyer magazine. "This is an incredible opportunity with a company that's leading the way into the future of business information and media," Adler said. "I have long respected the market-leading Professional businesses and world-class Reuters news team and look forward to working with both." Adler is among the highest-profile departures from BusinessWeek, which shed many journalists and columnists after Bloomberg said it would buy the magazine. Bloomberg completed its purchase on Tuesday. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters completes acquisition of Breakingviews

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-12-01T19:13:41+00:00

Thomson Reuters said on Tuesday it had completed its acquisition of Breakingviews, a leading provider of online financial insight, positioning the newly combined commentary organisation as the global leader in point-of-view journalism for financial markets. The output of the combined team of Reuters’ original commentary writers and the Breakingviews people will be known as Reuters Breakingviews to make a clear distinction between the news service and commentary offerings. "A fundamental plank of our Editorial strategy for making Reuters the indispensable news service for the 21st century is to expand our traditional fact-based news coverage to also offer agenda-setting point-of-view journalism. I am confident we will build upon reputation and expertise from both Reuters and Breakingviews and leverage the expertise of the combined organization," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. The Reuters Breakingviews attribution will designate the commentary and opinion of the named authors, while Reuters will designate the expert sourced news and analysis that has moved markets and provided insight for more than 150 years. Reuters Breakingviews has about 30 columnists based in London, New York, Hong Kong, Paris, Washington, Moscow and Madrid, with immediate plans for expanded coverage in the Gulf, Japan, Germany and India. The newly combined service is available on all Thomson Reuters desktops with selected commentaries appearing on reuters.com. Reuters Breakingviews also reaches a broader audience of nearly 4.5 million investors and opinion formers via daily columns in many of the world's most influential newspapers, including The New York Times, Le Monde, The Daily Telegraph and the International Herald Tribune. Hugo Dixon, editor, Reuters Breakingviews, who will be running the combined commentary team, said: "The enlarged team will have global reach, allowing us to react more rapidly to breaking news and cover more stories. We will also now be able to reach hundreds of thousands more influential readers through Thomson Reuters desktops." Breakingviews was founded in 1999 to provide online financial commentary aimed at a professional audience. It is one of a handful of journalism websites to have successfully introduced a subscription model. The company also has a thriving syndication business. ● SOURCE Marketwire

TR Foundation marks World AIDS Day with courses in Nairobi and Beijing

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-30T16:05:55+00:00

To mark World AIDS Day on 1 December, the Thomson Reuters Foundation has run HIV/AIDS Reporting courses in Nairobi and Beijing for journalists from around the world. A workshop for journalists in Beijing during the week leading up to World AIDS Day drew 15 reporters from Chinese print, agency and broadcasting organisations who learnt about the impact of HIV on the lives of those affected. They heard expert speakers and visited a hospital specialising in treating HIV/AIDS. Earlier in November the Foundation held a similar HIV/AIDS workshop in Nairobi, where 16 journalists from Brazil, China, Russia, India and Nepal, as well as from a number of African countries, took part. The Foundation held its first HIV/AIDS workshop for journalists in 2003 and has since provided several such courses each year, as well as seminars to raise awareness. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters Foundation

Mark Wood to head health and fitness TV station

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-29T14:27:28+00:00

Mark Wood, former Reuters editor-in-chief, is to become chairman of a pan-European satellite TV station dedicated to health and fitness, The Sunday Times reported. Wood, editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2000, moves to Body in Balance, which began in 2006 as Alfra, a German television company. Alfra merged with its main programme supplier, Fiton TV, in 2007 to former Body in Balance. Its programmes focus on disciplines including pilates and yoga. Wood joined Reuters in 1976 and was a correspondent in Vienna, East Berlin, Moscow and Bonn. In 2000 he took charge of Reuters’ strategic media investments and alliances. After Reuters he was chief executive of Independent Television News from 2003 and also its chairman from 1998. He left ITN earlier this year. ● SOURCE The Sunday Times

The bottom line: secret story of Thomson Reuters logo

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-20T11:44:43+00:00

Ever wondered about the origin of the five swirling rings of orange dots on the Thomson Reuters logo? A disaffected member of Thomson Reuters’ design team has sent an image purporting to explain its inspiration to a blog called Post Secret. In short order the designer's parting shot then appeared on Finextra, a newswire and information source for the worldwide financial technology community, which credited Felix Salmon, a blogger on Reuters' commentary team, for forwarding it. The image as it appears on the two websites is pictured right. Earlier this month Thomson Reuters won a World Brand Congress award for brand leadership in information technology. It was also ranked 40th in the Top 100 Global Brands listed by BusinessWeek. ● SOURCE Post Secret | Finextra

Reuters again suspends Australian cricket coverage over media rights

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-20T09:08:58+00:00

Reuters has suspended coverage of Cricket Australia matches and events for a second season because of a long-running dispute over media rights and freedom of the press. Reuters said on Friday it was unable to provide text, pictures or audio-visual coverage of the 2009/10 international season against West Indies and Pakistan after Cricket Australia refused to change its conditions of accreditation. It said it could not agree to terms which impinge on its ability to fairly and freely report on, and disseminate, news. "We are very disappointed that, yet again, Cricket Australia is not prepared to facilitate full and impartial news coverage of their upcoming season," said Christoph Pleitgen, Thomson Reuters’ Global Head of News Agency. "We remain prepared to enter into discussions and negotiations to secure acceptable accreditation terms for our journalists and we sincerely hope that we will be able to bring news of cricket from Australia to viewers and readers all over the world but, at present, we are unable to accept the limitations that Cricket Australia is imposing." Reuters advised clients that it "holds firmly to the belief that there can be no better promotion for any sport than the availability of timely, unbiased information to as many newspapers, websites, broadcasters and magazines as possible" and that it would welcome any move by Cricket Australia to review its decision. Along with The Associated Press and Agence France-Presse, Reuters suspended coverage of Cricket Australia events last season over the same dispute, prompting the Australian government to conduct an inquiry to find a balance between the commercial interests of sporting bodies and the rights of media to get fair access to those events. The inquiry committee agreed that sporting organisations had a right to protect their copyright and explore business opportunities but not at the expense of media freedom. It agreed with media organisations that sporting events were of genuine public interest and urged the sporting bodies to stop using accreditation conditions to control access to events. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson family, Canada's richest, increases wealth despite recession

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-19T19:31:02+00:00

The Thomson family, majority owner of Thomson Reuters, increased its wealth by 19 per cent to nearly C$22 billion during the year to late September, a survey of Canada’s richest people showed on Thursday. The Thomsons topped the list compiled by Canadian Business. “In compiling our 11th annual Rich 100 list, we were surprised to discover that at the tail-end of the recession the majority of Canada's richest had not just stopped bleeding money - they were making it again. A lot of it,” the magazine said. From April to September, the Toronto Stock Exchange composite index rose by nearly 45 per cent – a rise further bolstered by the strength of the Canadian dollar. That translated into a C$7.6 billion rise in the net worth of Canada’s 100 richest people. Almost half of that gain – just over C$3.5 billion – went to Canada’s richest family by far, the Thomsons headed by the 3rd Baron Thomson of Fleet, pictured. “The family of the late Kenneth Thomson was worth roughly $21.99 billion as of late September, when we finalized our calculations for this year," Canadian Business said. "That’s an impressive 19% jump from last year, when the sagging fortunes of the media industry had hammered the value of the family’s central asset: more than 455 million shares in Thomson Reuters Corp. But that really fails to capture the awe-inspiring windfall that the rebound bestowed upon Canada’s richest clan. Consider this: that $3.5-billion gain from 2008 to 2009 translates into $10.9 million per day, $452,500 per hour, $7,540 per minute and $126 per second. But even at that, the Thomsons are still well below their record high of $25.35 billion, reached in 2007.” Thomson Reuters shares have fallen by C$1.99 in the past couple of months, carving C$907 million off the family fortune, the magazine said. “But the Thomsons won’t need to worry about selling assets to pay the bills any time soon. It’s been three years since Ken, the kindly family patriarch who was frequently seen walking his dog around Toronto’s posh Rosedale neighbourhood, passed away. His son, David, is now head of the family’s collection of businesses, and serves as chairman of Thomson Reuters. “Like his father, David shuns the spotlight and rarely speaks publicly. That’s also true of the other siblings, Peter - who is also active in the family businesses and sits on the board of Thomson Reuters - and sister Taylor, who has worked as an actress and producer, but plays little role in the family business.” ● SOURCE Canadian Business

reuters.com editor quits for new digital media project

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-18T23:47:33+00:00

One year after Reuters closed its ill-starred venture in the make-believe Internet world of Second Life, the journalist who ran it is leaving to become managing editor of a new digital project. Adam Pasick, pictured, editor of reuters.com, masqueraded in the form of a digital avatar called Adam Reuters in the imaginary environment of Sadville in Second Life. A second Reuters journalist in the two-man virtual bureau, Eric Krangel, was called Eric Reuters. The opening of the virtual bureau in cyberspace was described as part of Reuters’ strategy of embracing new digital platforms to deliver next generation news and information. Pasick's new job is with an Atlantic Media project said to target global business executives and due to be launched in early 2010. ● SOURCE Fishbowl NY

Thomson Reuters Foundation appoints new chairman

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-18T18:31:56+00:00

David Binet, executive vice president of the Thomson family’s investment vehicle Woodbridge, has been appointed chairman of Thomson Reuters Foundation. He takes over immediately. The appointment was made by the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. Binet is a trustee. Woodbridge is the majority shareholder in Thomson Reuters. Binet succeeds Dick Harrington, former chief executive officer of The Thomson Corporation, who has been chairman of the Foundation since Thomson completed its takeover of Reuters in April 2008. “David’s experience as a trustee, and his deep background in journalism, law and business make him uniquely qualified to lead the Foundation,” said Tom Glocer, chief executive officer of Thomson Reuters. “Under David’s guidance, the Foundation can expand the impact and influence of its good work around the world.” He added: “I want to thank Dick Harrington for his many contributions as chairman, seeing the organization through the integration and putting in place the cornerstones on which the new Foundation will be built.” Binet is a former reporter and editor with The Canadian Press. Prior to joining Woodbridge in 1999 he was a partner in the Canadian law firm Torys. He is also a member of the board of directors of CTVglobemedia, which owns Canada's largest television network, CTV, a number of specialty channels and 34 radio stations, as well as The Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper. “The Foundation has enormous potential to grow beyond its current scope and truly represent the breadth and depth of Thomson Reuters globally,” Binet said. “I am committed to unlocking that potential, building on the important initiatives under way and exploring new ways in which the Foundation can make a difference in the world.” Monique Villa, chief executive officer of the Foundation, said: “I am delighted that David has agreed to chair the Board of Trustees of the Foundation. David has been actively involved in helping us strengthen and expand a world-class corporate foundation. His appointment comes at a time when we are preparing to launch two important programs -- to give broader access to the rule of law and to help affected populations when disaster strikes. His leadership, and his experience as a journalist and a lawyer, will be invaluable in this next exciting phase of the Thomson Reuters Foundation." ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters Foundation

Martin Nesirky appointed UN secretary-general's spokesman

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-18T17:10:09+00:00

Martin Nesirky, pictured, former London World Desk editor, bureau chief and correspondent, is to be United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon's official spokesman. Nesirky, who served with Reuters in Moscow, Berlin, The Hague and Seoul, is currently with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe in Vienna where he has been spokesman and head of press and public information since 2006. At Reuters Nesirky covered a number of issues affecting international peace and security, including the fall of the Berlin Wall, events in the Balkans and nuclear non-proliferation issues. In Moscow he was responsible for coverage of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and as a senior editor in London handling global political news stories, including the Middle East and Africa. At the UN he succeeds Michele Montas of Haiti who is retiring on 30 November, the world body said in a statement on Tuesday. A stern test confronts Nesirky, his former colleague Patrick Worsnip, now Reuters bureau chief at the UN, wrote in a blog posting. “After a high-flying career at Reuters that saw him fill senior editorial positions in London, Berlin, Moscow and Seoul, Nesirky has had some time to acclimatize to his new role by working for more than three years as spokesman for the 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), based in Vienna. But the move to New York brings much more formidable challenges. “Like any UN spokesperson, Nesirky, a Briton, will have to take into account the concerns of the 192 nations that belong to the world body. That’s 192 different governments that can get upset by something he might say. But his chief problem may be his boss Ban, whose public image, to put it mildly, could take a little burnishing. Aside from his awkward use of English, which has television producers tearing their hair, Ban has had a rough ride from hostile media that have accused him of failing to use his position to end the world’s conflicts and right its wrongs… “Then there is the sprawling and ill-defined nature of the U.N. press and public relations operation, with different officials and factions competing for the secretary-general’s attention and waiting to pounce on any mis-step by one of the others.” In trying to stay close to the South Korean secretary-general, Nesirky could benefit from his knowledge of the Korean language from his time in Seoul. He is also married to a South Korean, Worsnip wrote. But these advantages too could be a double-edged sword. U.N. diplomats have long complained that Ban is happiest in a Korean comfort zone and relies too much on a compatriot who serves as his deputy chief-of-staff, Kim Won-soo. “In the world of spokespeople, the UN post may look from the outside like a dream job. But insiders were not so envious," Worsnip wrote. "Nesirky joins the world body as Ban is getting ready to try to persuade the great powers who decide these things that he has done well enough in his first five-year term of office, which ends in December 2011, that he deserves a second one. Most analysts give him a good chance, saying he has done nothing to offend key players in Washington and Beijing. But if they are wrong, Nesirky’s job could turn out to be one of his shorter assignments.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters almost back to pre-Lehman bankruptcy levels - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-16T23:17:27+00:00

Thomson Reuters has been hurt by the demise of several Wall Steet firms but was able to pick up business from acquirers such as Barclays and Nomura and is almost back to pre-Lehman Brothers bankruptcy levels, Tom Glocer said on Monday. "We've gotten the business back much faster than I expected," the chief executive said on the sidelines of the WSJ CEO Council in New York. The financial business, however, continues to be slow. He pointed to health care, science and tax and accounting services as a growth area. Glocer said the United States should see a slow climb back to employment but some jobs aren't coming back because they have been eliminated, or sent overseas, or replaced by technology. Thomson Reuters has continued to selectively hire and continues to do so, he said. The company did not make any major job cuts and does not foresee any. Instead, he said it has slowed the pace of hiring to contain operating costs. ● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal / Dow Jones Newswires

Reuters announces new global FX analyst team

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-16T16:37:50+00:00

Reuters announced a new six-member global FX analyst team, part of an effort to deepen foreign exchange, macroeconomic and money market news and analysis coverage. In addition to serving as core contributors to Reuters' newly launched global treasury chatroom, The Dealing Room, they will make regular appearances on Thomson Reuters Insider's daily FX programmes and contribute market commentary to financial clients. "Their market intelligence on currency flows, trading strategies, discussion around who's up and who's down and chewing the news with the journalists on the front line is providing a lively, compelling and addictive mix," said Stella Dawson, global editor, treasury news. The team members are Neal Kimberley and Marco Garavello, based in London, Kevin Weir and Jim Cochrane, based in New York, Rick Lloyd, based in Singapore, and Krishna Kumar, based in Sydney. ● SOURCE CNN

Kurt Schork Awards winner misses ceremony due to late visa

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-13T10:11:17+00:00

The 2009 Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism were presented on Thursday at a ceremony at Thomson Reuters' London office but one winner did not receive a UK visa in time to attend. Karachi-based reporter Maqbool Ahmed was unable to receive the $5,000 prize for a local journalist in the developing world or a country in transition in person. It was in recognition of his article titled Inside Swat, published in The Herald, a Pakistani magazine, in November 2008. The $5,000 prize for a freelance journalist covering foreign news was awarded jointly to Manon Quérouil of France for Columbia - Occupation: Contract Killer published in Marie Claire in April 2009 and Nir Rosen of the United States for How We Lost the War We Won published in Rolling Stone in October 2008. The awards, administered by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, recognise fearless freelance news reporting and journalists who report from their own countries at great personal risk and sacrifice. They were presented by Kurt Schork's partner, Sabina Cosic of the Kurt Schork Memorial Fund. Schork, an American freelance journalist, was killed in a military ambush in Sierra Leone on 24 May 2000 while on assignment for Reuters. Photo: Manon Quérouil (left) and Nir Rosen ● Kurt Schork Memorial Fund ● Institute for War & Peace Reporting ● Sean Maguire ● Kurt Schork in the Reuters Memorial Book

EU anti-trust regulators probe RICs

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-10T14:34:10+00:00

European Union anti-trust regulators launched an investigation into Thomson Reuters' coding practice, saying the structure might discourage customers from moving to rival firms. The European Commission, which polices competition in the 27 EU countries, said the investigation was launched on its own initiative and that it did not imply it had proof of an infringement. The Commission said it would examine whether Thomson Reuters could prevent clients from mapping Reuters Instrument Codes (RICs) to alternative identification codes of other datafeed suppliers. "Without the possibility of such mapping, customers may potentially be 'locked'-in to working with Thomson Reuters because replacing RICs by reconfiguring or by rewriting their software applications can be a long and costly procedure," it said in a statement. RICs identify financial instruments including shares in companies, currencies, and futures contracts. They are used to retrieve information from Thomson Reuters' real-time datafeeds. Thomson Reuters confirmed it had received a questionnaire from the Commission on the use of RICs and that it was cooperating with the Commission. "Thomson Reuters provides its customers with consistent, dependable and convenient access to several million financial instruments from almost every electronic trading venue around the world," the company said in a statement. "Thomson Reuters data is reliably and consistently identified by a managed code, which we create and maintain to enable navigation of the company's global content." Jonathan Todd, a spokesman for the European Commission, told a news conference the commission's concern was that Thomson Reuters customers were unable to use alternative market datafeeds alongside the company's service. "There are three actual and potential competitors for Thomson Reuters in this area and none of them have this restriction," he said. ● SOURCE Reuters

Peter Millar's Berlin Wall book is the best read - Economist

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-06T17:06:28+00:00

Peter Millar’s book about the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is the best read of several volumes published to coincide with the 20th anniversary, The Economist said on Friday. “The best read is the irreverent and engaging account by Peter Millar, who writes for the Sunday Times among other papers,” the weekly wrote in a review of six books. “Fastidious readers who expect reporters to be a mere lens on events will be shocked at the amount of personal detail, including the sexual antics and drinking habits of his colleagues in what now seems a Juvenalian age of dissolute British journalism. He mentions his long-suffering wife and children rather too often, but the result is full of insights and on occasion delightfully funny. The author has a knack for befriending interesting people and tracking down important ones. He weaves their words with his clear-eyed reporting of events into a compelling narrative about the end of the cruel but bungling East German regime.” Peter Millar was a Reuters correspondent from 1977 to 1985. His book 1989: The Berlin Wall: My Part in its Downfall, is published by Arcadia. It is due to be published in the United States in April 2010. ● SOURCE The Economist ● Peter Millar's books ● Steve Somerville's review

No interest in buying print media says Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-06T17:43:43+00:00

Tom Glocer has dismissed speculation that Thomson Reuters might buy a newspaper or magazine. The question was put to the chief executive by correspondent Robert MacMillan, pictured, who covers Thomson Reuters as part of his media beat. “Covering Thomson Reuters Corp for almost two years has taught me that people like to cast my company in a recurring role in media deal parlor games,” he writes in a Reuters blog. “Now that the company’s arch-rival Bloomberg LP will buy BusinessWeek magazine from McGraw-Hill, lots of my pals in the media world are wondering: Will Thomson Reuters buy a mainstream news or business news magazine? Or newspaper? Why not Forbes? Why not the Financial Times? “Keep in mind that Thomson Reuters likes to remind people when they ask these questions that Thomson Corp, before buying Reuters, got out of its Canadian newspaper empire for a reason. “I asked our chief executive, Tom Glocer, a question along these lines on a Thursday phone call he had with reporters to discuss the company’s third-quarter financial results." Glocer's reply: “Thomson did a remarkable job, far earlier than any other company I know, of seeing what was coming and transitioning their business out of print for the most part… I don’t see any particular time or reason at this juncture why we should go the other way.” MacMillan returned to the theme when he interviewed Glocer later in the day and used the Financial Times as an example. He got a similarly dismissive response from the CEO. What about other properties, MacMillan enquired. "Is it impossible that somewhere in the world that we'd take a print property and move it electronic? No, but we're not looking to go out and buy consumer print publications. That’s not what we think our business is,” Glocer replied. Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, said Thomson Reuters was a company where “what we shy away from are advertising-based models. We charge for content, we charge for information and news”. What about reuters.com, an ad-supported site that runs Reuters news? Glocer said: “I would argue that the overwhelming amount of our news is behind the firewall in the sense that you only get it as part of a product that you pay for. It’s great that we have it. I’m very proud of reuters.com. I use it on weekends and evenings when I’m not in front of my bigger service, my subscription service.” ● SOURCE Reuters

UBS raises Thomson Reuters to ‘buy’

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-06T15:40:00+00:00

UBS upgraded Thomson Reuters to "buy" from "sell" and substantially lifted its price target on the stock, saying the company was well positioned for sustainable growth despite uncertainties in the near term. In its Q3 results on Thursday, Thomson Reuters reported quarterly revenue fell in its markets and legal businesses as customers cut costs in the wake of the financial crisis, but it said the worst was over. "We believe investors will see through the lagging financial results and focus on the recovery of the underlying business drivers," analyst Phillip Huang said in a note. He raised his price target on the stock to $37.50 from $23.50. Huang said he expected the underlying drivers for the business to notably improve over the next 12 months due to increasing visibility of stabilisation in the headcount for the financial and legal sectors. There were uncertainties in the near term, however, as he expected the company's financial results to remain volatile. "We have yet to see the full impact of the downturn reflected in the financial results for Markets and Legal given the late cycle nature of the subscription business," Huang said. Thomson Reuters shares are attractive despite these uncertainties because the rewards outweigh the risks. In New York on Friday, Thomson Reuters shares were slightly lower at $32.07. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters Q3 profit tumbles in 'challenging environment'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-05T13:25:26+00:00

Thomson Reuters' Q3 profit tumbled almost 60 per cent from the 2008 figure as sales in the legal and markets divisions slid, while underlying operating profit rose on currency benefits and integration-related cost cuts. The group earned $162 million, or 19 cents per share, in the three months ended 30 September – down from $404 million or 49 cents per share a year earlier. Underlying operating profit rose three per cent to $711 million in the third quarter, from $690 million a year ago. CEO Tom Glocer told investment analysts it was a challenging environment. "Despite difficult market conditions, our businesses delivered solid results in the third quarter," he said. "Our Tax & Accounting and Healthcare & Science businesses continued to perform very strongly, and sales of subscription products in our Markets and Legal units improved in Q3 over what we expect were their bottom in Q2. While the weak year-to-date net sales experienced in recent quarters are now flowing through into revenues, we expect this dip to be shallow and limited to the next few quarters. "Our ongoing focus on the Reuters integration and close cost management across the company has enabled us to continue to grow underlying operating profit. While we would welcome a quick return to revenue growth, we understand how to operate in challenging markets and we are confident that we are outperforming the competition," Glocer said. Adjusted earnings from continuing operations slipped to 43 cents per share from 47 cents a year ago, beating average analyst forecasts of 40 cents per share. Thomson Reuters said its revenue slipped four per cent to $3.22 billion, partly because of unfavourable foreign exchange rates. "While the weak year-to-date net sales experienced in recent quarters are now flowing through into revenues, we expect this dip to be shallow and limited to the next few quarters," Glocer said. Revenue from ongoing businesses, excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, fell two per cent to $3.21 billion. The average analyst forecast was $3.23 billion. In the markets division, revenue from the media operation including Reuters news agency fell by 14 per cent to $90 million amid consolidation among traditional media outlets such as newspapers. Overall corporate expenses tripled from a year earlier to $163 million in the third quarter, due in part to integration costs. Thomson Reuters re-affirmed its previous guidance: it expects revenue to grow this year and underlying operating profit margin and free cash flow to be comparable to 2008. ● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Post

Tom Glocer collects transatlantic business award

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-05T11:33:59+00:00

CEO Tom Glocer has been honoured in New York with a Transatlantic Business Award in recognition of his outstanding business leadership. The British Ambassador to the United States, Nigel Sheinwald, presented the award which is handed out each year by BritishAmerican Business. BABI is dedicated to helping companies connect and build their business on both sides of the Atlantic. Glocer is a member of its international advisory board. He told guests at a dinner at the Pierre Hotel on Tuesday 3 November: “Thomson Reuters spans the Atlantic and then the world. From time to time (especially in lean times) much is made of the rivalry between New York and London as great financial centers. However, it has always seemed to me that the qualities we share in common and the links that bind us are stronger than our differences”. The two cities provide “a most fertile ground for a professional information company like Thomson Reuters to thrive in”, he added. “I accept this award on behalf of all my colleagues at Thomson Reuters in the hope and belief that we shall remain intertwined in the success of London and New York for many years to come”. Deputy chairman Niall FitzGerald is a past recipient of the award. ● SOURCE Reuters | BABI

Thomson Reuters expands in Middle East and Africa

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-11-03T11:14:43+00:00

Thomson Reuters has unveiled its expanded regional headquarters in Dubai, the culmination of a year that saw it hire 104 new staff throughout the Middle East and Africa. The modern Dubai Media City offices overlooking the Gulf represent one of the few places that have managed to increase investment during the recession. “While most companies have been looking at their strategies and trying to understand what to do with staff, we believe that the Middle East and Africa is a region that is growing, and as such have more staff coming in,” said Basil Moftah, managing director for Middle East and Africa.  “We now have 135 people based in Dubai and 15 people based in Abu Dhabi, so this is quite a substantial operation. It’s considered one of our largest offices globally,” he told Abu Dhabi-based newspaper The National. The new hires, which bring total staff across the region to 520, were brought in to expand coverage of the region’s 22 stock exchanges and the 2,000 regional banks connected through Thomson Reuters’ trading systems, as well as deepen coverage in such areas as commodities, energy, equities and treasury. The company has appointed senior staff in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon with expertise in Islamic finance, investment and advisory, and equities. “Our biggest focus is obviously commodities and equities, given what’s happened in the market,” Moftah said. He declined to say how large Thomson Reuters’ investment in the Middle East and Africa expansion was, saying only that it was “definitely a double-digit, million dollar investment”. Moftah said regional sales dipped in the second quarter, but the performance of Q2 and Q3 more than made up for it. “There was quite a lull during Q2 as businesses were rethinking what they were doing,” he said. “But since then, there has been a real pick-up in the Middle East and Africa. We are looking at double-digit growth for the year.”  Joerg Floeck, head of sales and customer services for the markets division, said the company was looking to spend $1 billion a year on new technology, and was pursuing equally aggressive expansion in Latin America, Brazil, China and India. ● SOURCE The National

Top editor denies Reuters has abandoned accuracy for speed

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-28T12:50:20+00:00

Is Reuters now too speedy for its own good? Has it abandoned the principle that it is better to be accurate than first with the news? Not so, despite recent examples where it republished stories by other news organisations that proved to be inaccurate, says Sean Maguire, a seasoned correspondent who now directs coverage of political and world affairs and ensures it meets Reuters' high quality standards. But the news business has changed from the supposed golden age of authoritative journalism where sourcing was always rigorous and the pursuit of truth always relentless. And the nature of authority in the news business has also changed. “Last week I was told that Reuters has lost its ethical bearings,” says Maguire, editor, political and general news. “You’ve sacrificed the sacred tenet of accuracy by rushing to publish information without checking if it is true. Your credibility has suffered, the value of your brand will wither and the service you offer to clients has been devalued, I heard.” Writing in a Reuters Editors blog, Maguire concedes “It was a meaty accusation, especially as it came in the midst of a debate on ethics in journalism held at the London home of Thomson Reuters, the parent of the Reuters news organisation. The charge came from former Reuters journalists and a senior member of the trustees body that monitors Reuters compliance with its core ethical principles.” The accusations concerned two inaccurate reports by CNN and Sky News that Reuters picked up. “It is grating for any journalist to publish information that turns out to be incorrect,” says Maguire, who specialised in eastern Europe in the 1990s covering the fall of Yugoslavia and later conflict in the Middle East, particularly Iraq. “Even if we can say that the original error was made elsewhere some of the flak hits those who replicate the mistake. After all, those who republish a libel are as liable for it as its originator. “So why did we not check first and publish later? “The answer goes to the heart of how the news business has changed, how the notion of authoritativeness has altered and how Reuters journalists interpret the values they live by. “But first let's scotch one myth. Embarrassing publicity notwithstanding, it is relatively rare for Reuters to publish what turns out to be an erroneous report by another news organisation. Since we instituted our current policy on 'pick-ups,' as they are known in the trade, the level of 'echoed mistakes,' has neither grown nor fallen. “To provide a complete service to our customers our policy is to pick up stories of significance that are being carried by normally reliable media that are in a position to know what they are reporting.” Hence the decision to quote CNN, which has a good record on reporting its own home turf, or Sky, which has broken news on the Lockerbie bomber story and follows it closely. “We protect our reputation by carefully acknowledging the source of the information and speedily checking its veracity.” Hundreds of times every day Reuters journalists decline to go with a story running on local media because it smells wrong, is trivial, or both, Maguire says. “Mostly that decision is vindicated. The old school would have it that our policy is a failure of journalism. Yet walking the right line between publishing everything and publishing nothing actually requires a finer exercise of judgment. Better journalism, in other words. “The counter-argument is that we should only publish when we have 100 percent certainty from our own sources. That may be possible for a news organisation with a longer publishing timescale, such as a newspaper, or a periodical magazine. Yet even they, with online arms that are increasingly as ‘real-time’ as Reuters, the Associated Press or Bloomberg, face the same challenges of dealing with fast-breaking stories as the news agencies. With the advent of the Internet has come a cacophony of online voices that amplify and accelerate information, frequently dropping reference to where it originated or how it first became known. In that environment readers look to news services like Reuters to tell them what is known, and how it is known, with clarity and speed, regardless of whether we originated the story or not. In a complex, fast-moving world, no news organisation, no matter how well-resourced, can be first to report everything. All of us target the news we want to break and rely on others, who are sometimes allies and sometimes competitors, to paint their part of the picture." Maguire asks whether that approach has destroyed the relationship of trust that clients and readers have with Reuters. His response: “The question supposes there was once a golden age of authoritative journalism where sourcing was always rigorous and the pursuit of truth always relentless. History suggests otherwise. Current anxiety over journalistic values is often a proxy for broader worry over the health of the media industry. Declining revenues have driven cost cutting that has threatened, many feel, the standards of journalism. Reuters is stressing speed for fear of losing its audience, critics say, and will do so at the expense of its reputation for accuracy. “Yet our business has always put a premium on speed, and given that we are one of very few global news organisations that is expanding its staff during the downturn we feel we are doing the right things to maintain our audience.” The nature of authority in the news business has also changed, Maguire says. “Real-time readers understand breaking news is contingent, uncertain and provisional. Exclusivity evaporates fast as aggregators, citers and plagiarists disseminate the fruits of others’ reporting toil. Respect is won by breaking news and by operating with clear rules and standards. But it also come from guiding readers carefully to the reports of others, binding the audience in with compelling packages of conversation, illumination and curated content.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Speed over accuracy: ex-correspondents raise concerns

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-26T20:06:07+00:00

Former correspondents criticised Reuters’ reporting standards, raising doubts about the primacy of speed over accuracy in an increasingly competitive market. In at least two examples, Reuters reported inaccurate stories from other media without checking primary sources first, the website Journalism.co.uk said in a report on What Price the News?, a debate hosted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation at the company's Canary Wharf, London offices on Thursday 22 October. Has fact-checking and editing become less of a priority in an age of cost-cutting and “personal” journalism? What are the consequences for news organisations’ commitment to accuracy and freedom from bias? Those were two of the questions billed by the company in advance of the debate, which was introduced by Dean Wright, global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards. Others were: Are Western standards of news ethics and standards necessarily correct? Should there be a global standard for what constitutes proper journalism ethics? This month Reuters initially published a report, first broadcast by Sky News, that the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, had died, until his lawyer corrected it. Another inaccurate story was CNN's report on a US Coast Guard training exercise on the anniversary of September 11 this year which was wrongly claimed to be a gun battle. Former Reuters journalist Paul Iredale, speaking from the audience, said he was deeply concerned and sad about what he heard during the debate. "In Reuters it seems to have gone to speed rather than accuracy," he said. "What we used to say about Reuters was we got it last, but we got it right. I don't think that is the case now." Sean Maguire, global editor, political and general news, said Reuters was completely transparent when the stories were found to be untrue. "When we saw it was wrong, we said we were wrong," he said. "Because Sky had been a good source on the [al-Megrahi death report] story we reported it. We very quickly said what they said was nonsense." Former correspondent Colin Bickler said from the audience that he believed source-checking standards were slipping in the rush to get the story up. "I worked for Reuters for 28 years and if I had pulled that excuse I would have been shot. It is because it can move the markets it needs to be checked. I'm in shock," Journalism.co.uk reported him saying. Times have changed, said Maguire. "There is a premium on speed and we will put a story out and say 'this is what we know so far,'" he said. "The business model has changed (…) but we don't recklessly report what we think is wrong." ● SOURCE Journalism.co.uk

Cambridge honours 'flamboyant, vibrant' David Chipp

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-25T12:42:14+00:00

David Chipp, former editor of Reuters, was remembered as “a flamboyant, vibrant" member of his college, King’s, Cambridge, at a memorial Evensong dedicated to him in its 15th century chapel, pictured below. Chipp, who died in September 2008 aged 81, was a correspondent and editor from 1950 until 1969 when he left to become editor-in-chief of the Press Association, national news agency of the UK and Ireland. As an old China hand, he regarded the 30 months he spent in Peking for Reuters from 1956 to 1958 as the high point of his life. A graduate of King’s, he was a benefactor of its chapel and an enthusiastic supporter of its boat club. After retirement his many interests included a period as director of the Reuter Foundation. The provost of King’s, Professor Ross Harrison, recalled Chipp’s puckish charm and said more than £20,000 had been raised through donations in his memory for the college’s supplementary exhibition fund to provide welfare support for students and books. After Saturday's Evensong a reception given by the provost provided the occasion for the launch of Mao’s Toe: Memoirs of David Chipp, A Serious Correspondent, published posthumously by his estate in a private edition of 500 copies. The title derives from two compliments paid to Chipp by the Chinese leadership. ● In October 1956, when he was the first non-communist Western correspondent resident in Peking since the 1949 communist takeover, Chipp inadvertently stepped back onto the foot of chairman Mao Zedong. The Great Helmsman’s immediate response was one of huge amusement. He roared with laughter and afterwards referred to Chipp as “Lacquered Defender of Morals”. To this day, there are still a few people in China who refer to him as “the Englishman who trod on Chairman Mao’s toe and got away with it”, Chipp recounts in the book. ● The second part of the title is drawn from a remark by premier Zhou Enlai who was interviewed by Chipp and who apparently told a colleague, “We like Mr Chipp. He is very interested in everything about China; he gets a lot wrong; and is always laughing and joking. But he is a very serious correspondent.” Chipp was delighted and later wrote: “A serious correspondent: as a reporter, I find that the greatest compliment I have ever been paid, and can think of no better epitaph.” Reuters people at the service included Diana Drayton, Robert Elphick, John Entwisle, Anthony Grey, Adam Kellett-Long, Barry May, Michael Neale, Michael Nelson, Manfred Pagel, Timothy Pearce, John Ransom, David Schlesinger, David Sells, Peter Smith, Stephen Somerville, Tom Thomson and Donald Read, author of Reuters’ official history, The Power of News. ● Mao's Toe: Memoirs of David Chipp, A Serious Correspondent 

New York Fed’s PR chief to join Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-22T23:33:17+01:00

The head of public affairs at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is to take up a similar role at Thomson Reuters. Calvin Mitchell, executive vice president of the communications group at the New York Fed, will become global head of corporate affairs in November, the company said on Thursday. He will be based in New York. Mitchell joined the New York Fed in 2005, serving during a tumultuous period for the bank that functions as the Fed's point of connection with Wall Street. He had previously worked at the US Mission to the United Nations, the US Treasury Department, the White House and the National Security Council. ● SOURCE NASDAQ / Dow Jones

New website trumpets firsts and exclusives

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-21T09:58:00+01:00

Reuters has launched a new website to showcase news firsts and exclusives. Reuters Firsts promotes market-moving coverage where Reuters was first or alone with the story. The collection of winning coverage is organised by topic and geography. Highlights include: ● Categorisation of first and exclusive summaries by asset class and region ● Extensive archive that offers the ability to search past wins by date, region and country ● Ability to print and e-mail a first or exclusive summary to share with clients and colleagues. Key facts on coverage as well as a timeline of major wins over the last decade are also available. The site includes statistics on Reuters coverage including more than 9,400 market-moving firsts and exclusives each year. “Reporting on more asset classes and news genres than any other media organization, Reuters journalists aim to connect the dots on the stories that matter most to financial and media professionals around the globe," it says. Output is over: ● 2.5 million unique news stories a year ● 855,000 alerts per year ● 1,700 picture images per day ● 52,000 video stories per year. Reuters overall total message volume has risen nearly 35 per cent over the past four years. Value is added to news coverage with ● 5,000 polls a year covering economic indicators, interest rate moves, stocks, bonds, currency, commodities markets, FX rates and asset allocation plans by fund managers ● 6,000 analyses a year covering companies, industry sectors, market trends, political risk and financial industry developments ● Expert columns which provide context and opinion on key areas such as commodities and energy, macroeconomics, technology, European policy, emerging markets and M&A. More than 51 million people visit Reuters web sites each month. Reuters scores over 18,000 interviews a year with CEOs, central bankers, finance ministers, and politicians. ● Reuters Firsts ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters sets new editorial appraisal objectives

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-20T10:42:25+01:00

Reuters has set new editorial appraisal objectives for its journalists. Senior editors and editorial managers said they felt it was time to break from the broadly unchanged editorial objectives of the past few years. "What do we expect? That Reuters journalists will own the big stories, focus on higher value content, be first and handle news quickly, better serve customer needs, work as a team and be innovative," global managing editor Betty Wong, pictured, said in a note to staff. "Rather than be prescriptive in what these mean for journalists, the NLT [News Leadership Team] asks managers to keep the overarching themes in mind as well as editorial targets when building individual development objectives." The broad objectives for journalists' and editorial managers' twice-yearly appraisals are: 1. Own the big stories, emphasise higher-value content 2. Be first, handle news quickly 3. Understand customer needs 4. Teamwork 5. Innovate 6. Lead, communicate, be a face for Reuters/Thomson Reuters 7. Stay within budget targets. The news leadership team is a steering group of senior editorial management. It sets editorial's operational agenda. The team's members are: ● Kelly Anderson, global head of communications ● Sarah Cavanagh, head of human resources ● John Clarke, global editor, TV/assistant US publisher, visuals ● Jackie Combine, global head of finance, editorial and content ● Chris Cramer, global editor of multimedia ● Stella Dawson, editor, treasury news ● Adrian Dickson, managing editor, Asia ● Thomas Kim, senior vice president and deputy general counsel, markets division ● Michael Lawrence, global head, news specialists ● Richard Mably, commodities & energy editor ● Sean Maguire, global editor, political & general news ● Andrew Meagher, global head real time financial publishing ● Jack Reerink, global editor, company news ● Gary Regenstreif, global editor, domestic news services ● Brian Rhoads, managing editor, Americas ● David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief ● Alex Spinelli, head of news technology ● Thomas Szlukovenyi, global editor, pictures ● Mark Thomson, managing editor, Europe, Middle East and Africa ● Betty Wong, global managing editor ● Dean Wright, global editor, ethics, innovation and news values. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters buys Breakingviews to boost comment

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-14T17:53:15+01:00

Thomson Reuters said on Wednesday it will buy online business commentary service Breakingviews, significantly increasing production of comment written by columnists. The website will be incorporated into the Thomson Reuters feed for users of its teminals under the brand Reuters Breakingviews. It will also continue to supply commentary for newspapers such as The New York Times. Thomson Reuters refused to disclose the purchase price but reports put it at around £13 million, giving its founder and largest shareholder, journalist Hugo Dixon, £2.6 million. Dixon will run the enlarged service, which will operate separately from Reuters' news reports. He is bringing over 20 journalists and taking over the existing Reuters Comment operation. Thomson Reuters said it is talking to Jonathan Ford, Dixon’s former business partner who was hired last year to start the Reuters commentary service, about taking on other roles at Thomson Reuters. The Breakingviews board has recommended that shareholders in the privately held company accept the offer, Thomson Reuters said, adding that the transaction should close within eight weeks. The decision to buy Breakingviews pushes Reuters News further into the world of commenting on business and financial news, Reuters’ own report on the purchase said. The separate stand-alone branding will allow Reuters to continue to ensure that there remains a clear distinction between its news service and commentary offering. "Breakingviews will continue to represent the commentary and opinion of the author, while Reuters reporting will continue to represent the traditional sourced news and analysis that has been its staple for more than 150 years," a Thomson Reuters press release said. Reuters decided to buy Breakingviews even after starting its own service because the deal was at an attractive price and will accelerate the company's push into commentary, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. He told the Financial Times that the new Reuters Breakingviews would combine the team built by Dixon since he founded the site in 1999 with Reuters’ similar-sized commentary team launched less than a year ago. “Departures and reassignments” would lead to a combined team of “30-ish”, he said, without giving details of where cuts might fall. The combined service would continue with hiring plans in the Gulf, India and other parts of Asia, he added. Reuters could have achieved its goals to expand in commentary “given enough time”, he said, but the acquisition allowed it to “short-circuit” the process. “This is not a deal where we were buying revenue. This is a deal where we were buying [a] brand and people and capability,” he said. “My big worry has always been the commoditisation of factual news. There are many ways you can do to mitigate against that but [one is that] subscribers want facts and they want ideas.” Dixon said the deal demonstrated “that high-quality financial commentary is extremely valuable.” It “should enhance the product as we’ll be plugged into a much bigger journalistic enterprise,” he said. ● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times | The Times | Thomson Reuters ● Breakingviews

Important lessons learned from financial turmoil - David Schlesinger

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-09T11:31:36+01:00

Reuters has learned important lessons from the current financial turmoil, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on Friday. “One lesson was that our standards needed to be constantly examined and sometimes strengthened. Another is that transparency is rewarded by trust.” The media industry was in its own crisis at the same time as it was reporting on the financial downturn, Schlesinger said in a speech. “Our sources and our readers were in crisis, too, and this meant that our stories were watched extremely carefully and people were quick to complain about anything they didn’t like. “I am proud that most of our reporting was excellent, but those times when we didn’t get it right it was vital to correct our errors swiftly and publicly. “Maintaining our trust with our audience is fundamental to our mission as a news service. Reporting truthfully, reporting accurately, correcting errors, obeying our standards are all vital and can’t be compromised, especially not in the heat of a major and complex story.” This year Reuters put its entire 500+ page ● Handbook of Journalism free online for anyone and everyone to read and comment on. “We welcome that scrutiny from around the world. Where our standards are good and we live up to them, we want the attendant praise. Where we need to improve, or where we fail to live up to our ideals, we want the criticism. That should be the attitude that we in the media should strive for.” Schlesinger was speaking at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on transparency and the role of media in China. The occasion was a World Media Summit hosted by Chinese news agency Xinhua. The increasing internationalisation of financial markets has at least two dimensions relevant to financial information in China, he said. First, Chinese markets participants and investors need to be efficiently informed about foreign markets, while second, their non-Chinese counterparts overseas need to be efficiently informed about China. Mutual benefit and success depend upon this reciprocal relationship. “I believe journalism at its best is a mirror, exposing back to society a true and brutally honest picture of what is going on,” Schlesinger said. “When we fail at that, when our picture is not clear or at all distorted, we deserve to be criticised. We must strive to be that perfect mirror. But for societies and economies to truly work, to be effective and to be healthy, they need to look into that mirror unflinchingly and honestly. “That is where the virtue of transparency comes in. That is why companies and government departments and government officials need to be ready to be open. That is why they need to take interviews and to reveal figures. That is why the instinct for secrecy needs to be resisted. That is why all involved need to help the media help society, by accepting that while openness, transparency and accountability may lead to momentary discomfort and sometimes embarrassment, they are ultimately worthwhile and, in fact, are a precondition to a truly healthy, stable and successful system. “Similarly, a commitment to these practices is also a precondition for China’s development of healthy, sound and internationally competitive financial markets that protect domestic investors and encourage foreign investors to place their capital.” Schlesinger, a former bureau chief in Beijing (1991-1994), added: “As Chinese financial journalism professionalises further, I look forward to mutually beneficial competition. I also look forward to Chinese nationals having full careers within foreign media organisations in China. My fervent wish is that one day soon Reuters financial news editor in China will be a Chinese national – one step on that person’s path to be global editor-in-chief!” ● SOURCE Reuters ● Reuters Handbook of Journalism

News in the digital social media era, by Chris Cramer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-08T11:10:58+01:00

Passive audiences are gone, the digital conversation is the future and convergence and the consumer are king, says Reuters' global multimedia editor Chris Cramer. Chris Ahearn, president of Reuters media, calls it Journalism 3.0 – where stories by Reuters journalists are automatically linked to other, equally relevant stories and websites – with business models that can be all-inclusive. “The media world is changing so rapidly and so quickly that many of us who work in it are almost overwhelmed by what’s going on, frequently frightened at the speed of change and frightened as well that we may be left behind,” Cramer says. “Mostly everything has changed. For a start, we are no longer the gatekeepers of information. These days it seems that the whole world is a newsgatherer. Everywhere you look someone is holding a camera and shooting what’s around them. “You can upload all that stuff to Facebook or to YouTube, add some commentary, and you have potential access to millions of people overnight. You can become the brand.” Social media trades in information of first resort — raw, unfiltered and there for the taking. This new electronic dialogue, the online conversation, is here to stay and it has enormous power, as a much more targeted approach than anything we have been exposed to, Cramer says. How does the traditional news and information business adapt in the era of social media? Reuters holds true to the Reuters Trust Principles and the firm belief that editorial trust and integrity make a much stronger business. “We think that customers, end users, place a true value against these qualities, which is why when we make mistakes — and we do – we are quick to own up to those. to explain how they happened, to put guidelines in place to ensure they don’t happen again,” he says. “So we are very excited by social media becoming the newsgathering of first resort – but also wary that everything we find there needs to be validated, checked and checked again before it goes out in our name. “Far from being despondent about ceding our status as a major information provider, we believe that new and stronger business models will come from curating global information, filtering it, editing and placing it in context. “We think the future of successful journalism is to produce information, intelligent information that matters to people and has context — news that enhances their lives, news that has a point and a relevance, and news that remains a good business model.” Cramer, who joined Reuters last year, was speaking at the annual conference of the UK Association of Online Publishers in London on 7 October. ● SOURCE Reuters ● Chris Cramer's speech to the Association of Online Publishers annual conference

New desktop platform not aimed at business broadcasters – Chris Cramer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-07T21:51:36+01:00

Reuters, which is spending $1 billion on a new common desktop platform for all its customers, does not want to intrude on existing business broadcasters' territory, multimedia chief Chris Cramer said. Although the company wants to be the one-stop shop for its clients, it does not wish to encroach on the territory of Bloomberg, Fox News or CNBC, Cramer said on the sidelines of the UK Association of Online Publishers annual conference in London. The desktop platform – Project Utah due to be launched in 2010 – is designed to be “global, simplified, scaleable” to its customers' specific needs. "I think it's one of the most significant developments when it comes to multimedia around at the moment,” Cramer said. “We listen to our clients – they're screaming at us [for this type of service] and they have been for years," he said. Financial clients wanted a vertical platform offering them content and information relevant to their business interests and allowing them “to go look at that, and only that”, he said. An important part of Utah is Project Insider, a web-based television service currently in beta test for about 5,000 to 6,000 clients. Cramer, former head of CNN International and now Reuters’ global head, multimedia, was interviewed by a reporter for website Journalism.co.uk. He was a leading speaker at the conference. ● SOURCE Journalism.co.uk

Thomson Reuters 'working as strategic partner on BusinessWeek bid'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-07T08:21:40+01:00

Thomson Reuters is working as a strategic partner with a bidder for McGraw-Hill’s ailing U.S. magazine BusinessWeek, which has already attracted a bid from Bloomberg, the digital content website PaidContent said. “Thomson Reuters has publicly been saying that it has no interest in bidding for BusinessWeek, ever since the news that it was on the block came out. And that was true, until Bloomberg and later ZelnickMedia came into the picture: the multimedia business media giant is working as a strategic partner in the ZelnickMedia bid for BusinessWeek, we have learned from multiple sources. It will not contribute any cash to the deal, if successful, but presumably will have some sort of a content and distribution arrangement,” it reported. “Also, with Zelnick’s bid, we have also learned that there may be other monetary investors involved, though Zelnick surely is the lead on this. As has been reported previously, Zelnick is being advised by former WSJ publisher and Dow Jones exec Gordon Crovitz, who is not likely to take any operating role if the bid is successful. As for the reasons Thomson Reuters got interested again, one source said it is because of Bloomberg: it wants to keep a bitter rival from getting a more consumer-facing media brand. Both Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters have been trying to diversify with their consumer efforts, as has been well documented.” PaidContent said another source says the final decision "is not as imminent as it is being made out in press, which probably means there’s some due diligence left on who to choose between the two – unless some last-second bid also comes in." Reuters declined comment on “market rumor or speculation". The website added: “Interestingly, Thomson Reuters CEO Tom Glocer recently penned a column for BW the mag, on its recent issue about the role of optimism in business. And he mentioned on his blog that among the reasons he did the post for the mag: 'BusinessWeek itself has been the subject of a number of swipes in other publications ever since rumors of its purported sale began to leak, and I was happy to support Steve Adler and his very professional team at BW. The fact that the economic model for business news has shifted rapidly under the feet of BW, Forbes and Fortune should not now be seen to detract from the quality of the work of their journalists.'” ● SOURCE PaidContent ● Tom Glocer’s blog ● BusinessWeek

Treasury news editing in shake-up as part of TR integration

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-05T22:49:26+01:00

Reuters is restructuring Treasury news editing as part of the integration with Thomson Financial and to meet market challenges. The reason is a drive for deeper specialisation and a need to “gear ourselves up for the rapidly changing financial and competitive landscape”, according to an internal memo by Michael Lawrence, global editor, news specialists, Stella Dawson, editor, treasury news, and Keith Mullin, editor in chief, IFR markets. Treasury news editing is to be divided into economics and financial markets. A new global financial markets editor will be appointed to join the team of global editors with a brief “to elevate our markets coverage; work closely with the business to identify our strategic goals and commercial requirements; deliver on strategic priorities, from communities to market commentators and intra-day analysis; and accelerate our integration with IFR and the other professional teams”. In what they called a big shift in the way Treasury is structured, the three editors said that as part of the restructuring existing treasury editors will become economics editors to better reflect their area of focus. “We expect them to work very closely with the markets team to retain the investor and markets focus in our coverage of economics and policy,” they said. At the same time, the loans teams with Reuters Loan Pricing Corporation and IFR are being combined and a new loans editor is to be appointed. “Now that we are One Editorial, we want these teams working together and, when we do, they will be folded under the markets umbrella. “By bringing markets, RLPC and IFR together under the one specialist editor, we will emphasize the centrality of markets to our coverage – it is the very cornerstone of what we do and the focus for the majority of our financial clients.” The editors said the restructuring does not reflect any dissatisfaction with the current team or the Treasury news editors. “It’s the result of having more resources with the addition of IFR, the fierce competitive environment, new opportunities that we can explore with the business divisions and the need to accelerate the changes that are already under way. There is a huge amount of work to be done to implement integration and new initiatives such as commentary, communities and chat rooms. Quite simply, we need the additional bandwidth and focus to do that.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Social media 'an amplification, a megaphone'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-05T12:23:26+01:00

Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter have transformed the news industry forever, a paper from the Reuters Institute of Journalism says. Where such websites have led, traditional newspapers have now followed and are encouraging their users to spread and discuss stories, the paper’s author, Nic Newman, controller future media and technology in BBC journalism, said at its launch. It’s time for traditional news organisations to take note. "The social media revolution is not a fad and it has absolutely revolutionised the media," he said at the BBC's Broadcasting House, London recently. "The one-way broadcast is over. People want to interact and answer back." Readers' comments, blogs and tweets are now almost ever-present features on news websites, allowing users to interact with reporters and editors in a way not previously possible. This transformation is now central to the future of traditional news outlets because it increases the reach of their content, boosts engagement and loyalty levels and potentially tells a better story by increasing reporters' source base, Newman said. "Social media is like an amplification, like a megaphone," Meg Pickard, head of development of social media at The Guardian, said. She said it was important for journalists to understand the editorial imperative of social media. Kate Day, communities editor at ● telegraph.co.uk, explained how the The Daily Telegraph had created an online community at its website ● my.telegraph.co.uk with about 25,000 to 30,000 registered users. "Some blog but most use it as a social networking site," she said. But what social media is not – or not yet, anyway – is an answer to newspapers' financial woes. Social media increases the number of people using media but does not have an answer to the industry's core challenges – falling advertising revenues and the spread of free content. "It is still early days in the social media revolution," Newman wrote in the conclusion to his paper. "There is much still much to be learned, but overall there is new confidence in the underlying values of journalism and the role that social media might play in keeping those values relevant in the digital media age." Not all agree. A response posted to Newman’s paper said the distinction ought to be drawn between taking social media into account as necessary and taking social media too seriously, ever. “Social media is to reality as Reality TV is to TV. Though their existence is scarcely to be denied, neither is their inherently parasitic quality, above which one (seriously) ought to remain at all times able to rise.” ● Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism is based at Oxford University and receives most of its funding from ● Thomson Reuters Foundation. ● SOURCE Reuters

Live blogging draws new readers to Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-05T08:45:09+01:00

Live blogging – bite-sized snippets filed directly by journalists to the Internet – is thriving at Reuters, drawing thousands of new readers to coverage. Two recent major stories, the G20 summit in Pittsburgh and the German elections, provided opportunities for correspondents to publish directly and almost instantly. To see what it looks like ● click http://live.reuters.com/Event/G20_Pittsburgh, which featured tweets from correspondents Steve Holland, Michelle Nichols and Sumeet Desai alongside links to key stories, pictures and video as the news developed. As G20 wound down, bureaus in Germany ramped up a live blog of their national elections, says Richard Baum, global editor, consumer media. “Live blogs are fast becoming popular with journalists – and readers – because they allow almost instant publishing of any type of media,” Baum says. “And because the tools integrate easily with Twitter, they allow reporters in the field to publish directly from apps on their BlackBerry or iPhone. The pages update live without the need for a manual refresh, giving readers a true multimedia wire.” ● Reuters.com editor Adam Pasick, who edited the live blog from Pittsburgh, said: "Multimedia coverage of the G20 summit in Pittsburgh was perhaps the best example yet of how the many strands of Reuters journalism can be pulled together into a rich, cohesive package for our readers and clients. “At the height of the protests in Pittsburgh on Thursday evening, the page was drawing as many as three visitors a second. Over the whole event, more than 78,000 people visited the blog, which was also embedded in our main G20 page.” The German blog was the idea of Erik Kirschbaum in Berlin who had “about 10 different contributors" including Reuters Television. In the UK, journalists have been live blogging Prime Minister Gordon Brown's recent travels and the Labour Party conference. ● SOURCE Reuters

WWII correspondent Stewart Sale commemorated in Italy

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-10-01T08:56:20+01:00

Stewart Sale, Reuters correspondent killed with two other World War II journalists by a German shell in Italy, has been commemorated at the spot where they died. Sale, 38, was killed on 28 September 1943 at Scafati near Salerno with Alexander Austin of the Daily Herald, and William J. Munday, of the News Chronicle and the Sydney Morning Herald. They were covering the Battle of Scafati during the Italian campaign. All three were buried at the Montecorvino Commonwealth war cemetery. Sixty-six years later, the local town council has unveiled a commemorative plaque in the town centre and another at the spot where they died. A Città di Scafati journalism prize is to be established in their names. Sale’s son, Anthony Sale, was present as an honoured guest at the ceremonies and visited his father's grave. The direct descendents of the other two correspondents who also died on that day were also present. They were greeted by the mayor and people of Scafati. The commemoration was the idea of Angelo Pesce, Scafati’s official historian, who has written a book about the three journalists who died in his town. ● CLICK to read the entry on Stewart Sale in Reuters’ Memorial Book.

Takeover ill-timed says analyst, but upgrades TR shares

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-23T18:01:06+01:00

Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters was ill-timed, investment bank Piper Jaffray said in a note accompanying an upgrade from Underweight to Neutral for the stock. "In retrospect, Thomson's acquisition of Reuters was ill-timed. Thomson ‘doubled-down’ on the financial services industry at a time when industry dynamics were rapidly deteriorating, translating into significant pressure on revenues and earnings,” Piper Jaffray’s analyst said. “That said, execution has been solid, with cost efficiencies beating expectations and translating into an upward bias in estimates despite the challenging industry backdrop... We like Thomson Reuters' leadership position in the global information service market, its strong record of execution and its appealing business model. With the worst of the financial industry downcycle likely behind us, we are upgrading our rating on Thomson to Neutral." Deutsche Bank upgraded Thomson Reuters from Sell to Buy nine days ago and said that with two consecutive quarters of net sales in the markets division the mechanics of the subscription model means a negative Q3 figure is a given, and probably so for the first half of 2010. Margins in Legal were guided to fall modestly, breaking a long pattern of growth, and the company was flagging slower revenue growth in Legal in the second half, it said. “The company is sounding a cautious note, but in fact the trough now looks sooner and shallower than we expected. But also a shallower trough and stronger turn; consensus too low. “All the above is rather grim and the last year has seen management gradually back away from the view that TR could get through this slump without revenues falling. That said, we now expect the trough in Markets to be shallower / shorter than we thought likely in late 2008...” Goldman Sachs initiated its analyst coverage on Thomson Reuters with a Neutral rating and $38.30 price target following the unification of the dual listing. It said that while Thomson Reuters is one of the strongest international professional publishing companies it trades at a 35 per cent premium to most peers. ● SOURCE Street Insider

Thomson Reuters in $600 million debt refinancing

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-22T18:43:35+01:00

Thomson Reuters said it will buy back debt securities with $600 million total face value and fund the redemption by issuing new debt securities or from cash on hand. After the close of markets, the group said it would offer $500 million in new notes that will pay 4.7 per cent and be due in 2019 to help pay for the refinancing. The offering is expected to close on 29 September. It is redeeming all 6.85 per cent medium-term notes that expire on 1 June 2011, all 4.75 per cent notes maturing on 28 May 2010 and all of its 7.74 per cent notes due on 22 December 2010. The three issues have C$400 million, US$250 million and US$75 million of principal outstanding, respectively. The group said it will pay the applicable early repayment premiums as well as accrued and unpaid interest through the redemption dates. Thomson Reuters shares closed 2.27 per cent higher at $34.30 in New York and 1.58 per cent higher at C$36.72 in Toronto. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters buys news release company

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-21T08:01:26+01:00

Thomson Reuters said on Monday it has agreed to buy from NYSE Euronext Oslo-based Hugin Group, which distributes news releases for companies in Europe. Terms were not disclosed but Norwegian newspaper Dagens Naeringlsliv said the price was around €40 million to €42 million. The acquisition is part of a strategy of providing corporate clients with investor relations and public relations services. As part of the agreement, Thomson Reuters and NYSE Euronext will expand their strategic partnership toward offering value-added services to the issuer community, Thomson Reuters said. Hugin, founded in 1995, distributes press releases and provides investor relations services for more than 1,700 companies in Europe. It employs 105 staff, with key centres in Norway, Germany and France. ● SOURCE Reuters ● Hugin

Barry May elected pension fund trustee

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-21T08:05:00+01:00

Barry May, editor of The Baron, has been elected a trustee of Reuters Pension Fund. A former correspondent, editor and manager and a member of the ● Pension Review Group, he received 487 of the 1,311 votes cast by RPF members. Three other candidates contested the election: Timothy Castle (433 votes), Michael Edwards (291) and Willyum Howard (100). Some 20.3 per cent of RPF members voted in the election, which was conducted by Electoral Reform Services, an independent supplier of ballot and related services. The RPF managing committee comprises seven trustees. The two others previously elected by Fund members are Peter Fanning and Janice Watson. Trustees nominated by the company are Greg Meekings (chairman), James Hardman, Graeme Ramsey and Martin Vickery. ● SOURCE Reuters Pension Fund

Thomson Reuters to buy breakingviews.com for £10m - report

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-20T15:30:00+01:00

Thomson Reuters is in advanced talks to buy ● breakingviews.com, an online financial analysis service, for £10 million, The Sunday Times reported. The seller is Hugo Dixon, a former Financial Times journalist who is backed by more than 40 shareholders including The Wall Street Journal. “Dixon, who ran the Financial Times's Lex column for five years, has been in talks with Thomson Reuters since July,” The Sunday Times said. “The £10m price tag was agreed in recent days, according to sources inside Thomson Reuters, which has been seeking to expand the commentary and analysis available on its global news network for more than a year. “The media company has recruited a number of commentators, including Jonathan Ford, who co-founded Breakingviews with Dixon in 1999. Ford no longer has any shares in the business, having left in 2007.” The Sunday Times said the Breakingviews operation is likely to be left as a separate entity, with its own branding. It has about 15,000 direct subscribers. Columns in a string of newspapers including The New York Times, Le Monde, El Pais and Handelsblatt, have increased its readership to an estimated 4.5 million. "It is profitable in Europe but continues to invest heavily in America and Asia.” ● SOURCE The Sunday Times

Women’s network celebrates first anniversary

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-18T20:03:02+01:00

Women@Thomson Reuters, the group's global women’s network, is celebrating its first anniversary. The network has grown to more than 1,700 women in over 20 chapters in Australia, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the United States. The network's vision is to develop the talents and champion the contributions of Thomson Reuters' 23,000 female employees, promoting women as equal partners in the company's success, achievement and profitability. Its main goal in the coming year is to grow the network so it is available to all women in all divisions and businesses of Thomson Reuters. As part of the celebration, the network will run a global call on Thursday 24 September with Dimitra Manis, global head of talent, who will talk about Managing Your Career. The call is also open to male employees. Time for the call is 9:00 to 10:00 am EDT / 2:00 to 3:00 pm BST / 7:30 to 8:30 pm Bangalore. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters improves global brand ranking

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-18T11:16:08+01:00

Thomson Reuters has moved up four places to 40th position in a list of the 100 best global brands. The list compiled by Interbrand consultancy and published by BusinessWeek magazine gave Thomson Reuters a brand value of $8.434 billion compared with $8.313 billion a year ago. To figure in the list a brand must derive at least a third of its earnings from outside its home country, be recognisable beyond its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data. Interbrand ranks each brand on the basis of how much it is likely to earn for the company in the future. It uses analysts' projections, company financial documents, and qualitative and quantitative analysis to arrive at a net present value of those earnings. Market leadership, stability, and global reach – the ability to cross geographic and cultural borders – are taken into account. The brand values are based on data collected during the 12 months to 30 June 2009. The top three brands in the list are Coca-Cola, IBM and Microsoft. ● SOURCE BusinessWeek

Thomson Reuters upgraded, sets new 52-week high on NYSE

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-14T16:13:04+01:00

Thomson Reuters was upgraded to Buy from Sell at Deutsche Bank and set a new 52-week high during Monday's New York trading session when it reached $35.88. Over this period, the share price is up 18.40 per cent. The stock closed on Friday at $33.82 on volume of 409,400 shares, above average daily volume of 352,100. Thomson Reuters – New York Stock Exchange symbol TRI – is currently above its 50-day moving average of $31.42 and above its 200-day moving average of $28.03. Online broker SmarTrend said it is bullish on the shares. Its subscribers received an Uptrend alert on 10 September at $33.38, which has returned 1.3 per cent to date. It alerted investors to watch for continuation of the technical uptrend. ● SOURCE Trading Markets

Job done at Shell

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-11T22:25:58+01:00

Sir Peter Job, the former Reuters CEO at the centre of a fierce shareholder revolt over excessive executive pay at Royal Dutch Shell, is being ousted from the oil giant's board. Shell said after a meeting in the Hague that Job, a non-executive director, will step down as chairman of the board's remuneration committee on 1 October and leave the company entirely at the next AGM in May 2010. It appointed Hans Wijers, a former Dutch economics minister, as his replacement. Job, 68, became a focus for unprecedented shareholder anger at Shell's annual meeting in May after awarding what were widely considered to be overly generous bonuses to Shell executives. Investors holding almost 60 per cent of shares voted down the pay settlement. There were cheers at the humiliating board defeat. Following the vote, some of Shell's institutional investors called for Job's resignation. Franklin Mutual, part of the Templeton group of funds in America, said the defence offered by Job was “pathetic”. Under a three-year scheme he set out in 2005, Shell directors would have earned up to 200 per cent of their salaries in shares if the company outperformed three of its competitors. The company finished fourth but the remuneration committee decided to exercise discretion and allow some of the award anyway. Since May, Shell’s chairman Jorma Ollila has met many of the group’s top shareholders. One said: “We made clear we expected to see the chairman of the remuneration committee move on. The company is paying the price for two years of contentious pay schemes.” Friday's announcement from Shell pointed out that by the time Job retires from Shell he will have served as a non-executive director for nine years — affecting his independence as a director. He joined Shell in 2001. He is also a non-executive director of Schroders and TIBCO Software and a member of the supervisory board of Deutsche Bank. Under corporate governance guidelines, serving for more than nine years is seen as a potential conflict with requirements for certain directors to be independent. Those who do serve for longer than nine years are expected to face annual re-election. Peter Montagnon, former Reuters correspondent now director of investment affairs at the Association of British Insurers, said: 'The rejection by shareholders of the remuneration report at the last AGM required a response from the company. This is now an opportunity for a fresh start.” The Financial Times' Lombard columnist commented that the outcome looks very much like that envisaged by a review of governance and remuneration at financial institutions which said a vote against pay policy should oblige the chairman of the remuneration committee to stand for re-election the following year. "Shell’s elegant solution spares Sir Peter Job that indignity, but institutional investors can still claim a scalp in their campaign to get a proper hearing on pay: Sir Peter will step down as remco chairman in three weeks’ time and leave the board when his nine years are up next year. One small step for a man, one giant leap for pay restraint." Job joined Reuters as a graduate trainee journalist in 1963. After assignments as a correspondent in Paris, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta, he served as manager in Buenos Aires before taking over the Asian operation in 1978. He became chief executive in 1991 and retired in 2001. ● SOURCE Reuters | The Daily Mail | Financial Times | The Times | The Daily Telegraph | The Wall Street Journal

Obituary: Gordon Cook

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-11T09:50:36+01:00

Gordon Cook, who died recently aged 83, was for many years Reuters’ assistant pensions manager. He joined the accounts department on 30 December 1968 as pension fund accountant, becoming assistant pensions manager to Bill Ogston in 1977, a position he continued to hold until his retirement in February 1991. Prior to joining Reuters he had been an accountant with Marconi from 1950. Cook died on 21 July after a short illness.

Thomson Reuters a 'most ethical' company

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-11T09:51:00+01:00

Thomson Reuters has been rated one of the world's most ethical companies. The 2009 list of 99 companies is compiled by Ethisphere Institute, a New York-based international think tank dedicated to the creation, advancement and sharing of best practices in business ethics, corporate social responsibility, anti-corruption and sustainability. It received nominations from businesses in more than 100 countries and 35 industries which were measured against seven categories: ● Corporate citizenship and responsibility ● Corporate governance ● Innovation that contributes to the public well being ● Industry leadership ● Executive leadership and tone from the top ● Legal, regulatory and reputation track record ● Internal systems and ethics/compliance program. Thomson Reuters was listed in the Media, Publishing and Entertainment section. ● SOURCE Ethisphere Institute

Thomson Reuters completes DLC unification

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-10T19:35:45+01:00

Thomson Reuters announced it completed unification of its dual listed company structure on Thursday. Each Thomson Reuters PLC ordinary share was exchanged for one Thomson Reuters Corporation common share, and each Thomson Reuters PLC American Depositary Share (ADS) was exchanged for six Thomson Reuters Corporation common shares. The company’s common shares are now listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. The symbol on both is TRI. The last trading day for the company's shares on the London Stock Exchange and ADSs on NASDAQ was yesterday. A company announcement said: "To facilitate the holding of shares in the UK through CREST (the UK electronic settlement system), former Thomson Reuters PLC shareholders were issued Depositary Interests (DIs). DIs represent entitlements to Thomson Reuters Corporation common shares and have the same voting and economic interests as common shares. However, DIs are not traded on the TSX or NYSE. Effective today, former Thomson Reuters PLC shareholders who received DIs are able to convert their DIs into common shares by contacting Computershare in Canada and the United States by phone at +1 877 624 5999 or by e-mail at ● globaltransactionteam@computershare.com, and in the United Kingdom and elsewhere outside Canada and the United States by phone at +44 870 702 0003, ext. 1075, or by e-mail at ● allukglobaltransactionteam@computershare.co.uk." Thomson Reuters will pay all applicable conversion fees between 10 September and 10 December 2009. Additional information about the DIs is available in the Investor Relations section of ● www.thomsonreuters.com. Thomson Reuters expects settlement of newly-issued common shares and DIs to occur on 14 September. Thomson Reuters shareholders of record on 21 August are entitled to a dividend of US$0.28 per share on 15 September. Due to the timing of the closing of the unification, Thomson Reuters PLC shareholders who previously enrolled in the company’s dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP) will receive this dividend in cash. Enrollment information for the Thomson Reuters Corporation DRIP is available in the Investor Relations section of ● www.thomsonreuters.com. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters ● EDITORIAL: End of an era

Reuters repositioning news for 21st century

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-08T11:01:06+01:00

Reuters is investing to reposition its news for the 21st century in an effort to anticipate the future needs of clients who include the Google/YouTube generation, says Chris Cramer, global multimedia editor. Reuters is no longer a traditional wire service. It is one of the largest multimedia news agencies in the world, he said in a recent interview. “We're committed to enhancing our news file with considerable investments in commentary and investigative journalism and by melding the work of correspondents into a file that out-smarts the competition. We are a strong and diverse global network with a formidable line up of journalists who are able to make connections that other news organisations don't have the resources to do. “We are investing now towards repositioning our news for the twenty-first century in an effort to anticipate the future needs of our clients -- many of whom are now of the Google/YouTube generation. Reuters has invested $1 billion in "innovation and next-generation information products" this year. The centrepiece of this effort is Project Insider, an interactive TV service that delivers personalised financial news and insight direct to clients’ desktop and mobile devices. “This is something no one else is doing and we believe it transforms the viewing experience from a passive, one-way broadcast model into an interactive and powerfully personalised medium. Think narrowcasting rather than broadcasting. “Insider has been developed by some scary smart people inside the company and will leverage exclusive Reuters content and the editorial expertise from our 2,700 journalists around the world, packaged in a way that makes the most sense for our clients. Our programming will include market outlooks, live newsmaker interviews, deep technical analysis and market reactions to important events. We reckon that a combination of Reuters content with targeted content from third party financial information providers will enable our clients to cut through all the noise and clutter of existing financial news programming and receive a single, complete source of information.” Cramer, former head of CNN International, says Thomson Reuters has done a great job of turning challenges into opportunity, especially with regards to its innovation strategy. “In my opinion, great companies are defined in challenging times and it takes a great company to have the courage to invest in a tough period. Across the company we are investing a remarkable $1 billion this year in innovation and next-generation information products." ● SOURCE MediaBistro

Media must find own path to prosperity – David Schlesinger

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-08T12:49:41+01:00

Forget old media and new media: each media organisation must find its own path to prosperity by engaging with its audience, using technology effectively and keeping its reporting relevant, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger says. "We need to stop thinking about a division between new media and traditional media," he told the Chinese news agency Xinhua in an interview ahead of the world media summit to be held in Beijing on 7-10 October. Schlesinger said media organisations that consider themselves "traditional" face significant changes in their business models and in the reading or viewing habits of their audience. Therefore, all media organisations – if they are to survive and prosper – must use good journalism, technology and new techniques to engage with their audience and stay relevant. Asked about the challenges Reuters is facing, Schlesinger said the financial crisis has been a dominant factor this year. "It has been an important and exciting story to cover, and it has also affected all of our clients, whether they are in financial services, in the media or individual consumers," he added. Reuters, the first foreign news agency to operate in China after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, has 24 correspondents stationed in the country with a much larger local support team working on the ground. Schlesinger first visited China in 1979. He joined Reuters as a correspondent in Hong Kong in 1987. From 1989 to 1995 he managed editorial operations in Taiwan, China and the Greater China region. ● SOURCE Xinhua

Thomson Reuters no longer a titan

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-07T23:06:35+01:00

Thomson Reuters is losing its titan status. Dow Jones Indexes announced that the group will be removed from the Dow Jones Media Titans 30 and Dow Jones U.K. Titans 50 indexes. Thomson Reuters is being removed due to its delisting from the London Stock Exchange. The changes will be effective before the open of trading on Thursday 10 September. Its replacements are, respectively, French media company Publicis Groupe S.A. and British energy company Tullow Oil PLC. Separately, UK index compiler FTSE said Thomson Reuters will be replaced by luxury goods group Burberry in the FTSE 100 index in London. Thomson Reuters is delisting from the FTSE 100 because it wants to simplify its capital structure and eliminate the persistent discount at which the London shares have traded to North American shares, Reuters reported. ● SOURCE Trading Markets | Reuters

No inflation-linked increase for ex-Reuters UK pensioners

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-07T14:18:10+01:00

Tom Glocer says Thomson Reuters cannot provide an inflation-linked pension increase to its former Reuters UK pensioners this year. In a letter to the Pension Review Group, Thomson Reuters' CEO writes, "We do not believe we can unilaterally provide a discretionary increase at this time for the participants in the two former Reuters pension plans." He was responding to a letter from PRG chairman Angela Dean which pointed out that senior company executives had recently had financial rewards worth many millions. "It is hard to believe that the Company cannot afford a modest increase to the pension funds to ensure Reuters pensioners are fairly compensated, particularly in view of the financial performance of Thomson Reuters over the last year and predictions for 2009," Dean said. Glocer replied "... To begin by addressing your request directly, we do not believe we can unilaterally provide a discretionary increase at this time for the participants in the two former Reuters pension plans (the Plans). We explain this position in the remainder of this letter. "As you are aware, the Reuters Pension Fund (RPF), the larger of the two legacy Reuters Plans, is an unusual and very old hybrid plan which combines elements of both defined contribution and defined benefit plans. In fact, during the 100 year plus history of the RPF, Reuters never took a contribution holiday despite years of pension surpluses as we followed the practice that company contributions were fixed. Consistent with this position, it was the Plan Trustees and not management of the company that held the power to determine investment strategy, surplus or deficit status and, importantly, how to provide inflationary increases, if any, to participants. "After a series of revisions to pension laws, a thorough review of the unusual Reuters Plans and the appearance of a deficit in the Plans, the company and the Plan Trustees entered into a Funding Agreement in 2006 pursuant to which the company made a £153m contribution to the RPF, and an undertaking to contribute an additional £40m. This served to cover Plan deficits, and thereby permit the Trustees to consider whether to make inflationary increases. The Trustees, using their discretion under the Plans and the 2006 Funding Agreement, did, in fact, grant increases of 2.7% in 2006, 3.6% in 2007 and 3.9% in 2008. In addition, consistent with the company's commitment to the retirement security of its former employees, Thomson Reuters entered into a parent company guarantee of Reuters obligations under the Plans soon after the completion of the Reuters acquisition, and fulfilled Reuters commitment to contribute another £40m to the RPF. "With respect to the manner in which discretionary increases are to be considered, the Plans and the 2006 Funding Agreement provide that following the close of each year, the scheme actuary is to perform a funding review to assess whether there was a surplus or deficit at the close of such year. If a surplus is determined to exist, the Trustees are empowered to use up to 40% of such surplus to provide a discretionary increase on Relevant Pensions (as defined), subject to a maximum of the change in RPI in the year to the preceding September, capped at 5%. This mechanism was put in place as it was understood between the parties that the primary objective should be to secure members' benefits and that the granting of any discretionary increase should not be materially detrimental to that primary objective. "It should thus be clear that the ability to authorize any inflationary increase is dependent on the investment performance of the Plans which is managed by the Trustees of the Plans, and not the company. As 2008 was an "anno horribilis" for the investment community, it is not surprising that the Plan Trustees have determined that no inflationary increase is possible at this time. "We are committed to working with the Trustees of all the company's plans to find solutions which honor the contributions made by generations of Reuters and Thomson employees in building the current company. While Thomson Reuters is prepared to consider alternative arrangements with the Trustees, these discussions must await the expiration of the current 2006 Funding Agreement." Following is the full text of the PRG's letter to Glocer: Dear Mr Glocer I am writing to you as Chairman of the Pension Review Group (PRG) which as you are aware, has been campaigning for a number of years to restore the annual inflation-linked pension increases for pensioners of the UK Reuters Pension Fund and Reuters Supplementary Pension Scheme. We are delighted to see that Thomson Reuters has achieved such successful financial results for 2008, and that the outlook for this year is positive. However, for Reuters pensioners the prospect for 2009 is somewhat gloomy as, in view of the current global financial problems, we do not anticipate an increase to our pensions this year. This will mean that since 2002, the overall value of our pensions will have fallen by 13%, as measured by the increase in the Retail Prices Index. The agreement between the Trustees and the Company for providing discretionary increases depends on there being a funding surplus, and if the financial markets continue to perform at their current level, the likelihood of future pension increases would seem remote, so our pensions will suffer an even greater loss in value. This is a serious concern for the pensioners we represent. By contrast, we understand that pensioners who are members of the Defined Benefit Scheme in Thomson, receive a guaranteed annual increase and are not subject to the uncertainties of a funding agreement formula. Thomson Reuters is still the only FTSE 100 company that fails to pay an annual index-linked increase to some of its pensioners who are members of a defined benefit scheme. The principle of an annual inflationary increase applies, in law, to pensions earned since 1997 and to all UK state pensions. Surely a company of this stature and wealth should not be uniquely out of step in applying this principle, and thereby penalising the very people who were instrumental in building the success of Reuters and are now most vulnerable? Following the merger of Thomson and Reuters, the companies were involved in an exercise to equalise the benefits of the different groups of employees. We believe it is only fair that this principle of equity should be applied to pensioners. We note that senior executives at Thomson Reuters have recently been awarded significant financial rewards worth many millions, which include compensation for former Reuters staff to recognise differences in company pension benefits. It is hard to believe that the Company cannot afford a modest increase to the pension funds to ensure Reuters pensioners are fairly compensated, particularly in view of the financial performance of Thomson Reuters over the last year and predictions for 2009. We would ask that the Company review its position regarding inflationary increases for Reuters pensioners, and consider injecting sufficient money into the funds to enable the payment of such increases on a yearly basis. The situation for pensioners is increasingly difficult as they can no longer rely on their savings to mitigate the effects of a decrease in the value of their pensions, so they are doubly penalised. The assurance of an annual inflationary increase, instead of the yearly uncertainty that a discretionary award brings, would go a long way to protecting us from a permanent decline in real incomes. I hope you will give our request serious consideration and look forward to hearing from you. Yours sincerely Angela Dean Chairman, Pensions Review Group ● Reuters Pension Fund members are reminded to vote by 14 September in the election for an RPF member-nominated Trustee. You can vote by post or online. The poll closes at 2:00 pm BST on that date so don't leave it until the last minute! ● SOURCE Pension Review Group

Ibrahim Jassam: one year without justice

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-09-02T09:28:06+01:00

Reuters marked a sorrowful anniversary on Wednesday – one year since US and Iraqi troops forcibly detained Iraqi journalist Ibrahim Jassam. Neither Jassam and his family nor Reuters, which employed him as a freelance TV cameraman and photographer, have been told exactly why he has been detained by US military forces in Iraq. Jassam's mother, Fadhila Alwan, said: "We asked his lawyer, we asked military officers, we've asked all the officials we meet, but not one of them knew why he's been in jail for a whole year." The evidence against him is classified, but the accusations have to do with "activities with insurgents", said Lt. Col. Pat Johnson, a spokeswoman for the US military in Iraq, Reuters reported from Baghdad. The term "insurgents" in Iraq generally refers to Sunni Islamist groups, like al Qaeda. Jassam is a Shi'ite Muslim. "In a year of trying to get specifics, we've heard only vague and undefined accusations – to me this is unacceptable," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief. "It is only right and fair that any specific accusation against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to defend himself properly." Jassam, who is being held in a prison camp built in the desert on the Iraq-Kuwait border, will eventually be released. Under a US-Iraqi security pact, called a Status of Forces Agreement, the US military must hand over the thousands of Iraqis it still has in its custody as Iraq gradually regains its sovereignty more than six years after the US-led invasion. Those facing Iraqi charges will be tried; the rest freed. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled last November there was no case against Jassam. But the US military says it considers Jassam a security threat to Iraq. It says that under the security agreement it is entitled to hold Jassam as long as possible. "Though we appreciate the decision of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in the Ibrahim Jassam case, their decision does not negate the intelligence information that currently lists him as a threat to Iraqi security and stability," Johnson said. Reuters argues the US army is misinterpreting its remit. "Ibrahim Jassam has never been charged by the US military or the Iraqi authorities, and has never had a single piece of evidence or even a specific allegation of wrongdoing presented to him," said Thomson Reuters deputy general counsel Thomas Kim. "We believe this is not consistent with the spirit behind either the Status of Forces Agreement ... or the Rule of Law." The US military detained many Iraqi journalists during the sectarian slaughter and insurgency unleashed by the 2003 invasion. None have been known to have been charged. Journalists rights groups say US forces may be misinterpreting legitimate journalistic activities in war zones. Taking pictures of Shi'ite militiamen battling US troops, for example, might look like enemy propaganda to a US soldier. "The year-long detention of Ibrahim Jassam without charge or due process is not only unjust it also undermines the ability of the US government to effectively advocate for press freedom around the world," said Joel Simon of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. The US military said it expected all high security threat detainees to go before an Iraqi judge starting in December 2009. The intelligence information against Jassam will be aired then. ● SOURCE Reuters

Peter Bale: MSN's mission to explain, worries about defamation

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-31T10:21:09+01:00

Peter Bale, former correspondent and editor, is at the centre of a move by Microsoft to become a big player in Britain's news industry. Bale is Microsoft's UK executive producer. He joined the computer giant’s content portal MSN two years ago from News International where he oversaw the TimesOnline site for The Times and The Sunday Times. Previously he was editor-in-chief of FTMarketWatch and had other online roles at the Financial Times. Bale joined Reuters in Australia in 1985 and during a 15-year career covered British politics and Romania before becoming deputy news editor, Europe, Middle East and Africa. Talking about Microsoft’s plans, he told The Independent: "The thing which is not immediately visible to most people in the media is the extent to which we create our own content." More established news players may not be quaking in their boots, the newspaper said, but for the last two years, MSN has been short-listed by the Association of Online Publishers as digital publisher of the year in the consumer category, losing out to the Telegraph group and Sky respectively. "We have an evolving approach to news that is based around immediacy and a mission to explain," Bale says. "We can't go out and compete on scale with a major news provider but we can compete by bringing explanatory information, maps, more pictures, discussion, adding value to the news package." MSN's news operation was set up in 1995 by three former newspaper journalists. It now has 35 staff and 15 contractors. With multi-skilled staff capable of devising an editorial concept and seeing it to fruition, Bale accepts there is a need in the system for checks and balances. "We have introduced a reasonably robust system of copy editing because what you get with everybody being an expert is that everybody has tremendous power in being able to publish anything. We've invested quite a lot in training in ethics and copy-editing, laying down pretty good ground rules," he says. Some of MSN's young new media professionals have had little experience of seeing their work edited by a colleague. "When you have a lot of younger inexperienced people you've got to give them framework, training and support," says Bale. "My worry is defamation, which is a big risk in the UK. We've invested in defamation training, making people relaxed about having their copy edited." ● SOURCE The Independent ● Peter Bale

Thomson Reuters aims to click with the Internet generation

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-30T12:34:19+01:00

Thomson Reuters is gearing up for what markets division chief Devin Wenig calls Reuters’ first proper product launch – a new flagship platform for financial products for the Google, YouTube and Twitter generation. For the first time, all 200 financial products will be moved to a common platform, replacing 3000Xtra and making the company’s systems simpler to use. The new product is likely to be more like a conventional web portal in look and feel when it comes to market early next spring. All 500,000 customers will be moved on to it. “It is the first time we are going to properly launch a product,” Wenig told veteran Reuters watcher James Ashton in The Sunday Times. “We never really launch products. They just emerge. This will have proper marketing and advertising.” Wenig said: “You see very different behaviour from a 25-year-old just out of the London School of Economics to a 55-year-old who has been trading for the last 25 years. “People who grew up with Google have totally different expectations of how to interact with information and media. We can’t ignore that.” The new product is Project Utah, the final part of a $1 billion technology upgrade. “We are not going to be the greatest technology company in the world and nor should we be,” said Wenig. “But technology is an enabler. We have to put money into it. We can’t just talk about it.” In the 158 years since Reuters began flying pigeons with news alerts tied to their legs, it has had to move with the times, The Sunday Times said. “But the company, which merged with Thomson last year and has delisted itself from the London stock market, has never really been known for its cutting-edge advances. “New versions of old systems have underwhelmed or been released late. Innovations such as offering instant messaging between users have often been introduced first by its nimbler rival Bloomberg, which has caused a headache for Reuters ever since it set up as a direct competitor almost three decades ago. “It recently trailed in Bloomberg’s wake in mobile, but the launch of a news application for the BlackBerry and iPhone was a hit, drawing 90,000 subscribers in its first month. However, long-term followers of the industry see a change of tack.” “The difference now is that Thomson Reuters is taking a more friendly approach to how it presents information,” said Douglas Taylor, managing partner at Burton-Taylor International Consulting and a former executive at both Thomson Financial and Reuters. “In some cases they are playing catch-up but I think their expectation is to leapfrog Bloomberg.” Despite the financial crash, underlying sales at Thomson Reuters’ markets division are still growing, although only by 0.2 per cent in the last quarter, the newspaper said. Taylor forecasts that the $23 billion market for electronic financial information will shrink by 1-3 per cent this year, with Bloomberg holding a 26 per cent share and Thomson Reuters 34 per cent because it dominates in areas such as fixed income. Where they compete directly, the two companies are judged to be roughly neck and neck. Thomson Reuters is trying to drive down split-second delays in its data feeds, The Sunday Times said. Some investment banks have asked the company to host their applications in its data centres to increase efficiency. The biggest change to news provision will be Insider, a video news service for the financiers who already use its news terminals. If they pay, they can call up interviews as if they were trawling YouTube and they will also be able to search quickly through transcripts for the key points. “I don’t want to turn us into a consumer company but you ignore at your peril what YouTube and Twitter have done to online behaviour,” said Wenig. He invoked Apple and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion as the type of company he wants Thomson Reuters to emulate. “We didn’t tend to think of ourselves as a product innovation company. I am trying to move the company forward and encourage people to think about new things,” he said. ● SOURCE The Sunday Times

Thomson Reuters obtains final approval for shares de-listing

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-25T14:39:45+01:00

Thomson Reuters announced on Tuesday it has obtained UK court approval to unify its dual listed company structure. Shareholders overwhelmingly approved the unification on 7 August and no additional approvals are required. The last day of trading in Thomson Reuters PLC ordinary shares on the London Stock Exchange and American Depositary Shares (ADSs) on NASDAQ will be 9 September, and the unification will close on 10 September. Thomson Reuters Corporation common shares will continue to trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange. On 10 September former Thomson Reuters PLC shareholders who receive Depository Interests representing entitlements to common shares will be able to convert them into those shares by calling Computershare in Canada and the United States at +1 877 624 5999 or by sending an e-mail to ● globaltransactionteam@computershare.com. In the United Kingdom and elsewhere outside Canada and the United States call +44 870 702 0003 extension 1075, or send an e-mail to ● allukglobaltransactionteam@computershare.co.uk. Thomson Reuters will pay all applicable conversion fees between 10 September and 10 December 10. Additional information about the Depository Interests is available in the Investor Relations section of ● www.thomsonreuters.com. Thomson Reuters expects settlement of newly-issued common shares and DIs to occur on or about 14 September. Holders of Thomson Reuters shares as of 21 August are entitled to receive a dividend of 28 cents per share on 15 September. Due to the timing of the closing of the unification, Thomson Reuters PLC shareholders who previously enrolled in the company's dividend reinvestment plan will receive this dividend in cash. Enrollment information for the Thomson Reuters Corporation plan is available in the Investor Relations section of ● www.thomsonreuters.com. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

RPF trustee ballot papers circulated

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-19T13:47:01+01:00

Ballot papers for the election of a member-nominated trustee to the managing committee of Reuters Pension Fund have been circulated. Four candidates are competing for the position. They are ● Timothy Castle, correspondent, UK Online, London Bureau ● Michael Edwards, former tax director ● Willyum Howard, programme manager ● Barry May, former deputy managing editor. The RPF managing committee comprises seven members. Three are elected and the remaining four are appointed by Thomson Reuters. The deadline for receipt of votes by Internet or by post is 2:00 pm on Monday 14 September. The election is conducted by Electoral Reform Services.

Reuters taps ex-NYT man for new ‘enterprise' job

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-17T15:27:31+01:00

Reuters appointed Jim Impoco, former Sunday business editor of The New York Times, to the new role of Enterprise Editor for Reuters Americas. Based in New York, he will commission and edit stories that meet the challenge of engaging a diverse global Reuters readership in an increasingly competitive media environment. The aim is to deliver more groundbreaking and innovative stories and multimedia packages for customers throughout the world. At The New York Times Impoco helped to redesign and relaunch the Saturday and Sunday business sections. He has also served as deputy editor at Condé Nast magazine Portfolio, assistant managing editor at Fortune magazine and executive editor at Men's Journal and was a Tokyo-based reporter for The Associated Press and Tokyo Bureau Chief for U.S. News & World Report. "Jim's proven ability and experience in generating fresh, innovative feature stories, coupled with his deep understanding of our clients' needs, make him an enormous asset for Reuters," said Howard Goller, editor, political and general news, US & Canada. "We are proud of our reputation for accuracy and speed, and it is important in this increasingly competitive journalism market that we maintain our edge for clients who rely on us to be first with news, trends and analysis in the world of business and finance. Jim will help us lead the way." Impoco said: "Reuters is an impressively large and influential platform, and I am sincerely flattered that they have asked me to try my hand at this. To be able to shape feature stories at an organization with Reuters’ reach is a dream job. No matter what happens to our industry, Reuters is certain to remain in the thick of it." ● SOURCE PR Newswire

Tom Glocer, £4 million to the good, house-hunting in New York

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-15T20:56:40+01:00

Tom Glocer, who pocketed £4 million after selling some of his Thomson Reuters shares near the top this week, plans to buy a new home in New York, the Financial Times reported. The CEO, who relocated to his hometown from London last year, sold 200,000 shares at £20.11 – near their all-time high of £20.34 – on Tuesday. The family kept an apartment in New York while Glocer lived in London as pre-merger Reuters CEO. They also own a lake house in Finland, where Glocer's Finnish wife Maarit grew up. The FT, which has been reading Glocer's blog, says it's a cut above the usual CEO effort. "Mr Glocer writes about everything from Obama to markets, the future of newspapers, technology (he loves Facebook), books (he reads Roth to Dostoevsky to Houellebecq), music (The Grateful Dead), and 'soccer vs footie'. He started his blog, he says, after deciding that he could see what it was like himself, or pay a pricey consultant to write him a report on it." ● SOURCE Financial Times | Tom Glocer’s Blog

Tom Glocer and Devin Wenig unload shares

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-14T10:28:03+01:00

Tom Glocer and Devin Wenig (pictured right) each sold about 15 per cent of their shares in Thomson Reuters four days after shareholders approved a plan to delist the company from the London Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Glocer, chief executive, and Wenig, CEO of the markets division, both made the sale to rebalance their portfolios. Glocer sold 200,000 shares at £20.11 and now holds about 1.34 million shares. Wenig sold 100,000 shares at £19.78 and now owns about 650,000. Both men joined Reuters in 1993. "After second quarter results that were significantly better than expected, investors may be concerned that management are calling a near-term peak to the share price," Phillip Huang, UBS analyst, said in a note. "Thomson Reuters merits a premium based on the results it has delivered, but an end to the cyclical market rally, particularly in financials, could lead to profit taking in Thomson and lead to the relative premium contracting," he said. The company currently trades on a 16x multiple of its 2010 expected earnings per share, compared with 10x multiples in its peers. UBS maintains a "sell" rating on Thomson Reuters with a $23.50 target price. ● SOURCE National Post

David Nicholson's memory honoured in wine

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-09T19:36:11+01:00

Some 35 Reuters people honoured the memory of David Nicholson in wine and the wine of choice was a Bordeaux Supérieur, appropriately from Chateau David, Beaulieu. The toast to a great man, great editor and great friend was raised at a reception after a thanksgiving service for the life of Nicholson, former Night Editor on the World Desk, London, who died on 2 August aged 68. A piper played a lament at Penge Congregational Church on Friday and a tribute was delivered by Nicholson’s daughter, Sarah. Bible readings were by his son Alec and brother Graeme. Among the mourners were Jim and Marita Anderson, Ron Askew, Richard Balmforth, Allan Barker, David and Patricia Betts, Graham Colville, Monica Cook, Sandy Critchley, David Cutler, François Duriaud, John Freeman, Robert Hart, Graham and Ann Hillier, Keith Holland, Carol Howard, Michael Hughes, Colin McIntyre, Ian MacKenzie, Bernard Melunsky, Helen Massey, Barry and Dolly May, Ernest Mendoza, Peter Millership, Nicholas Moore, John Morrison, Rick Norsworthy, Tim Pearce, Manfred Pagel, John Rogers, Bill and Lesley Saltmarsh, Len Santorelli, Paul Smurthwaite, Anthony Williams and Richard Williams. Photo by Helen Brushett shows David Nicholson on 12 July while listening to a Bach string quartet.

David Schlesinger joins debate over links to Reuters stories

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-07T20:35:42+01:00

Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger has weighed in on a public debate over links to Reuters stories on the Internet. His take: it’s about being part of the conversation, adding to the debate rather than just playing postman and passing on others’ views, adding value, and getting rewarded for adding value. “As head of a journalistic army of 2,700 professionals I obviously have an intense vested interest in ensuring that their work is valuable to readers and valued by them,” Schlesinger said in a Reuters blog posting. “Part of that involves ensuring that they are in the centre of the action and that they fill their reports with their expertise and experience. Part of that involves ensuring that they are part of the debate, that their reports inform the debate and that the debate, in turn, informs their future reporting. “Our standards on sourcing have always emphasized the importance of giving proper credit, even when quoting from competitors. And, of course, we expect the same in return.” Schlesinger said that in the writing Reuters does specifically for the web “we’re as open to outbound linking as we are to the inbound”. But much of its other writing does not currently use outbound links “because of the particular ecosystem of our professional products, for which a lot of it is specifically written.” But he is sure that will change over time. “The real danger in not being extremely open to linking, it seems to me, is that by moving yourself out of the mainstream debate you risk irrelevancy. The fact that today the crediting can be done with a hyperlink is to me intellectually no different than the use of an academic footnote or a traditional journalistic “…according to XYZ in an interview”. It’s just better, because it’s fast, direct and creates an instant chain of knowledge. “What’s more interesting to me is what one does with the link, not the link itself. Schlesinger added: “I have a passing interest in the link or retweet that simply passes a nugget along. “I have a bit more interest when the linker or retweeter extracts real gold that was hidden in the original and gives it more prominence. “I have a lot more interest when the link or retweet uses the original as a jumping off point for argument, debate, or development. “That’s when it gets interesting.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Shareholders vote to quit London Stock Exchange

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-07T19:36:08+01:00

Twenty-five years after Reuters floated on the London Stock Exchange, Thomson Reuters shareholders voted on Friday to delist, distancing Reuters further from its British roots. The vote at an extraordinary general meeting in London was 97.4 per cent in favour of quitting the LSE. At a simultaneous EGM in Toronto the figure was 99.6 per cent. Fewer than 100 shareholders attended the London meeting, with a similar number in Toronto. The Canadian vote was decided by Thomson's family holding company, Woodbridge, which owns about two-thirds of the outstanding shares in Thomson Reuters Corp and had already committed to vote in favour of the move. It will also delist from NASDAQ, remaining on the main New York and Toronto exchanges. The delistings are expected to take place on 10 September, subject to UK court approval. Shareholders in Thomson Reuters PLC are entitled to receive one Thomson Reuters Corp share for every PLC share they hold, while holders of American Depository Shares will receive six Thomson Reuters Corp shares per ADS. Thomson Reuters, formed in 2008 when Canadian data publisher Thomson bought Reuters, has said it wants to simplify its capital structure and eliminate the persistent discount at which the London shares have traded to the Canadian shares. The UK shares have traded at a discount to the Canadian shares since the April 2008 merger. The gap has narrowed to 2 per cent from 13.6 per cent before the company announced its plan in June to delist the London shares. "I expect that a more straightforward capital structure will ensure that the focus of investors will remain firmly on the company itself and not on its capital structure," chief executive Tom Glocer told shareholders in London. Not all shareholders agreed with the decision. "This country is a link to Europe. It looks like everything is going to shift to America and I'm a bit nervous about that," Allan Ferguson, who holds about 686 Thomson Reuters shares, told the London meeting. "I feel that we're just going to be another outpost." Glocer has moved his base to New York from London, which remains the company's second-biggest base. Thomson Reuters made 58 per cent of its revenue in the Americas, 32 per cent in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 10 per cent in Asia last year. Paul Julius Reuter opened his news and stock-quote service in London in 1851. It became a global news service and in 1984 became a public company with shares listed in London and New York. Thomson Reuters says UK shareholders own only about a quarter of its London-listed shares, down from about 58 per cent in 2007, and hold only 5 per cent of the company's total outstanding shares. Some analysts say London investors were influenced by memories of Reuters' poor performance during the last downturn, and were not convinced of the more defensive qualities of Thomson's products aimed at legal, health and tax professionals. On Thursday, Thomson Reuters reported a better than expected quarterly profit helped by cost cuts, and said it expected 2009 revenue to grow as the financial industry recovered and banks started hiring again. Credit Suisse, Bernstein and RBC raised their target price on the shares on Friday, but Jefferies downgraded the stock, saying it expected some UK shareholders to take profits rather than convert into Canadian shares. ● SOURCE Reuters

Broker cuts Thomson Reuters rating

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-07T11:19:36+01:00

Broker Jefferies International cut its rating on Thomson Reuters to “underperform” from “hold”, saying that while Thursday's second quarter results were excellent they likely represented the peak of cost savings. The broker also noted that a decline in subscriptions in the Markets division would likely trickle through later this year. The Q2 results were better than expected and the company affirmed its 2009 outlook that revenue will grow despite tough conditions in the financial industry. Profit growth was attributed to cost controls, currency benefits and savings from Thomson's purchase of Reuters last year. CEO Tom Glocer said the fallout from the financial crisis will likely squeeze the Markets division in the second half of the year. ● SOURCE MarketWatch

Cost cuts help Q2 results beat forecasts

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-06T14:46:11+01:00

Thomson Reuters reported a better-than-expected quarterly profit on Thursday, helped by cost cuts, and affirmed its 2009 outlook that revenue will grow despite tough conditions in the financial industry. Q2 underlying operating profit rose 11 per cent to $793 million, or 58 cents per share, from $713 million, or 39 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago. Analysts had expected earnings of 43 cents per share on that basis, according to Reuters Estimates. The company attributed the profit growth to cost controls, currency benefits and savings from Thomson's purchase of Reuters last year. It expects $1 billion of annual savings by the end of 2009. The target is $1.4 billion by 2011. Revenue from ongoing businesses, excluding the impact of foreign exchange rates, rose two per cent to $3.28 billion. The company stuck to its forecast that revenue would grow this year and that underlying operating margin and free cash flow would be comparable to 2008, even as customers cut staff and budgets in the wake of the financial crisis. "Quite a few banks are saying, 'Oh, we cut too deeply and we're finding business is so good, we need to hire people to handle the volume,'" CEO Tom Glocer said in a Reuters interview. "I couldn't imagine six months ago that people would be talking about guaranteed bonuses over multiple years to hire people," he said. Nevertheless, the fallout from the financial crisis will likely squeeze the Markets division, Glocer said. "It's only logical to assume that in the second half of the year, the (division's) reported revenue growth will go below the zero line rather than above it." Thomson Reuters shares on the London Stock Exchange traded 6.44 per cent higher at 2000 pence after the release of the results, smashing through the previous 52-week high. Shareholders will vote at extraordinary general meetings in London and Toronto on Friday on a proposal to delist the company's shares in London. They will continue to trade in New York and Toronto. ● SOURCE Reuters | Transcript of analysts’ conference call

Boycott AP over paid links says U.S. business blogger

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-06T09:57:39+01:00

The U.S. business blogger who proclaimed "Reuters rocks" has called for a boycott of The Associated Press over its decision to charge for links to its online reports. "In case you aren’t aware the Associated Press (AP) is painting itself into the corner of obscurity by charging non-AP sites and blogs to pull small snippets from their news items. I think after their traffic starts dying off they will soon realize that links are the lifeblood of the Internet. No incoming links, no income, it’s just that simple,” wrote Statesboro Business Magazine publisher Allen Harkleroad (pictured). "Personally I have been boycotting linking to AP stories and whenever possible avoiding AP stories in their entirety. Long Live Reuters and the other news services that embrace the link economy and fair use. I encourage you to boycott the Associated Press’ news as well." Thomson Reuters’ president, media, Chris Ahearn, on Tuesday welcomed links to Reuters’ online news reports. “Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works,” he wrote. “A better approach is to have a general agreement among community members to treat others’ content, business and ideas with the same respect you would want them to treat yours…” ● SOURCE Statesboro Business Magazine

Analysts' expectations of Q2 results

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-05T11:02:31+01:00

Thomson Reuters reports its Q2 results on Thursday, but analysts are already weighing in on what they expect. The market consensus is C$3.3 billion in revenue and C$.43 earnings per share. ● Drew McReynolds, RBC Capital Markets analyst, has pegged revenue for the quarter at C$3.28 billion with cash EPS of C$.44. He expects a less severe trough in organic revenue growth in markets in the first half of 2010 of -6.9 per cent from -8.5 per cent and further improvement in financial sector sentiment, keeping a “outperform” rating on the company by raising the price target to $37 from $34. ● Phillip Huang, UBS analyst, says the key focus should be on the Markets division, which is "late cycle" and should move into negative territory after flat growth in the first quarter. "Thomson Reuters has rallied due to the consolidation," he said in a note to clients. "However, we believe organic revenue growth for Thomson Reuters is later cycle than the market expects." He expects an EPS at 40 cents and maintains a “sell” rating on the company, with a price target of $23.50. ● Paul Steep, analyst with Scotia Capital, is far more bullish despite believing the second quarter of 2009 could be the company's "most challenging quarter since the credit crisis began" as IT budgets have been frozen in the first half of the year. "Our estimates remain significantly ahead of consensus, reflecting the significant upside of integration synergies in 2011 and beyond," he said in a note. "We continue to expect the firm to build on the quick integration wins delivered in 2008." He also forecasts revenues of C$3.2 billion and EPS of C$.44, but has a target price of C$47 on a “sector outperform” rating. ● SOURCE Seeking Alpha

News honcho champions 'link economy'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-04T20:37:04+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ head news honcho has emerged as a champion of the link economy – welcoming the linkage of online news reports by bloggers and other third parties. “Recently there has been a rising crescendo of finger-pointing, shrieking, braying and teeth-gnashing about the future of the news. In the last couple of weeks there have been many comments on proposals for making money out of online news,” says Chris Ahearn, president, media. “To start, yes the global economy is fairly grim and the cyclical aspects of our business are biting extremely hard in the face of the structural changes. But the Internet isn’t killing the news business any more than TV killed radio or radio killed the newspaper. Incumbent business leaders in news haven’t been keeping up. Many leaders continue to help push the business into the ditch by wasting “resources” (management speak for talented people) on recycling commodity news. Reader habits are changing and vertically curated views need to be meshed with horizontal read-around ones,” he wrote in a Reuters blog posting. “Blaming the new leaders or aggregators for disrupting the business of the old leaders, or saber-rattling and threatening to sue are not business strategies – they are personal therapy sessions. Go ask a music executive how well it works. “A better approach is to have a general agreement among community members to treat others’ content, business and ideas with the same respect you would want them to treat yours… “I believe in the link economy. Please feel free to link to our stories — it adds value to all producers of content. I believe you should play fair and encourage your readers to read-around to what others are producing if you use it and find it interesting. Ahearn does not believe in charging others for simply linking to your content. “Appropriate excerpting and referencing are not only acceptable, but encouraged. If someone wants to create a business on the back of others’ original content, the parties should have a business relationship that benefits both,” he says. “Let’s stop whining and start having real conversations across party lines. Let’s get online publishers, search engines, aggregators, ad networks, and self-publishers (bloggers) in a virtual room and determine how we can all get along. I don’t believe any one of us should be the self-appointed Internet police; agreeing on a code of conduct and ethics is in everyone’s best interests. “Our news ecosystem is evolving and learning how it can be open, diverse, inclusive and effective. With all the new tools and capabilities we should be entering a new golden age of journalism – call it journalism 3.0. Let’s identify how we can birth it and agree what is “fair use” or “fair compensation” and have a conversation about how we can work together to fuel a vibrant, productive and trusted digital news industry. Let’s identify business models that are inclusive and that create a win-win relationship for all parties. “This is not code for some hidden agenda – it is an open call for collective problem solving. Let’s do it wiki-style and edit it in the public domain. Let’s define the code of conduct and ethics we would all like to operate under.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters rocks - US business magazine

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-03T09:43:55+01:00

Reuters rocks, a U.S. business magazine says. Long live Reuters and other news/press agencies that embrace the Internet and fair use. The source of this endorsement? Statesboro Business Magazine in Georgia. “The Associated Press (AP), in my opinion is putting the nails in it’s coffin,” wrote publisher Allen Harkleroad. Calling for a boycott of the AP “until they disappear into oblivion”, he added: “On top of that the AP is trying to force sites to pay for fair use and public domain. “I understand that there are websites out there that copy the AP’s content verbatim. However there are many independent news publications and blogs out there that only use small snippets or quotes and cite the original source. On top of that those cited source links send visitors to the Associated Press website. “I for one (I am a publisher of a multitude of niche websites) am boycotting the Associated Press entirely and instead elect to support news agencies such as Reuters that don’t have a problem with publishers and bloggers pulling a quote from them. They understand the nature of the Internet and fair use... “It’s sad to see the Associated Press shooting themselves in the foot like this. I guess there is no law against running your business in the ground, so they can have at it. The Associate Press is not the only news source out there. “Long live Reuters and other news / press agencies that embrace the Internet and fair use. Goodbye AP, as I for one refuse to pay for fair use or public domain, much less for pulling a quote and sending your traffic back to your website or affiliate sites.” ● SOURCE Statesboro Business Magazine

Obituary: David Nicholson

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-08-02T17:57:00+01:00

David Nicholson, former night editor on Reuters’ World Desk, London, died suddenly on Sunday at his home in Beckenham, Kent. He was 68. Raised in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Nicholson began his working life as a copy boy with The Canadian Press before becoming a journalist and later moving to Toronto. After a spell back in Halifax he was sent to New York and when the CP bureau there closed in 1973 he met George Short, then working on Reuters’ desk at 1700 Broadway. Nicholson joined Reuters and in 1975 transferred to London where he quickly became a member of the senior World Desk establishment. Among a number of short stints abroad was a spell in Buenos Aires in 1982 editing reports from the Argentine side of the Falklands War – a time when UK passport holders could not work there. Nicholson retired in 2001. He was a knowledgeable jazz aficionado with a love of music that extended to other genres. Baseball was also a passion. He leaves a wife, Marilyn, two children, Alec and Sarah, and three grandchildren. The funeral will be at Beckenham Crematorium at 9:00 am on Friday 7 August. A memorial service will be held at Penge Congregational Church, 172 High Street, Penge at 3:00 pm. In the photo Nicholson is seen with long-time colleague Evelyn Leopold at The Baron's Bash, a Reuters editorial reunion, on 30 March 2009. Photo: Patricia Betts ● Halifax Chronicle Herald announcement

Tom Glocer: the naked truth

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-28T20:55:37+01:00

Tom Glocer’s executive blog is no place for the naked truth, The Daily Telegraph said on Tuesday. “Chief executive blogs are a tricky balancing act,” the newspaper’s City diarist wrote under the headline “Glocer’s executive blog no place for naked truth”. “Keep focused on the business and you’re accused of being dry, stray into other areas and you risk imparting too much information… “Tom Glocer, head honcho at Reuters, plunged headlong into the latter camp with his recent posting about a trip to the sauna. After a good 500 words devoted to how he taught his son to ride a bike this summer, Glocer leaves us with the line: ‘My hard work done for the day, I returned to perspiring beer with Harto in the sauna.’ “Call us prudish but Diary feels a little uncomfortable at the image of a potentially nude Glocer, red-faced and sweaty, shooting the breeze with his 81-year-old father-in-law.” ● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph | Tom Glocer’s Blog

Obituary: Brian Horton

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-26T14:44:52+01:00

Brian Horton, former editor-in-chief, died suddenly at his home in Spain on Saturday. He was 76. Born in the UK to New Zealand parents, Horton came from a family with a journalistic background. The family moved back to New Zealand following the outbreak of World War II. He joined Reuters as a graduate trainee in December 1957 and after a series of reporting and editing assignments, including training under Gerald Long in Germany, became European news editor in 1964 and chief news editor in 1965. In October 1968 he was appointed editor-in-chief and assistant general manager, in charge of the General News Division (GND) which had been set up by Long in July 1967 as a profit centre alongside Reuters Economic Services (RES) headed by Michael Nelson. Eager to push maximum use of technology, Horton had already played the leading part in the pioneering introduction of Automatic Data Exchange, a computerised message storing and switching system known as ADX, in July 1968. ADX made possible the editing of English-language regional services from one central position, the World Desk, rather than from numerous regional desks. He set out to balance GND revenue and costs but this was impossible if only because of the nature of the competition – Agence France-Presse with its state subsidy, The Associated Press with its revenue cushion from U.S. media, and the new and flourishing newspaper syndication services that cut into media cash available for news agency services. Horton was keen on Reuters breaking with national agency cartels, leading to the launch of the German service and then of a French service sold to French media. “You are not allowed to do this,” the head of AFP said. “La mechante agence anglaise” said President Pompidou with a smile. GND failed to turn a profit and Horton contained news costs by cutting staff numbers in London. At the end of 1973 GND was replaced by Reuters World Service, designated as a cost centre. Horton resigned and went into the wine business, moving to Gaucín near Málaga in southern Spain with his second wife Jane and children in 1976. When Long left Reuters and became managing director of Times Newspapers in 1981 he called Horton back to London and made him foreign editor of The Times. He was in this position for a year before briefly becoming managing editor. He then moved on to become News International's director of development. His first project was The Times Network for Schools, before putting News International into satellite broadcasting by acquiring a small company called Sky Channel. He then oversaw its development over the first few years. Rupert Murdoch eased Long out of News International, where he had become deputy chairman, in 1984. Horton left News International towards the end of 1986, returning to Spain where he spent his retirement. The photo was taken at the recent wedding of his son, Robert. ● CLICK to read the obituary published by The Times on 2 August.

Online copyright protection group registers 1,000 members

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-23T14:58:18+01:00

An online copyright protection group in which Thomson Reuters is a founder has registered more than 1,000 members since its launch in April. The Fair Syndication Consortium now includes more than half of all US newspaper publishers. Bloggers, the Magazine Publishers Association of America (MPA), The Washington Post and The New York Times are also involved in the initiative. It is based on online copyright tracking technology which enables consortium members to monitor instances where full copies of their material have been republished online. External sites using the content will be approached with an proposed advertising revenue deal in return for continued use. If this is rejected, other options, including possible licensing or legal action will be explored. "As one of the largest multimedia news organisations in the world, we find value in everything from subscription to ad-based monetization models," said Chris Ahearn, president of media at Thomson Reuters. "The Fair Syndication usage model is an important step forward in creating a thriving and sustainable commercial environment for our News Agency and Reuters.com publishing businesses, as well as our peers in the publishing world." ● SOURCE www.journalism.co.uk ● The Fair Syndication Consortium

Reuters trustees to continue after de-listing

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-22T11:25:03+01:00

Directors of Reuters Founders Share Company take a vigorous and active interest in Thomson Reuters and in editorial and will continue after the company ends its listing on the London Stock Exchange, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on Wednesday. Concern had been raised that the Founders Share directors, known as trustees, would lose their power. “There is a very interesting and immensely important statement in the management information circular about the changing share structure of Thomson Reuters,” Michael Reupke, former editor-in-chief and general manager, said. “That statement is: ‘Thomson Reuters will seek to redeem and cancel the Reuters Founders share in the capital of Thomson Reuters PLC.’ That share is the only tool the directors of the Founders Share Company, whom we used to refer to as the trustees, have to do anything whatever,” he wrote in a letter to The Baron. “I hope I can set a predecessor's mind at ease,” Schlesinger responded. “When Thomson Reuters was created, it was created as a dual listed company. Thomson Reuters Corp is domiciled in Toronto and Thomson Reuters PLC has been in London. There has been one Reuters Founders Share in each of the two companies. Obviously if one of the two companies in the dual structure goes away so too will its founders share, but the other remains. I can assure all that from my perspective as Editor-in-Chief, the current Reuters Founders Share Company directors take a vigorous and active interest in the company and in editorial. That interest and engagement has, if anything, increased in the months before and after the consummation of the deal, particularly if I compare it to, say, a decade earlier.” Shareholder meetings on unifying Thomson Reuters’ dual-listed company structure are scheduled to take place in Toronto and London on 7 August. CEO Tom Glocer said last month the company’s decision to end its stock exchange listing in London and on NASDAQ in New York would not affect the operations, customers, strategy or financial position of the business. “Unification would benefit shareholders by creating a single deep, global pool of liquidity and a simpler, more transparent capital structure,” he told staff. “Our shares are currently listed on four different stock exchanges [London, New York, NASDAQ and Toronto], which has fragmented the trading in our shares and deterred certain large global investors from buying our shares. Unification would also reduce costs and complexity across the company. “Our commitment to customers, employees and other stakeholders in London, the United Kingdom and Europe is unchanged by where we list our shares. London is a vital global capital for the markets we serve and home to more than 5,000 of our employees. “The Founders Share Company has indicated it will support unification as this will in no way diminish our adherence to the Reuters Trust Principles.”

Obituary: Peter Blake

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-21T13:02:05+01:00

Peter Blake, technical manager during a Reuters career of 35 years, died on 9 July aged 59. He had been ill with cancer for several months. His initial role when he joined the company in 1965 was teleprinter mechanic technician one. His career developed and progressed to various stages in Reuters engineering. His last post before retiring in 2000 was technical manager for Reuters Editorial Systems (ISYS) within the Reuters News Service Group based at Gray's Inn Road, London. On retirement Blake held a part-time job with Pimlico Plumbers but his love and passion and interest outside his job was being an active member of the Royal Yeomanry, Territorial Army. He rose to the rank of Captain and in 2006 was honoured with The Queen’s Volunteer Reserves Medal (QVRM) for his length of service and duties.

Tom Glocer gets "substantially more" than others - report

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-20T22:57:58+01:00

Tom Glocer, Thomson Reuters’ CEO, was named on Monday as a board director who enjoys substantially more than others “despite tumbling stockmarkets, shrinking earnings and one of the most severe recessions in living memory”. Glocer enjoyed an annual bonus payout of $3.03 million, or 212 per cent of his basic salary, for 2008. “The payout for the American lawyer, who sold London-based Reuters to Canadian rival Thomson in April last year, comes on top of a $757,397 payment to cover the personal cost of relocating from London to New York and a £27m takeover windfall,” The Guardian said. Reporting a survey of management pay by Income Data Services (IDS), part of Thomson Reuters, it said UK directors' annual bonuses, when expressed as a proportion of basic salaries, have fallen by a quarter in the 12 months to April, down from 40 per cent of basic to 30 per cent. Over the same period, the FTSE 100 fell 38 per cent. The survey does not take into account that in some cases board directors are successfully negotiating an increase in their basic salaries, mitigating the net impact on their take-home pay of falling performance bonuses, The Guardian said. Revised deals are being secured despite unprecedented shareholder efforts to curb what they see as unacceptable revisions to boardroom pay deals. Managers immediately below board level saw the steepest decline in their bonus, according to the IDS survey. This group had enjoyed bonus awards for the year to April 2008 worth 20 per cent of their basic salary; that has fallen to 13 per cent. Meanwhile, middle and junior management saw their bonuses pared back from 10 per cent of basic salary to 7.8 per cent on average. Technical and professional staff experienced a lesser reduction in bonus, dropping from 8 per cent to 5.5 per cent. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Reuters correspondent to head White House association

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-21T14:03:28+01:00

Reuters’ White House correspondent Caren Bohan has been elected next president of the White House Correspondents Association. She will begin her one-year term as president in mid-2011 after serving as vice president for a year. The WHCA’s mission is to push for media access to the president and provide input on coverage and travel logistics for journalists who cover the White House beat. It also hosts an annual dinner with the president. Bohan joined Reuters in 1992 and has covered the White House since 2003. Previously she was part of a team of reporters who won an award from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers for their coverage of President Bush's 2002 shakeup of his economic team. Howard Goller, editor for US & Canada political & general news, said: "We are pleased, proud and honored. This is wonderful recognition for Caren, our White House team and Reuters." The first Reuters correspondent to head the WHCA was Ralph Harris in 1979. He died on 24 December 2008 aged 87.

David Chipp's memoirs to be published in October

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-16T10:02:24+01:00

The memoirs of the late David Chipp, former editor of Reuters and director of the Reuters Foundation, are to be published posthumously in October. The title, Mao’s Toe, comes from an incident in Peking half a century ago when Chipp was Reuters’ first resident correspondent in China since the 1949 Communist takeover. He trod on Chairman Mao Zedong’s toe and, far from taking offence, the Communist leader later gave Chipp his very own Chinese name, Qi Dewei – Lacquered Defender of Morals. Chipp died in his sleep on 9 September 2008 aged 81. His memoirs will be launched at a reception at his old college, King’s, Cambridge, preceded by a memorial evensong in the chapel on Saturday 24 October at 5:15 pm for 5:30 pm. Those who wish to attend or obtain a copy of the book should contact ● development.office@kings.cam.ac.uk to register their interest. ● Obituary ● Thanksgiving service

Reuters Iraq war documentary nominated for Emmy

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-15T10:05:02+01:00

A Reuters documentary on Iraq has been nominated for “a well-deserved Emmy”, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on Wednesday. “It's already a winner in my book,” he said in a message on the micro-blogging site Twitter. Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War, features graphic still and video images and interviews with journalists Ceerwan Aziz, Alastair Macdonald, Andrew Marshall, Samia Nakhoul, Khaled Ramahi, Goran Tomasevic and Dean Yates. It has already won numerous prizes including Best Multimedia at the 2008 Online News Association and New York Photo Awards. In June it was awarded the Italian Illaria Alpi Prize for Best International Report. The €2,500 prize was donated to the Rory Peck Trust which supports the families of freelance journalists killed on assignment. Others among six Emmy finalists are The New York Times, Toronto Globe and Mail and The Washington Post. The winner will be announced at the 30th annual awards ceremony of the US National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in New York on 21 September. The Academy presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for Business and Financial Reporting to Schlesinger in December. ● CLICK to view Bearing Witness: Five Years of the Iraq War | VIDEO

Thomson Reuters discusses Breakingviews takeover

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-14T22:01:40+01:00

Thomson Reuters is reported to be in preliminary discussions to acquire Breakingviews, the financial commentary web site. Breakingviews is a privately held media company based in London. It has made no comment about the talks and a spokeswoman for Thomson Reuters declined to discuss the reports, saying the company did not comment on market rumours. But she did say “Thomson Reuters remains committed to its innovation agenda, which includes investments in news and commentary initiatives.” Thomson Reuters began its own online financial commentary unit this year. New York-based Felix Salmon, who is leading the effort to produce a financial blog, does not think the company will buy Breakingviews. “Needless to say, I have no first-hand, or even second-hand, knowledge of such matters – nobody tells me anything, and nor should they. But I can say that this smells of desperation on the part of Breaking Views, and I will also confidently predict that the deal is not going to happen,” he wrote in a Reuters blog. “When I joined Reuters’s commentary group, it was clear to me that we were a Breakingviews killer: we were going to provide better commentary than they do, at the unbeatable price of $0.00. Reuters can afford to do that because journalism is always a loss center here: the profts come from terminal sales, and introducing a commentary service adds value to the terminals and makes them easier to sell.” Breakingviews’ commentary is syndicated in several newspapers including The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph and Le Monde. It was founded in 2000 by two journalists who worked for the Financial Times’ Lex column, which produces similar commentary. The company has only a small number of shareholders and is partly owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. by way of its acquisition of Dow Jones in 2007. The discussions between Thomson Reuters and Breakingviews were reported by The Times and The New York Times. ● CLICK to read Felix Salmon’s full blog and comments on it. ● SOURCE The Times | The New York Times | Forbes

Reuters' complete Handbook of Journalism goes online

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-09T20:28:07+01:00

Reuters published its complete Handbook of Journalism online for the first time on Thursday, including sections on standards and values, guides to operations and sports style, and specialised guidance on such issues as personal investments by journalists, dealing with threats and complaints and reporting information found on the internet, plus an A-Z general style guide comprising 2,213 entries. “The handbook is the guidance Reuters journalists live by — and we’re proud of it,” wrote Dean Wright, global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards (pictured). “Until now, it hasn’t been freely available to the public. In the early 1990s, a printed handbook was published and in 2006 the Reuters Foundation published a relatively short PDF online that gave some basic guidance to reporters. But it’s only now that we’re putting the full handbook online.” Wright said the handbook is being made available to everyone for a number of reasons. Among them: ● Transparency: At a time when trust is an endangered commodity in the financial and media worlds, it’s important that news consumers see the guidelines our journalists follow. ● Service: As we’ve seen over the past decade, the barriers to publishing have dropped so that anyone with an idea and a computer can be a publisher. But it’s also become clear that publishers have a varying standard of truth, fairness and style. Our handbook is a good place for budding journalists to begin. ● Geography: Reuters serves a global audience and the handbook recognises the cultural and political differences that our journalists face in reporting for the world. This is a handbook not just for English-language journalists in the United Kingdom or the United States, but for wherever English is used. In the contest between UK and US English, “We take a global approach to the spelling of many words. Often, it’s the United States against the world.” The sports section of the handbook offers a list of cliches to avoid and advice on “good, bad”: “For financial and commodity markets good news and bad news depends on who you are and what your position is in the market. Avoid them.” One of the most controversial entries is that of “terrorism.” It reads, in part: “We may refer without attribution to terrorism and counter-terrorism in general but do not refer to specific events as terrorism. Nor do we use the adjective word terrorist without attribution to qualify specific individuals, groups or events. … Report the subjects of news stories objectively, their actions, identity and background. Aim for a dispassionate use of language so that individuals, organisations and governments can make their own judgment on the basis of facts. Seek to use more specific terms like “bomber” or “bombing”, “hijacker” or “hijacking”, “attacker” or “attacks”, “gunman” or “gunmen” etc.” This policy has been passionately debated inside and outside Reuters, Wright said. As the handbook says, “we aim for dispassionate language” so that our customers can “make their own judgment on the basis of facts.” Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger puts it this way: “Over the years we have been criticised for this policy on numerous occasions, when people or governments wanted us to label an incident ourselves rather than quote their views. Criticism of our policy was especially fierce when the United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001. Reuters made the decision not to describe the attackers as terrorists, because we thought a label would not add to our vivid description of the thousands of deaths and the destruction of the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center. In the years since, as the world has witnessed numerous other attacks, we’ve chosen to continue that policy of sticking with the facts and letting our readers make up their own minds based on our reporting and the evidence we present them.” Wright added: “It’s important to point out that the handbook is a living document, one that preserves rules that have guided Reuters journalists through a century and half but also one that may change when the times change. It’s also important to note that the handbook is produced by humans who aren’t infallible — and it’s used by humans who aren’t infallible, so sometimes we make mistakes. I’m sure you’ll let us know when we do, but we’re usually harder on ourselves than anyone else is.” ● SOURCE Reuters | Handbook of Journalism

Obituary: Doreen Vaughan

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-06T19:56:37+01:00

Doreen Vaughan, a popular figure at Reuters’ head office in London during a 25-year career, died of cancer on 25 June, five weeks before her 78th birthday. She started as a general office typist in 1965 and later became PA/secretary to a succession of senior executives in the Finance Department until leaving the company in 1990. The funeral is at City of London Crematorium, Manor Park, on 8 July at 12:15 pm. Donations in her memory can be made to St Joseph’s Hospice, Mare Street, Hackney.

Jack Henry remembered

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-06T09:28:23+01:00

Jack Henry, former editor of Reuters World Service who died on 6 May aged 92, was remembered on Monday as “an ordinary participant in some of the great events of the 20th century ... who remained utterly lucid and interested in the news until the day he died”. An obituary in The Guardian by his son-in-law Jeremy Gavron said he was “an East End boy who became a captain in the British army during the Second World War and was later both home editor and world service editor at Reuters. He always seemed to me the best kind of living history – not a central player, but an ordinary participant in some of the great events of the 20th century. “His brother and sister became a tailor and a milliner like their parents, but Jack – born Henry Jack Hirschberg near Brick Lane, east London – was drawn to the wider world. Aged nine he would go to Hyde Park to watch the soldiers and workers during the General Strike of 1926. As a teenager he took part in the movement against Oswald Mosley in the East End. He was a good boxer, but he was told not to strike the first punch and when, while he was forming a human barricade, a blackshirt spat in his face, Jack simply held his ground. “In the war he served as an officer in the Royal Artillery. Promoted to captain, he was sent to Berlin within a few days of its fall, where his responsibilities included requisitioning houses for the army. Arriving one day to find a crowd of Germans refusing to leave their homes Jack stood up in his jeep, rapped his stick on the side and said in German: ‘I am a British officer and a Jew.’ The crowd dispersed. “After the war Jack returned to Germany as a Reuters correspondent, working in Berlin, Frankfurt, Bonn and later Vienna and Geneva. His work brought him into contact with world leaders such as Vyacheslav Molotov, Zhou Enlai and President Dwight Eisenhower. When he returned to London, he rose through the ranks at Reuters. After his retirement he taught on the journalism course at City University and continued to go to Highbury, where he had first watched Arsenal play in the late 1920s. He was 87 when he saw his last live game. He remained utterly lucid and interested in the news until the day he died.” ● SOURCE The Guardian ● Obituary

RSF demands release of Ibrahim Jassam

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-07-04T10:24:11+01:00

Reporters sans Frontières (Reporters Without Borders) has reiterated its call for the release of detained Reuters photographer Ibrahim Jassam, now said to be on hunger strike in Iraq. Advocates say his detention is illegal as the Iraqi central criminal court dismissed all charges against him last November. "The US armed forces are now withdrawing from the main Iraqi cities after six years of occupation," Paris-based RSF said. "We hope this will result in the release of detainees still held by the Americans, such as Ibrahim Jassam, who was arrested 10 months ago. His detention is illegal as the Iraqi central criminal court dismissed all charges against him last November. He must be freed." One of Jassam's sisters told RSF by phone: "Ibrahim began a hunger strike four days ago in protest against his illegal detention. His health is deteriorating. We are very worried about him.” His family says they have been allowed to visit him every two months. Jassam was arrested by US and Iraqi soldiers in the south Baghdad district of Mahmoudiyah on 1 September. No evidence was produced against him when the central criminal court heard his case on 30 November and dismissed all the charges. Nonetheless, he is still being held in Buki prison in Basra, 550 km south of Baghdad. The situation of journalists continues to be critical in Iraq and the danger persists as the US forces pull out, RSF said. Three journalists have been killed since the start of the year. ● SOURCE Reporters sans Frontières

How Reuters convinced unions about Geneva HQ, by Michael Nelson

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-27T09:46:49+01:00

A Reuters plan to relocate to Geneva from London 30 years ago had nothing to do with internationalism but with British trade unionism, Michael Nelson, general manager at the time, said. The company devised a stratagem to convince the unions that it would leave London, its headquarters since Paul Julius Reuter founded the business in 1851, if it could not get a deal with them during what became known as the 1979 “winter of discontent”. The plan worked, and Reuters remained at 85 Fleet Street. On Wednesday, the Financial Times reported in an article on Thomson Reuters’ decision to end trading of its shares on the London Stock Exchange: “If there is concern about the decision in London, it won't be on patriotic grounds. Reuters had been a global company for years before the Thomson deal (although according to a history of the group, Peter Job, managing director, dismissed a 1980 suggestion to relocate its HQ to Geneva as "pallid internationalism").” The FT’s Lombard columnist, publishing Nelson’s clarification under the headline “Reuters’ Swiss solution”, said on Saturday: “Thomson Reuters’ decision to scrap its London listing should not upset patriots because Reuters has always been a global company. But my parenthetical reference this week to an abortive plan to move the group’s headquarters to Geneva – mentioned in Donald Read’s history of Reuters, The Power of News – prompted a fascinating clarification from Michael Nelson, who was general manager of Reuters at the time. “He says this had ‘nothing to do with internationalism but with British trade unionism’. In 1979, the year of the ‘winter of discontent’, Mr Nelson suggested Reuters build a data centre in the Swiss city as an alternative to London if a deal could not be struck with the unions. “Union representatives were periodically flown out, given a tour of the empty building, ‘a good lunch on Lake Geneva’, and a warning ‘that if we could not get what we wanted in London, we would move to Geneva’. “The ploy worked and, as Reuters expanded, the building was used to serve continental clients, eventually becoming the headquarters for Europe.” Five years earlier, union officials and Reuters’ union representatives had been flown at company expense to study video editing in operation in New York. Kevin Garry, in charge of staff relations, “hinted that, if London refused to follow New York, the whole Fleet Street editorial operation might be moved outside the United Kingdom”, according to the company’s official history. Agreement was reached in mid-1975 but the introduction of video editing in London with journalists’ right to by-pass telegraphists and transmit news directly to line was delayed for technical reasons until the end of 1979. Unions are again threatening strikes and (erroneous) parallels are being drawn with the situation 30 years ago, the FT said. But the story is a timely reminder of how much heavier the pressure was in the late 1970s; of the lengths employers went to in order to hedge their bets; and of how Reuters, a media pioneer in so many other ways, came close to showing the way forward to Eddie Shah and Rupert Murdoch. As Mr Nelson points out: “Geneva was not Reuters’ Wapping, but might have been.” ● SOURCE Financial Times

Thomson Reuters brand wins UK, US awards

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-25T15:50:44+01:00

Thomson Reuters has been named Best New B2B Brand by the UK Marketing Society and the company’s Introducing Intelligent Information advertising campaign has won an award of excellence from the Public Relations Society of America. Judges for the UK Marketing Society prize took into consideration the company’s global branding strategy, launch and roll-out of the new brand image. Earlier in the same week, the Introducing Intelligent Information campaign won a Silver Anvil Award of Excellence from the Public Relations Society of America. ● SOURCE UK Marketing Society | Public Relations Society of America

Reuters' many flags - FT

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-24T20:18:19+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ decision to end its London Stock Exchange listing will deny British index funds and those institutions with an outdated mandate to invest only in UK-listed companies the opportunity to share in future growth of the business, the Financial Times said on Wednesday. Something has gone a bit awry when UK investors keep their exposure to London-listed Kazakh miners that are part of the FTSE 100 index but lose their stake in a global media business with deep roots in Britain, it said in a report under the headline “Reuters' many flags”. But Thomson Reuters’ experience does not necessary rule out a dual-listed structure the next time somebody wants to mount a cross-border takeover using shares, rather than cash, the FT said. Companies as diverse as Thomson Reuters' competitor Reed Elsevier, cruise company Carnival, and miner Rio Tinto maintain a dual listing. “But the structure is an impediment when raising funds - or defending against a hostile bid - it imposes an additional running cost ($10 million a year in Thomson Reuters' case), and it adds complexity when simplicity is in fashion.” The FT quoted a 1915 leaflet celebrating the 50th anniversary of Reuter's Telegram Company: "Reuter's Agency has always been recognised as a British institution representing the English point of view. [Its managing director] is in all respects an Englishman. The Directors, the Editorial Staff, and the correspondents are British pure and simple, and so, with the exception of a score, are the 1,200 shareholders." Reuters once had to defend itself against allegations of undue German influence during the First World War, the FT said. “Times have changed. No one will accuse Thomson Reuters of treasonable behaviour for ending its London listing. The media group has recognised the inevitable reality and UK-based shareholders have voted with their feet. Since last year's deal with Canada's Thomson, the proportion of Thomson Reuters PLC's shares held in London has dropped from 58 per cent to less than 25 per cent. The balance of shareholder power has inexorably shifted to New York and Toronto. “If there is concern about the decision in London, it won't be on patriotic grounds. Reuters had been a global company for years before the Thomson deal (although according to a history of the group, Sir Peter Job, managing director, dismissed a 1980 suggestion to relocate its HQ to Geneva as "pallid internationalism").” The FT noted that “Paul Julius Reuter, the agency's founder, had two names (he was born Israel Beer Josaphat), two nationalities (German and English) and two religions (Jewish and Christian), so you wouldn't bet against Thomson Reuters adding another listing in future (Shanghai, perhaps). But, barring takeover or break-up, London is, regrettably, unlikely to be one of them.” ● SOURCE Financial Times

David Schlesinger on journalism in the age of Twitter

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-24T22:01:44+01:00

Journalistic rules, standards and procedures are being put under severe strain by new media tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and the old means of control don’t work, says Reuters’ editor-in-chief David Schlesinger. In the future, old media won’t control news dissemination. Newspapers, magazines and news services won’t die. But they must change. The only way for news organisations like Reuters to survive is to embrace the change and embrace the new. “Longing for the ways of the past will not work.” Schlesinger was speaking to the International Olympics Committee Press Commission on Tuesday. His speech was posted on the Reuters Editors’ blog (click on the link below to read the full text). “I spend my days at Reuters preaching the multimedia gospel to my 2,700 journalists,” he said. “I want people to think holistically. I need them to. More and more, we’re issuing a multimedia report to multimedia-savvy consumers who no longer make a distinction between information they receive from text and information they receive from images. They demand words and pictures to be blended because… well, because that’s the way the world is! That’s the way the internet is. That’s the way schools work. That’s the way businesses work. “So that’s my gospel – to bring multimedia to life at Reuters.” In the face of “citizen journalism” using new social media tools, “what can we do to survive, or more fundamentally, to stay relevant? “I think the only path is to embrace the change and embrace the new. Longing for the ways of the past will not work,” Schlesinger said. “We in the traditional media and you in the IOC must concentrate our efforts on defining and developing that which really adds value. “That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise.” It means using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one individual strand, Schlesinger said. It means working with the mobile phone and digital camera and social media-enabled public and not against them. While old distinctions and old definitions are falling, “Our goal has to be to preserve the institutions and not the rules or definitions. “And the way to do that is to evolve and morph and develop faster than the changes all around us.” ● SOURCE Reuters

Delisting disappoints UK investors and analysts

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-23T22:54:02+01:00

UK investors and analysts are disappointed at Thomson Reuters' plan to cancel its London Stock Exchange listing, Reuters reported. Monday’s board decision prompted a jump in the shares on Tuesday, but the rally was tempered by fears some large British shareholders will have to cut or sell their stakes. Chief executive Tom Glocer said he hoped UK shareholders – only five per cent of the company's combined shareholder base – would retain their investments after the reorganisation, but major institutional investors are likely to sell many or all of their shares, given the funds they manage are UK focused. Reuters reported: "Tom Glocer was good enough to come and see me yesterday afternoon together with the two other remaining institutional shareholders in London, and I am bitterly disappointed," said one top-10 institutional investor who wished to remain anonymous. The fund manager said he had hoped the company would leave it five years before reaching a decision on its listings. "The dozy old UK institutions and sell-side analysts are only just realising that Thomson Reuters is a much better company than they thought," he said. "I think investors would have really come back to this one ... It's a real shame." The company said the fragmentation in its share structure was deterring some investors. Analysts at Numis Securities said they could see the benefits the simpler shareholder structure would bring but that they too were disappointed by the move. "We have been firm supporters of the group, which was one of our key picks in Media 2009, and are therefore greatly saddened to see the delisting," they wrote, adding that many UK institutional investors would likely have to sell their stakes. Numis had a “hold” rating on the London-listed stock prior to news of the reorganisation but upgraded it to “add” in order to reflect the discount relative to the US shares. UBS analysts said any upside to the shares may be capped by the fact some institutional shareholders would have to sell stock and were less enthusiastic about the company's prospects, retaining a "sell" rating. "We continue to believe the the fundamental value of the group overall remains too high," UBS analyst Phillip Huang said in a note. "We would expect to see evidence of deteriorating momentum near future, which combined with imminent increased liquidity, could put pressure on the Corp valuation." Meanwhile, the longstanding valuation spread between the stocks has already dropped to less than four per cent from 9.3 per cent and will continue to narrow, Huang said. "[There] may be some offset from PLC holders selling if unable to hold Corp," he said. In any event, London shares are likely to be driven down in value by virtue of the delisting announcement alone, so Huang has reiterated his "sell" rating and kept his price target of $23.50. Todd Bourell, a partner at hedge fund ValueAct Capital, which owns 12 million Thomson Reuters shares in London and is one of the company's largest shareholders, said Thomson Reuters' London listing had become problematic for the company. "The fact that the stock is irrationally undervalued in London is putting a drag on the value of the stock in New York and Toronto," Bourell said. Canada's Thomson family is the largest shareholder of Thomson Reuters and holds a 55 per cent voting interest. The Financial Times blamed “a more parochial investment approach” for bogging down Thomson Reuters. “For a company that makes much of its money from professionals in globalised markets moving capital across borders at high speed, Thomson Reuters became oddly bogged down by a more parochial investment approach,” it said. When Thomson Corp swooped on Reuters in the summer of 2007, it knew that some UK investors would have trouble holding the paper in its half-cash, half-shares £7.9 billion offer, the FT said. To avoid a large scale defection of domestic institutions, it turned to a well-worn structure: the dual-listed company, or DLC. The theory was that shareholders on either side of the Atlantic should be allowed to trade instruments of identical value, taking currency into account, on the local market of their choice. Reuters’ London shares initially traded at a discount to Thomson’s North American listings until the deal completed in April 2008. Such gaps are typical with uncompleted deals, as hedge funds bet on possible regulatory delays and other hurdles. Unusually, however, the discount did not disappear when the deal closed. Over the year, the London line traded on average at a 15 per cent discount to the Toronto quote. An instrument designed to smooth the takeover instead became an unexpected illustration of the inefficiencies that still exist in modern global markets, the FT said. The fact that the DLC structure failed to behave as expected was described on Monday by one person close to the company as “irrational”, but analysts identify a number of reasons. One factor was that the high concentration of the Thomson family’s stake in Canada limited liquidity in Toronto, benefiting the price by restricting opportunities for borrowing stock to sell short. The simplest explanation, however, may be that UK investors have taken a more bearish stance towards the company, the FT said. “Their North American peers, many in the company believe, focus less obsessively on the financial data business that serves hard-hit Wall Street and City of London traders and give more weight to its legal, scientific, healthcare, tax and accounting operations.” For the group, a unified capital structure opens up the possibility of more stock-based acquisitions once turbulence subsides. Having two differently valued instruments could have complicated potential takeovers, especially while more than $5 billion of liquidity was effectively trapped in a pool outside North America. According to Glocer: “In an age where our markets are global and electronic, brought that way in part because of us at Thomson Reuters, where these shares are traded is much less important to me than where our customers, employees and footprint are.” ● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Post | Financial Times

TR's London shares gain 7.3 per cent on delisting news

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-23T11:18:47+01:00

Thomson Reuters' London shares had their biggest gain in more than six months after the company unveiled plans to quit the London Stock Exchange. The shares rose as much as 7.3 per cent to 1750 pence, the biggest gain since 19 December, before falling back to 1720 pence. The London shares later gave up more of the gain, closing at 1690 pence, a rise of 59 pence or 3.62 per cent on the day. Over the past year the London shares have traded at a discount of up to 20 per cent to the North American shares, although this has narrowed to about 10 per cent recently. It was described as an arbitrageur’s dream, allowing investors to sell the more expensive North American shares and buy the cheaper British ones. Thomson Reuters said on Monday it would remain listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange, while quitting the LSE and NASDAQ. ● SOURCE Bloomberg | MarketWatch

Delisting won't affect operations, customers, strategy or financial position - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-23T10:26:02+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ decision to end its stock exchange listing in London and New York will not affect the operations, customers, strategy or financial position of the business, CEO Tom Glocer said. “Unification would benefit shareholders by creating a single deep, global pool of liquidity and a simpler, more transparent capital structure,” he said in a message to the company’s 52,000 staff. “Our shares are currently listed on four different stock exchanges [London, New York, NASDAQ and Toronto], which has fragmented the trading in our shares and deterred certain large global investors from buying our shares. Unification would also reduce costs and complexity across the company. “You might fairly ask did we not anticipate when we announced the structure in 2007 that a DLC [dual listed company] would split the trading in our shares and carry a cost and complexity burden? We did, but we believed that these disadvantages would be outweighed by retaining and attracting an active following of investors in the UK. Unfortunately, things have not worked out that way. Over the past two years the percentage of shares held by UK active shareholders has declined from 45% of Thomson Reuters PLC to 12%, and North American investors now own 64% of PLC shares. Overall, UK shareholders now represent only 5% of our consolidated shareholder base. In these circumstances, it is now far better to unify our structure to offer a single, deep pool of liquidity to global investors.” Glocer encouraged staff who hold Thomson Reuters shares to vote for the change at shareholder meetings scheduled for 7 August. He said shareholder meeting materials and proxy forms will be available in early July. Following unification, all Thomson Reuters shareholders will have the same economic and voting interests in the company as they do under the current DLC structure, Glocer said. “Our commitment to customers, employees and other stakeholders in London, the United Kingdom and Europe is unchanged by where we list our shares. London is a vital global capital for the markets we serve and home to more than 5,000 of our employees. “The Founders Share Company has indicated it will support unification as this will in no way diminish our adherence to the Reuters Trust Principles.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Obituary: François Giuliani

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-22T22:08:58+01:00

François Giuliani, former Reuters correspondent who later served as spokesman for three United Nations secretaries-general, died on Monday aged 70. UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said Giuliani, who was French, died after a brief illness. Officials said he was on vacation at the time in Bruges, Belgium. Giuliani worked as a correspondent in London and Africa for 10 years before joining the UN in 1971. In 1976 he was appointed spokesman for then secretary-general Kurt Waldheim. He performed the same role for Waldheim's successor, Javier Perez de Cuellar and, for one year, for Boutros Boutros Ghali. In 1996 he left the United Nations to become director of press and public relations for New York's Metropolitan Opera. He retired from the Met in 2006. Born in Algiers, Giuliani was educated at the Sorbonne in Paris and at Oxford University. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters to quit London Stock Exchange

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-22T22:45:31+01:00

Thomson Reuters said it plans to withdraw its shares from the London Stock Exchange, “severing a key connection with Reuters' British roots”, as Reuters’ own story put it. The company said it would also remove its shares from NASDAQ and remain listed only on the New York and Toronto exchanges. Chief executive Tom Glocer played down concerns that Thomson Reuters could lose any UK-based shareholders through the action, noting that only five per cent of all shareholders are in the United Kingdom. He expressed hope that those shareholders would retain their holdings even after the delisting. "Our shares are now fragmented, divided between North America and London in a way we didn't envision. That's hurting the company because there are investors who would come in but won't," Glocer said in a telephone interview with Reuters. Thomson Reuters said it would seek shareholder approval for the London and NASDAQ delistings on 7 August. "In a global electronic world where shares are trading in ones and zeros ... where we trade our shares is, to me, plumbing," Glocer said. "I think we shouldn't get too hung up ... London is still the second largest centre that we've got." Thomson Reuters shares closed down 78 cents to C$33.53 on the Toronto Stock Exchange and down 94 cents at $29.08 on the New York Stock Exchange. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters to end London share listing - FT

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-22T21:51:47+01:00

Thomson Reuters has decided to end the London listing for its shares, the Financial Times reported. The board discussed the decision on Monday afternoon, the newspaper said in a report from New York. It is subject to shareholder and court approval. Thomson Reuters needs 75 per cent majority approval from shareholders to replace the current UK-listed shares and their related US-listed American Depositary Receipts with a single Toronto listing. The FT said the switch will be conducted through a scheme of arrangement in a manner designed to avoid tax penalties for shareholders and should be completed by the end of September if shareholders and courts give their approval. It would end a period marked by large valuation gaps between the London and Toronto listings since the dual structure was put in place when Thomson took over Reuters in April 2008. The UK shares currently trade 10 per cent below the North American stock and 95 per cent of the company is now held by non-UK shareholders, the FT said. “By improving liquidity in the Canadian stock, which includes most of the Thomson family’s controlling 55 per cent stake, the group hopes to improve its appeal to investors and its chances of raising capital if needed in future,” the FT said. “The company has been conscious of the long history of Reuters in London, which dates back to Paul Julius Reuter’s pioneering use of carrier pigeons and submarine telegraph cables in the 1850s. “However, people close to the company told the Financial Times that the change would not affect its sizeable Thomson Reuters markets business in London, nor headcount at its professional division…” The company could save about $10 million in accounting, legal and other costs associated with the UK listing, they estimated. The FT said that just 25 per cent of the London listed shares are now in the hands of UK institutions, down from over 50 per cent, of which roughly half were active investors and the other half index tracking funds. The group expects index trackers and some UK active investors to come out of the stock, but its greater weighting in the Toronto index should in part offset any flow-back issues. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Niall FitzGerald shortlisted for supermarket chairman

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-21T21:52:23+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ deputy chairman Niall FitzGerald is one of two leading businessmen shortlisted to become chairman of supermarket group J Sainsbury, The Sunday Times said. The other one in the frame for the £396,000-a-year job at the top of Britain’s third-biggest food retailer is John Peace, chairman of fashion brand Burberry, business information group Experian, and acting chairman of Standard Chartered bank. “FitzGerald, 63, is deputy chairman of Thomson Reuters and is keen to take a chairmanship,” the newspaper said. “In recent months he has been approached on three occasions to become chairman at BP but turned down the offers. “The wealthy Irishman, who flirted with communism in his youth, spent three decades selling everything from Dove soap to Vaseline at Unilever, the household-goods group.” He became a director of Reuters in 2003, chairman in 2004, and deputy chairman of the combined group on Thomson’s takeover in April 2008. ● SOURCE The Sunday Times

Crustaceans, sushi and more at '85'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-13T16:10:38+01:00

London’s latest restaurant, named after architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, is opening at 85 Fleet Street, Reuters’ landmark headquarters for more than six decades. Lutyens restaurant, bar and cellar rooms will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner from 7:30 am to midnight. The cuisine in the 125-seat restaurant is crustaceans, sushi, classic French and English recipes, and at the bar classic French country style meals. Lutyens designed the eight-storey Portland stone building, next door to the journalists’ church, Sir Christopher Wren’s famous wedding cake-style St Bride’s, and it opened as the head office of Reuters and the Press Association shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939. Generations of Reuters people referred to it simply as “85”. The building cost £450,000, about three times the original estimate, and fetched £32 million when Reuters consolidated all its London offices at Canary Wharf in 2005. ● SOURCE Lutyens Restaurant, Bar and Cellar Rooms

Shifty? Do they mean us?

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-12T11:40:37+01:00

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ Reuters, media giant. What can they mean? And then there’s the theme, “Shifty Business”. The fill-in-the-blank clue at 40-Across in The New York Times crossword puzzle on Sunday caught the attention of several Reuters people, past and present. The Times crossword is syndicated to more than 300 newspapers and journals. Beginning on a Monday, the crosswords become increasingly more difficult as the week progresses. The Sunday crossword, larger than others during the week, is believed to be about the most difficult. “Shifty Business” was the theme of Sunday’s crossword.

Obituary: Rob Batsford

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-11T21:31:23+01:00

Rob Batsford, former correspondent in Africa and sports desk stalwart, died on Thursday, two months after being diagnosed with brain tumours. His two sons were with him at a hospice in his native Warwickshire when he died. He was believed to be 67. Batsford was hired by Reuters in Johannesburg in 1976 and began working for the sports desk in the late 1980s. His great loves were cricket and rugby union and he also covered several summer Olympics. His friends and family will miss him hugely, friend and colleague Paul Smurthwaite said. The funeral is at Sutton Coldfield Crematorium at 1:00 pm on Monday 22 June. Mourners are welcome to join the family for drinks and snacks at a nearby hotel after the cremation. A wake will be held at The Calthorpe Arms (upstairs bar), Gray's Inn Road, London on 9 July at 2:00 pm.

Sir Peter Job tests patience of angry investors

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-03T23:24:07+01:00

Sir Peter Job, former Reuters CEO and now “City grandee”, should resign promptly as chairman of oil giant Shell’s remuneration committee, The Guardian said on Wednesday. He should know the drill, the newspaper said. When the majority of voting shareholders in a major FTSE 100 company give a thumbs-down to the report on directors' remuneration, vague words from the non-executives about "reflecting carefully" only buy a little time. After a while, action is expected, which usually means a resignation. “A fortnight after Shell's defeat, it's worth asking: what is Job waiting for? If he's hoping that shareholders' anger will abate, he will be disappointed. Fund managers remember how he referred to the bonus issue as ‘an irritant’ and they are determined to be irritating. “More likely, Job fails to appreciate why investors are angry. Let's spell it out: Shell paid £3.6m in bonuses to directors even though performance targets were missed – the firm finished fourth, rather than third or better, in a league table of big oil companies ranked by shareholder returns. “Yes, the small print allowed the remuneration committee to use discretion but the 60% vote against its report shows that shareholders think the right was abused. “Job plans meetings with shareholders in autumn, suggesting he thinks he can survive that long. Maybe he can but humiliation looks inevitable if he's still clinging on at next year's annual meeting. A prompt resignation would surely be more dignified.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

Facebook, Twitter and the Trust Principles: a guide

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-06-03T23:26:53+01:00

Reuters is developing guidelines for how its journalists interact with social media like Facebook and Twitter. The Trust Principles, drafted in 1941, are at the heart of the rules for the new 21st century media. These are the guidelines: ● If Reuters journalists want to use Twitter or social media as part of their professional role they should seek the permission of their manager. ● If Reuters journalists use Twitter professionally they should use the word “Reuters” in the name of their streams or somewhere else on the page. ● The Trust Principles apply to Twitter and social media – journalists should do nothing that compromises them. ● Microblogging and use of social media tend to blur the distinction between professional and personal lives: When using Twitter or social media in a professional capacity Reuters journalists should aim to be personable but not to include irrelevant material about their personal lives. The Trust Principles were created in the midst of World War II with the express purpose of preserving Reuters’ independence, integrity and freedom from bias. When Reuters merged with Thomson in April 2008 they were adopted by the combined company. Dean Wright, global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards, pondering the question “Are we too connected?” says that in recent days and weeks he’s been wondering whether our mobile phones, Blackberries, text messaging and constant access to e-mail and social media have brought us too close together for our own good. “Or maybe the quality of our connected life is only as good as the information we share.” Wright wonders whether this “me, me, me” quality of Facebook and Twitter is just an early evolutionary stage of something smarter and more useful. “There are some encouraging signs – and that’s a good thing, because we’re becoming ever more connected,” he says. How connected are we? “At Reuters, we’re using Reuters Messenger to build chat rooms in which our journalists can expand their conversation with the marketplace through informal, dynamic interactions with a group of engaged financial news clients on our terminals. “We’re also using Twitter in some intriguing ways: ● “Specialist journalists use it to share articles and build up a following. ● “Online editorial staff and bloggers use Twitter to distribute news and solicit reader comment. ● “Journalists are using Twitter during live events like the World Economic Forum at Davos (editor-in-chief David Schlesinger used it to break news there earlier this year) and to solicit questions for newsmaker interviews. “There are huge implications for those of us in the news media as we try to reach an increasingly fragmented and distracted audience awash in information, some of it wanted and much of it not. “And journalists who work and live in the digital world (and that’s just about all of us now) will find that there is little or no difference between our professional and private personae in the wide-open world of social media.” In an e-mail to editorial staff, Schlesinger said “whether we like it or not, our online identities are inextricably linked with our workplace identities…Things we do online could very easily taint our journalistic activity. If one of us self-identifies as ‘very liberal’ politically, it may well be the truth, but would advertising it simply feed the myth that journalists in general have a liberal bias?” “The easiest rule,” Schlesinger cautioned, “is to stop, think and imagine: How would you feel and how would you react if someone made your Facebook page or blog or online comment a story? Could you defend your objectivity? Could Reuters defend having you on the beat you’re on? Could your reputation, and ours, survive someone making an issue of it?” Wright added: “I’m sure neither Schlesinger nor I have had the last word on the relationship of journalism and social media, nor on whether we’re all too connected. What we need to pay attention to is the quality of those connections.” ● SOURCE Reuters ● Trust Principles

Reuters active on case of Ibrahim Jassam - David Schlesinger

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-28T22:44:33+01:00

Reuters is working actively on the case of cameraman Ibrahim Jassam, the only Iraqi journalist still in U.S. custody, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on Thursday. Progress has indeed been unsatisfactory, Schlesinger said in a message to The Baron in response to a posting by former editor-in-chief Brian Horton (● Click Mail). “Your readers can be assured we are working actively on this – in Iraq, in Washington and through the Committee to Protect Journalists (where I am a board member),” Schlesinger said. “My position has been consistent throughout: if there is a charge against or suspicion about any of our journalists, let it be aired publicly. If there is a charge, let the journalist defend his name with the aid of counsel and in an open, fair tribunal. If there is a suspicion about his actions, let us know what it is: we will happily explain why our journalists rush to the scene of conflict instead of away and why they, and we, put such a premium on speed of response. “We have no interest in harbouring a proven evil-doer on our staff. But I will not tolerate or accept innuendo or vague, unspecified charges against a journalist who has never done anything to cause us to question his probity.” The Los Angeles Times reported last week that Jassam, 31, is close to breaking point. His brother Walid visited him recently in Camp Bucca, the desolate, tented US prison camp in the desert in southern Iraq, it said. "He used to be handsome, but now he's pale and he's tired," said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. "Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: 'Please do something to get me out of here. I don't know what is the charge against me.' "I told him we already tried everything." Jassam was seized by American and Iraqi troops at his family home in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, on 2 September 2008. They confiscated his computer hard drive and cameras and led him away handcuffed and blindfolded. The U.S. military rejected an Iraqi Central Criminal Court order on 30 November to release him for lack of evidence, saying he is a “high security threat”. No evidence has been presented.

Foundation expands its activities, opens new web portal

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-28T11:57:15+01:00

The Thomson Reuters Foundation is expanding to reflect the activities and larger scope of the combined business. The company’s charitable arm has acquired the web address www.trust.org to reflect the importance of the Trust Principles and built a new portal for the Foundation’s three key areas of focus – the rule of law, humanitarian information and journalism training. The Foundation’s three main programmes – and the communities that bring them to life – will find a home on the new website, says Foundation CEO Monique Villa (pictured). These programmes are TrustLaw, Trust AlertNet (and its associated Emergency Information Service) and Trust Media. ● Trust Media, flagship of the old Reuters Foundation, is all about training journalists around the world to the highest standards – everything from business reporting in Africa or Eastern Europe to multimedia coverage of crises around the world. Also under Trust Media's wing is the Reuters Oxford Institute, the Foundation’s partnership with Oxford University, which is dedicated to the study of journalism and its ongoing challenges in the 21st century. ● Trust AlertNet is the world's premier website on humanitarian issues. Covering conflicts, natural disasters and health emergencies, it has 10 million users a year. It has also built up an alliance of more than 400 non-governmental organisations engaged in relief work around the world. The Foundation is developing the Emergency Information Service to support survivors of major earthquakes, cyclones and other natural disasters with potentially life-saving information. From SMS text messages to megaphones and bulletin boards, it will use the best means possible to reach communities left in the dark. The project stems from the conviction that information in itself is a form of aid, exactly as crucial as blankets or tarpaulins. ● TrustLaw, the Foundation’s newest project, will be born at the end of this year. It is based on a simple but ambitious goal: to create an international hub for the practice of pro bono legal work. The idea is to match those in need of legal expertise with those willing to give it at no cost to the client. Just as AlertNet offers news, information and a community space for professionals from the humanitarian aid world, TrustLaw will serve as a forum for lawyers, accountants, judges, journalists, governments and NGOs focusing on specific areas of the law such as good governance and anti-corruption. The website will offer news and information as well as a database of law, best practices, policies and procedures and country background reports. “Whether you are a Thomson Reuters employee, a client, a Foundation partner or a member of the public, www.trust.org will be an open door to getting involved,” Villa said in a message circulated within the company. “The full-blown new website will be launched at the end of this year but you can already get a feel and find out a little more about what the Foundation is up to and how it is already making a difference to those who have much less than many of us. The first issue of our quarterly Your Foundation newsletter is now on the site and a good place to learn more. “I know that the Thomson Reuters Foundation is going to be remarkable. It will be pioneering and it will reflect the amazing skills, experiences, passion and dedication of our business and the people who work in it. In the months to come there will be lots of ways to hear more and get involved – through town halls, our new quarterly newsletter and through our network of Foundation ‘Champions’. “I have been hugely inspired working with the Foundation team in bringing this to life, and I hope the Foundation will not only reflect our great businesses but also serve as a source of pride to all of you.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters Foundation

Detained Reuters cameraman 'close to breaking point'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-24T22:49:49+01:00

Ibrahim Jassam, an Iraqi cameraman working for Reuters who has been held by US forces since September, is close to breaking point, the Los Angeles Times reported. Jassam's brother Walid visited him recently in Camp Bucca, the desolate, tented US prison camp in the desert in southern Iraq, it said. "He used to be handsome, but now he's pale and he's tired," said Walid, who says his brother had no ties to insurgents. "Every now and then while we were talking, he would start crying. He was begging me: 'Please do something to get me out of here. I don't know what is the charge against me.' "I told him we already tried everything." Jassam, 31, was detained by American and Iraqi troops at his family home in the town of Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, on 2 September 2008. They confiscated his computer hard drive and cameras and led him away handcuffed and blindfolded. The US military rejected an Iraqi Central Criminal Court order on 30 November to release him for lack of evidence, saying he is a “high security threat”. No evidence has been presented. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has expressed disappointment over Jassam's detention and said there is no evidence against him. Jassam is the only Iraqi journalist still in US custody. He is the last to be detained under wartime rules that predated a US-Iraqi security agreement signed in December. Under the new accord, US forces must obtain a warrant before they can arrest an Iraqi citizen. The decision to release him or transfer him to the Iraqi legal system will be made by the Iraqi government. The only timetable for that is by the end of the year, a US military spokesman said. ● SOURCE Los Angeles Times

Sir Peter Job under fire over executive pay at Shell

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-24T10:39:01+01:00

Sir Peter Job, former Reuters CEO, is under fire for his handling of a controversial executive pay decision he made as a non-executive director at oil group Royal Dutch Shell. Angry investors are calling for his head, The Sunday Times reported. Shareholders think the removal of Job should be the first step in the shake-up of a boardroom criticised as being out of touch. The changes are being demanded after a decision to pay £3.65 million in bonuses to executives despite missing performance targets. As head of the remuneration committee, Job waved the payments through, the newspaper said. “He should go,” it quoted a top institutional investor as saying. “He’s been there too long. He’s clearly not in tune with the mood of investors.” US fund Franklin Mutual called Job's bonus decision “pathetic”. “Many shareholders were already upset after Job sent a letter to investors before the vote to explain the committee’s position. One investor described the letter, seen by The Sunday Times, as ‘tone-deaf’. In it Job referred to the pay row as ‘an irritant’ and argued that the company had ‘already gone a long way towards meeting shareholder concerns’. “The investor said: ‘It was the tone of it. It gave the impression that they are living in a world of their own.’” Job has been a non-executive director at Shell since 2001. He has chaired the remuneration committee since 2007. The bonus plan was based on Shell’s three-year share performance relative to a group of rival firms. It finished fourth, meaning executives were entitled to nothing. Because the difference between the next closest rival, France’s Total, was considered marginal – less than two per cent – Job waved through payments equal to 50 per cent of base salary. It was the second consecutive year he had approved pay-outs despite Shell’s underperformance. The decision enraged investors – nearly 60 per cent voted down the remuneration report – but the vote is not binding. Shell and Job declined to comment. The Sunday Times’ sister paper The Times said on Saturday that Job should have seen it coming. “...the former Reuters journalist and much-travelled non-executive, has been through a couple of bruising battles before over allegations of overly generous executive pay. “But Sir Peter blundered into the minefield again as chairman of the remuneration committee at Royal Dutch Shell, which decided that performance targets previously set should be ignored and that some of the money should be paid regardless.” The Times noted that Job had been involved in similar controversies when he was a non-executive director of GlaxoSmithKline and Schroders. “Sir Peter, who turns 68 in July, is an improbable facilitator for fat cats, being a workaday journalist made good. He grew up in Devon and joined Reuters' graduate trainee programme. “This is regarded as one of the key launches for a glittering career in journalism and, after joining in 1969, Sir Peter became a correspondent in Paris, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and, as manager, Buenos Aires before taking over the Asian operation in 1978. “Described variously by some former colleagues as ‘prickly’ and ‘intellectually self-assured’, he became chief executive in 1991. He is the last journalist to run the news operation founded by Paul Julius Reuter in 1851. “Under Sir Peter, Reuters widened its range of products for financial markets but was criticised for being slow to use the internet by comparison with rivals. Sir Peter was wrong-footed in 1999 when remarks he made were taken to mean that the company had no online strategy whatsoever – he later admitted he had given journalists a ‘dilatory answer’ – and the share price plunged. “‘The internet was purpose-built for it [Reuters],’ said a former colleague yesterday. ‘He let Reuters not engage – he let Bloomberg dominate.’” The Times summed up Job’s “Ups and downs” as follows: Background: Studied languages at Exeter College, Oxford; Reuters trainee, then a number of foreign postings Best break: Becoming chief executive, 1991 Worst break: Apparent fumble over Reuters' internet strategy, which sent the share price into a tailspin Style: Self-assured, prickly, aloof. ● SOURCE The Sunday Times | The Times

Reuters hires three more columnists

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-14T21:51:22+01:00

Reuters announced three more appointments to its commentary team. Agnes Crane, an editor at Dow Jones Newswires, Matthew Goldstein, a senior writer for BusinessWeek, and Christopher Swann from Bloomberg News are joining over the next three weeks as columnists based in New York. The 25-member commentary team based primarily in London and New York will produce a blog. The team will be led by Jonathan Ford, co-founder of Breakingviews. The European team will be led by Peter Thal Larsen, formerly banking editor of the Financial Times, and the US team will be led by Jeffrey Cane, formerly an editor at Portfolio.com and The New York Times. "I am very excited to have a team of such talented financial journalists," said Cane. "They, along with our New York-based financial blogger, Felix Salmon, and our Washington blogger and columnist, James Pethokoukis, will greatly expand the ability of Reuters to offer smart, fact-based opinion on the big stories in the global financial markets." ● SOURCE PR News Wire

Pension increase ruled out for this year

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-14T18:17:25+01:00

Thomson Reuters has turned its back on members of its UK pension funds and ruled out any inflation-linked increase for 2009, their fourth pay freeze in the past seven years. The bad news, which effectively means that Reuters Pension Fund and Supplementary Pension Scheme pensioners are 13 per cent worse off, was confirmed at the Thomson Reuters annual general meeting in London on 13 May. Pension Review Group chairman Angela Dean asked CEO Tom Glocer when the newly merged company would “do the right thing by its pensioners and pay them index-linked increases, as do other FTSE 100 companies with defined benefit schemes, and as did the old Thomson company for its UK pensioners?” Glocer ducked the question and passed it to former Reuters chairman Niall FitzGerald, who speaks for “legacy Reuters issues” on the new Thomson Reuters board of directors. FitzGerald noted that the RPF and SPS were in deficit at the end of 2008. This meant that under the terms of the 2006 funding agreement between old Reuters and the pension fund trustees, there could be no inflation increases this year. FitzGerald reminded that there had been increases in the three years since the funding agreement, when Reuters put in £230 million to shore up the funds and wipe out their deficits at that time. If the funds returned to surplus by the end of this year, the trustees would be in a position to resume increases, he said. The funding agreement between RPF/SPS and the company runs out in 2010, when it will be renegotiated. When Thomson took over Reuters last year, it said it was standing by the agreement. Allan Ferguson, another Reuters UK pensioner who attended the AGM, said he understood that former employees of Thomson “get cost of living increases automatically”. FitzGerald replied that Thomson Reuters had many pension schemes in many different countries. “Some have automatic indexation, some don’t. I really can’t add anything to what I said.” David Thomson, chairman of the board and head of the Canadian company which has the controlling interest in Thomson Reuters, ended on a more conciliatory note by saying “we will take into serious consideration your concerns”. The Pension Review Group wrote to CEO Glocer in April, ahead of the AGM, setting out the concerns of RPF/SPS pensioners and asking the company to resume annual inflation increases, which was very much the custom and practice prior to the first freeze in 2003. The PRG letter, which the company has acknowledged but not yet provided a substantive reply, noted that Thomson Reuters was doing well and paying Glocer and other senior executives multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses. Pensioners, meanwhile, were getting poorer. The PRG intends to publish the full text of its letter and the company’s substantive reply, when it arrives. The question asked by the PRG chairman at the AGM was as follows: At a time when the new Thomson Reuters company is forging ahead, and its top executives from old Reuters are earning multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses, why are Reuters pensioners suffering yet another pay cut? Elderly members of the Reuters UK defined benefit schemes are facing their fourth pension freeze in seven years, which means they are 13 per cent worse off. And this at a time when any savings they might have are producing greatly reduced returns. When will Thomson Reuters do the right thing by its pensioners and pay them index-linked annual increases, as do other FTSE 100 companies with defined benefit schemes, and as did the old Thomson company for its UK pensioners?

Thomson Reuters launches new iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry applications

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-11T01:14:16+01:00

Thomson Reuters launched new applications for the iPhone, iPod Touch and Blackberry mobile devices and plans to charge for its content on smartphones. “It would be a logical conclusion that there would be a paid element in time,” said Alisa Bowen, head of consumer publishing. “The ability to launch premium services is our ultimate goal.” The company is also looking at a more comprehensive service for the Kindle, Amazon’s electronic reader. “We’re seeing a willingness to discuss [the Kindle business model] from Amazon,” Bowen said. The new applications offer video and market data as well as headlines. They are tailored for the three devices’ different audiences. The iPhone/iPod Touch service plays up video coverage and photography for a consumer-focused user base, while its Blackberry service focuses on customised business reporting and data. Both apps are being released free to BlackBerry and iPhone/iPod Touch users, but the company wants to turn them into products that generate both subscription and advertising revenue. Chris Ahearn, president of media, told the website paidContent that the company was still moving forward on Markets division CEO Devin Wenig's promise to invest $1 billion in building up its multimedia capabilities. That push revolves around ramping up its video capabilities for both TV and the web. "The iPhone app is targeted to all business professionals, not just financial consumers, or users in legal or health and science. It's for Thomson Reuters professional audience writ large," he said. Ahearn said the company will roll out a number of other products this year. "You'll see a variety of multimedia offerings across online, mobile as well as the terminals over the course of this year. We're investing $1 billion in the middle of what is arguably one of the most difficult economic periods we've seen in decades." "We learned a lot of lessons over the last two decades – the most important of which is to focus on delivering great user experiences," said Ahearn. "This app for iPhone and iPod Touch is an excellent way to give our business professional audience convenient access to Reuters content anytime, anyplace." Key features and benefits of the mobile application include: ● News stories from a variety of categories including world, sports, politics, environment, health, and business ● Full story articles and photos optimised for easy reading on a mobile device ● Ability to select region – US, Canada, UK, or India – for localised content ● Up-to-the-minute market data including indices, commodities and currencies by region ● Designed to support offline use when users don’t have service or an Internet connection ● Personalised stocks tab so users can track only the stocks that they want ● Keywords and My Feeds tab that allows users to customised news feeds that are of special interest. ● SOURCE Financial Times | The Washington Post | Business World ● CLICK to download the iPhone and iPod Touch application from the Apple iTunes website. ● CLICK to download the BlackBerry application from the BlackBerry website.

Obituary: Jack Henry

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-08T10:44:21+01:00

Jack Henry, former editor of Reuters World Service, died on Wednesday at the age of 92. He was closely involved in the introduction in July 1968 of a message storing and switching system that changed Reuters editorial operations as well as the landscape at 85 Fleet Street. Reuters pioneered the use of the Automatic Data Exchange and systems like it which enabled the editing of English-language regional services from one central position, the World Desk, rather than from numerous regional desks. ADX meant that most of those desks could be eliminated, leaving only the French and Western Hemisphere Desks in London alongside a more powerful World Desk. Born in London in January 1917, Henry J. Henry worked for British United Press from 1937 to 1940 when he joined the British Army. He served with the Royal Artillery, reaching the rank of Captain. At the end of World War Two he was in Berlin with some of the first British occupation troops. Henry joined Reuters in November 1946, working on the Central Desk. From September 1949 he worked in Germany for nearly five years as correspondent and news editor. On special assignment from Germany, he took charge of coverage of the Council of Europe in 1951 and the Communist World Peace Conference in Vienna in 1952. Returning to London in 1954, he worked on the Central Desk as copytaster, filing editor and editor-in-charge. He was appointed home editor in 1965, associate editor in 1970, manager, RWS in 1974, and editor, RWS in 1977. After 33 years’ service he retired early at the end of 1979 when RWS was merged with Reuters Economic Services. Post-retirement, Henry worked as an editorial consultant on the Reuters Chronology, summaries of Reuters’ historical connections with various countries and regions, and other editorial projects. A notice in The Times on Thursday said he died peacefully at Princess Grace Hospital, London. The funeral is at Golders Green on Sunday. Postscript: Michael Nelson writes: Manfred Pagel and I attended Jack Henry’s funeral held on Sunday at Golders Green Crematorium. It was conducted without a rabbi and Andrew, the younger son, read the Kaddish. The three children – Judy and Ian as well as Andrew – gave moving tributes and two grandchildren read poems.

Thomson Reuters Q1 profit beats forecasts

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-07T17:38:08+01:00

Thomson Reuters reported better-than-expected first quarter profit on Thursday as it kept a tight control on costs. The company reaffirmed its expectation that revenue will grow this year. CEO Tom Glocer said the climate in the market had improved but not enough to rule out further weakness. "I can't really call exactly where the bottom is. There can be false dawns. Right now sentiment is quite good in the market. We see them opening up their purse strings just a little bit," he said. The London-listed shares closed a tad under 44 pence lower at 1,812 pence, down 2.37 per cent, after hitting a record high of 1,939 before the results were released. Greater losses were registered in New York and Toronto. In New York, Thomson Reuters shares closed 5.73 per cent lower at $29.77, a loss of $1.81. On NASDAQ, the shares closed at $161.51, down $7.98 or 4.71 per cent. In Toronto, the fall was 4.75 per cent or C$1.75 to a close of C$35.08. Thomson Reuters’ Q1 net income was $228 million, or 27 cents a share, compared with $194 million, or 30 cents a share, a year ago. Underlying operating profit, excluding amortisation, integration costs and other items, rose two per cent to $588 million, or 40 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 34 cents per share. Revenue from ongoing businesses was $3.12 billion, down three per cent from a year ago but up three per cent before currency effects. Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $3.17 billion. The company reaffirmed its outlook for revenue to grow in 2009, and for underlying operating margin and free cash flow to be comparable to 2008, supported by revenue growth and the expected savings from integration programmes. Thomson Reuters has said it expects annualised cost savings of $1 billion by the end of 2011, and Glocer said that while this was a good target, he did not rule out more. Revenue in the Markets division, which supplies news and data to financial institutions, fell seven per cent to $1.85 billion, hurt by lower transaction volumes and job cuts. But the revenue would have risen 0.4 per cent before currency effects. Though the outlook has brightened in recent weeks, financial institutions have been hit by closures, mergers and deep job cuts, and Reuters reported that the company is regarded by some analysts as the riskiest bet among professional information providers due to its exposure to the financial sector for about 60 per cent of group sales. But strong execution, a high proportion of subscription and digital revenues, and the resilience of the Professional unit have helped to drive up Thomson Reuters London-listed shares by more than 20 per cent in the year to date. Revenue at the Professional division, which supplies information to lawyers, scientists, accountants and the healthcare industry, rose two per cent to $1.27 billion, or five per cent excluding currency effects. Glocer told the Financial Times that Thomson Reuters can take market share from rivals once turbulent financial and legal markets revive. Bloomberg’s fall in terminal numbers by 2.5 per cent since November suggested “a much stronger descent than we’re seeing” in the markets business where they compete, Glocer said. “I certainly feel we’re at least holding our own.” Much of the market share gains the group foresees would come from taking over the “do-it-yourself” data efforts of large banks and other customers, he said. Subscriptions had risen by two per cent in the markets business, while transaction revenues had fallen, but would rebound quickly in a recovery, he added. “It feels like sentiment has changed in the last month,” Glocer told the FT, “but we don’t run our business on the basis that we need to clutch at green shoots.” Robert Daleo, chief financial officer, said savings from integration were ahead of plan, adding that when combined with earlier initiatives these were on track to meet a $1.4 billion target by 2011. ● CLICK to read a transcript of the analysts’ webcast by Tom Glocer and Robert Daleo. ● SOURCE Reuters | Financial Times

Thomson Reuters' UK shares hit record high

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-05-05T21:24:09+01:00

Thomson Reuters’ London shares closed at a record high on Tuesday. The stock ended the day up 95 pence – 5.43 per cent – at 1845 pence on the London Stock Exchange. Percentage increases in North America were modest. On the New York Stock Exchange, the share was six cents higher – 0.20 per cent – at $30.70. On NASDAQ, the increase was $2.45 – 1.49 per cent – to $166.45. In Toronto, the increase was C$0.16 – 0.44 per cent – to C$36.15.

Reuters builds commentary team

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-29T23:26:55+01:00

Reuters on Wednesday announced another appointment to its growing commentary team. James Pethokoukis, a writer and blogger for U.S. News & World Report, will cover US economic policy, regulation and the economy in Washington. He is also a contributor to CNBC. Previously, he was with USA Today and Investor’s Business Daily. He will report to Jeffrey Cane, US editor, commentary, a former editor at Portfolio.com and The New York Times. “The credit crisis has tilted the balance of US financial power away from New York and towards Washington, so the hiring of James Pethokoukis, who will cover the Capitol and its environs, is an essential plank in our plans to build a commentary team that will focus on the biggest stories in financial markets globally,” said Jonathan Ford, global commentary editor, who was previously co-founder of the Internet service Breakingviews. “James will post to our global financial blog and will also write longer columns on the evolving debate.” Reuters’ 25-member commentary team of journalists is primarily based in London and New York. It produces short opinionated columns every day on the world’s top stories as well as longer columns. The European commentary team will be led by Peter Thal Larsen, formerly banking editor of the Financial Times. Felix Salmon, a financial blogger, is leading Reuters’ effort to produce a financial blog. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Memories of Arthur Spiegelman, his humility and his humour

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-29T13:15:37+01:00

Adam Spiegelman, Charlotte Spiegelman, Belinda Goldsmith, Andrew Nibley. Arthur Spiegelman's family, friends and colleagues, past and present, gathered at the Tillman Chapel, the Church of the United Nations, in New York on 20 April to celebrate the life of one of Reuters' finest writers. Spiegelman died last December aged 68 after a long and courageous battle with cancer. About 100 people attended the memorial service including his wife Charlotte, their younger son Adam, Reuters global managing editor Betty Wong, general news editor Howard Goller, and current and former Reuters journalists from New York and Washington, many of whom he mentored over the years. Several of Charlotte and Arthur's former neighbours came to the event from Montclair, New Jersey, where they had lived and where Charlotte was jokingly known as "the Mayor of Montclair”. Paul Holmes, Reuters former editor, political and general news, was the emcee for the service. Arthur's love of his family, of words, and of jazz, were recurring themes as friends and colleagues shared their memories – and many funny stories – of a man who never lost his humility or his humour, even in his final days. Praise flowed for Arthur's sparkling leads, his intellect, and his insight. Former colleagues Michael Arkus and Andrew Nibley affectionately recalled Arthur's sharp wit, his infectious giggle, his chaotic desk, and his constant fear that he was one day away from being fired, despite working for Reuters for 42 years in London, New York and, for the past 12 years, in Los Angeles where he was West Coast bureau chief and chief entertainment correspondent. Evelyn Leopold, whose friendship with Arthur pre-dated his time at Reuters to their years at The Record in Hackensack, New Jersey, read a letter from his friend, the Canadian poet Barry McKinnon, about their bonding over jazz. Dr Shelly Recinello, a family family and a psychologist, called Arthur "one of my favourite unofficial case studies." Arthur’s son Adam recalled how his father had always insisted that you put other people first (because more of them will show up at your funeral) – and how his sense of humour filtered down to his sons, both of whom are in comedy entertainment. Jazz saxophonist Kenny Brooks and singer Joy d'Angelo closed the service with Amazing Grace. Charlotte told the gathering she has chosen the song because Arthur had woven the lyrics by John Newton into a short story he had written last year. For how had Arthur spent his time while sick? He had decided to learn to write and attended a creative writing course. He was, as Charlotte recalled, a star student. “When I finished reading my story, the whole class applauded and then sang ‘Amazing Grace',” she quoted him as saying. Paul Holmes: “I’m told that when Art lived in London in the sixties, he would smoke, ahem, ‘herbal’ cigarettes. Can you imagine that giggle of his after a puff or two? … There have been some great jokes here tonight, and Arthur must be up there laughing with us.” Belinda Goldsmith: "Few deskers could resist a Spiegelman lead, even if he did break all the Reuters rules about sourcing and the day of the week in the lead. Farewell King Lear, Hello Hobbits. An actor's life can take strange turns, read his introduction to an interview with British actor Ian McKellen... One of his personal favourites was about comedian Don Rickles: There's a secret to the success of 81-year-old insult comedian and beloved American institution Don Rickles – he cannot tell a joke. Michael Arkus: On paranoia. “He had a sort of gloomy look – halfway between gloom and a boy caught with his hand in a cookie jar. He said, ‘They are going to fire us.’ And he went on day after day, year after year. … As far as I am concerned he is still here…I can still hear him, his kooky laugh.” Adam Spiegelman: “If you can’t spell a word, find another word,” he quoted Arthur as saying. His Dad told him he had to be good to other people. “It didn’t make any sense,” Arthur opined, “for someone to have the last bagel with onions.” Andrew Nibley: “Many people change personalities, become political. But Arthur was always Arthur. He always listened to everything you said and he always came up with something wonderful. And he never really expected anything in return.” BELINDA GOLDSMITH

Reuters to beat Bloomberg out of global crisis - FT

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-27T22:49:20+01:00

Reuters may fare better than Bloomberg in the current financial crisis, the Financial Times said on Monday. Thanks to a technological shift, instead of just wholesaling news and data, wire services can in theory also sell it direct to consumers via the internet or mobile applications. But advertising is scarce and such retail schemes, which cannibalise wholesale revenues, have floundered in the past, it said. A bigger problem is the banking crisis. Peter Grauer, Bloomberg’s chairman, believes the financial services industry will cut its information spending by 20 per cent this year. “Such shrinkage offers a replay of the slugging match during the dotcom downturn, when Bloomberg got the better of Reuters, its duopolistic financial information rival,” the FT said. “This time Reuters may fare better. Bloomberg can’t count on the hedge funds it courted in the 2000s to pick up the slack. It is dominant in fixed-income, not the best place to be; Reuters is stronger in forex and commodities. Furthermore, Thomson Reuters’ legal and medical information provide extra ballast. Bloomberg’s largely one-trick business model, renting terminals at $1,590 per month, hinges on body count. Thanks to savings from the merger, Thomson Reuters shares trade at 15 times forecast earnings, a 32 per cent premium to its peers. Bad news can only await such a high wire rating.” Analysts expect the global financial crisis to have profound consequences for the industry, but what those will be is far from obvious, the FT said. Lengthy subscriptions mean cuts by customers take time to filter through, and even in the quarter when Lehman Brothers collapsed, transactional revenues rose thanks to volatility in commodity and foreign exchange markets. “Only now, as first-quarter figures begin to come through, are investors watching anxiously for the early signs of the credit crunch’s impact. Citigroup analysts noted last week that transaction revenues could be down 40 per cent,” the FT said. There is considerable uncertainty about the extent to which financial companies will retain overlapping, or similar services given the pressure on services. Although at the same time heightened scrutiny on valuations and increased regulatory demands could help support the industry. Not all are affected equally. Citigroup argued that Thomson Reuters could fare better than Bloomberg because the latter had been more exposed to harder-hit fixed-income and asset-backed securities traders and hedge funds. One analyst, who would not be named, said Bloomberg was taking an “aggressively proactive” approach to persuading customers to keep their terminals. The analyst told the FT that Thomson Reuters, which is less dependent on terminal sales than in past downturns, was fighting back ahead of launching its first common platform since the former Thomson Financial and Reuters businesses combined a year ago. Thomson Reuters’ London-listed shares are now at the same level as last May. Over the same period the FTSE has dropped 35 per cent. The London shares closed on Monday at 1,705 pence, 0.99 per cent below their 52-week high of 1,722 set nine trading days ago on 14 April. ● SOURCE Financial Times

The Reuters culture: what was it?

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-22T10:17:27+01:00

The Reuters culture: Did Reuters create a characteristic or special corporate culture? What was it? The questions are raised in an online debate generated by Alfonso Scarano (Reuters 1997-1999), Milan-based financial analyst and founder of the Linkedin group Club ex-Reuters. Kristian Pedersen (Reuters 1996-2007), a financial analyst now based in Spain, tips his hat at this website as “a very good sensor of the Reuters culture past and present” and also recommends the book Breaking News: How the Wheels Came Off at Reuters by Brian Mooney and Barry Simpson [● Click to read a review]. “It gives a broad picture of the culture that existed at the time new executive management took helm of the organisation to lead it through ongoing series of critical and deep business turnaround and restructurings – including vital large scale simplification, savings and organisational change programs – which in many organisations would be the sources of cultural meltdowns. But I did not see it happen in Reuters. I think it was because people knew why change was critical. “I cannot speak of the present culture, but in my years in Reuters there was never a shadow of doubt of the enviable stamina, loyalty and ‘esprit de corps’ of the people. The culture created a lasting sense of belonging and a psychological bond with the company and old colleagues after people have left. I have never met a colleague who was not proud to have been associated with Reuters; whatever circumstances they left under. “The culture was tied to an identification with the integrity and values expressed in the core Reuters Trust Principles… “For the same reasons, the concern of the Trust Principles was central to the acceptance of the merger with Thomson. Time will tell how fast the cultures adapt and merge in the new Thomson Reuters. An indicator of how the market evaluates this challenge you can see reflected in the share price change during the crisis relative to peers.” Don York (Reuters 1983-2000), former network operations director now based in Canada, believes it is not so much that Reuters created a culture but that it was allowed to grow and mature. “They maintained an environment that allowed a unique set of people and skills to gather and develop. After 24 years, I could not find a single person who worked outside of Reuters who would describe their career or company like those in Reuters.” Rosemary Martin (Reuters 1997-2008), former general counsel and company secretary, believes Reuters had an unusually strong culture that enabled it to go through a great deal of change successfully. “I believe the culture came from a mixture of the role Reuters plays in the world and the type of people who are attracted to the company. I hope that culture lives on in Thomson Reuters but I do not know as I left the organisation at the time of the takeover.” Recalling remarks she made at her farewell event, Martin said: “When I joined Reuters over a decade ago it was for a number of reasons. First, I sensed it might be reminiscent of that marvelous book, Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop: a farcical story, full of humour, full of life and very human. That sounded delightful. I was not disappointed. “Second, someone in the City had remarked to me: ‘Ah yes, Reuters. Extraordinary company. Seems so smooth on the outside; complete anarchy inside.’ That sounded fun. I was not disappointed. “Third, here was a company that seemed to have a purpose that went beyond just making money; that was guided and governed by the Trust Principles. That sounded honourable. I was not disappointed. “And here was a company that had offices everywhere, a truly international company. There’d be opportunities to travel and to meet people from far flung corners of the globe. That sounded interesting. I was not disappointed… “And Reuters was a company that sat at the heart of three of the most exciting sectors of the last decade: media, finance and technology and I had the pleasure – sometimes the frustration – and often the bemusement of watching this funny, loveable company and the funny, loveable people in it chart their way through the roller-coaster of the last decade.” Zaid Rashdan (Reuters 1986-2007), former general manager in the Middle East now based in Jordan, says that the name Reuters, associated with truth and accuracy across the globe, in the Middle East takes a similar meaning but with a little twist. “The name Reuter without the ‘s’ is a nickname given to anyone who knows what is happening. In the East Mediterranean area however it’s a nickname for someone who would spread whatever is said in front of him.” Rashdan believes Reuters had a major role in developing economies in the world and changed the way in which the financial world trades. “From the first page BAXX to appear on the green Monitor screen to the first Reuters Instrument Code (RIC) created, the financial world has moved in a different direction with no return. “I would go as far as saying that Reuters’ private communication network established late last century was the first of what we know today as the Internet. “Reuters surely changed the people that worked for it, and I confirm what Kristian Pedersen noted that this company gave me a lasting sense of belonging and I am extremely proud to have been part of it all… “As Rosemary Martin said, it is this funny, loveable company. But times are changing and the company has proven that it is really self generating; the natives of the digital age will replace the immigrants.”

Goldman Sachs cuts Thomson Reuters to 'sell'

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-16T22:17:53+01:00

Goldman Sachs cut its rating on Thomson Reuters to “sell” from “neutral” on Thursday, sending the shares lower in London and New York. The influential US investment bank believes the group’s financial information business – the Markets division – will suffer a significant deterioration in sales this year. Citing another round of job cuts at leading investment banks, Goldman said: “We believe Markets will see significant deterioration in 1Q to -3 per cent and for the full year to -8 per cent, compared with full-year consensus forecasts of -4 per cent.” At one point the London shares touched 1,611 pence, but then closed at 1,656 – 9.30% below their 52-week high of 1,826 pence set a year ago. The 52-week low is 883 pence. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Thomson Corp’s takeover of Reuters. Over the last week Thomson Reuters has underperformed the FTSE 100 index. Over all other time periods it outperformed the index. Closing prices: LONDON: TRIL.L up 0.98 per cent to 1656p. NEW YORK: TRI down 1.70 per cent to $27.19. TORONTO: TRI.TO down 1.29 per cent to C$32.90. NASDAQ: TRIN up 0.60 per cent to $149.41. ● SOURCE Financial Times

FT man joins Reuters as commentary editor, banking chief

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-15T10:13:17+01:00

The Financial Times’ banking editor, Peter Thal Larsen, is leaving after 10 years to join Reuters’ commentary service. He will become the London-based European editor of the commentary team, commissioning and editing comment articles, as well as taking overall charge of global banking coverage. Thal Larsen will report to Jonathan Ford, editor of the new commentary team at Reuters which is developing its global commentary output and expanding its range of columns and blogs. Before becoming FT banking editor he worked in New York from 2000 to 2004, first as the paper's Wall Street correspondent and later as US communications editor, covering the media and telecoms. ● SOURCE The Guardian

In the news: the art of expenses

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-09T19:52:48+01:00

Former correspondent John Morrison has been interviewed on radio about journalists’ expenses following the humiliation of a British government minister over a claim for two pornographic films watched by her husband while she was away. "Reuters had a legendary journalism tutor called George Short and he used to make sure that young journalists were fully briefed on expenses, which was just as important as writing stories,” Morrison said. “He used to tell the story about the stringer in the far north of Alaska who used to claim every month for a fleet of husky dogs, and when this was queried and his boss was going to visit and said ‘Can I see the dogs?’ ...Morrison (Reuters 1971-2000 – Moscow, Vienna, The Hague, Paris, Harare, Westminster lobby correspondent and now a freelance writer) said he picked up a few tips in Moscow and the former Soviet bloc. “The tip is really to travel to as many countries as possible, all using different currencies,” he said in the interview, which was taped in a Fleet Street pub and aired on Sunday on the BBC Radio 4 programme Broadcasting House. Did he think everyone was on the fiddle, that there was a culture of legendary expenses on Fleet Street? “Well, I think it was certainly much easier in those days, because these days if an accountant queries your expenses he can just call you up on your Blackberry wherever you are. Even if you’re paddling up the Zambezi, you’re not out of contact, whereas 20, 30 years ago you sent in your expenses by cleft stick or whatever and it was quite difficult for the accountant to reach you and query them... “I do remember a trip to, somewhere in Austria or Italy, with the parliamentary lobby. ... Lobby journalists are not terribly well known for their language skills so I quite often translated the menu and ordered the food. And I do remember saying to the waiter, ‘Well, we’ll have three bottles of house wine, please’. And there was a deathly silence from all around me, and from the end of the table a loud voice said, ‘I did not come into journalism to drink the house wine’. ...“There is a problem if you go out in a group and you can’t actually spend enough. ... And so we all had our prawns and our lobsters and our bill came at the end for several thousand rand but when we worked it out, catastrophe – it was only £15 a head.” ...We chatted about the weather and some African country I was about to be assigned to and after an hour or so's pleasantries he said he was going to tell me a story. ..."’A friend of mine was standing in the Strand outside the law courts the other day when he saw someone he knew from the Telegraph sprinting past,’ related Jack. ..."’Sorry, Jack,’ was all I could think of saying, ‘Don't get it.’" ...“Old salts and training editors like fabled George Short used to drum into recruits that expenses forms offered fact-bound journalists their greatest opportunity for creative writing. ...“A big-byline AP correspondent once was assigned to a story, big news at the time but forgotten now, in backwoods Armpitville, Miss. “He submitted his exes and shortly thereafter was summoned into the presence of the Chief Accountant in his eyrie at Rockefeller Plaza. ...“My introduction to journalist salaries and expenses came at the Hendon Times where I was paid a spectacular £10 a week plus £4 expenses allowance. ...“Once I had to go to the Managing Editor and say ‘Please, Sir, I need some more’ as I had overspent my allowance by two shillings, necessitated by taking a taxi to the crematorium for a last-minute assignment. ...“He was scared witless at the thought of having to justify this extravagance to his boss so he grabbed his purse and shook out the extra two bob himself. ...I submitted my first expenses and was swiftly called to the desk of the purple-faced News Editor. ...If you can't do proper exes you're not up to the job.’ ...But they probably had an advantage as they worked in strange, far-flung places of which we knew little, far from the accountants' natural habitats in Croydon and Potters Bar. “There are tales of costs claimed to replace Louis Vuitton bags thrown out of a hot air balloon as it struggled for height; costs for ladies of the night appearing on hotel bills in the light of day as laundry; costs for (phantom) TV crews accompanying a lone correspondent across Africa; kwacha transmuted by some strange alchemy into sterling between Lusaka and London. ...Another creative writer was about to submit a pet's vet bill as a personal medical expense when at the last minute he or she noticed at the foot of the account amongst services offered by the practice the item ‘euthanasia’.” John Owen-Davies believes the husky story related by Morrison “may be a spin-off from the one about the Daily Express chap who, in the 1967 Six Day War, claimed on return from Egypt the princely sum of £50 for hire of one camel. When challenged, he added an extra £50 ‘for burial of one camel’ – and won the day. “On the Daily Telegraph one old timer sent to Prague in 1967 attached to his exes a somewhat flattened pair of shoes of top quality hide. He claimed for a new pair saying they had been flattened by a Soviet tank. ... Sure, the shoes were flattened but it was believed someone had trod on them in the King and Keys.” ...“When the Korean War broke out in 1950, no one had any staff correspondents in Korea or who knew anything about the place. “A very large British news organisation latched on to a Scot who lived in Seoul and who turned out to be a magnificent war correspondent who provided them with excellent coverage during the three-year-long conflict. “After the war, his employers decided to integrate this man into its regular ranks and made him their Tokyo correspondent. “Not much was happening however in Tokyo and the correspondent spent his free time as best as he could. Among other things, he was particularly appreciative of young Japanese ladies of uncertain morality and he would take one of them to an expensive restaurant every week, putting down the expense as ‘dinner with the Polish Air Attaché’. “One day, the news organisation’s auditing team picked Tokyo as one of the several bureaux whose accounts they chose at random to inspect that year. ...“‘We have been going through your expenses and find that you regularly dine at considerable expense with the Air Attaché at the Polish embassy. We have consulted the diplomatic list for Japan and found that there is no Air Attaché at the Polish embassy in Tokyo. ...“I tell this tale as told to me by someone who was there,” Rick Norsworthy relates. ...This jeep was overpriced but the bureau decided to buy it anyway even though it existed only in the bureau accounts. ... It guzzled gas, and repair bills were high, it even had a name which became well-known throughout the region and to the accounts department in London. ... If a visitor passing through Saigon found out about the jeep, he or she was sworn to secrecy. All members of the Saigon bureau were beneficiaries of the jeep, until one day the boys heard that Brian Horton, the editor-in-chief, was visiting Saigon. ... That day it broke down for the last time, and was towed away before the editor-in-chief could see it. ...Expenses even rated a mention in one of the eulogies at Patrick Massey’s funeral on Monday. Former Financial Times correspondent David Lennon recounted how Massey once queried a bill that included high charges for using the telex at a Middle East hotel. It was discreetly explained that “telex” really meant alcoholic drinks and was for the sake of Arab journalists who drank but dared not indicate it on their expenses.

Reuters rolls out 'studio in a suitcase’

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-08T10:16:20+01:00

Reuters is kitting out journalists with a portable multimedia suite that has been dubbed “studio in a suitcase”. It comprises a Tandberg Edge 95 video camera, microphone, lights, tripod and monitor. Some 60 bureaux in the United States, Latin America, Europe and Asia will be the first to trial the kit, which allows users to connect to their nearest production centre via the web. The company is also distributing 100 Flip video cameras and experimenting with other news-gathering tools. One immediate use for the technology will be worldwide production of Reuters Insider, a financial television service for 500,000 professional clients due to be launched in June. It will provide live and searchable financial markets coverage, analysis and breaking news. Multi-media studios for the new service have been built in New York, London and Hong Kong. Reuters Insider managing editor Mike Stepanovich said the new kit would complement the rollout of cameras with a wider distribution of lower quality webcam capabilities. He said this would allow the company to reach all of its 2,700 journalists worldwide. Global editor of multimedia Chris Cramer told Press Gazette: "Long gone are the days where you spend scarce money in studio infrastructure. Long gone are the days when you spend limited money on satellite transmission. Broadband is the way these days and physics is on our side here." Cramer said the streets of New York and London were full of mobile phone owners capable of gathering news and content: "The business of gathering pictures is not rocket science anymore." Professional and consumer audiences were already dealing with all forms of media, with major implications for the industry. "Smart journalists are going to realise we don’t have an option to do one thing," he said. "We need to get the skills to work in media and not just one form of media. It doesn’t mean we can’t specialise in writing or we can’t specialise in camera work ... but successful journalists in the future are going to have to be able to cope with a variety of media and publishing roles." ● SOURCE Press Gazette

Tom Glocer's radical ideas about newspapers

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-07T22:09:54+01:00

Tom Glocer has weighed in on the crisis in US newspapers with some trenchant ideas – The New York Times could get by with 60 journalists instead of 10 times that number, he says. "Why does The New York Times need to have 600-700 journalists? Why not 30 journalists with 30 apprentices? Does The New York Times do a good job covering sports? So-so. Do they do a good job covering business? No. How about The New York Times on Israel, FT on Germany and France, which is really good, ESPN on sports and other smaller things coming together on a style sheet every morning?" Thomson Reuters’ CEO said. But would people pay for it? "People will pay for quality journalism, whether through micropayments or regular, boring subscription plans." Glocer said Reuters is comfortable reinventing itself. Until 1970, it never made more than about $100 million a year, he said. Today, it's a $13.5 billion company because it is "getting out of provisional news gathering, like stop being like the AP and other press, and realising there was value in information from professionals in their work, whether it was bankers, lawyers and accountants and health care professionals." Glocer also discussed Twitter, the fast-growing micro-blogging phenomenon, saying, "I think if you hooked up Einstein to Twitter, it'd be garbage, too." And he explained why he switched from LinkedIn to Facebook for business networking: "Every asshole who wanted a job was pestering me on LinkedIn and nobody interesting was coming to me." Glocer also emphasized the need for financial companies to move into more transparent practices and release real-time data sets, instead of quarterly or yearly reports. "Even when it's down to press releases and Webcasts, it's really all about a bunch of people inside the walls of a company, a corporation pretending that they have some control over what gets out and a bunch of people on the other side, interpreting the official flow, and then most of the art is saying how that's bullshit," he said. "What if we stopped this charade that people like me pretend to be in control of the timing, and to some extent, the content of my business, and instead release a real-time flow of information?" Certainly, that will change the game for financial reporters. "I mean, what are good journalists? For good journalists, their job in company reporting is essentially to find out stuff that companies don't want to release outside of their normal cycles or templates, and get that information faster." Glocer believes the evolution of news will be a slow process. "I've met a lot of smart people in my life, and they're the ones who are eventually always right and they always know where things are going [and] they always underestimate friction in the world and how long it takes to get there." "Since we're still human beings, living in a friction-filled world, it'll take at least 10 years for the media cycle to catch up," he said. Glocer was talking in Brooklyn, New York on Monday night at a Futurists Meetup about what financial news and data will look like in 30 years. His remarks were reported by The New York Observer. “While Glocer’s proposal might seem a little drastic, last week the NYTCo did some scaling back by folding the International Herald Tribune’s site into the NYTimes.com’s global section,” the Observer said. Postscript: Four days later Tom Glocer said his talk on the future of financial information and the ensuing discussion was not particularly controversial, “but my answer to a somewhat unrelated question on the future of newspapers has been ricocheting in an increasingly inaccurate way across the blogosphere”. In a posting on his blog on on 11 April, Glocer wrote: “I did, in fact, imagine a future (again 30 years hence) when a newspaper (in my example my hometown New York Times) could employ only 60 journalists rather than the hundreds who work there today. In my example, I challenged our conception of what a newspaper must include and imagined my theoretically ideal paper which combined New York Times content on the Middle-East, the FT on Europe, the Wall Street Journal or Reuters for finance, ESPN for sports and so on. The web, of course, already makes such a mash-up possible today either through browser tabs or RSS feeds. “In this sort of disaggregated world, the NYT would not need a staff of hundreds to produce a fully integrated newspaper, any more than Apple needs to manufacture its own hard drives or touch screens. I imagined that to really focus on one or two core strengths that it could do better than any other publication, the Times might need 30 star journalists – the Tom Friedmans and William Safires, a couple of great editors, and then an up and coming group (or farm system) of 30 junior staff who could grow into the next generation of stars. I readily admit this would be much different from our current view of what a newspaper should look like, but ironically this alternative reality is not so far removed from that apparently described by the great Times editor Max Frankel in a memo to management several years ago (see The Inheritance Vanity Fair, May 2009). “Even if this vision of a more open and interoperable newspaper were financially viable, it will be difficult for the current generation of integrated papers to get there. I know from painful personal experience at Reuters that it is much easier to build new from zero to 60 staff than to reduce 1000 to 60. Moreover, there is no reason to believe (just because I came up with a low number to be intentionally provocative) that the ‘right’ number is not 200 or 300. The principle, however, is the same. When I fly on American Airlines, I am actually pleased they feature Starbucks coffee rather than American Airlines coffee. I don’t want Starbucks baristas flying or maintaining the 777, but I see no reason other than inertia why every function must be staffed by ‘insiders.’ ...“The modern digital world is increasingly frictionless. This requires every company that wishes to survive and prosper to really understand and focus on its core competence. To repeatedly ask ‘what do we do better than anyone else? What defines us?’ At Thomson Reuters, some of our businesses used to build their own computer hardware and operate communications networks, but these are not our core skill set. Today we still build our own editing systems, but likely not for ever. Newspapers are glorious, fabled institutions which serve an important civic role, but that does not give them a perpetual bye to avoid change and reinvention like the rest of us.” ● SOURCE The New York Observer | Paid Content | Media Bistro | Tom Glocer’s Blog

Reuters names new global online editor

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-07T20:25:32+01:00

Reuters has created the new post of global editor for online and appointed Keith McAllister, a former CEO of a syndicated online content company, to the job. He will be part of the multimedia and consumer media management teams and will oversee editorial and production of all online operations for Reuters News. He will be based in New York and report to Chris Cramer, global editor, multimedia. McAllister will also be responsible for the packaging, programming and publishing of editorial content for Reuters News websites and retail customers. The website Paid Content said his first priority will be to create multimedia products for existing and online operations in order to meet the increased challenges from Bloomberg and Associated Press, which have become more aggressive on the digital and video front. “Case in point, at its annual meeting on Monday, the AP said it would ramp up e-commerce and mobile news products as it looks to find ways of drawing in more revenue.” McAllister previously worked for online content firm Mochila, and before that was at CNN for 17 years, most recently as executive vice president and managing editor for national news gathering. Cramer is a former president of CNN International. He joined Reuters last September with the task of overseeing multimedia projects including the reuters.com website and acting as the main liaison between the news organisation and media business. ● SOURCE Washington Post / Paid Content

Funeral of Patrick Massey

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-06T17:08:32+01:00

Strains of “The Mountains of Mourne”, the 19th century song which was a favourite of the late Patrick Massey, rang out at his funeral on Monday. Among more than 80 mourners at Beckenham Crematorium in Kent were 23 colleagues of Massey’s during his hey-day as a top editorial operator – correspondent, bureau chief and editor. Eulogies were delivered by Barry May and by David Lennon, formerly of the Financial Times, who knew Massey from the days when he was bureau chief in Israel. Massey died in hospital on 17 March, two days after his 81st birthday. He was mourned by his widow, Helen, son Bryan, daughter Shauna and other family members, as well as Allan Barker, John Bartram, Nick Carter, Sandy Critchley, François Duriaud, Geoff Flynn, John Freeman, Peter Gregson, Mike Hughes, Paul Iredale, Colin McIntyre, Nick Moore, Dave Nicholson, Ibrahim Noori, Rick Norsworthy, Rodney Pinder, Gerry Ratzin, John Rogers, Bill Saltmarsh, Peter Seymour, Paul Smurthwaite and Tony Winning. ● Obituary ● Tributes

Thomson Reuters staff vote for industrial action

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-06T09:11:33+01:00

Journalists at Thomson Reuters’ financial news operation have voted for industrial action in an attempt to protect their current working conditions, The Guardian reported on Monday. Members of the National Union of Journalists who used to work for Thomson Financial News took part in secret ballot, with 59 per cent of the 30 staff who took part in the ballot voting in favour of strike action and 83 per cent in favour of some form of industrial action. Before the April 2008 merger, staff working for Thomson Financial News were on a nine-day fortnight. They are unhappy at a plan to introduce a 10-day fortnight. "Our members at the previous Thomson's group had a nine-day fortnight as part of their contracts to recognise the stress of the job and the anti-social shift pattern," said the NUJ head of publishing, Barry Fitzpatrick. "They now play their part in making huge profits for an extraordinarily successful company." NUJ members are understood to be meeting next week to plan their next move, The Guardian said. A spokeswoman for Thomson Reuters said the planned rota change was part of a plan to create common working practices across the company. "Reuters is deeply disappointed that a majority of former Thomson Financial News staff have voted for industrial action over changes to shift patterns in the London newsroom," the spokeswoman added. "Given the challenges facing the industry and the innovative investments Reuters is making throughout the newsroom, the ballot will only prolong a dispute that is unnecessary and ill-considered and one which involves less than 10 per cent of the London newsroom staff." ● SOURCE The Guardian

Mark Wood joins board of Future Publishing

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-01T09:48:11+01:00

Mark Wood, former Reuters editor-in-chief, joined Future Publishing on Wednesday as an independent non-executive director, The Guardian reported. Wood, editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2000, was chief executive of ITN from 2003. He was also its chairman from 1998. Future Publishing’s magazine titles include Total Film. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Pay boom for Thomson Reuters executives

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-04-02T09:08:40+01:00

Six senior executives of Thomson Reuters have been given share awards that could be worth $61 million, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. The awards come after a year in which profits and revenues grew ahead of expectations but fears about the health of the financial and professional customers on which it depends also grew. Tom Glocer, CEO, was granted restricted stock units valued at a potential $26.1 million over five years. The awards are not subject to performance criteria, the FT said. “Separate cash and stock bonuses, and $757,000 relocation expenses, mean Glocer’s compensation jumped from £2.61 million for his last year at Reuters to $8.91 million for his first at the helm of the enlarged group,” it said. A spokesman said the rise reflected larger responsibilities, performance achievements and currency swings. A similar one-time grant to Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division, was valued at $15.9 million, on top of a $4.54 million compensation package for the year. Thomson Reuters said the awards for the two former Reuters executives, which exceeded those to former Thomson directors, were in part a reflection of the fact that they could not join Thomson’s defined pension plan for executives, which is now closed to new participants. The details come amid heated argument about executive compensation, particularly in the Wall Street and City firms served by Thomson Reuters, and after contentious contract negotiations with some editorial staff, the FT said. “But the company has little to fear from shareholder opposition to the rewards as it is 55 per cent controlled by the Woodbridge Company, which represents the Thomson family’s holding.” Geoff Beattie, president of Woodbridge, was also granted restricted stock units with a theoretical value of $3.57 million. Niall FitzGerald, former Reuters chairman, received restricted stock valued at $707,000. The two deputy chairmen were architects of the Thomson Reuters deal. The rewards followed a year in which the group hit the top end of its forecasts, with eight per cent pro forma revenue growth and a 19 per cent increase in underlying operating profit. Last month it accelerated estimates of integration savings from the merger, raised the dividend and predicted further organic growth in 2009. Executive salaries will be frozen this year, after Glocer’s basic salary slipped from the sterling equivalent of $1.67 million to $1.55 million. A compensation committee report said it had aimed to increase the portion of his compensation tied to performance. The Daily Mail said: “In an age of shrinking banking bonuses, the staggering payout made American Tom Glocer one of the highest earners in corporate Britain last year. “The 49-year old lawyer hit the jackpot after merging Reuters, where he was chief executive, with North American media conglomerate Thomson. “An estimated £15m share option package was triggered when the £9bn deal was finally given the green light last March. “But the gravy train gathered more speed when Glocer pitched up in the US as head of the enlarged data and publishing giant and was handed share options worth over £18m in Thomson-Reuters.” His basic pay at Reuters was a relatively modest £900,000. Glocer is aiming to cut overheads by nearly £1 billion – in a move that will see him slash jobs at the combined financial markets divisions. The Mail said Thomson Reuters’ annual report published on Monday offers a tantalising glimpse into the pay and perks commonplace in US boardrooms. “But his sweeteners could revive painful memories for longstanding shareholders. “Glocer came under fire over the £230,000 annual rent Reuters used to pay for his London home. “Reuters shares have lost less than a tenth of their value over the past year, making them among the best performers in the battered media sector.” ● SOURCE Financial Times | Daily Mail

Brass for the brass

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-30T23:28:55+01:00

Chief executive Tom Glocer, 49, received a $36.6 million package in 2008. Chief financial officer Robert Daleo, 59, received $14 million. James Smith, 49, president and chief executive of the professional division, took home $5.2 million. All three executives received a significant part of their compensation in the form of one-time stock option grants aimed at providing performance incentive. The figures are disclosed in Thomson Reuters’ annual report published on Monday. The company is one of the few that managed to avoid getting caught in the financial meltdown that claimed so many victims across the economic spectrum, reporting stellar results for 2008, and it is compensating its executives accordingly, the online Financial Post reported. "Our overall philosophy regarding executive compensation is to pay for performance," the company’s Management Information Circular stated. "We believe this drives our management team to achieve higher levels of results for the benefit of Thomson Reuters and our shareholders." In 2008 Q4, Thomson Reuters reported net income of $565 million, or 79¢ a share, compared with $432 million, or 67¢ a share. The largest component of Glocer's pay package was a one-time grant of 700,000 restricted share units that will vest 20 per cent each year for five years providing performance goals are met. His "normal annual compensation" came in at $8.9 million. Glocer holds 650,231 Thomson Reuters PLC shares. Daleo went home with $6 million in normal annual compensation and Smith received $5.2 million. Less than 20 per cent of the total take-home of top executives is described as base salary. The rest is a mix of cash and stock incentives, pension entitlements and "other" compensation. Financial Post noted that disclosure of executive compensation comes at a time when companies around the world are under pressure from shareholders to keep a lid on management pay. Thomson Reuters said it expects higher revenues this year despite continuing turmoil on financial markets thanks to diversification into developing countries that are still experiencing growth. Shares in Thomson Reuters declined 1.43 per cent to 1510 pence on the London Stock Exchange. Despite considerable volatility, the shares are trading at about the same level as they were at the end of March 2008, Financial Post noted. ● SOURCE Financial Post

Thomson Reuters sees higher sales despite softer markets

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-30T18:51:41+01:00

Thomson Reuters said on Monday it expects higher revenues this year despite job losses in the financial services industry on which it depends for most of its revenues. The company said in its annual report that financial conditions were challenging but it was well positioned geographically and by business segment to survive the global economic downturn. "We expect large global banks and institutions in the United States, United Kingdom and Western Europe to be most affected. However, we anticipate that emerging markets will continue to grow, albeit at a slower pace," the company said. It repeated the forecast it made in February of an underlying operating margin and cash flow comparable to those of 2008. "We do not believe that our information is a discretionary purchase for our Markets division customers, but rather a necessity for them to run their businesses on a daily basis," Thomson Reuters said. The company's markets division, which supplies news and data to financial institutions, brings in about 57 per cent of sales and 42 per cent of profits. The rest is accounted for by the professional division, which sells news and information to lawyers, medical and healthcare professionals and accountants. Thomson Reuters said it expected the economic environment for its professional division customers to soften this year, although it said those markets were historically resilient. "We believe the professional markets we serve continue to offer opportunities for growth, albeit at lower rates than in 2008," it said. "We expect the margins for Professional to be impacted in 2009 by investments in global expansion initiatives as well as a shift to higher growth software and services products." Thomson Reuters' London-listed shares closed down 1.4 per cent at 1514 pence. In Toronto, the stock fell C$0.40 to C$30.80. The company said it believed cash from its operations and available credit facilities would be sufficient to fund its cash dividends, debt servicing, capital expenditure, normal acquisitions and share buybacks. Thomson Reuters has access to a $2.5 billion syndicated credit facility until August 2012. It also issued about $3 billion of long-term debt securities last year. The company's net debt more than doubled to $6.76 billion by the end of 2008 from a year earlier, mainly due to Thomson's April 2008 acquisition of Reuters. Most of it is in U.S. dollars or has been swapped into U.S. dollar obligations. The annual report is available in the Investor Relations section on ● www.thomsonreuters.com. Hard copies may be obtained, free of charge, by contacting Thomson Reuters Investor Relations at ● investor.relations@thomsonreuters.com or by phone at +1 800 969 9974. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters announces C$750 million note offering

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-26T10:38:18+00:00

Thomson Reuters announced it has entered into an agency agreement with a syndicate of Canadian investment dealers for a public offering in Canada of C$750 million of 6.0 per cent notes due 2016. Proceeds are expected to be used for general corporate purposes including debt repayment due this year. The notes are being issued by Thomson Reuters Corporation and will be unconditionally guaranteed by Thomson Reuters PLC. The offering is expected to close on 31 March subject to customary closing conditions. The notes are not being offered or sold in the United States. Fitch Ratings has assigned an 'A-' rating to the notes. Fitch currently rates Thomson Reuters and its subsidiaries as follows: Thomson Reuters Corp: ● Issuer Default Rating (IDR) 'A-' ● Bank credit facility 'A-' ● Senior unsecured notes 'A-' ● Commercial paper 'F2' ● Short-term IDR 'F2'. Reuters Group Limited: ● IDR 'A-'. Reuters Finance PLC: ● IDR 'A-' ● Senior unsecured 'A-'. Fitch said the ratings reflect the company’s meaningful cash flow generating ability, its sound balance sheet and its consistent and conservative financial policies. At the end of 2008, proforma unadjusted net leverage was within management's targeted range of at or below two times. The ratings also reflect Thomson Reuters’ growth prospects, as well as the product line and geographic diversity of its cash flow stream, it said. “Fitch recognizes there are meaningful barriers to entry in TRI's core businesses and that there are a limited number of well-capitalized, rational competitors that compete predominantly on product differentiation, quality and delivery (rather than on price). “Unlike traditional advertising-based consumer media subsectors, TRI has already made the transition to electronic delivery and faces very little threat of substitution by digital transplants. “Rating concerns center predominantly on the cyclicality of the Markets division, however, Fitch notes there is meaningful room in the rating to accommodate potential cyclical weakness in the Markets division. Also, integration and acquisition risk remain concerns. As with other highly rated companies, the potential threat of financial policy revisions is always a concern, although Fitch believes these issues are sufficiently mitigated.” ● SOURCE Yahoo Finance | Fitch Ratings

Twitter for newsgathering? Reuters makes news

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-19T11:06:43+00:00

Reuters is driving the debate about the use of the fast-growing micro-blogging Internet service Twitter in journalism. A recent NewsMaker meeting at the London office with Hector Sants, chief executive of the UK's Financial Services Authority, was opened up to all-comers via Twitter and attracted the interest of CNN which sent a crew to tape Reuters’ social media team in action at the event. CNN broadcast a report on its International Correspondents show. Twitter enables the broadcast of SMS-length (maximum 140 characters) texts. President Obama is the world’s most prominent “tweeter”. “What caught the CNN crew’s imagination was our use of Twitter to create a live channel from Reuters readers to our NewsMaker,” Mark Jones, community editor, wrote in a Reuters blog. “Ahead of time we had publicised the fact that Hector Sants was coming in and had agreed to take readers’ questions. We asked readers to add a question to our blog comments or to go onto Twitter and to use the askfsa tag. “As word got around about what we were doing dozens of Twitter users started sending in comments and questions. My role was to monitor them (most came in during the event) and to pick out the most interesting ones to put to Sants. “CNN wanted to know where was the journalism in that. Answer: same as ever — filtering large amounts of information for the nuggets (there were more than 200 questions and comments) and trying to pull together any themes.” A non-scientific CNN poll on the question: should journalists use Twitter as a newsgathering tool has found opinion is running in favour. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger started the Twitter debate in January over his own twitterings from the World Economic Forum. He even scooped his own team of correspondents covering the annual meeting in Davos. ● CLICK to read Mark Jones’s blog posting on twittering. ● CLICK to read about David Schlesinger’s blog posting on twittering.

Reuters boosts Japanese news with Kyodo content

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-25T20:12:39+00:00

Reuters is to boost its Japanese News Service with content supplied by Japan’s biggest news agency, Kyodo. Starting on 1 April, the Japanese News Service’s 12,000 subscribers will receive an additional 800 daily headlines. The new content will include deeper coverage of market regulators in Japan and internationally, emerging markets, Asian loan markets and Japanese politics, as well as faster real-time delivery of major macroeconomic data and announcements from the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve. The partnership with Kyodo will also ensure expanded coverage of the Japanese prime minister’s office and key ministries. “We are going through dramatic change in financial markets,” said Mark Smith, Thomson Reuters’ markets senior company officer in Japan. ”Our customers require now more than ever trusted, relevant and timely news and analysis of domestic and international events. We see a tremendous opportunity to meet this increasing demand.” Reuters opened its first office in Japan in 1872. Reuters Japanese News was launched in 1985 as ReuterScoop, one of a number of local language news services. ● SOURCE Media Newsline

Morocco withholds visa renewal for Reuters photographer

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-25T19:28:14+00:00

The Moroccan government confirmed on Wednesday that it would not renew the accreditation of a Reuters photographer on the grounds that he had acted as a "political adversary". "The ministry (of communication) has decided not to renew the accreditation of Rafael Marchante as a Reuters agency photographer in Morocco," it said in a statement. The ministry denied it had ever ordered his expulsion from the country. Marchante, a Spanish national, has worked as a freelance photographer for Reuters in Morocco since 2006. According to the ministry statement he was "accredited to Morocco to exercise freely his mission and not behave as a political adversary under the cover of journalistic privilege". It criticised him for "non-respect of the rules of the profession" and "working for several press organs without declaring he was doing so". The ministry said it was ready to accredit "any other journalist put forward by the Reuters agency". AFP quoted a Reuters statement issued in London as saying Marchante had respected professsional ethics and acted at all times with integrity, independence and without bias. It called on the ministry to review its decision and hoped Marchante could soon resume work. ● SOURCE CNN / AFP

Obituary: Patrick Massey

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-17T11:16:38+00:00

An ace reporter and a masterly writer, Massey covered some of the momentous events of the post World War II years, first for The Associated Press and then Reuters, starting with the Congo crisis in the 1960s. ...Following his double duty in the Middle East Massey was Chief Correspondent in Tokyo from 1983 to 1986 before returning to the World Desk in London. Throughout his fireman stints he never seemed particularly worried about the dangers he faced as long as he was part of the international press corps, had access to the action, communications and a few beers at the end of the day. ...After army service and a spell as a caption writer at Kemsley Newspapers (later acquired by Thomson, now Thomson Reuters), he moved to the AP in 1953, again writing captions. Six months later he was on the British desk before becoming a correspondent and covering a wide range of assignments from the Congo to Paris, Geneva, Brussels, Cyprus and Libya. In 1965 Massey and others among the AP’s British stalwarts in London including Ron Sly, George Short and Ron Thomson concluded they would always lack the status and financial rewards of their U.S.-based brethren assigned to the UK. Many of them agreed to move from Farringdon Road around the corner to 85 Fleet Street, followed in succeeding years by waves of others. ...As teenagers they were fire wardens during the blitz and told great tales of spotting the blazes from the roof of either, depending on the telling, St Bride’s Church or the adjacent Reuters building. ...At the time many of the AP’s Brits crossed over, Reuters was setting up the World Desk to replace the old Central Desk and North American editorial ideas were sought after. ...He was always a keen aviation writer and made sure he was in at the beginning of the Concorde story, getting a press seat on the supersonic airliner’s inaugural flight and most significant flights thereafter. His last story for Reuters appeared on the file more than a decade after his retirement – a personal piece following a Concorde crash on take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport in July 2000 (reproduced below). ...Massey had retired early in February 1989 as International Quality Editor (General News), responsible for shaping the file and providing detailed daily feedback to correspondents including how they fared against the competition. ...BELFAST, Aug 12 (Reuter) - The young bartender poured me a pint of Guinness and offered his opinion on the rioting that had ripped Belfast apart the night before. ...It was not for another year or so that police named him as a leader of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) … After some happy years in retirement in Orpington, Kent, Massey suffered a severe stroke five years ago but was able to attend a few pensioners' lunches and other events though confined to a wheelchair, with Helen – always the perfect go-anywhere foreign correspondent's partner – at his side. ...He had a flair for bringing stories to life, however routine, in my opinion and I learnt a great deal from him, especially when news editing in London Bureau. ...On a more personal note, we enjoyed Pat and Helen's hospitality when they were based in Tel Aviv and during the visit Morag and I took off for a few days around Aqaba. We were out of contact for this time but when we landed back in Tel Aviv Pat was waiting for us. ...Pat played a big part in my move from AP to Reuters and I never regretted it. He, along with Ron Thomson, George Short, Wag (Richard Wagstaff), and others no longer with us were great company and, for a copytaster, a pleasure to see on the old skeds. ...Cy Fox: I first got to know Pat when, as a Canadian Press correspondent, I was periodically covering the murder and mayhem gathering pace in Northern Ireland around 1970. Pat, who I think had already come through Black September in Jordan, would lope around the perilous streets of West Belfast and the Derry Bogside with all the justified bravado of a crack Reuter fireman. One Saturday morning he took me, a greenhorn, along on a mission to cover a secret IRA press conference at the notorious Divis Flats in Belfast. ... Inside the Flats he and I joined a TV crew from the Irish Republic to view a young British army cadet who had been captured by the gunmen. Irish television broadcast the proceedings that night, and the next day at the officers’ mess of the Green Jackets Regiment we were verbally assailed by the British brass, who had spotted Messrs Massey and Fox on hand for the televised prisoner display. ... But Pat, oblivious to army displeasure and also brazenly asserting the rights of a free press, stared and argued them down – right there in their own mess – and off we duly went on the patrol. ...Allan Barker: He had a distinctive writing style that got to the heart of the story very quickly and was noted for its short lead paras. ... A few who were unwise enough to do so usually found an angry Pat loping across the 4th floor at 85 Fleet Street to their desk ready for a testy exchange. When I had the privilege of working with Pat and George Short in the bureau from 1974 to 1976, we covered unprecedented Irish violence including the notorious Birmingham and Guildford pub bombings as well as a fragile political situation in which Harold Wilson and Ted Heath vied for supremacy. Heath lost an election he called in 1974 after declaring a three-day work-week due to an unrelenting miners' strike and then Wilson suddenly quit in 1976. ...Pat usually waded through masses of copy from the Press Association to hone his version of the top UK stories, as long as it was tacitly agreed he was not to be called into action between the hours of 1:00 pm and 3:00 pm. ... It never seemed to affect his work after his return to the bureau and fitted in well with Parliament's then mid-afternoon statements and PM's Questions. ...He turned up in Rawalpindi to reinforce the one-man bureau (me) with a Beretta he had acquired for personal protection on the trek through the perilous wilds of the North West Frontier, then as now a lawless badland hazardous to outsiders. ...But it was fabricated by one of the back street gunsmiths in the frontier village of Dara Adam Khel who forged weaponry ranging from Lugers and other assorted handguns to Kalashnikovs, Lee Enfield rifles and RPGs. They were clever copies and certainly cheap but they were notoriously unreliable – as likely to jam or blow up in the hands of anyone who fired them as to cause harm from the business end of the barrel. Pat knew he would never get out with his souvenir in his baggage when he returned to London so he left it with me as the resident correspondent. Wishing to keep all my fingers intact for typing, I never dared discharge the damned thing and eventually handed it over to my successor as an unauthorised item of bureau kit. ...Nick Carter: In the last few weeks before the fall of Saigon in 1975, Pat agreed to go in as the bureau's last fireman, though the briefing on the local situation, which I gave him at Singapore Airport on his last lap, left him seething. Everything was hand to mouth, and the foreign currency he took in with him was very informally transferred from funds brought out of Saigon only hours before by Colin McIntyre. ... Bernard Edinger, who had a French passport, was flown in specially to hole up in the French Embassy ready for when our bureau was evacuated. Pat, Jeremy Toye, David Laulicht and Pham Ngoc Dinh kept a graphic file going through the last days till on April 29th their quarterspeed wire finally spelt out the word "scramble". ...David Nicholson: I'm pretty sure that Israel was his favourite posting and he often spoke fondly of his time there and the friendships he had formed. ...Rodney Pinder: I’ll never forget that “heather-louping” stride of Pat's as he swept into the story or the newsroom, full of energy and get-going. ...As the evening progressed, and the libations took hold, a small group of the more daring, or daft, would go out into the street to see which of us could climb the fastest to the top of the lamp post opposite. ...The funeral will be on Monday 6 April at 12:00 noon at Beckenham Crematorium, Elmers End Road, Beckenham, Kent BR3 4TD, followed by a reception at Dulwich and Sydenham Golf Club, Grange Lane, College Road, London SE21 7LH. ...LONDON, July 26 (Reuters) - As the first reporter to fly on Concorde, I was slightly disappointed by its serene transition across the sound barrier. Brought up on movies in which pilots battled fearsome judder to enter supersonic flight, I was expecting something of that sort aboard Prototype 002 as it flew from Fairford in England to Toulouse in France in May 1971. ...Casting aside a tentative judder story on my typewriter, I wrote instead: "Flying through the sound barrier on Concorde is like crossing the equator: you don't know it's happening unless somebody tells you." ...British Aircraft Corporation had learned that its French counterpart, Aerospatiale, intended to carry a reporter that day on a Concorde flight with President Georges Pompidou. ...By then it was in an aviation museum at Yeovil in southwestern England, forever safe from the kind of tragedy that struck on Tuesday at Charles de Gaulle Airport.

Obituary: David Mitchell

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-17T10:47:14+01:00

David Mitchell, who with Tom Guinan created, deployed and maintained the editing system still in use in RAM and elsewhere, has died. Word from a mutual colleague is that Mitchell passed away a few weeks ago. I have no other details, but would welcome hearing any about this great man. Mitchell and his cohorts were the Reuters equivalents of the Internet Gray Beards: they practically invented everything that US journalists use to write and edit stories using Decade on System 77 – which was System 55 back in Mitchell's day – and decided on concepts and workflows and interfaces that seem to this day as the only way to do it right. David was one of the first technical people I encountered as a young pre-journalist; when I was a news dictationist, entering copy phoned in live from correspondents, there were endless formatting questions (agate, anyone?) as vexing then as even in more recent days. Mitchell had tremendous patience and a sense of humor which made it possible to for me to battle through one pain barrier after another. Later on, when I needed detailed information to create third-party applications that leveraged Decade it was Mitchell again who unlocked secrets and affirmed crazy ideas that just might work. In failing health even 15 years ago, he was always available and always utterly fluent in every matter, however obscure and unintuitive, that I presented to him. It is not an exaggeration to say the crucial early successes Reuters New Media had creating programmatic desktop publishing solutions – the core functionalities that powered real-time multimedia Internet news years ahead of the competition – was possible only because neophyte dreamers were able to stand on his shoulders. David and I collaborated in a world that had not yet seen the phrase virtuality coined. In my 26 years at Reuters, I never met this great man. I have never even seen a picture of him. It is with great sadness that I report the demise of this very unique individual. JOHN C ABELL

Industrial action ballot over nine-day fortnight

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-13T00:58:23+00:00

Journalists at Thomson Reuters are balloting on industrial action to protect the right of former Thomson Financial News staff to a nine-day fortnight. The National Union of Journalists is holding a ballot after rejecting the company's offer of £1,000 in compensation for the loss of the nine-day fortnight as "risible" and "totally inadequate". The union says former TFN staff have vowed to continue working their current hours, despite threats of disciplinary action. The dispute over working hours is part of a wider argument over pay that has been brewing for months, The Guardian reported. The company's latest offer is a 1.25% rise in annual pay across the board, which the union has criticised as below inflation. Barry Fitzpatrick, the NUJ's head of publishing, said TFN members regarded the nine-day fortnight as an essential benefit given the low pay rise and the fact that their colleagues from the Reuters side of the business were better paid. "Many former TFN staff are paid significantly less than Reuters' colleagues for doing the same work, and in a lot of cases paid not much more than a Reuters trainee's starting salary," Fitzpatrick said. "If the company is serious about harmonisation, it should properly consider its journalists' claim for compensation, which, given the company's massive profits, is more than affordable even in these difficult times." A Thomson Reuters spokeswoman said: "We regret that the NUJ has decided to take this course of action, particularly in light of the concerted and prolonged efforts made by the company to resolve matters amicably. We delayed implementation of the changes to work, employed favourable enhancements to terms and conditions and proposed a financial offer, which has been flatly rejected by the NUJ." ● SOURCE The Guardian

Reuters revamps websites to improve global crisis cover

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-10T16:35:45+00:00

Reuters is changing its websites to improve coverage of the global economic crisis. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, in a blog posting aimed at visitors to the sites, says the crisis is the biggest story in modern times “and a record audience is turning to Reuters for information you can trust”. “I share with you some changes we’ve brought to Reuters.com and Reuters.co.uk to help you understand the financial turmoil and benefit from the expertise of our 2,550 journalists around the globe,” Schlesinger says. “You’ll notice more headlines from our financial correspondents and more video interviews with business newsmakers. We’ve added a new Economy section, increased our coverage of regulation and will soon relaunch our small business and environment pages. “Our Great Debate section has added more financial commentary from our growing team of Reuters columnists, with technology expert Eric Auchard among the writers joining James Saft, John Kemp and Bernd Debusmann. We also offer more graphics for better insight into the financial markets. And we continue to add specialist blogs, with Hedge Hub providing a place for readers to discuss the hedge fund industry with journalists such as Laurence Fletcher. “Of course, we know you rely on us for news of the political and cultural trends that influence our personal and professional worlds. You’ll find full coverage of the new U.S. administration on our Barack Obama: First 100 Days page, while pages ranging from Afghanistan to Wine can be found in our Topics section. Our India edition has a page dedicated to the national elections there. Bureaus in China, Japan, Israel and the Palestinian Territories have blogs to share their insights and we offer more video from our entertainment reporters. China and Japan have added native language blogs on their local editions.” Schlesinger promises many more changes throughout 2009 that will help visitors to navigate “the unrivaled breadth and depth of Thomson Reuters news and data”. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters to launch video news service in June

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-03-03T03:18:45+00:00

Thomson Reuters Corp will launch a video news service in June for financial professionals who use its terminals, part of a $1 billion plan to appeal to a new generation of customers. The service, called Reuters Insider, will provide live and searchable financial markets coverage, analysis and breaking news. It will not run all day, will not rely on advertising and will be largely unavailable to the public. Clients, however, will be able to access it around the clock. Paying customers will be able to access on-demand news segments in the same way people watch video clips on YouTube. They will be able to select videos on channels grouped by category, such as foreign exchange, equities or political news. The project is part of a $1 billion programme to update the company's products and infrastructure to make them more appealing to financial professionals accustomed to using the Internet to get information. Thomson Reuters has been testing the service since last October, and is launching it during a time of uncertainty for media outlets. Many newspapers, TV stations and news outlets are losing advertising revenue as people get more news online, often for free. Some news and information companies may be forced out of business. Others are trying to figure out how to get people to pay for their news. Investing during the global economic downturn, which has led to layoffs in the financial industry, is what the company must do to keep performing well, said Devin Wenig, markets division chief executive. Reuters journalists are contributing to the programming, and Thomson Reuters is recruiting about 120 people to run it from multi-media studios in New York, London and Hong Kong. It hopes clients such as banks and investment companies will also supply video and create their own channels. The new service is designed to give financial professionals news they can use to make trades and other business decisions, but does not replace news articles, Wenig said. "To me, this is just Reuters News 2.0," he said. Targeting a narrowly defined, paying audience works better for the company, Wenig said. "This isn't infotainment." Chris Cramer, former president of CNN International who is now global editor of multimedia for Reuters News, said: “The broadcast model, the cable model, is broken. At the moment there is no competition. This is something unique.” Michael Stepanovich, managing editor of Reuters Insider, said it would rely heavily on “tags” about each video clip, generated from transcripts using software acquired through the 2007 purchase of a “semantic engine” called Clear Forest. As well as channels for sales and trading or enterprise customers, he said Reuters Insider could be customised to track individual sectors, asset classes, regions, companies and topics, or an investor’s portfolio. “We want to be able to create a [Bernie] Madoff channel,” Stepanovich said. Users will also be able to watch “highlights reels” drawn from different videos, find sections of video from the relevant passage in the transcript, or send clips to their BlackBerrys. David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said the initiative was a response to the demands of a younger generation. Reuters experimented with video a decade ago with Reuters TV but abandoned the initiative because of the high costs required before the web video era. ● SOURCE Financial Times ● CLICK to read Chris Cramer’s blog post on narrowcasting.

Woodbridge signals it may sell Toronto shares, buy London ones

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-26T15:08:45+00:00

Woodbridge, the Thomson family's investment vehicle that controls more than half of Thomson Reuters shares, signalled on Thursday it may sell some of its shares traded in Toronto for those traded in London. The company announced in Toronto that it had made a Canadian regulatory filing that would permit it to undertake transactions providing for sales of up to 10 million additional Thomson Reuters Corporation common shares (representing approximately two per cent of its holdings of Thomson Reuters Corporation common shares) and purchases of a similar number of Thomson Reuters PLC ordinary shares. The filing does not commit Woodbridge to undertake any of these transactions. Woodbridge previously announced and completed similar transactions in the fourth quarter of 2008. Any share sales would be through the Toronto Stock Exchange within 30 days. Purchases would be through the London Stock Exchange. One ordinary share of Thomson Reuters PLC is equivalent to one common share of Thomson Reuters Corporation under Thomson Reuters dual listed company structure. As of yesterday, Woodbridge and other companies affiliated with it beneficially owned an aggregate of 439,767,486 Thomson Reuters Corporation common shares and 15,375,287 Thomson Reuters PLC ordinary shares (including ordinary shares underlying Thomson Reuters PLC American Depositary Shares) and had a voting interest in Thomson Reuters of approximately 55 per cent. The London listing has traded at a discount to the North American quotes since Thomson's takeover of Reuters was completed last April.

Funeral of Chris Catlin

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-26T13:52:32+00:00

Around 400 people turned out for Chris Catlin’s funeral at Stamford, Lincolnshire, on Tuesday including a sprinkling of old Reuters friends, Peter Mosley writes. Chums I spotted at the church included Jim Anderson, Krishna Biltoo, Bill Creighton, who had flown in specially from Virginia, Paul Iredale, Tom Kirkup, Richard Pascoe and Jeremy Toye. David Rogers delivered the eulogy. The crowd of mourners reflected the range of Chris's career (Reuters 1969 to 1994) as well as his local commitments including Stamford School governor. Chris was a fine reporter and linguist who switched to sales and admin, then quit and discovered he had a good a talent as a journalism trainer (I can certainly vouch for that) first with the Reuters Foundation and then more lucratively on his own account, gave that up to become features editor of a leading shooting magazine (shooting was his passion), wrote a novel, Brudersuche, which was published in Germany and finally launched himself as a book editor and publisher in his own right. His third cook book was on the stocks when he died of a heart attack on 12 February at the age of 62. He left a wife, Shirley, son Alex and daughter Jenny and will be missed by an awful lot of people.

Tom Glocer on news and newspapers

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-25T04:14:58+00:00

The Reuters journalist who reported Thomson Reuters’ Q4 results on Tuesday has added something that was not included in the wire story: the public thoughts of CEO Tom Glocer on news and newspapers. “During a conference call with reporters, I asked Chief Executive Tom Glocer, who ran Reuters before Thomson Corp bought it, what the company plans to do regarding investing in news,” Robert MacMillan wrote in a Reuters blog. “I also asked if the company could ever be in the market for another print newspaper. Remember that Thomson Reuters likes to tout the fact that Thomson Corp long ago got out of the newspaper business, thinking there was more of a future in electronic information that you make people pay a lot of money for.” Glocer on news spending: “We’ve continued to invest in news and we think 2009 is a very good year in investment for us both in terms of having brought in some of the journalists who have joined from Thomson Financial, but also investments we’re making in new editorial systems, in the video, multimedia presentation of news. So I think one of the good things about the strength of our financial performance is that we can continue to invest when a lot of pure media companies aren’t.” Glocer on getting “back” into the newspaper business (“I asked whether the Financial Times or the New York Times-owned International Herald Tribune would be good fits, specifically. But why not The New York Times? Everyone with more than a few pennies to rub together is a candidate to buy it these days.”): “[Thomson was] so early in getting out of newspapers that now to go back in when our business model is so focused on professionals and so overwhemingly electronic doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. … If there were a fantastic information product that was 95 per cent electronic and five per cent a print output device, we would do it — maybe — if it otherwise made sense. I’m not convinced that we know how to run a newspaper any better than the ones running them today.” Earlier, Glocer said on his blog that newspapers remain dead but journalism is alive and well. Reporting on a panel debate at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos on the health of the media with Steve Forbes of the eponymous magazine; Jonathan Nelson of Providence Equity Partners, the media-focused buyout firm; Shobhana Bhartia of the Indian Parliament and the Hindustan Times; and John Graham of Fleishman-Hillard, the global PR firm, he wrote: “While we broke little new ground, the discussion was uncharacteristically animated for a 9:00am audience. While Luddites and Refusniks remain, there seems to be growing acceptance of the point I and others have been making for years: Newsprint is an output device, not an end in itself. What matters is quality journalism which can and does thrive in multiple media. “There are several advantages of paper: it is light to carry, highly legible, and can be folded, written upon and read on the train or in the small tiled room. However, paper has its limitations: it is relatively expensive, must be physically delivered, is less environmentally friendly than digital bits, and cannot be easily searched or processed. This latter point has resulted in the near destruction of the print newspaper model as classified advertising has fled online. “While these trends are not universal (Shobhana reminded us that newspapers in India continue to thrive), the combination of these structural challenges with the tremendous cyclical pressures being experienced in most markets should not make one optimistic about the future of the print-only model. “Instead, of lamenting that the Fourth Estate is dead, we should celebrate the innovations of the current age that can now be applied to telling the story, such as blogs, wikis, IPTV, social media, the mobile web, Kindle, electronic ink, etc.. For those who can make the leap while not abandoning their journalistic values, new audiences await.” ● SOURCE Reuters Blogs | Tom Glocer’s Blog

Thomson Reuters profit beats forecasts, sees 2009 revenue growth

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-24T15:51:18+00:00

Thomson Reuters reported stronger-than-expected quarterly profit on Tuesday and said it expected revenue to grow in 2009 despite job cuts and decreased spending among financial industry customers. The company also said it expected its underlying operating margin this year to be comparable to 2008, supported by revenue growth and higher savings from integration. "I think the good thing is that we're giving outlook at all. I've seen so many companies with supposedly decent visibility into their business this year pull back and say, 'Well it's too hard,'" chief executive Tom Glocer said in an interview with Reuters. Thomson Reuters reported 2008 Q4 net income of $656 million, or 79 cents a share, compared with $432 million, or 67 cents a share, a year earlier. Profit from ongoing businesses, excluding special items, was 57 cents per share, beating the average analyst forecast of 39 cents. Revenue in the company's closely watched markets division, which serves financial institutions, fell two per cent to $1.9 billion. ..."I think it's going to continue to do better than people expect," Glocer said, referring to the markets division. "It is hard to see anything else outside the doom and gloom in the two financial and media capitals," he said. "It's going to be a tough year, but when you put it all together, we still think the company will be able to show growth." The professional division, which sells databases and other information to lawyers, accountants, scientists and the healthcare industry, reported revenue of $1.5 billion in Q4, up three per cent. The rise came in part from online, software and services revenue growth of 10 per cent. The board has approved an increase in the dividend by four cents per share on an annualised basis. The quarterly dividend payable on March 26 is 28 cents per share. Thomson Reuters raised its forecast for annualised cost savings from the merger to $1 billion by the end of 2011, up from $750 million projected in May 2008. The integration plan does not include any new rounds of layoffs, Glocer said. Pressed to comment on the rate of cancellations seen so far this year, Glocer said: "The one thing I can guarantee is there will be cancellations and there will be new recurring subscription sales, and actually the year isn't off badly on that score.” Glocer attributed the results to Thomson's basic business model, providing "must-have" information to people who are willing to pay for it.  "This is not a luxury good or discretionary purchase," he said during a conference call. "This is must-have information that our customers need to run their businesses." Glocer also said the integration of Thomson and Reuters was moving more quickly than expected, helping to cut costs. The Financial Times said concern over the outlook for financial services still drives investors’ perception of the stock, and helps explain the wide variation in perceptions of the company in Toronto, where professional assets such as WestLaw are better known, and London, where City sentiment pervades investors’ views of the company. “The London listing was trading at a 15 per cent discount to the North American quotes on Tuesday morning, but Mr Glocer expressed no urgency about resolving this by ending the dual-listed company structure,” the FT said. “This is one we haven’t had to spend any time on,” he said. “Either people will buy in [to the growth story] locally [in London] and it solves itself or the shareholder register turns more North American and it solves itself.” His message, instead, was that Thomson Reuters can stand out from much of the sector in which its shares are categorised. “We can invest at a time when a lot of pure media companies are cutting back,” he said. “Asked by one of his own reporters whether such investment might include an interest in one of the newspaper companies whose valuations have suffered dramatically, Mr Glocer was clear that he had little appetite for consumer media,” the FT said. In theory, the $1.8 billion of free cashflow reported by last year would be enough to buy The New York Times, the FT said, but Glocer cautioned: “I’m not convinced we know how to run a newspaper any better than the ones who are running them today, and boy it looks a tough struggle.” Glocer said the company was on course to see revenues rise next year, driven by forecast growth in Asia, the Gulf and Latin America. "We're definitely going to be prioritising markets where there's strong growth," he said. "Tactically, it's easier to push on an open door than slam against one." The £8.7 billion merger of Thomson and Reuters was expected to produce cost-savings of $750 million but the company said annualised benefits would now be closer to $1 billion from 2011. "Our markets division is entirely a legitimate concern given what we've seen at companies like RBS, Lloyds and Citi," Glocer said. "But what analysts don't appreciate when they're at the heart of the financial crisis in London or New York, is that in many markets around the world - in Asia, the Gulf and Latin America - there is less gloom." Thomson Reuters shares closed 11.56 per cent higher in New York, 11.47 per cent higher in Toronto, 10.39 per cent higher on NASDAQ and 6.58 per cent higher in London. The FT said the persistence of a yawning gap between the group’s North American and London-listed shares is embarrassing. “The 18 per cent discount at which the London listing trades to the US and Canadian listings is an operational irrelevance. Mr Glocer – without referring to it on Tuesday’s results call – probably helped narrow the gulf by announcing a better-than-expected fourth quarter for the markets division. If UK-based investors were expecting the financial data operations to take a heavy hit from the financial crisis (as they did when markets turned down earlier this decade), the division’s resilience should improve sentiment towards the London shares. Familiarity with the more stable Thomson businesses and satisfaction with the improved savings from integrating the two companies are only increasing. “But it may take more than good housekeeping by Mr Glocer and his team to bridge the Atlantic. The controlling Thomson family has the tools for this job. Its investment vehicle, Woodbridge, has already in effect ‘bought’ UK stock with Canadian paper. Those operations could, and probably should, be restarted... “Thomson and Reuters deserve credit for not abolishing the London listing at the time of the merger. That would have put UK investors’ noses out of joint. But some 60 per cent of the UK shares are now held by North American investors, who rightly figure that what looks good for Woodbridge is probably good for them. British investors are at liberty to buy back into the group on fundamentals if they wish to benefit from the relative re-rating. But if the UK share of the London listing drops below 20 per cent, they should expect to lose it.

Niall Fitzgerald favoured to chair BP

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-22T02:47:02+00:00

Niall Fitzgerald, Thomson Reuters’ deputy chairman, is one of the favourites to succeed fellow Irishman Peter Sutherland as chairman of BP, The Independent on Sunday reported. Fitzgerald, 63, has been approached by a head-hunter to take over when Sutherland steps down in April after 12 years at the helm of the oil giant. “Sources close to Mr Fitzgerald say he is interested in taking on one of the UK’s most prestigious industrial jobs. He was chairman and chief executive of Unilever, after working for the Anglo-Dutch household goods group for more than three decades, and chairman of Reuters until it merged with Thomson... After the merger, he took on the deputy chair,” The Independent said. Fitzgerald has no direct experience of the oil industry. “He is interested in the environment – a big issue for BP – through his work as chairman of the Investment Climate Facility for Africa and serves on the International Business Council, the World Economic Forum, China’s Tsinghua University, as well as advising Morgan Stanley,” the newspaper added. ● SOURCE The Independent on Sunday

On the nose: Thomson Reuters logo on AT&T Williams F1 cars

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-19T15:14:44+00:00

In its tenth season of Formula One™ sponsorship, Reuters – now Thomson Reuters – is putting its brand on the nose of AT&T Williams cars. The Thomson Reuters logo will also be on driver and mechanic overalls. The new branding position on the test and race cars is said to provide an additional measure to encourage global awareness of the company’s brand identity. Why does the company sponsor a F1™ team? “With over 600 million unique viewers watching F1™ races around the world in 188 markets, Formula One™ is one of the world’s most popular sports. Our relationship with the AT&T Williams team affords significant brand exposure and unique experiences for many of our most valued customers,” the company said. It said Thomson Reuters and AT&T Williams share many similarities, including the reliance on teamwork, high technology and expert data – telemetry in the case of F1™ – to achieve high performance. The first outing for the new branding will be at the inaugural race of the 2009 season in Melbourne, Australia on 29 March.

Arthur Spiegelman memorial set for 20 April

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-19T15:41:22+00:00

A memorial service for Arthur Spiegelman, who died in December, is to be held in New York in April. Spiegelman, global entertainment editor, succumbed to cancer at his home in Los Angeles on Saturday 20 December. He was 68 and had been with Reuters for 42 years. The memorial will be on Monday 20 April at 6:00 pm at the Tillman Chapel, Church of the United Nations, First Avenue and 44th Street, New York. “Following the service there will be an opportunity to continue celebrating Arthur's life at a nearby restaurant to be announced shortly,” said Evelyn Leopold, a colleague during Spiegelman’s lifetime in journalism. “Please RSVP to ● evleopold@gmail.com.” ● CLICK to read the obituary. ● CLICK to read tributes on the Mail page.

Thomson Reuters restructures multimedia operations

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-18T07:18:34+00:00

Thomson Reuters is restructuring its multimedia operations to face a growing challenge from digital and video competitors like Bloomberg and The Associated Press. Chris Cramer (pictured), former CNN chief, comes out on top. Cramer, named head of multimedia in October, will serve as the unit's global editor. His new responsibilities entail the creation of five editorial groups, including TV, photos, financial video, online and agency. By coordinating them, the company hopes to build on its appeal, even while it strenuously tries to cut costs, the digital media industry website paidContent said. The five multimedia groups will be led by senior editors. Mike Stepanovich, senior vice-president and global head of business development, adds the role of managing editor of the financial video service. John Clarke and Tom Szlukovenyi will continue in their jobs overseeing TV and photos respectively. The two others – online global editor and agency global editor – are new posts and have not yet been filled. Cramer was a president and managing director of CNN International before he retired from the Turner network in 2007. David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, brought him into the company last year to handle the financial video service. Before the latest change, only the teams who worked on financial video and online reported to Cramer. “As competitors like Bloomberg and Associated Press have become more aggressive on the digital and video front, Thomson Reuters is trying to step up by introducing a new management structure for its multimedia offerings,” paidContent said. ● SOURCE Paid Content

Obituary: Chris Catlin

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-12T03:00:04+00:00

Chris Catlin, former correspondent and manager, died suddenly on Thursday near his home in Lincolnshire, England. He was working on his latest cook book with colleagues when he collapsed from what appears to have been a heart attack. He was 62 and had been in robust spirits. "He was an exceptional, once-met-never-forgotten character who is going to leave a hole in our lives," said David Rogers, a former colleague. Catlin joined Reuters in 1969. After excelling as a correspondent in Moscow and Bonn he switched to a career in management. His first two managerial posts were in the challenging areas of Israel and South Africa. “In both places, supported by his wife, Shirley, he made a significant contribution to the growth of our business,” said Peter Holland, whose area management role included both countries. “He will be greatly missed.” Subsequently he was appointed country manager in Germany, based in Frankfurt, and then in China. Michael Reupke, former editor-in-chief, described Catlin "as one of the most successful managers in the tradition of distinguished correspondents who became distinguished national managers. I know he had the rare quality of being an excellent salesman with a keen understanding of markets which helped produce spectacular results first in Germany, then in China." Catlin left the company in 1994. In recent years he produced three books: Brudersuche (2004), published in English as Fallen Brothers; Game for Gourmets (2007), a countryman's cookbook; and The Game Book (2007), a shooting anthology. The funeral service has been set for 3:00 pm on Tuesday 24 February at St Martins, Stamford, Lincolnshire to be followed by a reception/wake nearby. The church is opposite The George, the town's best-known hotel and a local landmark, and not far off the A1. “Chris had one stipulation: no black ties!” David Rogers said. “Shirley and the children, Alex and Jenny, hope to see as many old friends and colleagues as can make it.”

Pay showdown seen after talks collapse

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-09T02:47:06+00:00

Staff and management at Thomson Reuters in London are heading for a showdown over pay this week after talks at the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service broke down after three hours on Friday, The Guardian reported. National Union of Journalists officials have rejected a revised 1.25 per cent across-the-board increase, while an attempt by management to force former Thomson London staff to give up their nine-day fortnight in return for a £500-a-year pay rise was rejected as "derisory", it said. The combined Thomson Reuters NUJ Chapel is due to hold a mandatory meeting on Thursday to discuss the pay offer. A ballot for industrial action could also be held on the issue of former Thomson staff being forced to give up their nine-day fortnight following last April’s merger with Reuters. Reuters staff moved to a five-day week almost a decade ago and in return received a seven per cent across-the-board pay increase. Management, led by editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, maintain they are changing the company's shift patterns, not the hours worked, The Guardian said. “When Reuters dumped its nine-day fortnight, in contrast, there was an increase in working hours.” NUJ officials, however, claim that former Thomson Financial News staff are already on significantly lower wages than their Reuters colleagues for doing the same work and any move to a five-day week should be on a voluntary basis. "Thomson Reuters encourages flexible working and will consider individual requests in line with company policy," a Reuters spokeswoman said in response. The two sides have been battling over pay for months, the newspaper said. Management initially said there would be no across-the-board annual pay increase from April this year, but up to 2.5 per cent would be paid out on a performance basis. That has since changed to a 1.25 per cent across-the-board increase, out of a total budget increase of 2.5 per cent, with the rest to be paid based on performance. From next year, management are understood to want to base all pay increases on performance, The Guardian added. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Unfair labor practice charges over union t-shirts in newsrooms

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-02-03T02:42:28+00:00

The New York Newspaper Guild has filed two unfair labor practice charges against Thomson Reuters over the wearing of red union t-shirts in newsrooms. It says the company unfairly barred workers from their long-standing practice of wearing the t-shirts to show solidarity during labor contract negotiations. The Guild's charges to the National Labor Relations Board said Thomson Reuters violated federal labor law by banning only Guild t-shirts and by implementing a dress code without bargaining with the union as required. "This is the first time in the union's more than 30 years at Reuters that management has been so rattled as to ban a display of union support," said Guild President Bill O'Meara. "Our members are more than a little riled at management trying to curb their right to show solidarity with their union." The company ordered newsroom staffers not to wear the t-shirts if they could be captured by television cameras using the newsrooms in New York and Washington as a backdrop to Thomson Reuters’ new web-based video product, Insider. The union and the company have had three bargaining sessions aimed at agreeing a new contract to replace the one that expires on 28 February. ● SOURCE PR Newswire

David Schlesinger: all a-twitter and scooping Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-30T01:53:25+00:00

Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has started a debate over his twitterings. “I’ve been tweeting from the World Economic Forum, using the microblogging platform Twitter to discuss the mundane (describing crepuscular darkness of the Swiss Alps at 5 a.m.) or the interesting (live tweeting from presentations),” he writes on the Reuters blog Full Disclosure: Ethics, Innovation and News Standards. The scoop? Beating Reuters from Davos on news that billionaire financier George Soros believes the current economic downturn could be worse than the Great Depression, and that as much as $15 trillion might be needed to save the banking system. “Is it journalism? “Is it dangerous? “Is it embarrassing that my tweets even beat the Reuters newswires? (Tweets are Internet messages limited by the technology to 140 characters.) “Am I destroying Reuters standards by encouraging tweeting or blogging?” Schlesinger asks. “(These aren’t rhetorical questions - I’ve been challenged by many people who would answer those questions as No, Yes, Yes, and Yes! I answer them as Yes, Potentially, No and No.)” Schlesinger recalls that the foundation of what Reuters does as a company and as a news service are the Reuters Trust Principles. “While it is vital to read the five as a whole, I take the fifth (”That no effort shall be spared to expand, develop and adapt the news and other services and products of Thomson Reuters so as to maintain its leading position in the international news and information business”) as an imperative for continual innovation and experimentation. “I have no idea what journalism will look like in five years except that it will be different than it is now. That’s a great thing, I believe. “I have little patience for those who cling to sentimental (and frankly inaccurate) memories of the good old halcyon days of journalism that were somehow purer and better than a world where tweets and blogs compete with news wires and newspapers. “Bring it on, I say!” Schlesinger says working for Reuters gives him a tremendous platform and great access. “It does not give me a license.” Microblogging and macroblogging and social networks are themselves great platforms. “If great storytellers use those platforms to display their knowledge, access, expertise and abilities, I think that is a marvellous advance. “If I don’t beat the Reuters wire with a live tweet because I deliberately hold back, someone else will. If I don’t beat the Reuters wire because I’m slow or inattentive, someone else will. “The reason my live tweeting was fast is that it was unintermediated, while the journalist covering the story went the traditional route and had a discussion with an editor about how best to position and play the story. “Both methods have important roles. In this case, the editor added value. “In a democratic world where publishing platforms are available to all, editors and institutions like Reuters MUST add great value if they are to survive the competitive fight with the unintermediated storytellers. “I love that. “I love the competitive pressure that brings. “I love the way it will force us continually to redefine our role vis-a-vis unaffiliated storytellers. “I love the way it is and will continue to force us to redefine our profession and our craft. “Are there potential pitfalls and dangers? Could a mistweet hurt our reputation? Of course. And over time we will have to work hard to decide what we have reporters tweet in their own names and what we have them do in the company name; we’ll have to refine our rules about micro and macroblogging to allow the maximum of free expression while holding fast to our important values of being fair, accurate and free from bias. “But we will get there. And consumers of news will be the ultimate beneficiaries.” Bravo, David, says Silicon Alley Insider, another blog. “Reuters and other newswires have made their names and their fortunes by being first with the news — now anyone who is at a news event has the equivalent of a newswire in their pocket, thanks to cellphones, Twitter, and other social-media tools. Does that make them journalists? Possibly. But best of all, ‘real’ journalists can make use of all those tools too.” ● SOURCE Reuters | Silicon Alley Insider

Tom Glocer says Thomson Reuters set for growth in 2009

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-29T09:23:12+00:00

Thomson Reuters continues to see bright spots in its financial services unit and the company is still set for growth this year, CEO Tom Glocer said on Thursday. Even though there were big job losses across the financial services industry there would still need to be hirings in new areas, he told Reuters correspondent Mike Dolan at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "The trading of very opaque assets with very wide spreads, I think we'll see those sorts of over-the-counter markets evolve," Glocer said, adding that there will be a need for pricing feeds and infrastructure to accurately price those assets. "I don't think anybody who's here can in their right mind be optimistic about 2009, either from a global economy point of view or in financial services," he said. But "in our financial services unit ... we continue to see bright spots right across the world. I'm feeling good about the business.” Thomson Reuters makes about 60 per cent of revenues and 45 per cent of profits from its markets division, whose customers are mainly banks. "There's no question that growth has been tempering, it's been coming down,” Glocer said. “But for the company as a whole, we continue to talk about growth in 2009." He said the integration after Thomson Corp’s $11 billion takeover of Reuters in April 2008 was "going very well". He also said the company would keep the different listings of its stock in London, Toronto and New York as long as investors demanded it. "The London listing was left in place to meet the demand. As long as that's the case, there's certainly a rationale for maintaining the listing," he said. Investors have speculated that the company may drop its London listing as a price gap that opened up on the first day of trading in Thomson Reuters shares in Toronto and London widens. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters Golf Society re-brands

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-26T13:32:47+00:00

Reuters Golf Society has re-branded as Thomson Reuters Golf Society. The Society is based in London and it’s a continuation of the Reuters Golf Society that has been in existence for over 35 years, John Roche writes. Membership is open to men and women and members’ immediate family. Reuters and now Thomson Reuters have continued to support the Golf Society, enabling the ongoing tradition of an egalitarian and ever expanding membership. It offers a rare opportunity for current employees from a diverse variety of job roles and departments, to meet socially. It also provides an opportunity for retired colleagues to meet up and keep in contact with current employees. Each season eight or nine venues are selected within easy reach of the London orbital M25 motorway. During 2008 the membership was 130 there were more than 400 player days. The Society’s current president is Thomson Reuters’ deputy chairman Niall FitzGerald. ● Thomson Reuters Golf Society

Obituary: Baroness de Reuter

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-25T03:24:49+00:00

Marguerite, Baroness de Reuter, the last of the Reuters, died on Sunday aged 96. The Reuter Barony is now extinct. She was the widow of Oliver George Paul Louis Gordon, 4th Baron de Reuter (1894-1968), whose grandfather Paul Julius Reuter established his news service in London in 1851. They married on 4 December 1937. The Barony was granted by Duke Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, brother of Queen Victoria's Consort Prince Albert, in 1871. Queen Victoria formally recognised the German title as carrying the privileges of the foreign nobility in England in 1891. Reuters' founder was born in Germany in 1816 and became a naturalised British subject in 1857. As the title passes down the male line exclusively and as all three grandsons of Paul Julius de Reuter were childless, it becomes extinct on the death of the Baroness. "The name dies with her," said her friend Michael Nelson, former general manager. Another close friend, John Fox, said the baroness had suffered successive strokes late last year. She died in a French old people's home on the border with Monaco. He said Swiss-born Marguerite, a widow for more than 40 years, was intensely proud of the family link with Reuters, and of the British nationality she acquired through her husband. The Reuter family's direct connection with the company ended on 18 April 1915 when the founder's son, Baron Herbert de Reuter, 63, shot himself three days after the sudden death of his wife. Hubert de Reuter, his only son, thus became the 3rd Baron. He served as a private in the Black Watch regiment of the British Army and was killed by machine-gun fire whilst carrying wounded men during the Battle of the Somme on 13 November 1916, five days before the end of that battle. His cousin Oliver then became the 4th Baron. Last year Reuters, which had already moved out of 85 Fleet Street, its headquarters since 1939, was taken over by Thomson, the Canadian media group. Thomson Reuters’ chief executive Tom Glocer said he was saddened to hear of the baroness's death. He added: "Although the founding family of Reuters were no longer significant shareholders in the company, the baroness did notably attend a service at St Bride's Church, London, to mark Reuters' historic move from Fleet Street to Canary Wharf in 2005." The baroness was special guest at the Farewell to Fleet Street service. Marguerite was born on 14 July 1912, the daughter of George Uehlinger of Neunkirch, Schaffhausen, Switzerland. Friends remembered her as a generous woman who spoke numerous languages, loved bridge, opera and ballet, and enjoyed skiing until well into her 70s. Known to her English friends as Daisy, she long divided her time between Monte Carlo and Lausanne. "She was a very warm-hearted, hospitable person – generous, philanthropic, a great supporter of the arts and music. She was always immaculately turned out: elegant, refined and beautiful, with the most angelic smile," Fox said. He said Marguerite would be cremated in Lausanne and her ashes interred there with the remains of her husband. Postscript: The funeral and cremation of Baroness de Reuter was at the Monaco Athenae on Thursday 29 January. The service was attended by the nephew of the Baroness, Paul Dunner, and about a dozen friends, mostly from Saint Paul’s Anglican Church whose American rector Fr Walter Raymond conducted the service. Nelson gave the address. A wreath from the company carried a “Thomson Reuters” banner. It marked the end of an era. ● SOURCE Reuters

Blast hits Reuters building in Gaza

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-15T19:16:40+00:00

An explosion blasted a tower block in Gaza that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations on Thursday. Reuters journalists working there at the time said an Israeli missile or shell appeared to have struck the southern side of the 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower in Gaza city centre. Reuters evacuated the bureau, though a live camera feed that has been providing images from Gaza throughout the war continued to function. Live television images from another site showed smoke pouring from the upper floors of the 16-storey building. Colleagues said at least one journalist working for Abu Dhabi television on the 14th floor was wounded. The 13th floor houses a local television production company. The Reuters bureau is on the 12th floor. Reuters journalists on the spot said they had not been aware of any presence of armed men in the building beforehand. An Israeli army spokesman had spoken with Reuters staff in Jerusalem shortly before the explosion to check the location of the Reuters bureau in Gaza. Reuters had provided the coordinates of its office to the army at the start of the war and was assured on several occasions that it was not a target. ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: John Rettie

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-14T12:20:30+00:00

John Rettie, the Reuters correspondent who broke the news of Nikita Khrushchev's world-shaking secret speech denouncing Josef Stalin in 1956, has died at the age of 82. The speech to the Soviet Communist Party's 20th congress detailing the dictator's crimes as a tyrant, murderer and torturer of party members was smuggled out of Moscow and published in the West. Fifty years later Rettie recalled that its consequences, not fully foreseen by Khrushchev, shook the Soviet Union to the core, but even more so its communist allies, notably in central Europe. Forces were unleashed that eventually changed the course of history. Stalin had died only three years previously and was still mourned by most people in the Soviet Union. Much later, Soviet sources said some were so convulsed as they listened that they suffered heart attacks; others committed suicide afterwards. In the days after the congress diplomats of central European communist states began to whisper that Khrushchev had denounced Stalin at a secret session. "No details were forthcoming. I was working as the second Reuters correspondent in Moscow to Sidney Weiland, who – more for form's sake than anything – tried to cable a brief report of this bald fact to London. As expected, the censors suppressed it." Then, the evening before Rettie was due to go on holiday to Stockholm, a Russian informant who he suspected was a KGB agent told him (over a gramophone record played loudly to confuse microphones assumed to be in the walls of his flat) of Khrushchev's indictment. The informant had no notes, far less a text of the speech. "He told me that the party throughout the Soviet Union heard of it at special meetings of members in factories, farms, offices and universities, when it was read to them once, but only once. At such meetings in Georgia, where Stalin was born, members were outraged at the denigration by a Russian of their own national hero. Some people were killed in the ensuing riots and trains arrived in Moscow from Tbilisi with their windows smashed. "My problem was: could I believe him? It is easy now, with hindsight, to realise that of course what he told me must have been true. But it was a colossal risk to believe such a tale from a single and somewhat dubious source, with little corroborating evidence, and to stake the authority of Reuters on it. I had only a few hours to make up my mind before flying to Stockholm. That raised another problem. In the 1930s many foreign correspondents had found censorship so restrictive that they often flew to the capital of then independent Latvia, Riga, to file their stories before returning to Moscow. Surprisingly, the Soviet government did not object. But after two decades of Stalinism no western correspondent dared to do the same in the 1950s. At the very least, expulsion would have resulted, if not worse. "I didn't know what to do, so I called Weiland, my boss. It was nearly midnight, but we agreed to meet on the street outside the Central Telegraph office, where no hidden microphones could overhear us. It was a very cold winter, and we tramped through the snow as I recounted the tale, pausing from time to time under street lamps to consult my voluminous notes.” In the end they decided to believe the informant, who had been reliable in the past. Besides that, a New York Times correspondent was also flying out the next day and they suspected he would immediately report on the rumours. “We would be beaten on a story of which we had an incomparably better – and exclusive – account. Unthinkable!” The next day, feeling tense, Rettie flew with his wife to Stockholm, the fat notebook burning a hole in his pocket. “We stayed in a hotel for the first night, much of which I spent typing out the two stories and dictating them by telephone to London. I had spoken earlier to the news editor and explained that under no circumstances should either story bear my name or even a Moscow dateline, and that the speech had to be based on ‘communist sources’ – no others were possible. "When I was ready, Reuters called me back and put me through to ‘copy’ – the copytakers. I was extremely nervous and assumed a false American accent to disguise my identity. In vain. ‘Thank you, John,’ said the familiar voice when I finished my long dictation. When the Swedish papers appeared with Khrushchev's ‘Stalin Sensation’ splashed across the front pages, it was datelined Bonn, with the riots in Georgia sourced from Vienna. "In the West, the impact of the speech received a colossal boost from the publication of the full, albeit sanitised, text in The Observer and The New York Times. This was the first time the full text had been available for public scrutiny anywhere in the world." Later, after being subjected to KGB pressure, Rettie asked the British ambassador to send a message to Reuters seeking his recall. Rettie subsequently worked for the BBC and also wrote for British newspapers. He returned to Moscow for The Guardian 32 years after his world-beating scoop and tried to find out who had authorised the leak of the speech to him. He concluded it must have been Khrushchev himself. A fluent Spanish and Russian speaker, Rettie was known as a stickler for the correct use of English. He often used to rant about the wording of some BBC World Service news bulletin or other or else sputter over a mispronunciation of a name, usually Russian. Rettie died of cancer in hospital on 10 January. ● SOURCE BBC | The Guardian | London Review of Books | New Statesman

Obituary: Bill Humphries

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-03-31T19:54:56+01:00

W.S. (Bill) Humphries, Reuters correspondent, editor and manager from 1962 to 1988, died on 26 March after a long illness. He was 74. He had served as a correspondent in New York, Chief Correspondent in Johannesburg, Editor Latin America during the Falklands conflict and Reuters World Service staff manager in London. Stephen Somerville, chairman of The Reuter Society, recalled Humphries as “a fine journalist and a great colleague. He represented our profession, and Reuters, with distinction wherever he worked.” Maurice Quaintance, former staff manager, remembered Humphries’ staff role “during a critical period in Reuters’ development. “His gift for advising and helping editorial staff was beyond question,” Quaintance said. “I have nothing but the fondest memories of my association with him and was impressed always by his ability to go quietly about the business of solving problems without fuss. In short, he made a difference.”

New stock ticker symbols

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-04-10T19:54:02+01:00

Thomson and Reuters announced new stock ticker symbols for Thomson Reuters. They will be effective at the opening of trading on 17 April following the close of Thomson's acquisition of Reuters earlier that morning. Thomson Reuters will have two parent companies, both of which will be publicly listed. The Thomson Corporation will be renamed Thomson Reuters Corporation, and Thomson Reuters PLC will be a new UK company in which existing Reuters shareholders will receive shares as part of their consideration in the transaction. Thomson Reuters Corporation common shares will trade on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) under the symbol TRI. Thomson Reuters PLC ordinary shares will trade on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) under the symbol TRIL. Thomson Reuters PLC ADSs will trade on the Nasdaq Global Select Market (NASDAQ) under the symbol TRIN. Reuters Group PLC ordinary shares and ADSs continue to trade on the LSE and Nasdaq under the symbols RTR and RTRSY respectively until 16 April. ● SOURCE Thomson and Reuters

Reuters photographer wins Pulitzer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-04-10T19:53:03+01:00

Reuters photographer Adrees Latif has won the Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News Photography. It is the first time Reuters has scooped one of the awards. Latif won for "his dramatic photograph of the Japanese videographer, sprawled on the pavement, fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar," the Pulitzer Prize board said. His exclusive photograph, taken during a demonstration in Myanmar, dominated the front pages around the world and played a role in public outrage. David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: "I'm extremely proud that the great work of one of our best photographers got this recognition. "Our photography is a key part of Reuters global multimedia journalism with 2,400 men and women dedicated to telling the story in the best possible way under sometimes very dangerous conditions." Latif was born in Pakistan and lived in Saudi Arabia before emigrating to the United States in 1980. He started working for Reuters in Houston and Los Angeles and has been based in Bangkok since 2003. "Adrees is one of those rare talents whose presence on an assignment puts the mind of the editor at ease knowing that the picture coverage will be not only competitive but exceptionally high quality," said Thomas Szlukovenyi, Reuters global pictures editor. "The combination of his talent, experience, hard work and his news sense makes Adrees an outstanding photo journalist and a great colleague. We are all incredibly happy for him." ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters cameraman killed in Gaza

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-04-16T19:51:20+01:00

Fadel Shana, a Reuters News cameraman, was killed in Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip. Shana, 24, had stepped from his car, an unarmoured sport utility vehicle bearing "TV" and "Press" markings, to film an Israeli tank dug in several hundred meters away. Video from his camera showed the tank opening fire. Two seconds after the shot raises dust around its gun, the tape goes blank – seemingly at the moment he was hit. Witnesses said two youths passing by died in the same explosion that killed Shana. Reuters soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed, 25, sustained a shrapnel wound and was being treated in a Gaza hospital. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger called for an immediate and complete investigation into the incident by the Israeli Defence Forces. “We know, of course, that journalism is a dangerous business. We know, of course, that we rush into danger when others rush away. We know, of course, that accidents happen,” he said. “But I also believe sincerely and absolutely that all of us – news organizations, governments and the military – have an obligation to make reporting safer and to take the utmost care when professional journalists are doing their jobs. “It is, of course, striking that this tragedy occurred on the last day for Reuters as has been and the day before Thomson Reuters begins as a news and information power in the world. I can but reflect on our more than century and a half of bravery and sacrifice in the service of the news, and to vow that Reuters news in the new company will forge a new tradition, building on the old, that we can all be incredibly proud of.” The Israeli army declined immediate comment on what caused Shana’s death. It expressed sorrow but also said journalists were putting their lives at risk in areas of combat. An Israeli military official said: "We wish to express sorrow for the death of the Palestinian cameraman... It should be emphasized that the area in which the cameraman was hurt is an area in which ongoing fighting against armed, extreme and dangerous terrorist organizations occurs on a daily basis. "The presence of media, photographers and other uninvolved individuals in areas of warfare is extremely dangerous and poses a threat to their lives." The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Paris-based Reporters Without Borders mourned Shana’s death. "We are asking the Israeli authorities to publicly commit to carrying out an exhaustive investigation into this incident and to make its findings public," said CPJ executive director Joel Simon in a statement. Shana, who was unmarried, was described as a gentle and popular figure among the 15-strong Reuters news team in the Gaza Strip. The bureau was honoured by Britain's Royal Television Society for its coverage of last year's factional fighting in Gaza. ● SOURCE Reuters

‘Old Reuters’ mourned in Fleet Street

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-04-16T19:50:30+01:00

Reuters staff, past and present, met in Fleet Street to mark the passing of the “old Reuters” on the eve of the birth of Thomson Reuters. The London reunion drew people from editorial, sales and marketing, technical support, finance and administration. The Old Bell was bursting, with drinkers spilling over to other pubs and wine bars in the neighbourhood including The Cheshire Cheese. The Punch Tavern captured the spirit of the evening with a sign regretting ”the passing of Reuters”.

Obituary: Mary Powers

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-15T19:07:19+00:00

Mary Powers, 54, former correspondent in Lima and desk editor in New York, died at home in Boston, Massachusetts on 9 January after a long illness. Her career in Latin America included reporting, editing and bureau chief assignments in Lima, Mexico City and San Juan as well as Washington and New York. Besides Reuters, she also worked for The Associated Press and Bridge news services and contributed articles to many major magazines, newspapers and wire service publications. For the last two decades Powers made Lima her second home, where she was president of the Foreign Press Association and where she shared her love of Peru with visitors. A memorial service will be held at St Cecilia’s Church, 42 Main St. in Wilbraham, Massachusetts on 31 January at 11:00 am. In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of Mary Bernadette Powers may be made to Children’s Hospital Boston, One Autumn St. #731, Boston, MA 02215 or at ● www.chtrust.org

FT marks a Reuters milestone

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-04-17T19:48:55+01:00

On the first day of the new Thomson Reuters company the Financial Times carried the following report under the headline “Journalists shrink under Thomson”: “Some 157 years after Paul Julius Reuter abandoned a trial with carrier pigeons and began telegraphing share prices between the London and Paris stock exchanges, Reuters’ newswire business accounts for less than 7 per cent of its revenues, writes Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson. “Last night, as the company’s journalists faced the prospect of becoming an even smaller part of a larger empire, they met at The Old Bell, their favoured pub when they were based on Fleet Street – once the heart of London’s newspapers and agencies. “The gathering, described as ‘a wake’ by some insiders, came the day before a celebration at the ExCel centre in Docklands for more than 3,500 staff. “The Thomson takeover, which will see the company’s far smaller wire business merge with Reuters media division, has triggered many staff moves and renewed questions about morale that last surfaced when the shares touched 100p in 2003. “Some of the rumblings boil down to annoyances such as changes of e-mail address, but there is another factor, according to David Anderson, editor of IMD Reference. “‘Anecdotally, one of the worries doing the rounds has been that because Reuters share options would vest, a lot of them [the staff] would become pretty well off and could depart,’ he said.” ● SOURCE Financial Times

Death of Alan Thomas

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-04-23T19:47:29+01:00

The following item was posted on Reuters’ internal i-Web today: ALAN THOMAS I'm sorry to report that Alan Thomas, a retired Reuters correspondent and news editor, died on Tuesday of a suspected heart attack. Alan was one of our finest news editors -- when I joined in Asia in 1987 it was after his time there, but people still spoke of his skills and knowledge with awe. He lived in Cornwall but was regularly in London where he maintained contact with many old friends through various groups. Shortly after marrying Mary, he was posted to Moscow at the start of a global career that saw him serve in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He bore so much tragedy in his life with the sudden death at an early age of his youngest son Luke and then his first-born James, but with immense courage, he and Mary gradually picked up the pieces. He was a lovely man whose generous spirit, charm and wit will be greatly missed by all those that knew him. DAVID SCHLESINGER Editor-in-Chief Reuters News

CEO declares 3.9% pension increase

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-04-25T19:46:29+01:00

Tom Glocer announced a 3.9 per cent inflation-linked increase for members of Reuters’ two UK pension funds. The announcement to more than 600 people at this year’s Retired Members’ Luncheon in London affects members of the Reuters Pension Fund and the Supplementary Pension Scheme. The increase is in line with the rise in the UK Retail Price Index for September 2007. It is likely to be paid in June and will be backdated to January. This is the third year in a row that pensions paid by the RPF and SPS final salary schemes have been increased in line with inflation, after increases on pensions earned before 1997 were suspended for the three years 2003-2005. Inflation protection resumed in 2006, with pensions rising 2.7 per cent in 2006 and 3.7 per cent in 2007. Glocer spoke about the importance of the Thomson Reuters takeover and its significance in underpinning the company’s commitment to the pension funds. "Honouring our pension commitments is something we take very seriously and will continue to do so," he said. He also paid tribute to Patrick O’Sullivan, Reuters welfare officer for retired staff, who is standing down as organiser of the lunch, originally an annual event and now held every two years. O’Sullivan said that after planning every luncheon for more than 20 years he was looking forward to enjoying the next one as a guest. Reuters’ host for the Grosvenor House hotel event was Steve Clarke, head of PR, enterprise. Keith Stafford, former editorial training manager/training editor, responded on behalf of pensioners. Peter O’Neill‘s photo shows Pat O’Sullivan (left) with Tom Glocer.

Q1 revenue up 12% to $3.3 billion

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-01T19:45:38+01:00

Thomson Reuters, reporting its maiden Q1 results, said total revenue rose by 12 per cent from the previous year to roughly $3.3 billion – assuming Thomson and Reuters had existed as a joint company. Thomson contributed about $1.8 billion to the total – a 10 per cent increase – and Reuters $1.4 billion – 13 per cent higher than Q1 2007. The company, whose merger was completed on 17 April, said it expects 2008 pro forma revenue growth of 6 to 8 per cent. “Our combined first quarter results and guidance for the full year reflect the robustness of our business, even in turbulent markets,” said Tom Glocer, CEO. “Our Markets Division holds leading positions in higher growth segments of the financial markets, including foreign exchange, commodities, energy and emerging markets. Our leading positions in the less cyclical Professional markets of legal, tax and accounting, scientific and healthcare information also grew strongly in the quarter. “These are high quality businesses with attractive profit margins and strong cash flow characteristics.” He added: “Thomson Reuters is extremely well-positioned to capitalise on the growing demand across the world’s business and professional communities for intelligent information – insightful, high value content that can be used by human beings and machines. As an enlarged global business, Thomson Reuters will now also benefit from the value created by more diversified revenue streams, a larger capital base and synergies resulting from the combination of our businesses.” The first Thomson Reuters dividend of $0.22253 per share will be paid on 15 September to shareholders of record as of 21 August. A quarterly dividend of $0.27 per share will be paid in December. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Obituary: Alan Thomas

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-03T19:44:29+01:00

Alan Thomas, who died suddenly last month, worked for Reuters from university to retirement and in those 32 years earned the admiration and affection of everyone fortunate enough to be counted a colleague. He was a lovely, modest man, whose integrity you sensed in an instant; whose humanity was palpable and whose gently-expressed but sharply-aimed humour would hush a bar full of friends anxious to tune in to his Welsh-toned wit. He joined Reuters as a graduate journalist in 1965. After establishing his credentials on a trainee assignment in Singapore, Alan had a series of testing postings; first to Moscow (deciphering the Cold War politics of the Soviet Union), then to Tanzania (African border conflicts and coups) and later Hong Kong (then Reuters' listening post for a region stretching from Hanoi to Pyonyang and Beijing - or Peking as it was known in the 1970s). His Cantonese secretary there had her own way of showing her loyalty to him. "I'm pleased to meet you but you're not as handsome as Alan," was the greeting for more than one of us. Alan, his wife Mary and two sons lived in the most enviable address in Hong Kong - the aptly-named Peak House. The highest-placed, and one of the oldest buildings on the island, it was chosen by Reuters because it was the best location to set up the aerials and receivers then needed to monitor a largely secretive region's radio stations and news agencies. On mist-shrouded nights as you walked Peak House's draughty corridors you could hear the radio traffic coming in from Asia's communist capitals. His versatility meant he moved on to other roles... Chief Representative... Staff Executive...and as News Editor, in Asia, London and the Middle East, and during those assignments he touched so many colleagues' working lives. In an era when a well-drafted "service message" – a request from Head Office for coverage, a tip-off on how the competition was faring, an admonition of some sort – was the lifeblood of editorial operations, Alan was a master. He was meticulous, delicately insistent but always aware of the difficulties facing the frontline journalist. He got the best from the correspondent in the field because he was fair, set standards, and showed an appreciation that never bordered on the patronising. And he was fun to be with when you next met at the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents' Club or some other journalists' watering hole. He and Mary had more tragedy than any couple could expect. First their younger son, Luke, died while at university and then only a few years later, James, the older, also died. In their anguish, Alan and Mary found some extraordinary strength. While friends would rage at the injustice of two great parents suffering so much, they reminded them how lucky they had been to have their sons, even for such a short time. An apparently healthy 65, Alan died without warning from a heart condition at his home in the Cornish seaside village of Polruan. We pray it will be some comfort for Mary that so many friends and colleagues share her grief. He was a lovely bloke. DAVID ROGERS In the photo Alan faces the camera from a seat behind the helmsman of a Fowey River water taxi during a May 2006 visit to Cornwall organised by Alan and Mary for fellow members and their partners of the Coriander Investment Club formed by retired Reuters staffers. 

Bridging the Thomson Reuters gap

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-06T19:43:28+01:00

Shares of Thomson Reuters listed in London continue to trade at a huge discount to those listed in Toronto, the Financial Times reported. Dual-listed shares rarely trade perfectly efficiently, the FT’s Lex column said, but a gap of this scale, about one fifth, is unheard of. Technical factors are at play, the FT said. As Thomson Reuters is a dual-listed company, the only way to unwind the classic merger arbitrage trade – long Reuters, short Thomson – is to sell the shares in London and buy in Toronto. Yet the shortage of buyers in London also reflects very different views of the new company’s prospects. Traditional Canadian holders of Thomson still view it as a defensive professional publisher while the view from London is that the Canadians have no idea what is about to hit them, the FT said. Reuters is still seen as a hostage to the fortunes of its primary customers, the investment banks. “During the last downturn it was clobbered.” Chief executive Tom Glocer hopes to work on UK shareholders, the FT said. “Either they don’t get the professional side of the business, or they understand the financials side all too well,” it added. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Photographer freed from jail

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-08T19:42:20+01:00

Reuters photographer Howard Burditt was released on Thursday from three days’ detention in Zimbabwe. Burditt, a Zimbabwean national covering the aftermath of the country’s elections, had been in jail since Monday after officials accused him of illegally using a satellite phone to send pictures. David Schlesinger, Reuters editor-in-chief, said: “I am extremely relieved that Howard has been released but disturbed that he should have been held in jail for so long on such a charge.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

Thomson family raises its stake

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-09T19:41:33+01:00

The Thomson family’s holding company, Woodbridge, and other companies associated with it now own about 70 per cent of the outstanding common shares of Thomson Reuters Corp, giving it an approximately 54 per cent voting interest in Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters said Woodbridge received 1.47 million common shares of Thomson Reuters Corp at C$36.26 per share on 1 May. This was under the company’s dividend reinvestment plan. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Big job cuts expected - Observer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-11T19:40:10+01:00

Thomson Reuters could announce thousands of job cuts as early as this week, The Observer reported. The new company, which employs around 50,000 people, has set a 19 May deadline to outline an extensive programme of redundancies, “according to insiders”, the UK Sunday newspaper said. But following months of speculation details of where the axe will fall are expected to be made public by Friday. “Analysts have been predicting that around 5 per cent of staff – 2,500 people – could be laid off, but the numbers could be higher than that after the group last month raised the amount of cost savings it plans to generate over the next three years from £250m to £375m,” The Observer said. The bulk of the cuts are expected to be made in Europe where Thomson and Reuters both have a large presence. There is less overlap in North America and virtually none in Asia, The Observer said. Union officials expect at least 100 of Reuters 2,400 journalists to be axed, but that number will be inflated hugely by further cuts, with technicians, salesmen and middle managers worldwide likely to be purged. Further savings will come from selling or vacating head office buildings and winding down contracts with suppliers, The Observer said. But most cost-cutting in the first year of the three-year programme is likely to come from laying off staff rather than reducing other overheads. “We are expecting thousands of cuts,” it quoted a London-based union official at the group as saying. ● SOURCE The Observer

Journalists said to consider strike

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-12T19:27:36+01:00

Thomson Reuters journalists, bracing for job cuts this week, are contemplating strike action over the way managers are slashing costs, The Guardian reported. Staff expect CEO Tom Glocer to make an internal announcement on how many jobs will be axed before, or most likely on, 19 May, it said. “Reports from the newsrooms of both (Thomson and Reuters) news wires tell of an increasingly anxious atmosphere as journalists fear they will be forced out of their jobs because management is expected to opt for compulsory rather than voluntary redundancies to cut out overlap,” The Guardian said. National Union of Journalists officials say managers have so far refused to commit to using voluntary redundancies, it said. “As a result, staff at Thomson have already voted unanimously to hold a strike ballot. “Last month a separate proposed ballot for industrial action among Reuters staff was suspended by the NUJ pending further negotiations with the management. “Once they get details on job cuts from Glocer, union members at Reuters and Thomson say they will meet to discuss possible industrial action,” The Guardian said. It said management will be under pressure to cut as many costs as possible given rising concerns over the outlook for financial markets. ● SOURCE The Guardian

TRI/TRIL - an arbitrageur’s dream

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-13T19:26:49+01:00

The gap between the prices of Thomson Reuters’ dual-listed shares in London and Toronto has lingered longer than expected, The Globe and Mail said on Tuesday. When the two shares began trading separately on 17 April and the UK shares (stock symbol TRIL) lagged their Canadian counterpart (stock symbol TRI) by a significant margin logic suggested it would only be a matter of time before they eventually settled at a similar level, since both represent an equal investment in the same assets. “But for reasons that escape the company and have left investors scratching their heads, the gap between the two has lingered longer than expected – nearly a month...” the newspaper said. “With that in mind, arbitrageurs are buying the UK-traded Thomson Reuters PLC shares, while shorting Thomson Reuters Corp on the Toronto Stock Exchange, hoping to capitalize on the gap.” Short selling involves borrowing and then selling shares in a company in expectation of buying them back at a lower price and profiting on the difference. The Globe and Mail said that once exchange rates are factored in the London shares have been trading at roughly 15-20 per cent less than the Toronto listing. Company executives acknowledged the discrepancy at the new company’s annual meeting last week in Toronto. But chief financial officer Robert Daleo declined to guess why the discount exists, the newspaper said. “We do know that there are a lot of shorts that were put on the Thomson stock that have to be unwound and they have to do it over time, so it could take a while,” he was quoted as saying. “Markets are generally rational, so it may take a little while longer,” he said. “How long? We have no idea. We do know that [the UK price] doesn’t represent the true intrinsic value of the company.” One arbitrage player who has taken a position in both shares hoping to profit when the gap narrows is New York-based money manager Glazer Capital. Its president, Paul Glazer, is reported to have written more than 80 letters to executives of 14 large institutional investors in Canada, hoping to prod them into buying the UK shares. “Given that the Canadian and UK shares are, by design, economically equivalent to each other, it defies all financial theory that the shares of one holding company should trade at a 20-per-cent-plus premium to the others that are just as easily obtained,” the newspaper quoted the letter as saying. “It is hard to explain why a holder of [the Toronto listing] could not sell these shares and buy a 20-per-cent larger interest in the same company by using the proceeds to buy [the UK traded] shares.” ● SOURCE The Globe and Mail

Leaked e-mail says job cuts soon

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-14T19:25:56+01:00

A leaked internal e-mail confirms “significant” redundancies are about to be announced at Thomson Reuters to eliminate duplication caused by the merger. The Guardian’s ● guardian.co.uk website said the e-mail was sent to senior managers by Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division which includes the new company’s 2,600-strong global news operation. It quoted him as writing: “It’s no secret that a significant amount of thought and planning has been dedicated to eliminating duplication and generating savings within our business. Over the next several days, we will communicate department by department the impact of our integration ... these actions will mean an immediate reduction in our headcount.” Wenig added that the jobs that are impacted are largely the result of duplication between the two organisations. Most job losses will be completed by the end of the year but further cuts could be made if management decided to close certain products down completely. “Going forward, there may be further merger related reductions in staff, but they will generally be tied to a specific decision to stop a business activity (such as to shut down a product, technology or a process).” The website said Wenig also stressed that Thomson Reuters intends to grow in the medium term and that new jobs will be created. It said a separate briefing document sent to managers in the markets division envisaged the cuts will be outlined from 14 to 22 May and consultations with unions and other bodies representing workers will begin on 19 May. ● SOURCE The Guardian

3.9% UK pensions hike confirmed

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-14T19:24:46+01:00

Reuters’ UK pension funds have confirmed a 3.9 per cent discretionary increase for 2008. The figure is based on the change in the rate of inflation in the UK over the year to September 2007. Retired staff on pensions from Reuters Pension Fund and the Supplementary Pension Scheme will receive the extra money on 15 June. It will be backdated to 1 January. The increase applies equally to pensions in payment and deferred pensions. It is the third year in a row that pensions paid by the RPF and SPS final salary schemes have been increased in line with inflation, after increases on pensions earned before 1997 were suspended for the three years 2003-2005. Inflation protection resumed in 2006, with pensions rising 2.7 per cent in 2006 and 3.7 per cent in 2007. Update newsletters issued by the managing committee and trustees of the two funds said: “The increase to these pensions required the Company’s specific consent which was granted this year as a goodwill gesture, but should not be seen as a precedent for future years.” They said the discretionary pension increases have only been possible because of the financial health of the schemes and with the company’s consent. “The position next year may be different,” they cautioned. “While the Trustees hope there will be more good news about discretionary pension increases in future, there are no guarantees this will be the case.” Retired staff whose pensions are paid in overseas currencies have had their total pension increased in line with their local inflation. The 3.9 per cent increase was first announced by CEO Tom Glocer at the Retired Members’ Luncheon in London on 25 April. ● SOURCE RPF and SPS Update newsletters

$300,000 gift for cyclone relief

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-14T19:23:36+01:00

Thomson Reuters and the Reuters Foundation said they will support disaster relief efforts in Myanmar with a donation totalling $300,000. The money will directly fund relief agencies that have gained access to areas devastated by Cyclone Nargis. It is being channelled through the AlertNet International Disaster Fund (AIDfund). The Foundation is donating $200,000 to AIDfund and Thomson Reuters is giving an additional $100,000. AIDfund is an independent fund which provides immediate support to humanitarian organisations working on the frontline of emergency relief. Cash grants are going to the following NGOs: Adventist Development and Relief Agency, British Red Cross, Christian Aid, HelpAge International, Muslim Aid and World Vision International. They will provide food parcels including rice, oil, pulses and dried fish, water purification tablets, clean water systems, blankets, clothing and temporary shelter. “The point of AIDfund is to get cash fast to relief agencies already on the ground in Myanmar,” Foundation CEO Monique Villa said. “These agencies are the ones most able to make a difference in this critical period when lives can still be saved. All the agencies we’ve chosen have been active in the country for years. They have the local knowledge and connections to get relief where it’s needed quickly.” ● SOURCE Reuters Foundation | AlertNet

Reuters demands Israeli account

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-15T19:22:40+01:00

A month after Fadel Shana was killed by an Israeli tank crew in the Gaza Strip, Reuters renewed its demand for a prompt explanation from the Israeli army of why it fired on the cameraman. Shana, 24, a Palestinian, was killed on 16 April along with eight mostly teenage bystanders by darts known as flechettes that burst out of a tank shell in mid-air. He had been filming about 1.5 km from two Israeli tanks. He was wearing blue body armour bearing the word “Press” on fluorescent strips. His vehicle also bore “TV” and “Press” markings. The Israeli army said it had completed an initial field investigation that had determined the soldiers had followed orders and acted appropriately. But military lawyers still had to study the case before the army could give a full account. “A month has passed since Fadel Shana was killed by Israeli forces while responsibly going about his professional duties,” said Reuters’ Middle East managing editor Mark Thompson. “We urge the IDF to release its report on the incident now so that media organisations and the military can cooperate on ways to ensure journalists can continue to cover this conflict.” Independent investigators commissioned by Reuters have prepared their own preliminary report on the incident, which raises serious questions over why the tank opened fire. ● SOURCE Reuters

Finance chief buys shares

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-15T19:21:43+01:00

Thomson Reuters said chief financial officer Robert Daleo spent nearly $300,000 on stock, buying 1,600 American Depositary Shares at $185.90 each. Each ADS is worth six ordinary shares in Thomson Reuters PLC. He also has 5,105 shares in Thomson Reuters Corporation, which is listed in Toronto. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Up to 700 jobs go in first round

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-16T19:20:37+01:00

Thomson Reuters unveiled details of planned job losses with up to 700 posts to be axed in the first round of cuts. Internal e-mails to staff seen by mediaguardian.co.uk said the company would be cutting 45 jobs from sales teams in its central Europe, Middle East and Africa division out of a total of 1,305 posts. “Thomson Reuters announced much more wide-ranging job reductions in its content, technology and operations division, where up to 650 posts will go, with around 250 redundancies,” the website said. Journalists in the 2,500-strong global news operation, part of the new company’s markets division, are still waiting to hear full details of redundancy plans in their area. Mediaguardian.co.uk quoted a memo from Peter Moss, head of content, technology and operations, as telling staff: “As the integration proceeds and we are able to remove duplication, this will inevitably mean a reduction in the number of jobs within content, technology and operations. Over the course of 2008, we will reduce approximately 600-650 jobs within our group overall.” However, he said the number of people leaving the company through redundancies would be “significantly less than this, with our current projections being approximately 250 people”. A note from Loris Barisa, head of sales and service for continental Europe, Middle East and Africa, quoted by The Guardian said: “You may see some colleagues leave right away, while others will be notified and be transitioning out over a period of weeks as we work through local legal requirements. “It’s difficult to say goodbye to people who have contributed so significantly to our successes, and that’s why I feel strongly that we conduct this process with the utmost dignity.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

140 editorial jobs go by end 2008

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-19T19:19:41+01:00

Some 140 editorial jobs will be cut by the end of this year as Reuters News absorbs Thomson Financial News, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger told staff. More than half the cuts will be in Europe while the rest will be scattered, he said. At the same time Reuters will add about 50 new jobs in growth areas making for 2,500 editorial employees by year’s end. “When two similar and once competing organisations come together, there is natural overlap and duplication in coverage,” Schlesinger told staff in a memo. “Wherever possible, we have worked to minimize job losses and to avoid redundancy by moving people into new roles and cancelling open posts that don’t fit within the new organisation,” he added. The National Union of Journalists said it had not ruled out a strike but would negotiate with the company first. “The NUJ has been pressing hard to have any job cuts carried out through voluntary redundancies and will continue to do so,” said Myra MacDonald, Mother of the NUJ Chapel in London. A BBC report said Thomson Reuters could lose about 1,500 jobs from its 50,000-strong payroll in total. The company is cutting as many as 650 jobs in its content, technology and operations division. ● SOURCE Reuters

New questions on Iraq hotel deaths

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-20T19:18:49+01:00

Reuters wants a fresh inquiry into the killing of two journalists in Baghdad by a US tank crew five years ago. A report has raised new questions about the deaths of cameraman Taras Protsyuk and a Spanish Telecinco network cameraman, Jose Couso. They were killed by a tank shell that hit the Palestine Hotel on 8 April, 2003. Reuters said on Tuesday it would write to the US Senate Armed Services Committee to push for another inquiry. US Internet news and current affairs broadcaster ● Democracy Now on 15 May posted an interview with a former US Army sergeant in military intelligence who said that prior to the invasion of Iraq she had been given a list of targets for potential attack that included the Palestine Hotel. A large foreign media contingent stayed at the Palestine Hotel in the lead-up to the invasion and then during the war that toppled Saddam Hussein. A Reuters investigation into the killings identified a breakdown in communications between US military commanders and troops on the ground. The Committee to Protect Journalists, a media watchdog, also investigated the incident and said the attack “while not deliberate, was avoidable”. ● SOURCE Reuters

Times fires broadside at Tom Glocer yacht

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-22T19:17:57+01:00

The Times fired a broadside at CEO Tom Glocer for chartering a yacht to moor in the harbour at Monaco just as Thomson Reuters announces 1,500 jobs cuts. Glocer is entertaining investment bankers during the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend. Reuters sponsors the AT&T Williams team in the Formula One championship. Under the headline “Tom Glocer sails off on a sea of others’ troubles”, The Times City Diary said: “In an act of callousness that might have brought a blush to the cheeks of Marie Antoinette herself, Tom Glocer, the Thomson Reuters chief executive, has chartered a yacht to moor in the harbour at Monaco just as the newly merged company announces 1,500 job cuts. “The losses were put down to the urgent need to cut costs, and staffers there are understandably sick to see Glocer, as part of the group’s sponsorship of F1, hire the yacht to entertain investment banking clients to coincide with the grand prix there. “Thomson Reuters is refusing to comment. Glocer made a £22.5 million windfall out of the merger between Reuters and Thomson that led to the job cuts. So 1,500 relatively poor people become poorer while a rich man, now considerably richer as a consequence, hires a yacht with someone else’s money to entertain some other very rich people. Could there be a more perfect parable for our times?” A report in the Daily Mail said: “As hundreds of staff sweat over their jobs, Reuters will splash out an estimated £80,000 on boat hire and moorage charges to watch the two-hour race... “There’ll be no sign of belt tightening as Glocer schmoozes Reuters’ investment banking clients at one of the key events in the European social calendar. “He’ll need to work as much charm as he can muster – the American must keep his Wall Street customers onside given that the credit crisis shows no sign of ending.” ● SOURCE The Times | Daily Mail

$260,000 China quake relief donation

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-22T19:16:47+01:00

Thomson Reuters, ● Reuters Foundation and staff have donated a combined $260,000 to help relief work following the earthquake in China’s Szechuan province. The Foundation has donated $100,000, supplemented by $100,000 from Thomson Reuters, to be distributed through agencies chosen by the Foundation’s ● AlertNet International Disaster Fund (AIDfund), an independent grant-making fund. Often working in partnership with local people, the agencies, which are all members of ● Reuters AlertNet, will receive funding to help them fulfil specific aid programmes. Thomson Reuters staff across Asia have set up local fundraising initiatives which have raised $60,000, as well as offering generous donations of blankets and clothes for earthquake survivors. These have been passed to local Red Cross Societies. "The earthquake has prompted a tremendous outpouring of support and humanitarian relief from our staff across the region,” said Kenneth Tsui, managing director for North Asia for the markets division. “The company, its employees and Foundation have responded rapidly to raise and distribute funds for those affected by the tragedy. In such a disaster situation, we will also continue to enable relief agencies to access and share vital news and information that could help improve the situation." AIDfund has awarded cash grants to the following non governmental organisations, all of which have a long history of providing relief aid in China: ● Americare $30,000 ● Handicap International $30,000 ● British Red Cross $40,000 ● World Vision International $40,000 ● Save the Children $60,000 Selected by a committee of humanitarian experts, the programmes will help with basic utilities, food, tents and other forms of shelter. They will also provide child-friendly spaces to support children in their adjustment following the disaster, as well as trained physiotherapists to support the rehabilitation of those injured during the quake. Staff who wish to donate can do so through ● AIDfund online. These donations will help to create a fund for future emergencies. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Obituary: Dolly Aglay

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-26T19:16:00+01:00

Dolly Aglay, commodities correspondent in Manila bureau, died on Monday after a long illness. She was 41. Aglay, who joined from the Philippine Star newspaper in 1995, had battled with cancer for nearly three years. Bureau chief Raju Gopalakrishnan described her as a “quiet, dignified woman in the corner of the newsroom, working the phones late into the night to get an extra detail or scrap of information. “She worked across all parts of the business file and pitched in on political and general news whenever she sensed it was needed, but completely owned the commodities beat.” ● SOURCE ABS CBN News Online

Staff given job search tips

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-26T19:15:03+01:00

Thomson Reuters staff have been sent guides on how to apply for internal jobs, UK Press Gazette magazine reported. Journalists at Thomson Financial Newswires were advised to read two documents on the company’s intranet this month, it said. One was titled Thomson Reuters Introduction to Interviewing, the other Filling Roles: Competency Based Interviewing Guide. “According to a well-placed source within the company, human resources staff have been holding workshops on tackling interviews for the new company,” Press Gazette said. Reuters interviews take place in several stages, often before a panel of four or five senior management staff. “The competence guide advises interviewees to expect tough questions such as: “Give an example of a time when you had to strive hard and make personal sacrifices to achieve an aim which was important to you/the business.” ● SOURCE Press Gazette

The future of news - by Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-28T19:14:04+01:00

CEO Tom Glocer has spelt out his vision of the future of news and it involves “citizen journalists” – non-professionals snapping pictures with mobile phones and reporting on websites. “I’ve been a big advocate of opening the doors and make it one long continuum between citizen journalist and somebody who might be on staff at 20 years publishing at Reuters under the Reuters name...” he said in an on-stage interview at D: All Things Digital, an annual conference in California’s Silicon Valley sponsored by The Wall Street Journal. “We have 2,600 journalists on staff, and several thousand stringers. And then there is a third concentric circle, which is citizen journalist. In video or still photography, for instance...the eyewitness who blogs has value if no one else is there.” How will news be delivered in five years’ time? “I see agency business end up just an electronic exchange platform, purely mutualised. We’ll see a mix of arguably more comments from high-talent sources, and openness to aggregate other voices.” Where will people get their news? “Mobile will be very important. I get most of my information on where Thomson Reuters is trading off of a mobile app.” Glocer said it is a scary time to be in the traditional news business but fantastic for the agency world. Everyone is pulling reporting staff back to home base and is ever more dependent on news agencies, whether Reuters or AP. They have to make their Web sites 24 hours and need copy. “And they need video and photos, all of which we have.” Glocer said the Thomson Reuters agency business has been growing five to 10 per cent a year for the past few years and is three per cent of the total company’s revenues. ● SOURCE D: All Things Digital | Barron’s Tech Trader Daily

Montreal bureau closes

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-28T19:13:21+01:00

Thomson Reuters closed its Montreal bureau with immediate effect, affecting one journalist and several sales people, The Canadian Press reported. It said the news was given in an internal e-mail circulated to staff on Tuesday. Most of the company’s Canadian workforce is located in Toronto. ● SOURCE Canadian Press

US award for Niall FitzGerald

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-05-29T19:12:14+01:00

Niall FitzGerald, deputy chairman of Thomson Reuters, has received the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship. The award was made in recognition of his distinguished business career and corporate leadership both in the UK and internationally. Winners must demonstrate a proven commitment to societal matters beyond the bottom line, encourage ties among different sectors of society and promote international cooperation and understanding. The award was presented by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars of the Washington-based Smithsonian Institution at a gala dinner in London on 21 May. “I am honoured to receive the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship, though I feel I have been singled out for doing something that should be entirely expected and natural,” FitzGerald said. “Business is a part of the society it serves and should go beyond the interests of its own shareholders.” FitzGerald joined Reuters as a non-executive director in 2003 and became chairman in 2004. He was previously chairman and CEO of Unilever. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Photographer fined for using satphone

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-04T19:11:23+01:00

Reuters photographer Howard Burditt was convicted in Zimbabwe on 3 June for using a satellite phone. Harare magistrate Archie Wochionga fined him ZWD$20 billion (about US$28). He suspended a two-month prison sentence on condition that Burditt does not contravene the Broadcasting Services Act within the next five years. The satellite phone was forfeited to the state. Burditt was arrested in the Zimbabwean capital on 5 May when he was found in possession of the satellite phone. He spent three nights in police custody. In a court appearance on 28 May he pleaded guilty. The state argued that the Post and Telecommunications Authority of Zimbabwe had licensed Reuters to cover the Zimbabwean elections and it was specified in the contract that they were not to use “big machines” like satellite phones. ● SOURCE Media Institute of Southern Africa

Share buyback scheme extended

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-04T19:10:22+01:00

Thomson Reuters said on Wednesday it had received approval from the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) to renew a US$500 million stock buyback programme for a further 12 months. The programme will end on 5 June 2009. Shares can be bought on either the TSX or the New York Stock Exchange. Under the bid, up to 15 million common shares can be repurchased, representing 1.81 per cent of Thomson Reuters’ outstanding shares on 30 May. Thomson Reuters began purchasing ordinary shares of Thomson Reuters PLC on 18 April, the day after the formation of the merged company. Approximately 9.6 million Thomson Reuters PLC ordinary shares were purchased for a total cost of about US$302 million from 18 April to 30 May. Thomson Reuters shares listed in London are trading at a 16 per cent discount to those in New York and Toronto. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters | Financial Post | Seeking Alpha

Integration, takeover concerns cited

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-04T19:09:36+01:00

Citing integration risks and concerns about a takeover, US credit ratings agency Fitch Ratings gave Thomson Reuters a mid-level investment-grade rating. Fitch said the newly-merged company has a sound balance sheet and gave it an initial A- rating. Ratings indicate a company’s ability to repay debt. The highest rating is AAA. Fitch said its rating reflects the company’s ability to generate meaningful cash flow which will allow it to meet repayment schedules. It is also based on Thomson Reuters’ relative lack of viable competitors and the company’s ability to distribute news and other information electronically. Some concerns include integration risk and the possibility that the new company could be an acquisition target, Fitch said. ● SOURCE CNN

Journalists in UK edge towards strike

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-06T19:08:44+01:00

Journalists at Thomson Reuters in London moved closer to strike action over planned job cuts and attacked management over plans to reshape the company, The Guardian reported. “At a well-attended union meeting today, journalists from both Thomson and Reuters passed a resolution that could set the wheels in motion as soon as next week for industrial action,” it said. Reporters are angry about plans to cut jobs in the UK, 73 of them journalist posts, The Guardian said. National Union of Journalists officials argue that management have shortened the window for voluntary redundancies and have not ruled out compulsory job cuts. “At today’s meeting, staff passed a resolution that will be put to management on Monday: ‘This chapel is prepared to take industrial action in the event the company tries to impose compulsory redundancies and instructs its officers to move ahead with a strike ballot if the company imposes timelines for redundancies without consultation.’” The Guardian said Thomson Reuters has told staff that the group will ultimately be expanding with new ventures such as web TV and more comment writing. “However, employees say they are angry at the job cuts, which many believe show reporters are paying for an unjustified expansion into areas not traditionally associated with Reuters or Thomson. “They argue more comment and new TV ventures will come at the expense of the core coverage of basic financial, general and sports news.” In two other resolutions, union members said they had no confidence in editorial strategy as explained by management and they believed it will lead to a deterioration in the quality of the service, The Guardian said. ● SOURCE The Guardian

UK editorial staff call for strike ballot

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-10T19:07:56+01:00

London newsroom staff are to hold a ballot over possible industrial action, The Guardian reported. It said the decision follows the refusal of management to delay planned redundancies and rejection of an offer from National Union of Journalists’ officials to bring in the UK Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. NUJ officials met Thomson Reuters management on Monday but staff concerns about the technicalities of the redundancy process were not met, the newspaper said. “As a result, the Thomson and Reuters NUJ chapels have now moved to hold strike ballots,” it said. Thomson Reuters wants to cut 70 journalists from the London newsroom as part of job reductions following the recent merger. “The NUJ said it had made several requests for management to explain the reasons for the cuts but has not received a satisfactory answer,” The Guardian said. “Union officials also asked for ACAS to be invited to help resolve the dispute but the conciliation service cannot get involved until after the 90-day consultation period, by which time the job cuts will have taken place.” The Guardian quoted editor-in-chief David Schlesinger as saying management has “maintained a transparent and cooperative dialogue with staff and relevant global unions” during the merger. “We are trying the minimise the uncertainty for our UK journalists and we are continuing our ongoing consultation with the NUJ.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

Staff raise $40,000 for Oxfam

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-13T19:06:58+01:00

Staff from London, Hong Kong and Bangalore have walked a collective 4,151 km in Japan to raise money for British charity Oxfam. Eleven teams of four people raised ¥4,161,608 (about $40,000) by taking part in a series of team challenge events run by the charity. Thirty-seven of the 44 Thomson Reuters walkers completed the competition. The fastest Thomson Reuters team comprised Andrew Reeve, Andrew Cross, Mitsuhiro Tsuchida and Oliver Otto. They completed the 100 km trail in 29 hours 2 minutes.

Thomson Reuters may post strong results, say analysts

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-16T11:40:28+00:00

Thomson Reuters is expected to post strong results next month, J.P. Morgan Securities analysts said on Friday, even as they downgraded the London-listed shares to "neutral" from "overweight" on valuation. The analysts raised their price targets on the London- and New York-listed shares of the group and kept their "neutral" stance on the U.S. stock. "We continue to like the fundamentals of the company but would look for a better entry price into both stocks," they wrote in a note to clients. The analysts expect the group to report strong results, with potential cost savings and/or some restructuring charges shifting from 2008 to 2009. But the key risk to the shares is news about financial industry job losses and the market's potential read-through to organic growth at the group's markets division, they said. The markets division includes the Reuters and Thomson news operations as well as financial data and tools for investment banks and other financial firms. Chief financial officer Robert Daleo said last week that the group's quarterly and annual revenue growth rate would slow, reflecting the effects of the world financial crisis. J.P. Morgan analysts, however, said any weakness in the group's markets division revenue will be offset by the relative strength in its professional unit, which represented about 60 per cent of profits. The professional division sells databases and other deep information reservoirs to lawyers, accountants, scientists and the healthcare industry. Cost savings may also largely cushion any markets revenue decline, the analysts added. They raised their price target on Thomson Reuters’ London shares to 1,750 pence from 1,500 pence, and on Thomson Reuters Corp shares to $26.60 from $26.30. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters renews call for Israeli answers

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-15T19:05:00+01:00

Reuters renewed a call on the Israeli army to explain its killing of cameraman Fadel Shana in the Gaza Strip two months ago. Shana, a 24-year-old Palestinian, was killed on 16 April by flechettes that burst from a tank shell in mid-air. Eight bystanders aged 12 to 20 also died and at least seven others aged from 10 to 18 were hit in the incident, about 1.5 km from two Israeli tanks. Soundman Wafa Abu Mizyed, 25, was wounded in the wrist. Reuters called on the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to release immediately the findings of its internal investigation in the interests of journalists’ safety. The IDF has yet to offer an account but has said its soldiers followed their orders and did nothing wrong. It said it aims to avoid killing journalists but cautioned that they work in conflict zones at their own risk. Reuters has written to the IDF to ask how, in that case, the troops failed to identify Shana as a cameraman. “We have a duty to our employees and their families to determine exactly what happened on that day, both to establish the exact cause of Fadel’s death and to identify any action we can take to improve the safety of Reuters News staff on assignment in hostile environments,” Middle East managing editor Mark Thompson wrote last week. “The IDF has had plenty of time to conduct a thorough investigation into the killing of Shana.” One of the questions Reuters has asked the IDF’s senior law officer is what specific information led the soldiers to dismiss the possibility that Shana was a television cameraman. Israeli army spokesman Major Avital Leibovich said: “We are in the process of checking a few more details in order to complete the picture. As soon as we have the conclusions we will share them.” An independent investigation commissioned by Reuters found there was no fighting in the area where Shana was working in view of the tanks. Shana’s car and blue body armour bore “Press” markings. The investigation found that Shana observed safety guidelines and took all reasonable precautions. He complied with Reuters’ own safety policy and his actions could not be interpreted as irresponsible or negligent in any way. The delay in clarifying Shana’s death has made it difficult for media groups to set guidelines for staff in Gaza on how to avoid a repetition of the incident, creating problems for coverage of army activity in the Palestinian enclave. Gaza journalists plan to demonstrate on Monday in protest at the lack of an Israeli explanation for Shana’s death. ● SOURCE Reuters

Army probe of Reuters death ‘flawed’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-16T19:03:53+01:00

US soldiers who killed a Reuters journalist in Iraq acted within military rules, but the Army’s probe of the incident was flawed by its failure to preserve evidence, a Pentagon investigation said. The Defense Department’s inspector general, the Pentagon’s watchdog agency, found that US soldiers who fired on a Reuters car in west Baghdad in August 2005, killing Reuters Television soundman Waleed Khaled, reasonably responded to what they thought was a threat. But the inspector general criticised the Army investigator for losing a critical piece of evidence – video from a Reuters cameraman in the car that captured events leading up to and including the shooting. The Army investigator’s actions rightfully led Reuters to believe the investigation was not thorough or independent, the inspector general’s report said. “We found that although the (investigating officer) who conducted the Army investigation did not pursue some logical investigative actions, he properly concluded that during an ongoing enemy attack the soldiers thought a video camera and external microphone held out of an indigenous, unmarked vehicle was a rocket propelled grenade,” the inspector general said. “The soldiers reasonably believed that act constituted a threat to United States forces and as such were obligated to act and did so in accordance with the (rules of engagement).” The inspector general also faulted Reuters and its safety practices. The car carrying Khaled and cameraman Haider Kadhem was not marked “press”, for example, and Kadhem wrongly stuck his camera out of the car window, according to the military. That made it difficult for soldiers to distinguish the journalists from combatants, the inspector general said. Reuters said it disagreed with the Pentagon agency’s findings but appreciated its recommendation that the US military work with news organisations on safety procedures to avoid similar incidents. “I am never satisfied when a journalist is killed in the course of covering a story,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. “I am satisfied that the inspector general took this case seriously and came up with useful and positive recommendations.” Khaled and Kadhem were inside a Reuters car while Kadhem, in the front passenger seat, filmed the aftermath of an insurgent ambush on Iraqi police. The car was not marked “press” due to worries that Iraqi insurgents were targeting reporters, Schlesinger said. The U.S. military confiscated Kadhem’s camera, which contained video of the shooting. The U.S. military showed the footage to Reuters staff but later lost that video, characterised by Reuters as a “key piece of evidence” and one that corroborated the Reuters version of events. Reuters’ chief counsel Thomas Kim called the video “the only piece of objective evidence” available in the incident. An independent inquiry commissioned by Reuters concluded in April 2006 that the shooting appeared “unlawful” and said nothing Khaled or Kadhem did could have been mistaken as hostile. Iraq is the world’s most dangerous country for journalists. At least 179 reporters and media assistants have been killed since the US-led invasion in 2003, more than in World War II and during fighting in Vietnam, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. ● SOURCE Reuters

MP meets management over job cuts

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-16T19:02:40+01:00

British MP Austin Mitchell is to meet Thomson Reuters management in an attempt to help resolve a union wrangle over possible compulsory redundancies, Press Gazette reported. Mitchell, a Labour politician, is chairman of the National Union of Journalists Parliamentary Group. NUJ official Barry Fitzpatrick said Mitchell would be discussing options for the company. Some 70 UK editorial positions are under threat, the weekly magazine said. Worldwide, the number of journalists’ jobs to be axed is 140. The losses are part of the shake-out from Thomson’s takeover of Reuters in April. The NUJ was meeting the company today and Fitzpatrick said it has formally initiated a disputes procedure which gives a deadline of 15 July to resolve differences. ● SOURCE Press Gazette

Journalists protest over Fadel Shana’s killing

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-16T19:01:29+01:00

Journalists in the Gaza Strip laid down their cameras during a symbolic work stoppage as part of a protest to demand Israel explain why its troops killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana, 24, in the Palestinian enclave two months ago. The journalists, who work for Palestinian and foreign media in Gaza, agreed not to publish images on Monday of any Israeli military operations in the enclave. About 50 journalists also attended a brief demonstration in the city of Gaza. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said her government would publish the results of an inquiry into the 16 April incident, possibly within days. “I would like ... to express our sorrow for this event,” she told a news conference. “Clearly there is a full investigation by the Israeli army ... I don’t have the result of this investigation.” Livni added: “When we gather results – we hope in the next few days – we can share with the international community.” EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said before meeting Livni in Luxembourg: “About the killing, I will certainly condemn that. “Journalists are always in a very, very difficult situation and therefore we want to see understanding, we want to see also a sensitivity about it.” Reuters’ Middle East managing editor Mark Thompson said: “We are deeply disappointed that the Israeli army has failed to provide an account of the circumstances in which Fadel Shana was killed by a tank shell on April 16, nor any evidence to support its claim that they could not identify him as a journalist. “Fadel had taken all reasonable precautions while filming that day and the refusal of the Israeli army to work with the media on safety issues since his death has forced us and others to curtail reporting in Gaza.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon unveiled a memorial in London dedicated to journalists killed while reporting on wars. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters to raise $1.75 billion

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-17T19:00:34+01:00

Thomson Reuters said it plans to raise $1.75 billion through an issue of corporate securities. The offer is for $750 million of bonds due in 2013 paying an annual interest rate of 5.95 per cent and $1 billion in 6.5 per cent bonds due in 2018. The offer closes on Friday. The company plans to use the money to repay bank debt used by the former Thomson Corp to pay the cash portion of its cash-and-stock acquisition of Reuters on 17 April. The deal was worth about $15.8 billion. ● SOURCE CNN

Company to raise C$1.2 billion

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-19T18:59:35+01:00

Thomson Reuters said it has signed a deal to raise C$1.2 billion in two note offerings that will be used to repay part of its debt. The offerings include C$600 million of 5.25 per cent notes due in 2011 and a further C$600 million of 5.7 per cent notes due in 2015. The company said it plans to use the money to repay bank debt used by the former Thomson Corp to repay the cash portion of its cash and stock acquisition of Reuters. Moody's Investors Service assigned a ‘Baa1’ rating to the two notes. Fitch Ratings assigned an ‘A-’ rating. Thomson Reuters currently has about US$3.4 billion of borrowings under its bridge credit facility related to the deal. The financing followed another one announced on Tuesday for US$1.75 billion through an issue of corporate bonds. ● SOURCE Canadian Press

Company banner taken to Mt Everest

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-19T18:58:28+01:00

A Thomson Reuters banner bearing the new company logo has reached the summit of Mount Everest. John Soebbing, global head of IT sourcing based in New York, reached the peak of the world’s highest mountain with eight other climbers at 0715 on 24 May amid difficult weather conditions. He had spent two months of preparation on the mountain and trained for more than six months. It was truly physically challenging, he said, but the blue sky view from the top of Everest was like a window to the world as far as the eye could see. Conquering Everest was the final achievement in Soebbing’s quest to scale the Seven Summits – a mountaineering challenge which involves climbing the highest peak on each of the seven continents. His climb was held up by a party of mountaineers who were accompanying the Olympic Torch to the top of Everest. Among the party were three Reuters News journalists who ascended to base camp – Nick Mulvenney, Mark Chisholm and David Gray. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Share price falls after ‘savage’ note

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-19T18:57:36+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares fell to the lowest level since the merger two months ago after a broker advised investors to “sell now while there’s a buyer in town” before the company finishes its buy-back programme. Market watchers said the stock has been surprisingly resilient since falling 9 per cent on its first day of trading on 17 April. But it fell 4.75 per cent to £14.45 after Collins Stewart analyst Gareth Thomas said the share price has been held up by the company’s buy-back programme, now 80 per cent complete. A blog posting on The Guardian website said it was a “savage” sell note. The broker said: “Since its disastrous first day of post-merger trading when it fell 9%, Thomson Reuters has performed relatively well, outperforming the FT All Share by 1.2%. Why is this? We don’t believe the company is less cyclical than the market, nor particularly cheap. But what may explain its resilience is a $500m buyback programme. But this is now 80% complete. There remains a risk that once it is finished, Thomson Reuters’ shares will fall to reflect its inherent cyclical risk.” Collins Stewart reckons that the buyback has accounted for nearly 15 per cent of the daily volume in Thomson Reuters shares since the merger. At that rate it estimates the programme will be complete in 12 trading days. “Given that there is a willing buyer in the market, Thomson Reuters itself, we recommend catching ‘em well (sic) you can, they’ll be gone in 12 trading days. Don’t wait to see if the buyback is holding the shares up; sell now.” ● SOURCE The Guardian | Daily Telegraph

Reuters link in hit play revival

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-20T18:56:42+01:00

Shortly after Sir Roderick Jones resigned ignominiously from Reuters in 1941, his novelist wife, Enid Bagnold, author of National Velvet, embarked on a career as a playwright, Anne Sebba writes. Lottie Dundass premiered in Santa Barbara, California then Brighton. Poor Judas and Gertie followed. Jones, chairman and managing director of Reuters, was forced out over a secret deal for British government subsidies which compromised Reuters’ integrity and which he concealed from the Board. Driven by a passionate desire to hear her own witty dialogue spoken on stage by the finest actors of the day, as well as a new need for income in the wake of Jones’s departure, in 1952 Bagnold started work on what became her most successful play, The Chalk Garden. This deeply autobiographical work is currently enjoying its first major revival for 30 years at The Donmar Warehouse, London and stars Penelope Wilton as Miss Madrigal and Margaret Tyzack as Mrs St Maugham. Aspects of Enid can be seen in all the female characters while Jones’s imperious nature is reflected in the dying butler, who never appears on stage but whose domination of the household is strongly felt. The play improves with age and has had brilliant five star reviews. Bagnold was described earlier this month in The Sunday Times as “the link between Wilde and Coward and Frayn and Ayckbourn”. In 1956, when the play opened at the Haymarket with Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft, Kenneth Tynan wrote “The Chalk Garden may well be the finest artificial comedy to have flowed from an English (as opposed to an Irish) pen since the death of Congreve”. It is a limited run and seats are selling fast. Anne Sebba, former Reuters correspondent, is the author of Enid Bagnold A Life. Copies (£9.99) available from ● anne@annesebba.com. ● Donmar Warehouse

Tom Glocer ‘going hard’ after Bloomberg

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-23T18:55:50+01:00

Thomson Reuters is going hard after Bloomberg, long the marquee name on Wall Street for financial information. “For a long time, Bloomberg had it too easy,” CEO Tom Glocer said in an interview with The New York Times. The two companies are in a dead heat: Thomson Reuters has 34 per cent of the market for financial data, Bloomberg 33 per cent. The newspaper said Glocer concedes there is some symmetry in Thomson Reuters’ challenge to Bloomberg. “Reuters used to be BOAC,” he said. “Along came Richard Branson and Virgin, and suddenly British Airways became a much better airline. Bloomberg is that Virgin that forced Reuters to sharpen up.” Glocer thinks he can go after Bloomberg on price and, more important, on flexibility, The New York Times said. It quoted Douglas B. Taylor, managing partner at Burton-Taylor International Consulting and a former executive with both Thomson Financial and Reuters as saying “Bloomberg has a real problem finding new business. They priced themselves at the top of the market. There are different points on a pricing curve that Bloomberg can’t hit but that Thomson Reuters can deliver. It’s going to be hard to figure out where Bloomberg’s new growth opportunities will be that don’t cannibalize its current pricing.” Price may be a larger factor in emerging markets, particularly Asia, which both companies agree is the next battleground in their war for financial information supremacy, the newspaper said. “The next stage of the battle may also involve technology. Even before the takeover, both Thomson and Reuters were developing products for so-called black box trading, computer systems that replace human traders. The combined company now leads the business of selling data with minimal time delays for black box systems, a highly profitable line of products, according to Mr. Taylor... “Even Reuters’s founding business – the news agency that supplies articles and photos to newspapers and Web sites as well as news video to broadcasters and publishers – is growing. As traditional publishers like newspapers shrink their staffs, they rely more on news agencies, Mr. Glocer said. Although he added, perhaps only half-joking, ‘longer term, I hope the patient doesn’t die’.” ● SOURCE The New York Times

Obituary: Gerry Peterson

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-24T18:55:01+01:00

Gerry Peterson, assistant to Reuters correspondents in The Hague in the 1970s and 1980s, has died at the age of 83. He had fought cancer for several years. Initially seconded from the English bulletin desk of the Dutch news agency ANP, Gerry later joined Reuters’ staff and became a mainstay of coverage of the Netherlands over many years. Scott Thornton, who worked with him from 1978 to 1981, said: “Gerry was a marvellous ambassador for Reuters. His natural charm was enhanced by a velvety smooth voice which would have done credit to an old-style BBC announcer. His great knowledge of the Netherlands and contacts throughout the country were invaluable for a succession of correspondents and visitors. “Whenever strains arose in Reuters’ relationship with ANP, which had been the exclusive distributor of Reuters services in the Netherlands until the company set up its own operation, they were generally soothed by his diplomacy and good humour. “A straightforward, honourable man, he won great respect from a vast range of individuals and organisations. His social staying power was immense and he was usually one of the last guests to leave receptions where his contacts included catering staff who knew his favourite tipple was Dutch gin rather than other more grandiose drinks offered to mere ambassadors, sports stars and captains of industry.” He and his Dutch wife Lis had the most romantic and traumatic of first encounters: he was a young lieutenant on a British warship taking prisoners of war home from Singapore in 1945; she was a beautiful teenager who had just been released after several years in a Japanese internment camp. Born near Croydon in Surrey (he remained a staunch supporter of Crystal Palace football club), Gerry and Lis moved to the Hague after the War and had two daughters and one son during the happiest of marriages. Gerry Peterson died on 29 May. He is survived by his wife, children and seven grandchildren.

Thomson Reuters leads FTSE retreat

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-26T18:53:01+01:00

Thomson Reuters was among shares leading a retreat on the London Stock Exchange on Thursday and ended down more than 5 per cent to a post-merger low. At mid-day the stock was at 1,366 pence, some 73 pence or 5.07 per cent lower. The FTSE-100 was down 1.2 per cent at 5,602.90. At the close, Thomson Reuters had lost 5.6 per cent to 1,359 pence, a loss of 80 pence on the day. On their first day of trading, 17 April, Thomson Reuters ended at 1,560 pence. Investment bank Morgan Stanley reduced its price estimate by 9.9 per cent to 1,280 pence from 1,420 pence and maintained its “underweight” recommendation on the share. It said it expects revenue in the financial division to fall by 2.8 per cent in 2009 as banks cut jobs and try to cut down on their market data costs. “We expect quarterly revenue growth to slow rapidly in the second half of 2008 and to go negative in the first quarter of 2009,” it said in a research note. “Our negative growth forecast is predicted on the ongoing retrenchment in investment bank headcount and market data spend,” London-based analyst Patrick Wellington wrote. He added: “Management does not believe that Reuters revenues will show negative growth in 2009 despite the experience of 2002 and 2003, when recurring revenues dropped by 4 per cent and 10 per cent as investment banking markets were impacted by the fall-away post the internet boom.” ● SOURCE Bloomberg | Reuters | Financial Times

Singapore women launch network

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-26T18:52:39+01:00

The Singapore chapter of the Thomson Reuters women’s network was launched on 25 June with the support of nearly 100 women at the One Raffles Quay office. Opening the event, Eddie Haddad, head of sales and customer service, ASEAN, Pacific, South Asia, spoke about the importance of nurturing female talent. “We have to have Asians running Asia,” he said. “If we don’t let women move up the line, we’re going to have talent flight.” Participants called for more events, opportunities to interact and exchange views, more pay and access to various job roles. Celine Ooi of human resources said she wanted more visibility for senior Thomson Reuters women and an opportunity to establish more mentoring relationships. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Reuters to pull plug on AAP?

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-26T18:51:54+01:00

Reuters stories are set to disappear from Australian newspapers on 10 July because of a contract dispute with the country’s big publishers. Reuters has abandoned an agreement for its stories to be distributed exclusively by Australian Associated Press and instead is seeking deals with individual publishers, The Age reported. It said there is little likelihood of a new deal before the deadline because Fairfax Media and News Ltd, which own more than 90 per cent of AAP, are resisting separate deals. AAP pays Reuters A$600,000 a year to distribute a limited selection of Reuters’ stories, the newspaper said. But Reuters wants to increase the fee progressively over 5 years, starting with a 117 per cent jump to A$1.3 million in the first year. AAP rejected the increase, prompting Reuters to cancel the partnership. Reuters already supplies video and pictures directly in Australia. Joachim Schmaltz, Reuters’ vice-president for Asia, said direct distribution of news stories was “a natural progression”. Pay TV broadcaster Sky News has agreed to the new terms and will have access to the entire Reuters news feed. ● SOURCE The Age

Downturn is Tom Glocer’s ‘first real test’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-29T18:51:00+01:00

Tom Glocer faces his first real test as CEO of Thomson Reuters in the downturn in investment banking, The Sunday Times said. The downturn is undoubtedly coming – but it doesn’t have to be as bad as last time round, the UK newspaper said. “That, at least, is the mantra from the newly minted Thomson Reuters,” it said. “After boarding a plane back to his native New York, from where he will run the company, Tom Glocer now faces his first real test. Thomson still believes it can grow revenues at its financial-markets division during 2009, although most analysts are much less bullish. “Of course, the new Thomson was created by Glocer so that such a challenge wouldn’t matter as much as it used to. After six years at the helm of Reuters, getting it shipshape after Peter Job’s regime, he concluded that the best place for a company exposed to such a volatile sector as global finance was within another one. His verdict sounded eminently sensible.” As part of Thomson, markets – which contains the old Reuters business – account for roughly 60 per cent of revenues and 40 per cent of operating profits. Smoothing it out is the more profitable legal, accounting and science information arm. Thomson has some enviable assets with great defensive qualities. However, it is hard to divert attention from its financial-sector exposure, particularly as most of the £375 million merger cost savings will be squeezed from that division, The Sunday Times said. “In this gloomy light, it looks as if Glocer has created a cyclical publisher, not a more resilient financial-markets supplier. It is no coincidence that Thomson’s closest rival in professional publishing, Reed Elsevier, is attempting to offload its business publishing arm – the last division keenly exposed to the economic cycle. In these markets, even that auction is unlikely to be hurried. “Inroads on China and India leave Glocer thinking he is better placed than during the last downturn. In 2002 and 2003, when Reuters’ recurring revenues dropped by 4% and 10% respectively, foreign exchange and commodities were under pressure. This time it is the narrower markets of fixed income and credit that are under the cosh.” However, the newspaper said it is impossible not to see the impact of the crunch spreading into other departments. Worst-case forecasts suggest 80,000 financial jobs could go globally in the next 18 months. Broker Collins Stewart believes that, despite a push for company-wide enterprise supply deals, 20 per cent of Thomson’s group revenues come from traders’ terminal sales in the United States and western Europe, which are vulnerable when jobs are being cut. The Sunday Times added that Thomson Reuters shares in London have tumbled 16 per cent since their debut in April, opening up a valuation gap with the more expensive and less liquid stock trading in Toronto. “A £250m share-buyback programme has been holding them back from greater falls here, but that is due to finish this week, suggesting they will drift further, even though Thomson is forecasting a healthy 6%-8% topline growth across the group this year.” ● SOURCE The Sunday Times

First new brand ad airs on TV

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-06-30T18:50:15+01:00

Thomson Reuters launched its first advertising push as a newly merged corporation today with an international TV campaign. The 30-second ad plays off the company’s new strapline “Knowledge to Act”, which replaces Reuters’ former “Know now”. It begins with the company’s new brand logo emerging in a shot of the New York skyline. The moving orange dots are said to signify the “intelligent information” Thomson Reuters provides for its clients around the world. The ad will run on CNBC US and Europe and be accompanied by a 10-second animated logo. For the rest of the world, the ad and logo will appear from 11 July on CNBC Asia, CNBC Nikkei and CNBC TV18 (India). Marcy Simon, global head of strategic marketing communications, said: “This TV campaign is the significant next push to help build upon the great visibility and brand awareness we have as a global brand. “The ad represents a day in the life of our markets, professionals and our businesses, capturing the breadth and depth of our global reach. It builds on the very strong response both externally and internally when the brand was unveiled on April 17, with press ads and exposure in high-profile locations such as Times Square in New York and on the London Underground and Toronto subway." CEO Tom Glocer said then that the company’s new branding was a “marked departure” from the historical look and feel of the two companies. The new TV ad was produced by creative agency Ogilvy. ● SOURCE mad.co.uk

Investment and advisory chief quits

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-02T18:49:20+01:00

Investment and advisory business chief Suresh Kavan has quit to join a unit of the Daily Mail and General Trust. He will stay on until 31 July and then become chief executive of DMG Information, Devin Wenig, CEO of Thomson Reuters markets division, said in a statement. Kavan’s new job is based at Stamford, Connecticut. His successor at Thomson Reuters is Eric Frank, who has led the investment management unit of the Thomson Reuters investment advisory business. He joined Thomson Financial in 2000 after it acquired Carson Group where he was managing director. Kavan joined Thomson Financial when it bought Primark, a financial and data information company, in 2000. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters launches F1 website

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-04T18:48:39+01:00

Thomson Reuters launched a Formula 1 motor racing website today timed to coincide with Sunday’s British Grand Prix. Jamie Madill, head of UK sales for Reuters Media, said the site aimed to be the “one-stop shop” for all F1 news and information. Royal Bank of Scotland sponsors the site and provides additional content. A Reuters F1 mobile site will launch later this month on UK and Indian platforms. Thomson Reuters has sponsored the AT&T Williams F1 team for the past eight years. It also sponsors Canadian golf champion Mike Weir. Thomson Reuters says both embody the company’s core values: “that global business collaboration is key; people make the difference; and performance matters”. “The sport of Formula 1 also reflects many of the values inherent to Thomson Reuters. Like the environment in which we work, Formula 1 is highly competitive global sport that depends on teamwork, accuracy and reliability to achieve high performance.” ● Reuters F1

Reuters seeks US video of staff killing

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-11T18:47:48+01:00

The US military said on Friday it was still processing a Reuters request for video footage from US helicopters and other materials relating to the killing of two Iraqi staff in Baghdad a year ago. Photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, much loved members of the Reuters Baghdad bureau, were killed in a US helicopter air strike in eastern Baghdad on 12 July 2007. Reuters wants all the materials to be able to study what happened. Access to the video, taken from helicopters involved in the attack, could also help improve Reuters’ safety policies in Iraq, the world’s most dangerous country for journalists. Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh had gone to eastern Baghdad after hearing of a military raid on a building around dawn that day, and were with a group of men at the time. It is believed two or three of these men may have been carrying weapons, although witnesses said none were assuming a hostile posture. The US military said the helicopter attack, in which 9 other people were killed, occurred after security forces came under fire. Video of the incident from two US Apache helicopters and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in an off-the-record briefing in Baghdad on 25 July 2007. US military officers who presented the materials said Reuters had to make a request under the US Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get copies. This request was made the same day. "It has now been approximately one year since our original request was submitted and we still have not received a formal response or written initial determination in accordance with FOIA's statutory requirements," Reuters News chief counsel Thomas Kim wrote in a letter to the US Central Command. In an e-mail on Friday, the Central Command said the request was still being processed, adding it could not give a timeframe for when this would be completed. Kim noted that a recent Pentagon probe into the killing of another Reuters journalist by US troops in Baghdad in 2005 identified a serious inconsistency between media safety practices and the expectations of US forces in Iraq. That report, by the Defense Department's inspector general, the Pentagon's watchdog agency, predicted additional shootings were likely to re-occur unless the situation was resolved. "The materials requested by this FOIA request may contain information relevant to the recommendations for avoiding a re-occurrence of this tragedy; accordingly, we believe that there is a compelling need for their release and that such release should be made as quickly as possible," Kim wrote. There had been reports of clashes between US forces and gunmen but there was no fighting on the streets in which Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were moving about with the group of men. Besides Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh, four other journalists working for Reuters have been killed by American soldiers in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. The US military has said its troops acted lawfully in all those cases. An Iraqi working as a translator for Reuters was also shot dead by unknown gunmen in Baghdad on 11 July 2007. At least 179 reporters and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the invasion, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. ● SOURCE Reuters

Baghdad staff remember dead friends

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-12T18:47:07+01:00

Baghdad bureau staff marked the first anniversary on Saturday of the deaths of their colleagues Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, photographer, and Saeed Chmagh, 40, driver, in a US helicopter air strike in eastern Baghdad. About 80 people including other foreign media in Baghdad and members of the two families attended the commemoration. “Namir and Saeed’s deaths were a tragedy,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said in remarks read on his behalf. “Their energy, their professionalism, their friendship, their personalities – these are the memories that represent all that is best about our colleagues in Iraq and our colleagues around the world.” A collection of Namir’s news pictures was shown during the commemoration and the Iraqi Photographers Association presented the bureau with a plaque. Reuters is seeking US military video footage of the killings shot from the two Apache helicopters on 12 July 2007. The U.S. military said in an e-mail on Friday it was still processing Reuters’ year-old request. Nine other people were also killed in the attack. Four other journalists working for Reuters – Taras Protsyuk, Mazen Dana, Dhia Najim and Waleed Khaled – have been killed by American soldiers in Iraq since the US-led invasion in 2003. ● SOURCE Reuters

UBS says sell Thomson Reuters shares

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-14T18:46:15+01:00

Investment bank UBS lowered its rating on Thomson Reuters to “sell” from “neutral”, saying revenue in the market for financial information will deteriorate from the fourth quarter of 2008 as investment banking job cuts lead to subscriber cancellations. In the worst case there is a 50 per cent downside risk to the company’s per share earnings, UBS analyst Jeffrey Fan wrote in a note to clients. He now expects an 8.5 per cent fall in financial markets revenue from 2009 to 2011, revising a previous estimate of a 5 per cent decline. “Along with adjustments to Markets cost base and additional restructuring charges, our 2011 earnings per share estimate is downgraded 19 per cent putting us 20-25 per cent below consensus.” The analyst added that while Thomson Reuters Q2 results (due on 12 August) are expected to be solid, the outlook, which bears significant downside risk, is the key for investors. Reiterating his “sell” rating, he cut his price target for the Canadian shares to C$28 from C$33. UBS also cut its target price on the UK shares to 1,260 pence from 1,650 pence. On the London Stock Exchange, TRIL was the biggest faller in the FTSE 100, closing at 1,245 pence, down 40 pence or 3.11 per cent. On the first day of the merged company, 17 April, Thomson Reuters shares opened at 1,700 pence and closed at 1,560 pence. ● SOURCE ShareCast | Bloomberg | Financial Post

New Americas managing editor named

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-15T18:45:10+01:00

Brian Rhoads has been named managing editor for the Americas following Betty Wong’s promotion as global managing editor. He will take up the new role in New York on 29 September after overseeing Reuters’ coverage of next month’s Beijing Olympics. Rhoads, 42, a Beijing-based Mandarin speaker, has been North Asia Editor responsible for China, Taiwan, Korea and Hong Kong since 2007. He joined Reuters in 1996 and served as China bureau chief, Shanghai bureau chief and a senior editor on news production desks in Hong Kong and Singapore. His new role involves leading an editorial team of 650 journalists across text, video and pictures. “Brian’s deep knowledge of China and the region will be an asset in the Americas for our journalists as well as our customers,” Wong, 44, said. “I look forward to his joining the managing editors group which also includes Europe, Middle East and Africa managing editor Mark Thompson based in London and Asia managing editor Adrian Dickson based in Hong Kong.” ● SOURCE The Guardian

London newsroom strike threat lifted

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-16T18:44:28+01:00

The threat of strike action in the London newsroom has been lifted. Some 70 editorial staff have taken voluntary redundancy, avoiding the need for compulsory job losses. Worldwide, some 140 editorial jobs are being scrapped as part of the process of merging the Thomson and Reuters editorial operations. The newly merged company had originally refused to rule out compulsory job cuts. National Union of Journalists members called for a ballot on industrial action. The NUJ said the company has agreed to share with the union the results of quarterly reviews of staffing levels. The union said it believes this offers “a valuable opportunity to monitor the impact of the merger on editorial standards”. “Months of hard work by the chapel officials has finally removed the threat of compulsory redundancy,” NUJ national organiser Barry Fitzpatrick said. “We can now concentrate on the real task of working with the new company to achieve editorial excellence.” A Thomson Reuters spokeswoman, speaking to The Guardian, could not rule out compulsory redundancies outside the UK. Talks between staff and management continue at other European bureaux. The job reduction exercise will leave Reuters News with around 2,500 staff by the end of this year. Up to 700 posts in sales and technical support are also to be eliminated as part of the integration. ● SOURCE CNN/Dow Jones | Press Gazette | The Guardian

Broker rates Thomson Reuters ‘hold’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-18T18:43:47+01:00

Broker JP Morgan lowered its target price on Thomson Reuters to 1,900 pence from 2,000 pence but kept its “overweight” rating on the company’s shares. It thinks the market is too pessimistic on the outlook for revenues for the markets division, which includes news services. It added that the more defensive professional business will also help Thomson Reuters deliver growth. On the London Stock Exchange the share was one of the FTSE 100’s biggest gainers, closing 60 pence higher at 1,380 pence, a rise of 4.55 per cent on the day. ● SOURCE ShareCast

Thomson Reuters names new CTO

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-21T18:42:50+01:00

Thomson Reuters named James Powell as its chief technology officer. He replaces Michael Wilens who is leaving to head asset management at Fidelity Investments. At Thomson Reuters Wilens was executive vice president for strategy, technology and innovation. Powell, currently CTO of the markets division, was previously Reuters’ CTO for enterprise and global head of product development. Besides advising senior management and the board on new technology he will also be in charge of promoting best practices at Thomson Reuters in areas including search, data mining, databasing, digital platforms and datacentre design. He takes up his new job on 1 August. ● SOURCE Reuters

Tom Glocer to appear on Q2 results webcast

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-22T18:42:08+01:00

Thomson Reuters said it will report its second quarter 2008 results on 12 August. CEO Tom Glocer will appear in a live webcast on that day at 10:00 am EDT/3:00 pm BST. Executive vice president and CFO Robert Daleo will also appear. To view the webcast go to ● www.thomsonreuters.com, click on Investor Relations and then News & Events. It will be archived for those who miss the live cast. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Editorial automation set to advance

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-22T18:41:19+01:00

Automatically-generated financial news and data is set to increase, freeing up journalists to develop exclusives or write analyses. A Thomson Reuters survey has found that financial firms using advanced algorithmic trading techniques expect IT-driven news analysis tools to substantially shorten the time it takes them to act on new information. Ventanta Research spoke to 113 specialist financial professionals and found that two-thirds expect increased automation in the analysis of news. Prior to the April take-over, both Thomson and Reuters were working on products which deliver data and other news to financial services customers in a format that can be read and acted on automatically by computers. Much of that content is also created automatically. “It’s still the same news – we’re not really providing a different piece of news, we’re just providing it in a different format,” said James Chenery, Thomson Reuters’ business development manager for quantitative and event-driven trading products. “We’re providing particular pieces of data, which used to be very much textual in their delivery, in a much more structured message whether it’s XML or Reuters’ real time for the market feed.” “Earnings releases are primarily numerical in nature, but when they are covered by text – a sentence – then it becomes more difficult for a machine to understand and comprehend that information,” Chenery said. Reuters has begun adding machine-interpretable semantic data to otherwise conventional, human-readable news stories. Thomson Reuters expects machine-readable news to become an increasingly important part of the company’s business and has said that the automated extraction and delivery of data used by these tools will free journalists to do other, less mechanic work. “By providing that kind of automation and technology, it allows the journalists to spend more time developing exclusives or writing up more information,” Chenery said. “We don’t want a relatively highly paid journalist putting a textual number into some sort of system to send it out when we can do that automatically and probably faster and would rather have that journalist writing an analysis piece or something like that.” ● SOURCE Press Gazette

Business TV channel coming - report

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-24T18:40:36+01:00

Thomson Reuters is preparing to launch a business television news channel to rival those of Bloomberg and CNBC, The Daily Telegraph reported. It will appear both on the Internet and some form of cable or digital platform. The launch could be as early as January but may be pushed back as the company is conscious of Reuters’ earlier unsuccessful foray into television, the UK newspaper said. Thomson Reuters wants an extra avenue through which to channel content and raise revenues, The Daily Telegraph said. “Going head-to-head with the other rolling business channels is a brave move by chief executive Tom Glocer, as it is an already crowded market,” it said. The newspaper said the New York newsroom, which will act as the main studio for the channel, was opened yesterday by Devin Wenig, chief executive of the markets division. It quoted David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, as saying in an internal memorandum that the new newsroom was all about “multi-media opportunities”. ● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph

Thomson Reuters ‘feeling strain’ - blog

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-24T18:39:52+01:00

Like a wartime marriage, the Thomson Reuters merger occurred in the harshest of market conditions – the subprime mess quickly led to losses and layoffs among the companies’ largest customers – and the merged entity appears to be feeling the strain, the Wall Street & Technology Blog said. Thomson Reuters’ stock price has dropped in the last few weeks due to worries that its business will be affected by the Wall Street job cuts. But within Thomson Reuters, all is well and the combined entity has already come out with its first series of integrated products for wealth managers, according to Debra Walton, global head of market development, the blog said in a post headed State of the Reuters-Thomson Union. “We spent our first 90 days focusing on two key areas: people integration and laying out our product strategy,” she says. Walton said she could not disclose how many employees have been laid off, but “it’s not about reduction of people”. While the company has “synergy targets” it needs to deliver on, Walton says those synergies will come more from consolidating real estate and sharing back-end infrastructure than from letting go of people. On the product side, Thomson Reuters is trying to come up with best-of-breed product combinations. “There’s less overlap than you would think,” Walton says. The company has already mashed some of the two companies’ products. For instance, Reuters’ 3000extra market data platform has been merged with Thomson’s Tradeweb fixed income transaction viewer. Reuters’ news and messaging and Lipper Funds have been combined with the Thomson One wealth management platform. The first product upgrades to come will benefit the wealth management community. “We have begun an upgrade of the Reuters Plus customers to a new strategic wealth management product based on Thomson One,” Walton says. “We’ve just begun this process, we’re engaging with Reuters Plus customers now to help plan these upgrades.” Later this year Thomson Reuters will introduce new product names and new branding and announce which desktop platforms and back-end infrastructure it will standardise on, the blog added. ● SOURCE Wall Street & Technology Blog

Court orders Messaging switch

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-30T18:38:47+01:00

Thomson Reuters changed a critical element of its instant messaging service to avert a customer communications breakdown following a US federal court order to cease using a key piece of software. The change should prevent any customer disruptions, Thomson Reuters spokesman Joe Christinat said. Banks and brokerages rely on the IM system to complete trades and exchange other sensitive information. Eran Barak, global head of strategy and collaboration services, said in a court filing on 1 July that the IMAuditor code produced by FaceTime Communications of California was a critical resource. Stripping it from Reuters Messaging would cripple the day-to-day operations of some customers and cause incalculable damage to Thomson Reuters’ reputation, Barak said. The FaceTime code protected Reuters Messaging from computer hackers and ensured clients complied with Securities and Exchange Commission regulations governing electronic communications. In a sworn declaration Barak estimated the customer backlash would cost the company several million dollars in revenue. The executive added that the company had no practical immediate substitute for the FaceTime software and predicted it would take several months to develop an alternative. The issue became a law suit after Reuters missed a 31 January deadline for a $150,000 payment that would have secured the permanent right to use the FaceTime technology. The payment was not made until 15 February, two days after FaceTime notifed Reuters that its option to extend the licensing rights had expired. Reuters had paid FaceTime $1.3 million in licensing fees under a two-year contract signed in 2006. US District Court Judge Colleen McMahon in Manhattan said on 22 July that Reuters was “desperate to avoid the consequences of its terrible error”. “This appears to be an open and shut case,” she said. “The option was not exercised in accordance with its terms.” Ruling for the Silicon Valley firm, the judge ordered Thomson Reuters to remove FaceTime software from Reuters Messaging with effect from 1 August. Thomson Reuters said in a statement: “The contract with FaceTime has been terminated with no effect on clients or their regulatory compliance. FaceTime was a vendor that provided a component of our messaging compliance service. That component has been replaced in-house and in conjunction with an ongoing Thomson Reuters technology partner.” It said customer migration had been completed and enhancements to the IM service and back-end technology changes had been seamless. “We have been off the FaceTime product ... since Tuesday,” Christinat said. The alternative application was brought in on a parallel network last Sunday and was running alongside the FaceTime service to ensure its proper operation, he said. “By Tuesday, we unplugged the FaceTime portion ... there haven’t been any problems.” ● SOURCE MarketWatch | Associated Press | Computerworld

Free our man, Reuters tells US forces

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-31T18:38:01+01:00

Reuters urged the US military to release an Iraqi cameraman immediately or publicly produce evidence to justify his detention. Ali al-Mashhadani was detained on Saturday while he was in the Green Zone government compound in Baghdad for routine checks for a US military press card. It was the third time he had been detained. No charges have ever been filed against him. “Any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defence,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. “Iraqi journalists like Mashhadani play a vital role in telling this story to the world.” A US military spokesman said Mashhadani was being held at Camp Cropper, an American prison near Baghdad airport. “He is being detained because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces,” the spokesman said. He said the case would be reviewed by early next week. US forces have held other Iraqi journalists working for Reuters and other news organisations for long periods without charge. Mashhadani was previously detained from August 2005 to January 2006 and for two weeks in mid-2006. Mashhadani also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio. ● SOURCE Reuters

Merged group joins FTSE4Good Index

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-07-31T18:37:22+01:00

Thomson Reuters has been listed as a member of the FTSE4Good Index, which ranks companies according to social, ethical and environmental criteria. Reuters and Thomson were listed separately in the FTSE Group’s index before the April merger. “As we work to becoming one company in one year, we will identify existing evidence of best practice which we can use to underpin our corporate responsibility strategy,” said Julia Fuller, corporate responsibility manager for the merged group. “We will be reviewing our environmental and social impact, building responsibility into our business operations so that quite simply it becomes part of the way we do business.” Thomson Reuters is also ranked 14th in the annual list of Best 50 Corporate Citizens published by Corporate Knights, a Canadian publication. The ranking takes into account such factors as pension fund quality, diversity, pollution, CEO pay fairness and tax generation as well as environmental criteria. Thomson was also named as one of 60 Canadian companies within the Jantzi Social Index which measures companies against environmental, social and governance benchmarks. ● SOURCE Reuters

US forces say they hold cameraman

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-01T18:36:43+01:00

American forces in Baghdad said on Friday they are holding an Iraqi cameraman working for Reuters. Reporters Sans Frontières/Reporters Without Borders, the media rights group, said he had been held for nearly a week without charge. Ali al-Mashhadani was arrested last Saturday at the Iraqi parliament press centre in Baghdad’s government and diplomatic Green Zone. A spokesman for the US military confirmed to AFP that he was in custody. RSF said he “must be freed at once. It is unacceptable that US troops hold him on security grounds”. It cited the US military as saying Mashhadani was held because “he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces”. Reuters has urged the US military to release Mashhandani immediately or publicly produce evidence to justify his detention. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and to present a defence. ● SOURCE AFP

Reuters Olympics team is 200 strong

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-04T18:35:56+01:00

Reuters is fielding a team of 200 for the Beijing Olympics with 100 text reporters, 80 photographers and TV crews, technicians, logistics and other supporting teams. Reuters has 24 correspondents stationed in China with a much larger local support team working on the ground. “It’s definitely one of the biggest foreign media presences in China,” editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said on the eve of his departure for Beijing. For Reuters, “the biggest problem and challenge is to find reporters who understand both the language, culture and Chinese society,” he told China’s Xinhua News Agency. Schlesinger, formerly a correspondent in Beijing, was speaking in a telephone interview with Xinhua on the eve of his departure for a 15-day stay. He will be the guest of Li Congjun, president of Xinhua, at Friday’s opening ceremony. “I’ll meet Xinhua’s new president during my stay in Beijing for constructive dialogue, in addition to meeting officials from the Information Office of the State Council as well as other friends,” Xinhua quoted him as saying. Schlesinger said Reuters would offer “fair, unbiased, responsible coverage” of the Games, Xinhua said. Besides covering sports it would also report on the political, social and economic scene in China. “We are interested in how China prepares for the Games, the facilities, how the city works during the Games, traffic and pollution, whether the stadiums are full, how athletes are made to feel welcome, media and visa regulations in the run-up to the Games, etc,” Schlesinger said. ● SOURCE Xinhua

Free cameraman or charge him - CPJ

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-04T18:35:13+01:00

The Committee to Protect Journalists said on Monday the United States must charge or immediately release Reuters cameraman Ali al-Mashhadani, detained in Iraq. He was detained in Baghdad on 26 July while he was in the Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a US military press card. “This is the third time US forces have detained Ali al-Mashhadani without charge,” Robert Mahoney, deputy director of the New York-based press rights group said. “The military has never substantiated any wrongdoing by him. The authorities must make evidence again him public or release him immediately.” Reuters and the BBC, for whom Mashhadani also works, have urged the US military to release him immediately or produce evidence to justify his detention. A US military spokesman said he was being held at Camp Cropper, an American prison near Baghdad airport, because he “has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces”. The spokesman said the case will be reviewed this week. Mahoney is a former Reuters correspondent and editor. He joined the CPJ in 2005. ● SOURCE Reuters

Q2 results: focus on two-year outlook

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-06T18:34:30+01:00

Thomson Reuters looks poised to deliver second quarter results on Tuesday just above expectations, but investors should focus on the outlook over the next two years, UBS analyst Jeffrey Fan says. Reuters’ revenue fell 17 per cent during the bear market in 2002, and while Fan believes the company will fare better this time around, he sees considerable downside risk to consensus estimates of flat revenue growth over the next two years, Financial Post of Toronto reported in a blog posting under the headline ‘Thomson Reuters vulnerable to economic slowdown’. The company’s markets business is susceptible to downturns in the financial services sector because it depends on banks and insurance firms to buy the data and equipment it produces. “If consensus estimates hold, then [Thomson Reuters] still trades on a premium to its peers,” Fan wrote in a note to clients on Wednesday. The analyst’s worst case scenario is a 50 per cent drop in earnings per share next year if the company suffers on the same level it did in the last downturn. He has a “sell” rating on the stock. Financial Post said that of the analysts Bloomberg lists covering Thomson Reuters stock, nine have “buy” recommendations, five have “hold” and four “sell”. ● SOURCE Financial Post

Obituary: Steve Parry

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-07T18:33:48+01:00

Steve Parry, sports editor for nearly two decades, died on Thursday at the age of 64. Parry, who was sports editor from 1982 to 2000 and a member of the International Olympic Committee press commission during that time, had suffered from a respiratory illness. He died in hospital in Hemel Hempstead, near his home north of London, on the eve of the Beijing Olympics, having attended the previous 10 Summer Games. Parry joined Reuters Sports Desk in London in 1966 and covered his first Olympics in Mexico City in 1968. An incisive and knowledgeable reporter, calm under pressure, Parry took on the athletics beat at the 1972 Munich Games and made the number one Olympic sport his own for a decade. He covered track and field at the next two Games, never wasting a word in fluent and speedy copy, and remained close to the sport after he moved up in Reuters. Appointed sports news editor in 1977, Parry was promoted to the job of sports editor at Reuters in 1982 and ran the operation with imagination, assurance and great expertise. He expanded its role, appointing the first Reuters sports correspondents based abroad, one in Paris and one in Bonn, in 1984. Firm and clear-sighted in his direction of the sports operation, he was benignly tolerant of his Reuters “band on the run” at Olympics around the world. Outside work, he was an accomplished amateur actor and made the occasional fleeting television appearance after gaining his card as a member of the actors' union Equity. After retiring from Reuters following the 2000 Sydney Games, Parry became a consultant for the IOC. He later became a media adviser for London's successful bid for the 2012 Olympics and then a press operations consultant for the London Games organisers. Parry was advising both the IOC and London until his untimely death. He was recently advised by his doctor that his health was not up to the rigours of one more Olympic adventure in Beijing. Reuters' current sports editor Paul Radford, Parry’s former deputy and a close personal friend, said: “We at Reuters are devastated by the news. Steve was one of the finest journalists Reuters ever had and one of the greatest men I ever knew. “He was one of the most revered and respected personalities in the world of sports journalism and a monumental figure in the Olympic movement.” Parry is survived by his wife, Di, and their daughter, and two sons from an earlier marriage. ● SOURCE Reuters

Olympics tribute to Steve Parry

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-07T18:33:05+01:00

The Olympic movement led tributes to Steve Parry, former Reuters sports editor, who died on Thursday on the eve of the Summer Games in Beijing. “We were saddened by the death of Steve Parry,” Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee, said in a statement to Reuters. He sent the condolences of the Olympic movement to Parry’s family. Parry, 64, sports editor from 1982 to 2000 and a member of the International Olympic Committee press commission during that time, died in hospital near London after a respiratory illness. “He was my faithful barometer of bad news,” IOC press commission chairman Kevan Gosper said. “He was a great news man. He grew in my eyes as one of the most professional journalists in my experience. He understood the absolute need for integrity in reporting. He was admired by his journalist colleagues and a valued member of the IOC press commission. It’s a great personal loss and a great loss to his profession.” Simon Haydon, The Associated Press’s international sports editor, said: “Steve was a clear-headed and firm editor who did not suffer fools gladly. Many a junior writer felt the rough edge of his tongue if an introduction failed to tell the story clearly. Officialdom often felt the full force of his blunt speaking if it stood in the way of his reporters. “On the other hand, Steve could also show endless patience to help a reporter get the story written in the right way,” said Haydon, who worked under Parry at Reuters in the 1990s. AP sports editor Terry Taylor said: “Steve was a formidable competitor and a terrific, effective advocate for all journalists who have covered Olympics. He was the voice of reason — and outrage on many occasions. We will miss him.” Morley Myers of the Sports Journalists’ Association, said: “This sad news is a great loss to British sports journalism, as well as a huge personal loss for me. “We worked very closely together in the late 60s and after I left Reuters we continued our friendship as we met at major sports events worldwide. In recent years Steve had worked very closely with the IOC and he promoted the cause of all sports journalists in helping to improve their working conditions at Olympic Games.” In an official statement from the London 2012 Olympics organisers, a spokesman said: “Steve was involved with London 2012 from the early stages of the bid and played a major role in helping us bring the Games to London. “His candid advice, expert knowledge and exceptional humour will be sorely missed by everyone connected to London 2012, and the wider Olympic family. We send our deepest sympathy to his family at this very sad time.“ ● SOURCE International Herald Tribune | Sports Journalists’ Association

Thomson Reuters ‘may struggle’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-11T18:32:22+01:00

Thomson Reuters is wasting no time integrating the two merged companies’ staff and legacy products, but despite potential economies of scale and product rationalisation it may struggle in today’s financial markets climate, Dow Jones Financial News Online said. The balance sheets of financial services corporations are bleeding red ink due to massive writedowns on credit derivatives and mortgage instruments, and companies have laid off tens of thousands of employees this year. “This means fewer traders needing access to Bloomberg or Thomson Reuters screens,” it said. Robert Iati, partner and head of global consulting at Tabb Group, said data vendors fare poorly when the financial industry goes into cost-cutting mode. More ominously, financial services firms have been cutting data aggregators in favour of direct market feeds to avoid latency or trading delays. “This is not good for the status quo, but it does give them every reason to improve their own products,” Iati said. Because of its more diverse client base, Thomson Reuters as a merged entity argues it may be better suited to seeing off a downward economic cycle than if each firm was on its own. Debra Walton, global head of market development, said: “Clearly anyone in financial markets has an eye on the state of the market and the economy. We feel much more comfortable about our ability to be able to deal successfully with the economy now that the merger has taken place.” Adam Honoré, senior analyst with consultancy Aite Group, agreed that the merger might help them weather the storm. He said: “The Thomson institutional-type business has hardly hiccupped, but for the traditional Reuters business the number of terminals is definitely declining.” ● SOURCE Financial News Online

Shares ‘tale of two cities’ - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-12T18:31:36+01:00

Thomson Reuters is looking into ways of reducing the widening discount in its share price on opposite sides of the Atlantic, The Daily Telegraph reported. The discount widened after the price fell 5 per cent in London but rose 1.5 per cent in New York on Tuesday’s slightly downbeat second quarter results, it said. Chief executive Tom Glocer said he was puzzled by the continued London discount and he was looking to reduce the gap, the newspaper reported. “It’s a tale of two cities,” he said. “The North American investors know the professional side of the business well, and have got their heads around the markets division, but then in London, we trade at around a 20 per cent discount.” The discount was at 19.5 per cent today. The shares closed at 1481 pence, down 77, in London, and $34.98 (1840 pence) in late trading in New York. “It is a bit puzzling why there is such a large discount as a share in one place is exactly economically equal to another,” Glocer said. He acknowledged that US investors are buying shares in London purely to get a discount. “That’s something we’re looking at when we repurchase shares,” Glocer said. Thomson Reuters has just completed a $500 share buyback programme. The Daily Telegraph said Glocer played down concerns about the company’s growth rate, saying that to achieve 7 per cent “12 months into this serious financial crisis” looks like “a very good number to us”. Growth will temper but it will not “fall off a cliff the way it did in 2002-03”, he added. The newspaper noted that the markets division, whose main business is providing financial news, data feeds and trading platforms to financial institutions, has recently introduced commentary and analysis articles by journalists. “Mr Glocer defended the move, saying it was not at odds with the Reuters Trust principles of independence and freedom from bias. “He said the analysis pieces would look into specific situations, and were in response to customer demand for views as well as news.” ● SOURCE The Daily Telegraph

Q2 revenue growth slows, shares fall

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-12T18:30:39+01:00

Thomson Reuters, reporting combined results for the first time, said revenue growth in its key markets division, which includes news operations, was slower in the second quarter as the US credit crisis took a heavy toll on global investment banks. It affirmed its full-year forecasts given in May, citing resilience in the Professional division, which sells databases and tools to accountants, lawyers, tax, health and other professionals. But the London shares, which had gained 13 per cent since the beginning of August, fell 8 per cent before recovering some of the day’s loss. Analysts have said the real test will come late in the year when customers set their 2009 budgets. “The results were not great,” Reuters itself quoted London derivatives trader Manoj Ladwa as saying. “The market was pricing in half-decent figures and that’s what it got.” Q2 pro forma revenue rose 11 per cent from a year earlier to $3.4 billion, compared with a 12 per cent increase to $3.3 billion in the first quarter. The company said markets revenue growth was driven by strength in sales and trading, investment and advisory, and enterprise businesses, particularly in Asia. “We are encouraged by the robust revenue growth which we achieved despite the backdrop of a challenging economic environment,” CEO Tom Glocer said. This environment was likely to last at least until the end of the year. Thomson Reuters said pro forma underlying profit – excluding amortization and other items – rose 15 per cent to $708 million. The company said it completed its $500 million share buyback programme in July, less than three months after announcing it, and that it would repurchase shares from time to time in the future. The stock fell as much as 8 per cent before recovering to 1,481 pence, nearly 5 per cent lower, in London. On the Toronto Stock Exchange the share fell 4.1 per cent before recovering slightly. ● SOURCE Reuters

Play our winning hand, CEO tells staff

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-12T18:28:43+01:00

The Q2 results (April-June 2008) announced on Tuesday were very strong, CEO Tom Glocer said in a message to Thomson Reuters’ staff. Despite challenging market conditions, both divisions of the company – markets and professional – are performing well. “I want to congratulate everyone for contributing to these outstanding results,” Glocer said. “Our strong first-half results and continued positive sales momentum across the company give us confidence to confirm our full-year revenue growth and operating profit margin outlook at a time when others have lowered theirs...” “We are well on our way to becoming ‘one company in one year.’” “What can we expect in the months ahead? Most analysts predict that the slump in the economy is a long way from over. If so, we are prepared. In economic downturns, the truly great companies extend their lead over the competition, or as Warren Buffett likes to say, ‘You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.’ At Thomson Reuters, we may be swimming against a stronger tide at the moment, but we are wearing high-performance swimwear and fins. It may not be as much fun to manage through difficult times, when clients are cutting costs, but this can be our time to outperform, to pull away from the pack and emerge even stronger when the cycle turns.” Glocer said Thomson Reuters could face an economic downturn with quiet confidence for three reasons: ● “We have the right business model: our core strengths match customer needs and market trends; ● “We serve the right markets: professional information markets will continue to grow; ● “We deliver the right products: the need for intelligent information has never been greater.” He added: “I would not trade our opportunity for that of any other company I know. Sure, there will be some challenges in the coming months, but that’s what makes it interesting. We have a winning hand – let’s play it.” ● SOURCE Tom Glocer’s message to staff 12 August 2008

Killing was ‘more than just a tragedy’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-13T18:27:52+01:00

The killing of cameraman Fadel Shana on the basis of such little Israeli certainty was more than just a tragedy, editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said after the Israel Defence Forces cleared the tank crew who killed him in Gaza four months ago. For a little more investigation, a little more military intelligence, would have shown clearly that he was just a professional doing his job and that his camera was a weapon only for the truth, Schlesinger wrote in a Reuters blog posting. “I’ve written before that a camera is not a weapon, that a journalist is not a combatant, that the pen and the sword should not be confused,” he wrote. “Yet the Israel Defense Forces seem to be putting the camera very much in the category of weapon in a report on the death in April of Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana. “I’ve given a quote to our reporters about my disappointment in the report. “That it does state that the death was a ‘tragedy’ does not counteract the fact that it condoned the firing of two deadly shells at people it admitted had not been identified clearly and whose only crime was to put a camera on a tripod. “Said the report: ‘Two persons were spotted leaving the vehicle, carrying a large black object. The black object was placed on a tripod above a dirt mound, and directed at the tank… The tank crew reported the spotting to its superiors. The latter authorized firing a tank shell at the characters, in light of the genuine suspicion that the object mounted on the tripod and directed at the tank was an anti-tank missile or mortar, a suspicion consistent with the characteristics of that day’s hostilities…’ “I do understand the stresses of the battlefield,” Schlesinger wrote. “I do understand that wars are horribly dangerous – Reuters has had close calls in Georgia; colleagues from other organizations have been killed. “I do not understand the deliberate decision to fire on the basis of suspicion and uncertainty. “I wonder how journalists can do their job if doing that job raises such suspicion in the eyes of the Israeli or any other military. “The dangers seem too great. “And yet, the stakes of not reporting a war to the world are too high as well. “‘…the tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar, or a television camera,’ the report said. “To me, killing on the basis of such little certainty makes the death of Fadel Shana much more than just a tragedy. “For a little more investigation, a little more military intelligence, would have shown clearly that he was just a professional doing his job. “And that his camera was a weapon only for the truth.” ● SOURCE Reuters Editors blog

Israel clears cameraman’s killers

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-13T18:27:06+01:00

Israeli tank crew who killed Reuters cameraman Fadel Shana in Gaza four months ago acted properly and will not face legal action, Israel's senior military lawyer has concluded. The military advocate-general told Reuters in a letter sent on Tuesday that troops could not see whether Shana was operating a camera or a weapon but were nonetheless justified in firing a shell packed with darts that killed him and eight other Palestinians aged between 12 and 20. Reuters said on Wednesday it was deeply disturbed by a conclusion that severely curtails the freedom of the media to cover the conflict by effectively giving soldiers a free hand to kill without being sure they were not firing on journalists. Shana, 24, filmed two tanks positioned about 1.5 km from where he was standing for several minutes before, in a chilling final two seconds of video, his camera captured one tank firing a shell that burst overhead, showering him and others with thousands of metal darts known as flechettes. "The tank crew was unable to determine the nature of the object mounted on the tripod and positively identify it as an anti-tank missile, a mortar or a television camera," Brigadier General Avihai Mendelblit of the Israel Defence Forces wrote. But the military lawyer cited an attack that killed three IDF soldiers in another part of the enclave earlier in the day, a separate grenade attack on a tank, the fact that Shana and his soundman who was wounded were wearing body armour – "common to Palestinian terrorists" – among reasons for suspicion. Their blue flak jackets, like the car, were marked "PRESS". The army said the troops could not see those signs. Journalists in Gaza say they have rarely seen militants wear flak jackets. Mendelblit wrote: "In light of the reasonable conclusion reached by the tank crew and its superiors that the characters were hostile and were carrying an object most likely to be a weapon, the decision to fire at the targets ... was sound ... "There is no doubt that Fadel Shana's death is a tragedy... "A journalist in action was killed by IDF fire, along with others not involved in the hostilities. "However ... the available evidence does not suggest misconduct or criminal misbehaviour ... I have therefore decided ... that no further legal measures will be taken." Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: "I'm extremely disappointed that this report condones a disproportionate use of deadly force in a situation the army itself admitted had not been analysed clearly. "They would appear to take the view that any raising of a camera into position could garner a deadly response." Reuters wrote to Mendelblit on Wednesday with a number of questions, including asking precisely why the soldiers ruled out the possibility that Shana was a cameraman, why the fact he stood in full view of the tanks for some minutes did not suggest he had no hostile intent and why the tank crew, if concerned but unsure, did not simply reverse a few metres out of sight. In Jerusalem, the Foreign Press Association said it was disappointed with a report that seemed to give soldiers licence to fire on journalists without being sure of their target. In New York, Joel Campagna of the Committee to Protect Journalists said: "These findings mean that a journalist with a camera is at risk of coming under fire and there's not that much that can be done. That's unacceptable. "It's difficult to believe ... that the IDF took the necessary precautions to avoid causing harm to civilians – as it is obliged to do under international law." ● SOURCE Reuters

Sea eagle ‘Alan’ soars over Scotland

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-14T18:26:21+01:00

A sea eagle named for Alan Thomas, former correspondent and news editor who died in April, was released into the wild in Scotland on Thursday thanks to a large collection made at his funeral. "Alan", one of 15 chicks collected from nests in Norway and brought to Scotland in June, was named by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds after discussions with Thomas's widow, Mary. The white-tailed sea eagle was released in Fife, eastern Scotland, in an ongoing project aimed at re-introducing the species to the region. The birds are known as "flying barn doors" because of their huge wingspan – up to 8 feet (nearly 2.5 metres) – and are Scotland's largest bird of prey. "Alan" and other newly released sea eagles now soaring in Scottish skies are radio-tagged so that their progress can be tracked. Alan Thomas, who died suddenly on 22 April aged 65, was an avid bird-watcher. The £800 collected at his funeral on 10 May founded the Alan Thomas Feather Fund for ongoing care of the birds through the RSPB. It was the largest such collection ever received by the organisation. "Alan told me before he died that sea eagles were going to be released and he was very excited about it," Mary said. “‘Alan’ is now flying over the countryside where we spent our last holiday together.” ● CLICK to see the BBC video report | VIDEO

London shares still lag North America

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-20T18:25:31+01:00

Four months and counting since the merger, and Thomson Reuters shares in London still lag those in North America, Financial Post said on Wednesday. The price gap has been consistent – about 15 to 20 per cent once foreign exchange rates are factored in – and no one is quite sure why, it said. In a note to clients yesterday, USB analyst Jeffrey Fan reiterated his previous view that the spread is likely to remain into next year. He believes that differing views of Canadian and European investors on the prospects for the London shares is part of the reason for the gap. North Americans are more likely to focus on strengths in the Thomson Reuters division that sells specialised legal and scientific data, while Europeans look to risks in the company's business that sells data and equipment to the troubled financial services industry, he said. At the Thomson Reuters annual meeting in May, chief financial officer Robert Daleo would not speculate about the London discount, Financial Post said. He only alluded to a significant short position in the North American shares that would take some time to unwind. Short sellers borrow and then sell shares in a company. They want the stock to drop in price so when it is time to return the shares they can buy them back at a cheaper price and pocket the difference. Fan said the short position in the London shares remains high, at 13.5 per cent, but lower than the 20 per cent figure of last month. “Observers say it is anyone's guess as to when the gap will narrow. One analyst yesterday compared the situation to a war of attrition,” Financial Post said. Fan noted that Thomson Reuters vice-chairman Geoffrey Beattie recently sold 40,000 of the North American shares and bought the equivalent of 66,600 shares in London. The analyst maintains his "sell" rating as he believes a gloomy outlook for global financial services adds risk to the consensus earnings estimates. ● SOURCE Financial Post

US frees detained Iraqi cameraman

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-21T18:24:46+01:00

The US military freed detained Iraqi cameraman Ali al-Mashhadani on Thursday after holding him for three weeks without charge. He was arrested in Baghdad on 30 July while he was in Baghdad's Green Zone government compound for routine checks for a US military press card. The US military said he was seized "because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces," but did not elaborate. They have detained Mashhadani, who also works freelance for the BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio, twice before. At one point he was held for five months, but no charge has ever been filed against the cameraman, who is based in Ramadi, capital of western Anbar province. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: "While I am pleased at Ali al-Mashhadani's release, I am extremely concerned that this was the third time he was detained without explanation. "If there are legitimate issues about him or any other journalist, let's have them aired openly and tested. If there are none, let them pursue their profession free from intimidation and fear." Reuters, the BBC, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Iraqi journalist groups had called for the military either to explain the accusations against Mashhadani or free him. The US military says that under the UN mandate governing the presence of foreign forces in Iraq it can detain anyone considered a security risk indefinitely. US forces have held other Iraqi reporters working for Reuters and journalists from different media groups for long periods without charging them. ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters tweaks website branding

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-21T18:24:00+01:00

Thomson Reuters has changed the branding of the reuters.com group of web sites in line with the look and feel of the merged group’s overall brand. Thomson Reuters has been removed from the reuters.com branding. Instead the web sites now carry the updated Reuters logo, with the Thomson Reuters kinesis logo added directly to the left of the Reuters word mark. The company said this week’s change is to enhance further the clarity of the Reuters brand for news content in a way that is consistent with Thomson Reuters branding. The change also applies to daily, monthly and quarterly mailings to customers. “While reuters.com and its online properties will continue to use the ‘Reuters’ name, our branding will maintain the look and feel of the overall Thomson Reuters organization which was adopted in April,” the company said. “Inspired by the beauty and simplicity of nature, the new Reuters branding reflects the idea that information is dynamic and always in motion.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Obituary: Basil Chapman

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-08-26T18:23:08+01:00

Basil Chapman, former assistant world services editor in London, has died at the age of 90. A notice in The Daily Telegraph said he died on 20 August. Chapman moved to Francueil in the Indre-et-Loire near Tours, France on his retirement in 1983 after 30 years with Reuters. Five years later he returned to the office to research and write a series of monographs on famous people and events in Reuters’ history. They were published in the staff magazine Reuters World throughout 1988 and later re-printed on art paper, framed and hung in Reuters’ offices around the world. Go to ● Archives to see an online version. Allan Barker, a colleague of Chapman’s, writes: “Basil was a great journalist who excelled in his later years in the 1960s and 70s as a desk editor and fireman sent into the French-speaking areas in times of crisis. He was a bit older than most of his World Desk contemporaries, and was much respected for his all-round knowledge and ability. “He never panicked under pressure, especially when he was appraising stories prior to filing them to the world, and as Chief Sub he often wrote smooth wrapups and leadalls with proper balance and readability. His knowledge of France and the French was always a great bonus for him and the Desk in those days. “And he was a man of letters, too, as he showed soon after retirement when he wrote an engaging portrait of Ian Fleming for the Reuters monthly review.” The funeral is on 2 September at 2:30 pm at Kingsbury Methodist Church, Warwickshire.

Freelance photographer held in Iraq

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-03T18:21:56+01:00

Reuters is seeking additional information on the detention of a freelance photographer in Iraq. Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, an Iraqi who has supplied photos and video to Reuters on a freelance basis for about two years, was detained in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad, by US and Iraqi forces early on Tuesday morning, his family said. They also confiscated photographic equipment, his sister Eman told Reuters. A US military spokesman declined comment on any charges Jassam may be facing, saying only that he is in US custody. "He was detained because he was evaluated as a security threat, and his case is now being evaluated," spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll told Reuters. "We are concerned to hear about Jassam's detention, and urge the US military to either charge or release him once an initial investigatory stage is concluded," editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said. "Any accusations against a journalist should be aired publicly and dealt with fairly and swiftly, with the journalist having the right to counsel and present a defence. Iraqi journalists like Jassam play a vital role in telling this story to the world," Schlesinger said. Reuters and international media rights groups have previously criticised the military's refusal to deal more quickly with suspicions apparently arising from reporters' legitimate activities covering acts of violence. The Journalistic Freedoms Observatory, an Iraqi press rights group, urged the military to reveal where Jassam is being held and to say why he was arrested. ● SOURCE Reuters

Irish mortgage lender may sue Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-08T18:21:03+01:00

Irish Nationwide Building Society is considering legal action against Reuters over an inaccurate report that the home loan firm was holding talks with its lenders to avoid insolvency. Reuters retracted the story late on Friday night, admitting that material elements were incorrect and that it contained false information. A spokesman for Irish Nationwide confirmed to The Irish Times on Sunday that "the society is discussing the matter with legal advisers". The society's chief executive, Michael Fingleton, told the Sunday Independent that the story was "irresponsible, false and untrue", adding that "in the present highly sensitive economic, financial and commercial climate, the putting out of such statements is tantamount to commercial sabotage". Reuters did not check the story "in the way that you would expect", Fingleton said, adding: “The society will, of course, be vigorously pursuing the matter – including legal action. We believe that we have the evidence to support our case and that what Reuters did was indefensible. “It took Reuters 2 hours to put up the Irish Nationwide’s denial, and it was another hour-and-a-half before they withdrew the original story because, they said, ‘material elements were incorrect’. They also withdrew the denial story because, they said, it contained ‘incorrect information’.” A spokeswoman for Thomson Reuters, quoted by The Irish Times, said the reporter had misinterpreted the source of the story, which was filed out of London. The spokeswoman added: "Accuracy, reliability and integrity are at the heart of the Reuters operation – and we deeply regret that our standard operating procedure in this case was not followed." ● SOURCE Irish Times | Irish Independent

Obituary: David Chipp

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-10T18:20:16+01:00

David Chipp, former editor of Reuters, has died at the age of 81. His family said the body was found overnight at his home in London. He appears to have died in his sleep. Chipp joined Reuters in 1950 as a sports reporter. He was assigned to South East Asia in 1953, opening the post-war bureau in Rangoon and covering fighting in Burma and Indo-China. In 1956 he became Reuters’ first resident correspondent in Peking since the 1949 Communist takeover and mixed with the Communist leadership of Mao Zedong. “Assiduous and engaging, Chipp developed a good working relationship with the Communist authorities,” Donald Read wrote in Reuters’ official history The Power of News. “Most of his stories were descriptive, telling about the condition of the people. He also reported major political speeches, and interviewed Chou En-lai and other leaders, as well as Pu Yi, ‘the last Emperor’.” Chipp’s interview with the imprisoned Pu Yi scooped the world. Later he recalled that “If not the best or most important story I wrote from China, it was probably the strangest and most original.” Chipp was appointed editor of Reuters in 1968 and the following year became editor-in-chief of the Press Association, national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. “Journalism should be fun and if we don’t find it so, we might as well be bank clerks,” Chipp said at his first editorial conference at the PA. In 1979, PA telegraphists supported a strike by regional journalists by decreeing they would only handle copy edited by Chipp. He edited the PA’s entire news service – general news, sports, business news, stock prices and picture captions – for seven weeks, keeping up the news flow to regional newspapers. When the PA was accused by Labour MP Dennis Skinner of being biased, the agency reported the allegation but Chipp added his own comment to the story: “We have issued this drivel from Skinner because otherwise he would accuse us of censorship. His accusation is an insult to every journalist working for PA.” Chipp retired in 1986. His many interests in retirement included a directorship of the Reuters Foundation. The funeral will take place at Chiltern Crematorium, Amersham on Wednesday, 17 September at 10:45 am. Family and close friends only. Letters about David Chipp may be written to his sister, but no telephone calls: Mrs Rosemary Wight, The Old School, Hinton on the Green, Evesham, Worcester WR11 2QU. ● SOURCE The Canadian Press | Belfast Telegraph | Reuters | The Times

Shares hit by US banking crisis

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-15T18:19:19+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares fell rapidly in London on Monday in an immediate response to the US banking crisis. At mid-morning the shares were down 120 pence to 1,399 pence – a fall of nearly 8 per cent – on the expectation that the company will see sales of its financial news and trading terminals plummet as its banking clients collapse or merge. The FTSE-100 index of leading shares was down 1.89 per cent at 5,218.10. Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, making it the largest and highest-profile casualty of the global credit crisis. The 158-year-old investment bank is one of the biggest financial services firms to collapse since 1990 when Drexel Burnham Lambert filed for bankruptcy protection. Merrill Lynch agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for about $50 billion to avert the deepening crisis. Financial institutions worldwide have recorded writedowns and credit losses of more than $500 billion as the US sub-prime mortgage crisis has spread to other markets.

Former CNN chief to head multimedia

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-15T18:18:38+01:00

Reuters appointed former CNN International president Chris Cramer to the newly created role of global editor for multimedia. He will oversee multimedia projects including the reuters.com website and act as the main liaison between the news organisation and media business. He will be based in New York and report to editor-in-chief David Schlesinger, who said: "Cramer's distinguished track record of driving innovations in news gathering will be key to building on our recognised multimedia ventures and century and a half of journalist excellence." Cramer spent 20 years at the BBC prior to joining CNN. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters shares take beating

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-15T18:17:55+01:00

Thomson Reuters took a beating in London, New York and Toronto on Monday in immediate negative fallout from the US credit crisis. On the London Stock Exchange, the shares closed at 1,400 pence, a drop on the day of 7.84 per cent. The losses were worse in North America where there were falls of more than 10 per cent. In New York, the stock lost 10.93 per cent of its value to close at $29.41 on the New York Stock Exchange and 10.43 per cent to $146.73 on NASDAQ. On the Toronto Stock Exchange, Thomson Reuters tumbled to C$31.25, down 10.59 per cent. Canada’s National Post said that with bankrupt Lehman Brothers accounting for an estimated 1 per cent of Thomson Reuters’ revenues, assuming most of this is lost, it means a 3 per cent downgrade to the company’s 2009 earnings per share (EPS). Merrill Lynch, which agreed to sell itself to Bank of America for about $50 billion, likely has a similar amount to Lehman, UBS Securities said in a report. “Given the lag factor between job cuts and cancellations, we believe the brunt of the investment banking downturn is likely to be felt from Q4 2008 onwards and ongoing investment banking consolidation will weigh on sentiment,” UBS analyst Jeffrey Fan told clients. During the 2002-2004 downturn, Thomson’s Markets business lost 18 per cent of its revenues from peak to trough, he said. While things are different this time, Fan sees substantial downside risks to conservative assumptions of flat Markets growth in 2009 and 2010. The analyst said that with Thomson Reuters already trading at a premium of 17 times 2009 estimated EPS, the additional downside risk to earnings makes the risk reward “unattractive”. He continues to rate the shares a “sell” with a $28 price target. Don Vialoux, a Canadian chartered market technician, said Thomson Reuters currently has a negative technical profile. Intermediate trend is down. The stock trades below its 200-day moving average and on Monday morning broke below support at C$33.75 and its 50-day moving average. Support exists at C$27.51, he added. ● SOURCE National Post

Thomson Reuters ‘halts hiring, travel’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-17T18:17:12+01:00

Thomson Reuters, hit by fallout from the financial crisis, has stopped hiring in its markets division and limited travel to hold down costs, The Wall Street Journal reported. Citing an internal Thomson Reuters memo, it said new positions will be filled with existing employees, except where jobs are being moved to lower-cost locales such as Beijing, Bangalore or Poland. Devin Wenig, CEO of the markets division, told staff that the company needs to make “prudent choices” as the pace and intensity of the changing financial landscape is “exceptional”. The WSJ report, picked up by Thomson Reuters’ competitor Bloomberg, said jobs that have been vacated can be filled with an outside employee only with the approval of certain executives. ● SOURCE The Wall Street Journal | Bloomberg

Reuters Institute names new director

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-17T18:16:25+01:00

Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University has named David Levy, former BBC head of policy, as its new director. The Institute, whose core funder is the Thomson Reuters Foundation, was launched in November 2006 and developed from the Reuters Fellowship Programme established at Oxford in 1983. It provides a leading forum for scholars from a wide range of disciplines to engage with journalists from around the world. “I am delighted to be taking over as Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and hope to use my background as a journalist, an academic and a media policy expert to build on the strengths of the team and deliver new insights over the coming years,” Levy said. “With rapid change affecting the whole global media industry, the Institute’s unique mission to create links between scholars and practitioners from around the world is more relevant than ever before.” Levy has been responsible for the BBC’s public policy, public affairs and European policy teams, and for developing the policy for the BBC’s charter review in 2006. His areas of expertise include public service reform, the impact of digital technology, media ownership and regulation in the UK and Europe. Monique Villa, chief executive of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, said: “The Thomson Reuters Foundation is wholly committed to the development of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and we are delighted that Dr Levy has been appointed as its Director. He brings with him first hand journalistic knowledge and a thorough understanding of the dynamics of the media industry. Dr Levy will be pivotal in ensuring the continued success of the Institute as it looks to evaluate the ongoing challenges faced by the world of journalism in the 21st century.” Levy is an associate fellow in media communications at the Saïd Business School at Oxford University and will continue in that role. He began his BBC career as a journalist at BBC World Service. ● SOURCE Reuters Institute

Thomson Reuters 44th top global brand

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-18T18:15:43+01:00

Thomson Reuters is ranked 44th in a list of the top 100 global brands compiled by Business Week. The US magazine placed a brand value of $8,313 million on the merged company. It said: “The data provider cum news organization must prove its post-merger mettle. It plastered subways and stock exchanges with its new logo to raise its profile.” The 2008 edition of the annual list is topped by Coca-Cola, followed by IBM and Microsoft. Visa was placed 100th in the list. ● SOURCE Business Week

Revenue ‘strongly positive’ - Tom Glocer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-18T18:14:45+01:00

Revenue at Thomson Reuters’ markets division has been “strongly positive” through the last week of financial crisis on Wall Street, CEO Tom Glocer said on Thursday. Sales were “still tracking to positive revenue growth next year” but this week’s turmoil “raises the potential to go negative”, he said at the annual Goldman Sachs Communacopia Conference in New York. Glocer said the institutions toppled by the financial crisis of recent months accounted for just 1 per cent of Thomson Reuters’ annual revenues. “This week there has obviously been extraordinary panic, but it’s not like it’s been rosy the past 13 or 14 months,” he said. Before the “major sea-shift” in financial markets, the group had been on course to record positive revenue growth next year. If the current crisis were limited to the already known consequences of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the takeovers of Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns, and the government bail-outs of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, there was “the potential [for sales growth] to go negative, but the business is resilient enough that we’d have a significant shot at going positive next year”. The CEO added: “If we’re at the beginning of the 1930s, as some would say, it will be more serious.” Glocer said it was difficult for him to reconcile the company’s positive performance this far into the credit crisis with his experiences in previous economic and financial downturns. Thomson Reuters shares rebounded in New York and Toronto, regaining some of the losses caused by the financial market shakeout, but lost further ground in London. ● SOURCE Dow Jones | CNN

Deutsche Bank downgrades Thomson Reuters shares

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-19T18:13:56+01:00

Deutsche Bank downgraded Thomson Reuters to “sell” from “buy” and cut its price target on the stock to 1,000 pence from 2,400 pence on Friday. It said it sees revenue shortfall in the company’s markets division from the turmoil in the financial markets. Fifty per cent of the division’s revenue are headcount driven and this will now decline faster than previously expected, analyst Mark Braley wrote in a note to clients. “The direct hit to TR Market’s headcount-driven business will be severe,” Braley said. He now expects the investment banking industry to lose 25 per cent of jobs in 2008-2010, up from his previous forecast of 15 per cent. The job losses will be as severe as those seen in the 1969-1975 downturn and far worse than 1987-1991 or 2001-2003, he believes. Bank failures and mergers will cut demand for Thomson Reuters’ systems and software while a sustained period of market paralysis will see a drop in usage volumes. Pricing will be inevitably weaker. Thomson Reuters shares traded on the London Stock Exchange at 1,360 pence, up 7.09 per cent, at 0920 GMT. ● SOURCE Reuters

Markets division revenue ‘to take a hit’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-19T18:13:13+01:00

Thomson Reuters markets division revenue will likely take a hit from the current financial markets turmoil, at least two analysts said on Friday. “Given that more financial institutions may still be at risk it seems likely... that Markets revenues will turn negative next year,” analyst Gareth Thomas of Collins Stewart wrote in a note to clients. Mark Braley of Deutsche Bank noted that 50 per cent of the markets’ revenue are headcount driven and this will now decline faster than previously expected. He downgraded the stock to “sell” from “buy” and cut his price target to 1,000 pence from 2,400 pence. “The direct hit to TR Market’s headcount-driven business will be severe,” Braley said. The markets division includes the news operations as well as financial data and tools for investment banks and other financial firms. Thomson Reuters shares traded on the London Stock Exchange were 10.63 per cent higher at 1,405 pence at 1230 GMT on Friday. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson family may increase its stake

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-20T18:10:41+01:00

The Thomson family signalled it may slightly increase its voting interest in Thomson Reuters. In a regulatory filing on Friday, the family said it may sell as many as 10 million of the common shares listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and spend the proceeds on ordinary shares listed on the London Stock Exchange. Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s holding company, said the move was being made to facilitate trading in the stocks. Based on current prices, the transaction would result in a slight increase in Woodbridge’s 55 per cent voting interest, it said. Since Thomson’s takeover of Reuters in April, London shares of the new dual-listed company have traded at a large discount to those in Toronto. ● SOURCE The Gazette (Montreal)

Obituary: David Mathew

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-20T18:09:51+01:00

David Mathew, former correspondent and editor, has died suddenly at his home in Sarasota, Florida, of an apparent heart attack. He was 79. An Australian-born, softly-spoken gentle giant, Mathew was a stalwart of the World Desk in London. He worked for Reuters from 1957 to 1991. Brian Bain, former editor and a close neighbour in Sarasota, gave the news. Mathew had not been ill prior to his death on Tuesday, Bain said.

Canadian broker downgrades Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-22T18:08:58+01:00

Thomson Reuters has been downgraded and its price target cut as a result of the negative implications last week’s market turmoil on the financial sector and the broader economy. “The possibility of further financial services consolidation combined with increased discipline and restraint as the global financial system recapitalizes are likely to reduce the size and near-term growth outlook for many of Thomson Reuters’ end-markets,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Drew McReynolds said in a research note. He also noted that volatility in emerging markets suggests a slower pace for the company’s geographic expansion efforts. McReynolds cut his price target from US$39 per share to US$37 and moved his rating to “sector perform” given Thomson Reuters’ 18 per cent two-day run-up. He does not expect a major catalyst for the stock – more clarity on the pending downturn in its markets division – until the first half of 2009. ● SOURCE National Post

Has Reuters given up on news?

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-23T18:08:06+01:00

Has Reuters given up on news? At least one online commentator thinks so following an announcement that Reuters is asking users of a virtual prediction website what will happen before the event itself. “Ancient news outfit Reuters has given up on working out news based on facts and will ask the virtual prediction site, Hubdub what will happen instead,” The Inquirer, a UK-based website that bills itself as “News, reviews, facts and friction”, said on Tuesday. Hubdub, launched in February, is an online game that has created a section that allows players to predict the outcome of ongoing Reuters stories. Reuters will be able to establish a network of “friends” and link back to its own widgets and articles, according to the website ● www.journalism.co.uk. Reuters questions have gained popularity on the web, in particular with financial news forecasts, Hubdub said. Its members made predictions about the recent HBOS take-over by Lloyds TSB “long before mainstream media” began covering the story, Hubdub founder Nigel Eccles said. “We want to build up our user base, and as that gets bigger they’ll see Reuters’ questions, which sends traffic back to those news sites,” he said. Hubdub has 150,000 users. “Reuters are obviously very very aware of how their news affects the markets – we’d be pretty aware of not letting that become an issue,” Eccles said. Reuters’ top question on Hubdub on Tuesday was: Who will use the word “regulation” most in the first presidential debate? Respondents were split evenly between Barack Obama and John McCain. “Reuters is a phenomenal agency,” Eccles said. “The technology we’ve got can make the experience for their readers really interesting. We’re really excited about the editorial content that comes out of it.” He said Hubdub’s growth has “been very, very quick” and the relationship with Reuters took just two months to finalise after a “chance encounter” with the organisation in the United States. Asked whether people could make predictions to better their own shares, Eccles said: “We’ve been running the markets for about 8 months now, and we’ve become pretty good at catching most of them. In general, we catch the vast majority of it.” The Inquirer commented: “Apparently the combined fortune-telling powers of Hubdub members is far greater than all of the hacks in all of the world.” The Washington Post, which launched a similar current events-related prediction market in July, said Reuters’ Hubdub connection could have a more significant impact: “If the site can grow a large and diverse user base, it could potentially help pollsters and news organizations quickly get a feel for the public’s perception on a given issue.” Hubdub is not Reuters’ first foray into the virtual world. Two years ago it launched the first ever virtual news bureau on Second Life, an online world inhabited by hundreds of thousands users with its own virtual economy. The opening of the bureau was described as part of Reuters’ strategy to embrace new digital platforms to deliver next generation news and information. “Reuters is all about innovation – new technologies, new audiences, and new ways of presenting the news,” CEO Tom Glocer said at the time. “In Second Life, we’re making Reuters part of a new generation. We’re playing an active role in this community by bringing the outside world into Second Life and vice versa.” Reuters’ Second Life bureau has a virtual bureau chief known as Adam Reuters and a reporter called Erik Reuters. In real life they are Reuters journalists Adam Pasick, a technology and media correspondent, and Erik Krangel, who covers technology from New York. ● SOURCE The Inquirer | Journalism | Hubdub | The Washington Post | The World Editors Forum | Reuters | Reuters Second Life News Center

Global women’s network launched

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-24T18:07:23+01:00

Women working at Thomson Reuters have launched a global network to help female employees to expand their networks, find opportunities and develop their skills. The Women's Network was launched through a series of three international telephone conferences on Wednesday. It draws together the legacy Thomson Financial CHIC group and various Reuters women's groups. “The vision of the network is to develop the talents and champion the contributions of female employees, thus promoting women as equal partners in the success, achievement and profitability of Thomson Reuters,” said Julia Fuller, corporate responsibility manager, who leads the group. The network operates via global and regional operating committees with local level networks. The UKI network draws women from 20+ locations across England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Events, held in person and by teleconference, address themes such as self branding, career development, mentoring and networking. The global group also operates a number of sub-committees including community engagement, mentoring, events management and marketing. The next event is on 2 October at Canary Wharf, London.

Pension increase in 2009 ‘uncertain’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-25T18:06:31+01:00

Prospects for an increase in Reuters UK pensions next year to keep pace with sharply rising prices are still very uncertain, the Pension Review Group said. After three years of inflation-linked rises for RPF and SPS members, the chances of making it four years in succession are overshadowed by the turmoil in world financial markets. The group noted that CEO Tom Glocer, announcing this year’s 3.9 per cent increase in April, pledged: “Honouring our pension commitments is something we take very seriously and will continue to do so.” It added: “However, UK pensioners will remember the three lean years between 2003-2005, when increases were stopped and we lost around 7 per cent of our pensions to inflation. Under pressure from the SPS/RPF trustees and the Pension Review Group, the company shored up the pension fund with an injection of capital and agreed to a resumption of increases in 2006. “But these remain discretionary and have to be justified each year. The decision on whether any increase can be paid in 2009 will follow a check on the financial position of SPS and RPF as at December 31. If there is a big enough surplus of assets over liabilities, the trustees can recommend an increase.” With the world credit crunch causing extreme market volatility, there is no guarantee there will be enough, or indeed any surplus from the funds’ investments to increase pensions, the PRG said. “No decision is expected much before the second quarter of 2009, although it is hoped that if we do get an increase, it will be backdated to January 1, like this year.” The PRG wants the company to guarantee annual index-linked increases in the pension. It added: “We keep in close touch with the trustees and other interested parties and will continue pressing the company to grant its former UK employees what the majority of FTSE 100 final salary pensioners take for granted – the security of a pension which keeps pace with inflation.” ● SOURCE Pension Review Group

Thomson Reuters shares soar in Europe, N. America

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-19T18:03:46+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares soared in Europe and North America on Friday after government intervention ended a week of financial market turmoil. Closing prices: LONDON: TRIL.L, which started the week just over 1,500 pence, closed at 1,400 pence, up 130 pence or 10.24 per cent on the day. The FTSE 100 Index of blue chip shares registered its biggest one-day gain since it was introduced in 1984. It closed 431.3 points or 8.84 per cent higher at 5,311.30. NEW YORK: TRI was 8.63 per cent higher at $33.34, a gain of $2.65. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 368.75 points or 3.35 per cent higher at 11,388.44. NASDAQ: TRIN was up 6.48 per cent at $155.57, a gain of $9.47. TORONTO: TRI.TO was up 6.89 per cent at C$34.76, a gain of C$2.24.

Former EiC Mark Wood to leave ITN

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-29T18:02:54+01:00

Reuters’ former editor-in-chief Mark Wood is to step down as chief executive of Britain’s Independent Television News. He will leave early next year to “pursue opportunities outside the company”, The Guardian reported, although ITN said he would remain in his dual role of ITN chairman “for a period”. Wood ran Reuters’ global news and television operations as editor-in-chief from 1989 to 2000. He then took charge of strategic media investments and alliances as director of Reuters Content Partners. He joined Reuters in 1976 and was a correspondent in Vienna, East Berlin, Moscow and Bonn. He became ITN’s CEO in June 2003 and chairman in July 1998. Thomson Reuters is a part owner of ITN. ● SOURCE The Guardian

Thomson Reuters shares hit in global sell-off

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-09-29T18:01:41+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares plunged on Monday in a global sell-off as the world awaited the fate of a US rescue plan for the financial industry. Much of the damage occurred after the House of Representatives rejected President Bush’s $700 billion bail-out. Closing prices: LONDON: TRIL.L, closed 5.50 per cent lower before the vote in Washington at 1,219 pence, down 71 pence. The day's trading range was 1,211 pence-1,288 pence. The FTSE 100 index closed 5.30 per cent lower at 4,818.77, a fall of 269.70 points. NEW YORK: TRI was 9.12 per cent lower at $26.62, a loss of $2.67. Range: $24.83-$29.07. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 777.68 points – 6.98 per cent – at 10,365.45. NASDAQ: TRIN fell 10.94 per cent to $128.00, a loss of $15.73. Range: $125.09-$137.52. TORONTO: TRI.TO was down 8.99 per cent at C$27.53, a loss of C$2.72. Range: C$25.89-C$30.25.

Reuters Fellows mark quarter century

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-01T18:00:42+01:00

Reuters Fellows old and new gathered at Oxford University for a weekend of lectures, seminars and socialising to mark the 25th anniversary of the Reuters Foundation Fellowship Programme which brings journalists from around the world to study at the renowned seat of learning. Some of the journalists had flown in specially from Africa and Asia. First event on 26 September was a lecture by Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of The New York Times. He spoke of the economic and democratic challenges the Internet posed to the media at a time when the global audience for news is growing. That was followed by dinner for more than 150 people at Lady Margaret Hall, down the road from the mansion on Norham Gardens where the new Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (RISJ) – successor to the Foundation’s original Oxford Fellowship Programme – is centred. Saturday saw seminars on the future of journalism in Africa, a “Moral Maze” debate on whether good journalism is in crisis and a lively, wide-ranging Fellows Symposium (pictured above) looking at coverage of the year’s major stories. It ended with a garden party in rare late-summer sunshine in the gardens of Green Templeton College bringing together not only the fellows but also some of the past luminaries of the programme including its founders Michael Nelson and Neville Maxwell, former directors Godfrey Hodgson and Paddy Coulter and the newly appointed director of the RISJ, David Levy, former controller of public policy at the BBC. Past and present directors of the Reuters Foundation including Steve Somerville and the present CEO Monique Villa were also there. The RISJ programme offers Oxford fellowships to mid-career journalists, including those from developing countries, to study media-related issues which it is hoped will benefit them and their communities. PETER MOSLEY

World crisis will hurt us, Tom Glocer says

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-02T17:59:43+01:00

Thomson Reuters reaffirmed its full-year outlook on Thursday but Tom Glocer said the world financial crisis will hurt the company as banks lose staff and take out trading and information terminals. “You’ve got to say this is a negative short to middle term,” the CEO told analysts at a London investor day. But he said the banking consolidation now beginning represents a long-term opportunity. “There’s a lot of compensating work that needs to be done now to stitch together all these trading operations,” Glocer said. Thomson Reuters’ markets division is exposed to financial services and contributes 59 per cent of group sales. Glocer said the Thomson Financial legal and health professional business would help the company to weather the storm. In slides for the presentation the company said it expected revenue growth of 6 to 8 per cent, almost all organic, and an underlying profit margin of 19 to 21 per cent for 2008. It also reiterated targets to generate free cash flow of 11 to 12 per cent of sales for capital expenditure of 8 to 9 per cent of revenue. The company said it had completed its refinancing needs for Thomson’s acquisition of Reuters in April through long-term debt offerings in June. It had a $2.5 billion credit facility on which it had not drawn. Devin Wenig, markets division CEO, said the company’s foreign exchange business had its best month ever in September. But he could not predict how long it would take until conditions for the division as a whole would improve. “We certainly are not viewing this through rose-coloured glasses. We’ve never seen a market like this. There are parts of our business that are really challenged right now,” he said. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters ‘to use cash’ for acquisitions - report

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-04T17:58:42+01:00

Bosses of Thomson Reuters apparently have told analysts that they will be using cash primarily to invest in the business and to make acquisitions, The Times said on Saturday. The professional division, supplying information to lawyers and accountants, was a priority, the newspaper said under the headline “Rumour of the day”. “This potentially leaves the door open to acquiring Wolters Kluwer,” UBS said, The Times reported. Wolters Kluwer is a Dutch information services and publishing company based in Amsterdam. It employs 19,500 people worldwide and in 2007 had revenues of €3.4 billion. ● SOURCE The Times

Thomson Reuters' UK shares dive, broker reiterates ‘sell’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-06T17:57:40+01:00

Hugh Van Es, the renowned Dutch photographer who took the "helicopter" photo of the evacuation of Saigon, died on May 15. Hugh was a friend to many of the Reuters journalists who passed through Hong Kong and frequented the FCC over the years. A wake was held for him at the FCC in May. But for those who couldn't make it and would like to honour his memory, former FCC VP and Hon Sec Penny Byrne and her husband Tim Heald are organising a VANES INTERNATIONAL WAKE at the Frontline Club in London, the nearest thing to the FCC in the UK. Date: Friday 9 October Time: 1900 hours until last person leaves Address: 13 Norfolk Place, W2 1QJ (very close to Paddington Station) Tel: 020 7479 8960 Cash bar, cash food. ANGUS MACSWAN

Obituary: Alan White

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-08T17:56:40+01:00

Alan White, former head of global technical operations, died peacefully in his sleep at home in France on 26 September, aged 60. Alan joined Reuters in Bahrain in 1984 having worked in the Gulf with Cable & Wireless. He moved to Hong Kong in 1986 to become operations manager, Reuters Asia and my deputy, Phil Arnett writes. In 1990 he moved to Japan to take the new post of operations director, North East Asia. When I left Reuters Asia in 1992 he took over as technical director, Reuters Asia. During his time in the Far East he proved to be an outstanding operations manager, staying very cool and in command when others around him were flapping. He had many achievements but those he will be best remembered for was the move of the Main Technical Centre, initially from Hong Kong to Tokyo and then planning for the move of the MTC from Tokyo to Singapore. He took up his first Reuters post in the UK at the end of 1994 as international systems strategy and project manager and had various roles in Operations before taking up his last post as head of global technical operations in June 2000. His major achievements whilst in London were setting up a global communications strategy, including the formation of Radianz and the establishment of a global operations function which controlled the world’s data centres. Alan took early retirement at the end of 2000. Alan was a man of few words but what he did say was usually sensible and constructive. His Mancunian wit was brilliant and he regularly had his Japanese staff tied up in knots not knowing whether he was being serious or not. He had a fantastic relationship with his staff in Hong Kong and Tokyo and they loved him dearly. This was evident by the many that turned up for his farewell party in London, most of whom travelled at their own expense. After Alan left Reuters he divided his time between his home in Whaley Bridge, Derbyshire and his property in France. He is survived by his wife Val and his children Andrew, Steve and Julia.

TR shares plumb new depths

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-08T17:54:53+01:00

Thomson Reuters shares plumbed new depths on Wednesday, plunging to historic lows before bouncing back to recover some of the value lost in New York and Toronto. The London shares hit an all-time low of 991 pence at one point as coordinated cuts in interest rates failed to alleviate fears of a global recession. LONDON: TRIL.L closed 2.43 per cent lower at 1,085 pence, down 27. The day's trading range was 991-1,160 pence. The FTSE 100 index ended 5.18 per cent lower at 4,366.69, a fall of 238.53 points. NEW YORK: TRI was 0.52 per cent higher at $25.08, a gain of $0.13. Range: $23.85-$25.51. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 2.0 per cent or 189 points lower at 9,258.10. NASDAQ: TRIN gained 0.05 per cent to finish $113.16, up $0.06. Range: $110.02-$116.0328. TORONTO: TRI.TO gained 2.13 per cent to end the day at C$28.24, up C$0.59. Range: C$26.51-C$28.56.

Mixed results for Thomson Reuters in market gyrations

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-10T17:53:57+01:00

Thomson Reuters ended a tumultuous week of market gyrations with mixed results on the four exchanges on which it is traded. LONDON: TRIL.L ended 56 pence or 5.09 per cent lower at 1,044 pence. Range: 969.5 pence-1,164 pence. The FTSE 100 closed 225.92 points – 5.24 per cent – down at 4,087.88. NEW YORK: TRI was down $1.28 – 5.21 per cent – on the day to $23.27. Range: $21.01-$25.99. NASDAQ: TRIN ended $4.06 – 3.69 per cent – higher at $114.00. Range $105.71-$116.08. TORONTO: TRI.TO finished the day down C$0.85 – 3.02 per cent – at C$27.25. Range: C$25.3-C$30.47.

Foundation to join Abu Dhabi media zone

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-13T17:53:08+01:00

The Thomson Reuters Foundation is to set up journalism training in Abu Dhabi as part of a joint project to develop media in the Gulf. Along with international media companies including the BBC, CNN and the Financial Times, it will be a partner in a media zone funded by the United Arab Emirates government. The project, called twofour54, aims to build an Arab media economy in the region, offering a vocational training academy, production and post-production facilities, and an incubation fund for new businesses. Monique Villa, Foundation chief executive, said: "We are one of the main partners with the BBC in the training academy, which means we are going to train a number of journalists from the region in all the things they need to learn. "It could be as tailor-made as how you cover business, how you cover a natural catastrophe, all this for print and broadcasting as well as for photography and multimedia. It will be a great centre for training the Arab region." She said a regional director would be appointed to oversee the scheme, which begins in January. "Here you have a fast-growing region and a fast-growing population of journalists, but sometimes they need to be a little bit more professional, so we will try to help them with that." The Guardian said Thomson Reuters is expected to set up a photo agency and establish a sharia law-compliant financial information portal for the region.

Unilever man to join Thomson Reuters board

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-14T17:51:57+01:00

Manvinder Singh Banga of Unilever is to join Thomson Reuters as a non-executive director from 1 January 2009. Banga, 53, who is based in London, is the President of Unilever’s Foods, Home and Personal Care business and one of the seven-member executive committee reporting to the company’s CEO. David Thomson, chairman, said, “I am delighted to welcome Vindi to Thomson Reuters, with his wealth of experience in developing and emerging markets. During his career, he has worked in global, regional and national roles in London, Singapore and Mumbai. He has deep knowledge of Asian business which will prove invaluable as Thomson Reuters looks to capitalize further on opportunities in that region.” Richard Olver, who joined the Reuters board in December 1997, will retire at the end of this year. “I would like to thank Dick Olver for his long commitment to Reuters and the continuity he has been providing as we move through the important Thomson Reuters integration. His contributions are highly valued by the Board,” Thomson said. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters in top 50 for UK women

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-14T17:51:07+01:00

Thomson Reuters has been named as one of the 50 best places for women to work in the UK. Companies were rated on three key areas: how they recruit top female talent, how they retain and develop female employees, and case studies of successful female employees. Susan Taylor-Martin, managing director, UK and Ireland, markets division, said: “It’s fantastic that Thomson Reuters has been recognised in this list of companies that have proven recruitment, retention and development policies for women. We were able to provide real examples of women who use flexible working practices to juggle career, family, study and work in the community. “We’re also proud of our global women’s affinity group and the role its members play in providing mentoring and support to female employees.” The list was compiled by Aurora, a marketing company, and published in The Times. It did not rank the top 50 companies. ● SOURCE The Times

At 78, Lionel Walsh goes online to tell his story

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-16T17:50:08+01:00

Lionel Walsh, former correspondent and editor in Bonn, Geneva, London, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Warsaw, has published his memoirs on the Internet. The online autobiography Lionel Walsh: My Life and Times includes details of his early life and adventures from school in England and military service in post-war Austria to journalism at home and abroad. President John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech in Berlin and the Israeli trial of Nazi fugitive Adolf Eichmann were among the stories he covered. It is illustrated with photographs of key figures of the 1950s and 1960s including managing editor Stuart Underhill, editor Walton (Tony) Cole, chief news editor Sidney Mason and deputy editor Geoffrey Imeson, Many others are mentioned in the text. Walsh joined Reuters in 1956 (the picture above shows him on his way to his job interview) and left in 1981. Now aged 78, he lives in the Vendée, western France. ● CLICK lionelwalsh.com to read his story. ● CLICK People to read about his present life in retirement.

Obituary: Ron Howard

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-17T17:49:11+01:00

Ron Howard, former correspondent and chief sub-editor, died overnight after a short illness. He was 65. Howard, a Canadian, joined Reuters in 1967 and initially worked on Westhem, the London desk that provided reports in American English for North America in the days before Reuters had a substantial editorial operation in the United States. Assignments to Singapore and Lusaka followed, but it was as a solid desk man that he was best known and in the early 1990s, as a pillar of the Business Unit in London, he helped in the creation and launch of the Reuter Business Report in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. On retirement in 1999 he was a chief sub-editor on the World Desk, London. Golf was a passion, and he was for many years an active member of Reuters Golf Society. Following a recent holiday in Canada with his wife, Carol, cancer was diagnosed last month. A Service of Thanksgiving will be held at 2:00 pm on Friday, 24 October in Holy Cross Church, Ramsbury, Wiltshire followed by a gathering at The Bell, The Square, Ramsbury.

‘Relentless’ cost-cutting in downturn

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-22T17:48:12+01:00

Thomson Reuters will cut costs relentlessly to deal with the global financial crisis but further redundancies are not foreseen, online reports said on Wednesday. In a memo to staff yesterday, Devin Wenig, markets division CEO, laid out an austerity plan to help get the company through the deep and unprecedented malaise gripping the banking industry, The Daily Mail said. The website Paid Content quoted him as saying: “Many of our big customers are struggling and there is talk of a global recession. We are in a period of unprecedented change that seems to be unfolding in real time... The changes we are witnessing are global and deep and this is very different to a cyclical downturn.” Wenig admitted the group’s top 25 large accounts are under pressure and said: “The short-term tactical response to this tough market is that we will be relentless about costs, efficiency and challenging the status quo. I don’t apologise for that; every dollar we can drive out of things like travel, entertainment, research that no-one reads, information requests that are not critical and meetings that don’t need to happen, is another dollar we can invest in the critical sales, product, news or service initiatives that will really drive this firm forward.” Paid Content said a Thomson Reuters spokesperson refuted reports of a coming wave of redundancies. The Mail said Wenig had vowed to accelerate the group’s efforts to strip out costs and slash headcount, crystallising fears that the financial news and data division, which accounts for 60 per cent of group profits, will suffer as banks across the globe shed staff. “As staff levels plunge at banks, so, too, will demand for Reuters’ news and data terminals,” the Mail said. “Wenig said he would step up a programme designed to squeeze over £700m in costs out of the combined group by 2011. “He also signalled that job cuts were creeping up his agenda. “Wenig told staff: ‘We will be relentless about costs and efficiencies and restrictions on headcount will be followed to the letter’,” the Mail said. But Paid Content said there were no new numbers in the memo: “just a reminder that Wenig & Co. are taking no prisoners when it comes to cost saving in uncertain times...” It was not all bad news, however. Wenig said it was an absolute certainty that global economies will recover and that a growing global class of wealthy people would still need financial information and advice. “The environment may be deteriorating, but we have had several strong sales months and I believe we are winning share,” he added. ● SOURCE The Daily Mail | Paid Content

Thomson Reuters shares sink in market meltdown

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-24T17:47:11+01:00

Thomson Reuters lost up to 7.71 per cent of its value on Friday in further falls at the end of another disastrous week on world stock markets. On the anniversary of the 1929 Wall Street Crash, historic lows for the stock were recorded in London, New York and Toronto. LONDON: TRIL.L ended 50.99 pence or 5.08 per cent lower at 952 pence. Range: 883 pence-989.00 pence. The FTSE 100 closed 204.47 points – 5.0 per cent – down at 3,883.36. The British benchmark has fallen 20.8 percent so far this month, on track for its biggest monthly fall since the crash of 1987, and is down nearly 40 per cent for the year. NEW YORK: TRI was down $1.67 – 7.71 per cent – on the day to $20. Range: $19.85-$20.84. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 3.59 per cent to 8,378.95. NASDAQ: TRIN ended $7.17 – 6.69 per cent – lower at $91.11. Range $86-$92.97. TORONTO: TRI.TO finished the day down C$1 – 3.68 per cent – at C$26.15. Range: C$25.02-C$26.59.

Police evacuate New York newsroom

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-27T17:46:20+00:00

Reuters’ New York newsroom was evacuated on Monday after an envelope with a "puff of powder" in it was received. Police told staff to evacuate the 19th floor newsroom after Brian Rhoads, managing editor for the Americas, opened an envelope and a "puff of powder" came out of it, Reuters spokeswoman Jolie Hunt said. Police isolated the envelope, and Rhoads, and then told the 140 members of staff to leave as a precautionary measure while they investigated. News was filed from other offices. Nearly three hours later the authorities said the powder was harmless and staff returned to their desks, Hunt said. Threatening letters, many containing a suspicious white powder, have been sent this month to Chase bank offices in several US states and the headquarters of The New York Times. The letters said “it’s payback time”, according to a text released by the FBI. US authorities have been on alert for such letters since 2001 when envelopes laced with anthrax were sent to media outlets and lawmakers, killing five people. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters stock soars on rate cut hopes

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-10-28T17:45:28+00:00

Thomson Reuters shares posted solid gains in North America on Tuesday but the strong rally after recent losses came too late to have much impact in London. The gains in New York and Toronto were attributed to hopes that central banks worldwide led by the US Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon. LONDON: TRIL.L ended 8.50 pence or 0.89 per cent higher at 961.50 pence. Range: 927.4999 pence-993.00 pence. NEW YORK: TRI closed $1.68 higher – 8.26 per cent – at $22.01. Range: $20.32-$22.03. The Dow Jones Industrial Average marked its second-best day ever with a rise of 889.35 points – 10.88 per cent – to 9065.12. The highest rally was on 13 October when the Dow jumped 936.42 points. NASDAQ: TRIN soared $10.31 – 11.47 per cent – to close at $100.22. Range $88-$100.22. TORONTO: TRI.TO finished the day up C$2.19 – 8.47 per cent – at C$28.05. Range: C$26.05-C$28.45.

Nixon’s role in creating Thomson Reuters

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-03T17:44:10+00:00

The former Bretton Woods agreement is a topical subject in these uncertain economic times. But when UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called for a new Bretton Woods agreement at our Canary Wharf office in London recently, he would have been unaware of the pivotal role of the original agreement – or, rather, its ending in 1971 by President Nixon – in the creation of Thomson Reuters. Had it not been for the collapse of the Bretton Woods agreement, Reuters could conceivably have remained a small news agency, struggling to survive against ever-increasing competition during the last quarter of the 20th Century. Bretton Woods and Reuters The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944 was a gathering of 730 delegates from all 44 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Its aim: to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the total disruption of the Second World War. As a result, the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rate management was set up and remained an important part of the fiscal policy of the 44 signatory nations for the next 27 years. Everything changed in 1971 when American President Richard Nixon suddenly and unilaterally cancelled the agreement. Within a very short time, the entire framework collapsed worldwide, leading to an immense expansion of foreign exchange dealing.  Currency, rather than being a means of purchasing goods and commodities, became a commodity in its own right. The word “Forex” was coined. The problem for banks and dealers was that there was no adequate structure in place for this rapidly expanding market place and it was impossible to receive quotations with sufficient speed. Dependence upon telephones and telex was unsatisfactory, since by the time an answer to a request for, say, a bank’s dollar/sterling price had been given and transmitted, that price had already been changed. Seconds could be crucial. Trading goes electronic It was André Villeneuve of Reuters who first proposed the idea that the company should install computer terminals in the offices of banks and other foreign exchange dealers. Reuters would, in this way, create its own electronic market place. Market-makers (contributors) would be able to insert their foreign exchange and money rates into the system. At the press of a button, these rates would become available on screen to interested parties (recipients) such as other banks and international businesses. The revolutionary idea was that both parties would be charged for access to this interactive system. Almost at a stroke was born the entirely new concept of computerised contributed data. Two companies within the US already ran share information services on such a basis. But Reuters was at the very forefront in extending its thinking far beyond this “one-country” idea to the concept of bringing contributed data into the field of foreign exchange, a market which functioned between countries and between continents. New agreements had to be reached with the London Trade Unions over the idea that data would be inserted, not by telegraphists at Reuters, but by customers. At first several banks could see no merit or point in a system under which they were expected to pay for inserting their own information. Some banks were reluctant to change the working practices of centuries and reveal such information. Brokers feared that they would lose business if the service established itself. Monitor arrives and changes financial markets The new system, called Monitor, first ran in London for a full working day on 25 June 1973. There were 15 contributors/recipients and 15 recipients. The breakthrough came between March and June 1974 when Reuters signed 109 contracts. When Monitor started to attract continental clients, the UK banks – at first the main contributors – saw, at last, a potential widening of their market. By June, there were 125 subscribers in the UK, and 121 in the rest of Europe. The Monitor range was subsequently extended to bonds (1975), commodities (1977), equities (1978) and US Government securities (1978). By 1983, company turnover was 14 times that of 1973. For Reuters, Monitor had become the “goose which laid the golden egg”. In 1981, the Monitor Dealing Service went live, enabling subscribers not only to receive the latest rates and quotations but to buy, sell or lend money through the same screen. “Matching” of deals followed later but the new service was a great advance. Reuters had been transformed. It was no longer a small news agency, often living from hand to mouth, but had become a successful and prosperous company. The course of events began which led to its flotation as a public company in 1984. If President Nixon had not unilaterally cancelled America’s obligation to abide by the terms of the Bretton Woods agreement, would any of this have happened? Who can say? But there is little doubt that, for Reuters, it certainly wouldn’t have happened as specifically and with such speed. Little did Prime Minister Gordon Brown probably realise that, if that agreement to regulate exchange rates had still been in existence, he would, almost certainly not have been speaking at Thomson Reuters office, in that location, on that day. Such is history. JOHN ENTWISLE Manager, the Reuters archive

First Dog bites Reuters reporter

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-06T17:43:08+00:00

Barack Obama called himself a mutt and John McCain got a mauling but it was Reuters TV reporter Jonathan Decker who got bitten in the US presidential election. Barney, a Scottish terrier that has had the run of the White House as President George Bush’s First Dog, growled and snapped at Decker’s finger when our man bent down to pet the dog in the Rose Garden. A White House doctor bandaged Decker’s index finger. Barney is known to be a serial offender: he has bitten other visitors in the past. ● SOURCE YouTube

Steve Parry Memorial on 28 November

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-06T17:42:12+00:00

Friends and ex-colleagues of former Reuters sports editor Steve Parry, who passed away suddenly on 7 August, are invited to come together to remember Steve and celebrate his life. Date: Friday, 28 November Time: 11:00 am Venue: Pitchside West restaurant at Wembley Stadium, London Refreshments available Please confirm your attendance by 21 November to Caroline Helly ● caroline.helly@thomsonreuters.com PAUL RADFORD Global Sports Editor Reuters

Wall Street layoffs to impact Thomson Reuters' results

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-10T17:41:03+00:00

Most eyes on Thomson Reuters’ Q3 results on Wednesday will be on revenue momentum in the markets division, which accounts for about half of total revenues, the National Post said on Monday.  UBS analyst Jeffrey Fan, who rates the stock a sell, is calling for about four per cent organic growth, in line with most estimates. He reiterates his view, however, that the division could see revenue declines of about five per cent for next year, given the time lag between layoffs at investment banks and the impact on the company’s bottom line.  The firm’s markets business is susceptible to downturns in the financial services sector because it depends on banks and insurance firms to buy its data and computer terminals, National Post said.  “Until investors are comfortable that market revenues have reached a trough, we believe [Thomson Reuters] is likely to underperform,” Fan wrote in a note to clients.  The analyst has previously written that he does not expect a share price recovery for Thomson Reuters until at least the middle of next year.  National Post said the company’s stock is down about 30 per cent year to date. The Associated Press said the July-September results could show some fallout from the financial crisis but much of the effect would not be seen until later quarters because of a lag in data-terminal subscriptions. “Thomson Reuters will be somewhat insulated from the negative effects either way,” it said. “Its markets division, in which its data-terminal business falls, accounted for only about 35 percent of the company’s profits in the first half of the year. Other businesses, such as professional publications for lawyers and accountants, remain strong.” AP said analysts polled by the company’s Thomson Reuters service expect, on average, earnings of 34 cents per share on revenue of $3.25 billion. Looking ahead, it said that in the fourth quarter more fallout was expected from the financial crisis as subscription numbers catch up with the disappearance of major clients. ● SOURCE National Post | Associated Press

Thomson Reuters' Q3 results better than expected

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-12T17:39:54+00:00

Thomson Reuters reported stronger than expected third quarter results on Wednesday and said integration was ahead of plan. It affirmed its February forecast for 2008 revenue growth of six to eight per cent. Gains in the professional division more than offset slowing growth in the markets division. Q3 net income was $380 million (46 cents per share) compared with $2.97 billion ($4.61 per share) a year ago. Excluding non-recurring items, discontinued operations and others, profit was 48 cents per share, higher than the average analyst forecast of 34 cents. Revenues were $3.3 billion, eight per cent higher than a year ago. Underlying operating profit was 17 per cent higher at $676 million. Media revenues were five per cent higher at $111 million. “Our results demonstrate the strength, breadth and balance of our company, as our business continued to perform well in the third quarter and our integration plan began to deliver accelerated early savings,” CEO Tom Glocer said. "The strong growth and profitability of our large Professional Division highlighted its ability to perform well through the economic cycle, while our Markets Division delivered good results despite extreme conditions in global financial markets. "We are benefiting from our business model which focuses on achieving leading positions in key professional markets, seeking profitable growth in emerging as well as developed markets and providing our customers with deeply relevant content and services via superior product platforms. "Our revenue growth rates continue to lead our markets and, coupled with integration savings and cost discipline, will help drive continuing profit growth. Moreover, our ability to translate profits into cash flow, supported by our strong balance sheet and liquidity, should allow us to take advantage of investment opportunities that may result from market disruptions while maintaining a disciplined approach to capital allocation." Glocer said it was the most “wrenching” period he had seen in his 15 years with the Reuters business. Some analysts have said Thomson Reuters’ revenue could fall in 2009 due to budget cutbacks and payroll cuts among its financial services industry clients. Reuters reported earlier that financial services firms and their staff are being forced to a new era of austerity. Financial firms worldwide have slashed more than 130,000 jobs in the current global financial crisis, with thousands more losses expected as banks totter and hedge funds haemorrhage assets. Wall Street bonuses could fall by 41 per cent in 2009 and in the City of London, the cash bonus pool is forecast to fall by nearly 60 per cent this year. A separate Reuters report on Wednesday said a number of deals designed to cure the crisis are in danger of unravelling, with losses mounting at banks and economies showing signs of serious deterioration. Thomson Reuters’ London-traded shares, which have lost about 30 per cent of their value since the 17 April merger, closed 4.55 per cent higher. They gained 2.86 per cent in Toronto, 0.46 per cent in New York, and 1.3 per cent on NASDAQ. ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Obituary: Daniel Sullivan

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-12T17:38:55+00:00

Daniel Sullivan, former assistant communications supervisor and one of Reuters’ last uniformed messengers, died on 6 November 2008 aged 93. Sullivan joined in 1929 as a 14-year-old messenger boy in the company’s blue uniform with brass buttons. His father, a London docker, had a friend who had recommended Rooters, as they called it, as a good job for the boy. Sullivan’s messenger boy number was 53 and his wages were 16 shillings – equivalent to 80 pence now – per week. He worked his way up to number 36. At the age of 18 he moved to Despatch as a clerk/typist. Having learned to touch type at Reuters, during World War II he worked for the RAF as a telegraphist,. He returned to Reuters in 1947 and became a supervisor in the 1960s. The funeral is at 12:45 pm on 20 November at Beckenham Crematorium. The photo of Sullivan dates from 1983.

Obama pledge a silver lining for Thomson Reuters?

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-13T17:38:03+00:00

US President-elect Barack Obama’s pledge to unleash a string of new rules and regulations for capital markets in 2009 could be a silver lining in the credit crunch for Thomson Reuters, The Toronto Globe and Mail said on Thursday. It would mean more work for lawyers and accountants tasked with keeping up with such restructuring and that could prove good for business for Thomson Reuters whose legal and regulatory databases would be relied upon. “It’s likely that within the first year of the new Obama administration we’ll see far-reaching new regulation of the capital markets and many changes to the tax code. And this will inevitably boost demand for our legal and tax and accounting products,” the newspaper quoted CEO Tom Glocer as telling analysts in a conference call on Wednesday. Glocer said Thomson Reuters had noticed an increase in the number of hours that clients were logging on to its legal databases and software applications. “We’ve already seen an interesting tick up in securities lawsuits [and] lots of investigations going on concerning how did AIG fall apart? How did Lehman Brothers fall apart?” he said. “And then over on our tax and accounting side, it looks very likely that campaign promises to the effect there are going to be changes to the tax code [could] have a good effect on our tax and accounting business.” ● SOURCE The Globe and Mail

Reuters suspends Australian cricket cover

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-13T17:37:20+00:00

Reuters suspended coverage of cricket in Australia on Thursday citing “press freedom and protecting the interests and coverage rights of our global client base”. The suspension covers matches, training sessions and commercial events across text, pictures and TV. “Faced with unacceptable accreditation terms for photographers and camera crews imposed by Cricket Australia, Reuters has decided to curtail coverage of Australian cricket, until such time as we are able to reach agreement with Cricket Australia. We hope to continue discussions with Cricket Australia with a view to resuming full coverage of global cricket as quickly as possible,” it told subscribers. “While it is our sincere wish to provide the world’s media with premium, timely text, photographs and TV, freedom of the press, intellectual property and our editorial integrity are at the core of our business, and these must be respected.” ● SOURCE Reuters

TR shares surge on Q3 results news

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-13T17:36:23+00:00

Thomson Reuters shares soared by up to 12 per cent on Thursday as markets absorbed better than expected third quarter results. The biggest percentage increase was on the New York Stock Exchange but there were also double-digit gains on NASDAQ and the Toronto Stock Exchange. Wednesday’s Q3 results included profit at 48 cents per share compared with an average analyst forecast of 34 cents. Revenues were $3.3 billion, eight per cent higher than a year ago. Underlying operating profit was 17 per cent higher at $676 million. LONDON: TRIL.L ended 44 pence or 3.91 per cent higher at 1,169 pence. Range: 1,097 pence-1225 pence. NEW YORK: TRI closed $2.65 higher – 12.02 per cent – at $24.69. Range: $22.51-$24.80. NASDAQ: TRIN soared $11.92 – 11.54 per cent – to close at $115.25. Range $103.08-$116.50. TORONTO: TRI.TO finished the day up C$2.93 – 10.71 per cent – at C$30.29. Range: C$27.70-C$30.29.

David Schlesinger wins an Emmy

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-18T17:35:26+00:00

Reuters’ editor-in-chief David Schlesinger has won an Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award for Business and Financial Reporting. The award was made by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences in the United States. Academy president and CEO Peter Price said “More than any other news organization, Reuters understands that there is no sharp dividing line between business reporting, political reporting, and other kinds of news. “As Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger has preserved this venerable organization’s core journalistic values while enthusiastically embracing the possibilities and challenges of the digital age, and we are proud to honor him for this achievement.” “It may not have the glamor of an Emmy for best actor but it’s incredible recognition of what we all do here,” Schlesinger said. “I feel very keenly that my own contributions are nothing compared to the 2,500 people around the world working for Reuters News,” he told the company’s in-house Daily Briefing. “It’s a great reward for us because it recognizes our commitment to business and financial news, which is core. And it’s especially true in the U.S. where we haven’t had as large a profile as we should have had.” Schlesinger joined Reuters as a correspondent in Hong Kong in 1987. After assignments to Taiwan and China, in 1995 he became financial editor for the Americas and later managing editor and then editor for the Americas, based in New York. He was appointed global managing editor and head of editorial operations in 2003 and Editor-in-Chief in 2007. The award is due to be presented at a ceremony at the Rainbow Room in New York on 2 December. ● SOURCE Reuters | Variety

Thomson Reuters stock to underperform - analyst

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-19T17:34:02+00:00

Thomson Reuters shares are likely to underperform until investors feel that the markets division has bottomed, which may not happen until the first quarter of 2010, UBS analyst Jeffrey Fan told clients on Wednesday. He maintained his “sell” rating on the stock and $23.50 price target. It closed at $23.77 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Fan said Thomson Reuters is in much better shape to weather retrenchment among investment banks than during 2001-2004 when the sector saw a 10 per cent staff reduction. During that period the markets unit saw an 18 per cent decline in revenues from peak to trough. This time, Thomson Reuters could take some market share from Bloomberg, given the performance of foreign exchange versus fixed income. But the market environment is arguably worse. An estimated 15 to 20 per cent of the investment banking headcount has already disappeared. Thomson Reuters’ Q3 results announced on 12 November showed that markets revenues beat consensus estimates, suggesting a modest decline in revenues, Fan said. However, he attributed this strength to transaction revenues driven by volatile foreign exchange and commodity markets, which may not be sustainable. Hence reiteration of his “sell” rating. Thomson Reuters’ New York-listed shares have fallen more than 40 per cent year-to-date but in Toronto they are down only 27 per cent. ● SOURCE Seeking Alpha

David Chipp remembered with affection

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-20T17:32:51+00:00

David Chipp was remembered on Thursday as “a proper boss, a caring colleague, a faithful friend and a daring newsman”. Those words were spoken by John Ransom, Reuters’ former area liaison manager, on behalf of colleagues from Chipp’s time half a century ago as a correspondent in Asia including Vergil Berger, Bill Gasson, Mrs Hagio, Jimmy Hahn, C.P. Ho, Ernie Mendoza and Ransom himself. They were a happy family, Ransom said at a service of thanksgiving for Chipp, former editor of Reuters, who died in his sleep at the age of 81 on 10 September. St Bride’s, the journalists’ church in London where Chipp was a guild member, was packed for the service. It is adjacent to 85 Fleet Street where Chipp spent much of his career, with Reuters from 1950 until 1969 when he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Press Association, national news agency of the United Kingdom and Ireland. Other tributes and readings were by Michael Nelson, former general manager, who read from Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Reg Evans, who recalled the Chipp era at the PA, Jonathan Grun, who read an excerpt from A.G. Macdonell’s England, Their England, and Guy Black who recalled “a remarkable life lived to the full that so enriched ours”. Black, of the Telegraph Group and former director of the Press Complaints Commission, recalled Chipp as “reporter, raconteur, bon viveur, Kingsman, oarsman, Guildsman, Honorary Australian, devout Wagnerian, defender of the press, wit and wag”. He said: “David, of course, had various gradations of friendship. Some were honoured to be introduced as his ‘only respectable friend’. But for people he didn’t like – the pompous and the preening – there was the stiletto style put down: ‘I think he is only a fairly nice man.’” Chipp’s time in Peking, where he trod on Chairman Mao Zedong’s toe and got away with it, was also recalled. “Many people who trampled on Chairman Mao would have been sent on the first boat home. Or shot,” Black said. “But you can imagine Chipp fixing Mao with his broad grin, and the twinkle in the eye, and quipping his way out of trouble. “Mao himself, of course, became part of the family of friends, even giving David his very own Chinese name – ‘Qi Dewei’ which David would proudly explain meant: ‘Lacquered Defender of Morals’.” Ian MacKenzie’s photo shows Chipp on his way to the Remembrance Sunday ceremony in London in November 2007.

Reuters closes ‘virtual’ bureau

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-21T17:31:47+00:00

Reuters has closed its most bizarre bureau – the virtual one in cyberspace, online reports said on Friday. The two-man bureau was opened two years ago at Sadville on Second Life, an imaginery playground in the Internet world of unreal, make-believe environments. It comprised Adam Reuters (real name Adam Pasick and Eric Reuters (Eric Krangel). A Reuters spokeswoman, confirming the Sadville bureau had been closed, told one online reporter: ”We’re still reporting on Second Life, but only as part of our usual tech and media coverage.” “Does Reuters’ withdrawal mean they’re going to have to explain to their boards why they spent tens of thousands of dollars on the digital equivalent of a wife-swapping party on an oil rig (embarrassing, empty, yet still really dirty)?” The Register said. “Well, there’s no need to fire up the self-justification Powerpoint yet, as it’s only Reuters editorial that has lost the faith. “‘As a company we’re still committed to Second Life,” the spokeswoman said. ‘We’re maintaining our corporate presence.’ Bravo!” Krangel himself went online to report in real-world confessional style: “For a year and a half, I reported under the byline ‘Eric Reuters’ in Second Life... “As part of walking my ‘beat’, I’d get invited by sources to virtual nightclubs, where I’d right-click the dancefloor to send my avatar gyrating as I sat at home at my computer. It was about as fun as watching paint dry.” Krangel added: “I wasn’t in Second Life to play, I was there on assignment for Reuters.” The opening of the bureau was described as part of Reuters’ strategy to embrace new digital platforms to deliver next generation news and information. “Reuters is all about innovation – new technologies, new audiences, and new ways of presenting the news,” CEO Tom Glocer said at the time. “In Second Life, we’re making Reuters part of a new generation. We’re playing an active role in this community by bringing the outside world into Second Life and vice versa.” ● SOURCE The Register | Silicon Alley Insider | Valleywag | Reuters Second Life News Center

Woodbridge signals Thomson Reuters share swap

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-21T17:30:25+00:00

Woodbridge, the Thomson family’s investment vehicle and controlling shareholder of Thomson Reuters, signalled on Friday it may be about to exchange Thomson Reuters Corporation shares for shares in Thomson Reuters PLC. Under a Canadian regulatory filing in Toronto, Woodbridge would sell up to 15 million common shares in the corporation on the Toronto Stock Exchange and concurrently buy a similar number of ordinary shares in the PLC on the London Stock Exchange. Woodbridge and other companies affiliated with it beneficially own an aggregate of 444,780,673 Thomson Reuters Corporation shares and 8,334,812 Thomson Reuters PLC ordinary shares. Its voting interest in Thomson Reuters is approximately 55 per cent. ● SOURCE Fox Business

Thomson Reuters shares climb on upgrade

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-24T17:27:52+00:00

Thomson Reuters shares climbed sharply on Monday on all four markets on which they are traded after an analyst upgraded the stock. The increases occurred as markets staged massive recoveries on positive news: a fiscal stimulus plan in Britain and in the United States a rescue plan for Citigroup and the announcement of President-elect Barack Obama’s economic leadership team. RBC Capital Markets analyst Drew McReynolds raised his rating on Thomson Reuters to “outperform” from “sector perform”. The upgrade reflected the stock’s recent sharp retreat, in which the company’s shares have lost 40 per cent of their value in the last three months. The analyst also thinks Thomson Reuters is taking an unfair hit from investors’ poor views of the firm’s Markets Division. “Although we expect the operating environment for the markets division to remain extremely difficult through 2011 we believe (the stock prices indicate) an overly pessimistic decline scenario for the division,” McReynolds wrote. He trimmed his price target to $30 from $35. Thomson Reuters’ London shares gained 15.66 per cent to 1,226 pence while those in New York gained 14.59 per cent to $23.33. The Toronto shares gained 10.79 per cent to C$28.75 and on NASDAQ the gain was 15.35 per cent to $111.62. ● SOURCE The Associated Press

Iraqi court tells US to free photographer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-11-30T17:26:51+00:00

An Iraqi court on Sunday ordered the release of a freelance photographer working for Reuters who has been held by US forces for three months. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed and ordered the US military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport. Iraqi prosecutors acknowledged there was a lack of evidence and said they were closing the case against Jassam. There was no immediate response from the US military but editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: “I hope the US authorities comply with this order swiftly to reunite him with his colleagues, friends and family.” US and Iraqi forces arrested Jassam on 2 September when they raided his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad. They confiscated his photographic equipment. Reuters and international media rights groups have criticised the US military's refusal to deal more quickly with suspicions apparently arising from reporters' legitimate activities covering acts of violence. ● SOURCE Reuters

UK editorial staff meet over pay offer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-03T17:25:47+00:00

Editorial staff at Thomson Reuters in London will hold a union meeting on Wednesday over management’s annual pay offer ahead of a year-end deadline for talks. The Guardian reported that despite beating forecasts in its latest results – Q3 revenues were eight per cent higher – the company initially threatened to freeze the basic salaries of its 5,000 UK staff next year because of the economic downturn. Staff would be eligible for a 2.5 per cent increase based on performance. “However, yesterday management was understood to have offered an improved deal of an across the board pay of 1%, with staff eligible for a further 1.5% in performance-related pay,” the newspaper said. The National Union of Journalists is holding out for a better offer. ● SOURCE The Guardian

NUJ members call for strike ballot

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-03T17:22:06+00:00

National Union of Journalists members at Thomson Reuters in London rejected a pay offer on Wednesday and instructed officials to hold a strike ballot. The company says the UK pay budget can rise only 2.5 per cent in 2009 because of the tough economic climate. The latest offer is for a one per cent increase across the board with a further 1.5 per cent based on performance. The offer was rejected unanimously at the NUJ meeting. A further motion to hold a ballot for industrial action was passed by an overwhelming majority. A strike over job cuts following the April merger of Thomson and Reuters was averted when management promised there would be no compulsory redundancies in the UK editorial operation. A company spokeswoman told The Guardian that talks over a pay deal were continuing. ● SOURCE The Guardian

US declines to free Iraqi photographer

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-09T17:20:24+00:00

The US military in Iraq refuses to obey a court order to release a freelance photographer working for Reuters and said on Tuesday it will hold him into 2009. The Iraqi Central Criminal Court ruled on 30 November that there was no evidence against Ibrahim Jassam Mohammed, detained in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya, 30 km south of Baghdad on 2 September. It ordered the US military to release him from Camp Cropper prison near Baghdad airport. Iraqi prosecutors acknowledged there was a lack of evidence and said they were closing the case against Jassam. “Though we appreciate the decision of the Central Criminal Court of Iraq in the Jassam case, their decision does not negate the intelligence information that currently lists him as a threat to Iraq security and stability,” Major Neal Fisher, spokesman for the US military’s detainee operations in Iraq, said in an e-mail to Reuters on Tuesday. “He will be processed for release in a safe and orderly manner after December 31st, in the order of his individual threat level, along with all other detainees.” Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger said: “I am disappointed he has not been released in accordance with the court order.” The International Federation of Journalists "strongly condemned" the decision. It "makes a mockery of the coalition's handover of powers to Iraqi sovereign institutions," said Aidan White, IFJ general secretary. "The American military officials in Iraq should stop interfering with the Iraqi justice and free Ibrahim." ● SOURCE Reuters

Reuters to include news by US ‘upstart’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-15T17:18:42+00:00

Reuters is to incorporate US government and political news from an “upstart news source” into its newswire in a revenue-sharing deal to offer combined coverage to American newspapers and broadcasters. The deal will bring together about 120 journalists in Washington, DC covering politics and business. The combined coverage will be offered to 60 newspapers and 40 broadcasters who are currently part of an advertising network run by Politico, an online service whose “informed political coverage, sometimes spiced with attitude” was launched less than two years ago. In exchange, they would allow Politico to sell online advertising on their websites. The New York Times described Politico as “the upstart news source from Washington” and Reuters as “the venerable wire service”. It said the venture was the latest step in the rising competition among electronic news media to fill the void left by the shrinking print business. The new service would be free for six months, and the partners could charge for the Reuters content after that, it said. But until then, Politico would offer Reuters a foot in the door at a large number of US news operations, said Christoph Pleitgen, Thomson Reuters’ global head of news agency. “He said his service had just 15 newspaper clients in this country, compared with more than 1,400 for The Associated Press,” The New York Times said. “If we can, through this, engage with potential clients we don’t have a relationship with, that’s fantastic,” Pleitgen said. “There absolutely is an untapped market.” The New York Times added: “Politico’s informed political coverage, sometimes spiced with attitude from its writers, complements Reuters’ sober style and Washington coverage that often reads as if written for an overseas audience.” ● SOURCE Reuters | The New York Times | Politico

Discordant notes on the economic crisis

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-17T17:15:48+00:00

Reuters has been indulging in navel-gazing over the global economic crisis to try to discover whether the media has been doing its job in reporting the story. Are journalists keeping things in perspective? Should they even be using words like “crisis” or “meltdown”? Are they being careful not to sow panic and make things even worse? David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, doubts whether financial journalists could have done much more to predict the depth of the crisis. “Journalists do best when reporting what’s happening and giving the news context and analysis,” he said. “We also do well when we look backwards and discuss past events from the perspective of the present. We do least well when we prognosticate. While our reporting and commentary did discuss potential weak points in the economy, we did not – and nor frankly could we – accurately predict the calamitous events of this year.” Dean Wright (pictured), global editor, ethics, innovation and news standards, says Schlesinger worries, though, that there was a certain inevitability to the crisis and that the media played a role. “I do worry about the narrative lines of reporting that contributed to the crisis,” he said. “To take just one example, much of the crisis was caused by banks taking on excess risks in the pursuit of higher profits. Yet had a major bank president stepped back from that fray and declined to participate, the ‘grammar’ of our results reporting would surely have compared that bank’s results negatively against expectations and against its peers. “That brave bank president would surely have lost at least his bonus and probably his job. The very fear of that kind of negative comparison helped spur things on – as Citibank’s ex-CEO Charles Prince said (while still in his job), ‘As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance.’ “We in the media help play that music, probably exacerbating the highs on the way up and the lows on the way down.” So, did the media help change the tune that was being played, Wright asks in a recent Reuters Editors blog. Did it raise questions about the factors that contributed to the crisis, including complex financial instruments, subprime mortgage lending and excessive risk? Questioning notes were sounded, he writes. As early as 18 August, 2003, a Reuters story quoted a Federal Reserve governor citing the dangers of “predatory lending” in extending subprime credit. By 2006, the pace had accelerated. A Factiva search found 128 Reuters stories that mentioned the phrase “subprime mortgage” that year, including a number in which analysts predicted a deterioration in credit quality. The crescendo came in 2007 when there were more than 10,000 stories that referenced subprime mortgages and when Reuters.com built a special section to house material on the issue. “Still, the overall ‘music’ was loud and infectious and it’s easy to understand why so many couldn’t stay off the dance floor, says Wright. He adds: “As Schlesinger says, ‘We have a responsibility to be careful, and most of our reporting has been very careful. But we too have played some discordant notes and we need to learn from that.’ ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson Reuters starting to feel ‘coherent, focused’

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-19T17:14:07+00:00

At the close of a rollercoaster year of firsts, integration pains and the most challenging market of a lifetime, Thomson Reuters is starting to feel like a coherent, focused business and is on track to become one company in one year, says Devin Wenig, markets division CEO. There is lots more to do and there are more challenges to come – hold tight for another amazing year, he has told staff. “We recently held our holiday parties and I have to say that I wasn’t sure how people would react to these parties, given our focus on costs and the uncertainty in the market,” Wenig said in a year-end message. “I think people really had a great time and they understand that our goal was simply to say thanks for an extraordinary effort in an extraordinary year. “As someone said to me in New York, anybody that has a party in this market environment must be winning! “And what an amazing year it’s been – no-one could have predicted even a year ago the pace of change that we have seen inside our organization but also what’s happening to the markets and to our customers. “It’s been a year of highs and lows, of things to celebrate, of getting to know new friends and colleagues, and saying goodbye to colleagues who are no longer with us. And, sadly, it’s also saying goodbye to long-standing institutions like Lehman Brothers who had been a loyal customer and supporter of ours for many, many years.” It has been a year of firsts, Wenig said – the first year as a new company, the first year of serving a new and diverse customer base and the first year of making a significant step change in service. “But we had two other important firsts this year. We won our first Pulitzer prize – won by Reuters News for breaking news photography taken by Adrees Latif. And then just recently, we won our first Emmy in recognition of Reuters News and our role in the pursuit of truth and our contribution to society. The Emmy, for lifetime achievement in journalism, was awarded to our own Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger. I’m incredibly proud of these two achievements, particularly as they come from the US, a part of the world where Reuters News has not always been as well known but is now gaining a really important place in the markets and with our clients. “Let’s not forget what we were able to achieve together. We’ve pulled the business together; we’ve met our customers’ high expectations of service and benefits; we’ve exceeded our targets for the integration; and we’ve continued to deliver growth in the most challenging market of a lifetime. Most importantly, we’re on a path to become one company in one year. I hear a lot more people these days talk about Thomson Reuters rather than Thomson Financial or Reuters. It’s starting to feel like a coherent, focused business. We have a lot more to do and many challenges to come but I will enter 2009 with the optimism of knowing we have great people, great assets and a focused and high performing team. “So we’re coming to the end of a rollercoaster year and I want you to know how grateful I am for all of your hard work; for putting up with the pains of integration and for helping me to build the great company that I dream about for all of us. “Thank you and I hope you all have a wonderful time with family and friends over the holiday period. I know that many of you will be working around the world over the holidays and keeping our content and news flowing – and I thank you for that. “So here’s to 2009…get some rest and get ready to hold on tight for what undoubtedly will be another amazing year.” ● SOURCE Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters to issue up to $3 billion in debt

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-16T21:42:27+00:00

Thomson Reuters filed with US regulators on Tuesday to issue up to $3 billion of debt over the next 25 months. It said the proceeds would be used for general corporate purposes and the specific terms of the debt securities would be provided later. A copy of the filing was also filed with Canadian regulators. ● SOURCE Reuters

Obituary: Arthur Spiegelman

editor@thebaron.info — 2008-12-20T18:37:09+00:00

Arthur Spiegelman, global entertainment editor, died on Saturday at his home in Los Angeles aged 68. After a Reuters career of 42 years, he went on permanent medical leave only a few weeks ago and his health declined rapidly on Wednesday. He had suffered from cancer for several years. Spiegelman's death occurred at around 7:00 pm (3:00 am Sunday GMT). His wife Charlotte, their sons Michael and Adam, younger brother Marvin and granddaughter Molly Mae were with him at the end. Paul Holmes, former correspondent and editor, said: “I was privileged to speak to Art on the phone from New York just a few hours ago, though he could not respond. I told him how much he meant to so many people ... but I think he knew that.” Spiegelman was one of Reuters’ finest writers and longest-serving correspondents whose graceful prose and unfailing sense of humour made him one of its most admired correspondents. David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief, said: “Art’s writing was beloved of readers and editors alike, using a light touch to explore subjects from pop culture to politics and an ability to find a laugh or wry angle anywhere. He was a friend and mentor to legions of journalists.” Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Spiegelman joined Reuters in London in 1966 from a New Jersey newspaper, the Bergen Evening Record. His stint on the Americas desk at 85 Fleet Street was supposed to last for six months but he stayed on and never bothered to inquire whether the job that was being held open for him at the newspaper in Hackensack was still open. In 1972, after a spell in London Bureau, he returned to the United States where he was a New York shift editor and later New York correspondent. In 1985 Spiegelman stood in as bureau chief in Manila for six months. During the past decade, he had been based in Los Angeles as West Coast bureau chief and later global entertainment editor. Spiegelman said the reason he stayed with Reuters so long was that he kept on meeting "all these nice people". As ill-health forced him to go on medical leave, Bernd Debusmann, a long-time colleague, wrote: "I can think of few journalists – inside and outside Reuters – who can write as beautifully as Arthur. His copy has flair and style, bite, wit and insight. He can produce sparkling prose on virtually any subject. His byline is known by editors around the world, one of whom was so impressed by a particular story that he wrote to Arthur's boss at the time, Evelyn Leopold, to ask "Is Arthur Spiegelman for sale? Would my right arm be payment enough? On the basis of his piece... I'd be prepared to go higher if necessary." “The phrase ‘larger than life’ comes to mind when one thinks of Arthur. It really fits."  Schlesinger recalled that "Arthur could be described as chaos incarnate – his office swamped with piles of books, his filing system personal and eccentric, his appearance that of a stereotypical absent minded professor, his copy littered with typographical errors. Yet out of that chaos came beautiful, clear and ordered journalism, journalism that covered a diverse range of subjects so far-reaching over his four decades that it could put the output of many a small bureau to shame. That journalism, together with Arthur's wonderful, helpful personality shaped the lives and careers and output of many a reporter following in his path." Global managing editor Betty Wong wrote: "It's very easy to pay tribute to a legend at Reuters. What has been harder is seeing fewer Arthur Spiegelman bylines on the news file as of late. And, after all, Art could tell the story of his days at Reuters over the past 40 plus years better than anyone else. His strength in the face of adversity is humbling. He is not shy about talking about his own health but is more interested in what's going on with you and office shenanigans." The funeral will be held at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary, 6001 W. Centinela Avenue, Los Angeles (link below) at 11:00 am on Tuesday 23 December. Charlotte says flowers “are not necessary” but donations to honour her husband’s memory can be made to the Sova Food Pantry (link below). A memorial service will be held later, probably in January. ● Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary ● Sova Food Pantry ● People: The Art of being a journalist ● John Abell’s tribute ● CLICK to read tributes on the Mail page. ● SOURCE Reuters

Thomson family ‘unhappy’ at UK stock discount

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-08T16:34:55+00:00

The Thomson family, controlling shareholder in Thomson Reuters, is unhappy at the discount of around 25 per cent of its UK stock trades to the Canadian listing, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Citing gossip, it said there was talk of a possible capital restructuring. The family funded a buy-back of the London-traded shares in 2008 by selling down its Canadian issues. That triggered speculation it could eventually delist the UK stock entirely, the FT said. But authorisation for the buy-back expired at the end of last year and cannot be renewed as Thomson Reuters is in a closed period ahead of its 2008 results on 24 February. Another option to narrow the discount would be to make the two lines of stock fully fungible or mutually interchangeable. However, dealers saw it more likely the family will wait until after the results and reinstate its stock swap, the FT said. Thomson Reuters closed at 1,458 pence, down two per cent. The slide came in response to UBS “sell” advice and after comments from chief financial officer Robert Daleo to an investor conference that revenue growth this year would slow. ● SOURCE Financial Times

Obituary: Ralph Harris

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-08T07:16:02+00:00

Ralph Harris, who as Reuters’ White House correspondent covered eight US presidents from Truman to Reagan, has died at the age of 87. The cause of death in a hospital outside Washington on 24 December was respiratory failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He also had emphysema. Harris reported on the "frenzied" aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination amid shotgun-wielding Texas policemen in 10-gallon hats and filed details of Lee Harvey Oswald's own murder from a public telephone box while surrounded by an angry mob. He was unflappable and invariably easy to deal with, provided he was shown the proper respect as the most senior reporter in Reuters' main reporting bureau. He was known for precise and clear-cut reports and was never reluctant to point out shortcomings. As Ronald Reagan’s press secretary Larry Speakes put it when announcing at a White House briefing on 25 March 1986 that Harris was retiring, he was a “reporter’s reporter” focusing on “accuracy and speed... facts without fluff”. Reagan wrote to Harris describing him as a “veritable institution among the Fourth Estate in Washington”. Harris was immensely proud to be Reuters' chief White House correspondent and refused to take another job. Although well-qualified, he did not even want to be considered for bureau chief when that post became vacant. But he could occasionally be cajoled to handle other major news events. In February 1976, with an announcement imminent on whether Concorde would be allowed to fly into the United States, Reuters was anxious to be first with the news, and Harris was suggested as the best person for the job. "No," he said, "I only cover the president!" Colleagues appealed to his pride by noting he was the quickest reporter they had. "You really think so?" he asked, and, scouring official documents, he quickly found his story, leading with the supersonic aircraft's two-word landing authorisation: "Concorde OK". In the early 1980s Reuters – conscious of the importance of branding – wanted Harris to ask questions at televised presidential news conferences. Harris initially shied away from the limelight but quickly relented when warned that another Reuters reporter at the news conferences would take his place. Thereafter, presidents were often quizzed as television screens flashed: "Ralph Harris, Reuters." Born in Manchester, England, in 1921, he started his career with the Birkenhead News in Liverpool. After World War Two, during which he served with the Royal Air Force in South Africa, he travelled to the United States and joined Reuters in Washington in 1949. The bureau had a staff of five – four correspondents and a teleprinter operator. Harris began covering news conferences towards the end of President Harry Truman's administration and remained through the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations, travelling all over the United States and the world as a member of the White House press corps. For the better part of 37 years Harris made the White House beat his own. He established himself as one of Reuters’ quickest and most facile writers with his reports on presidential politics, crises and tragedy through the Korean War, the Cuban missile stand-off, the assassinations of President John Kennedy and Senator Robert Kennedy, Vietnam, Watergate, Richard Nixon's downfall and the Iranian hostage crisis. When President Kennedy was shot on 22 November 1963, Harris flew immediately to Dallas where Lee Harvey Oswald was already being grilled as the chief suspect. He later described the “fantastic and fiction-like” atmosphere there. “The most frenzied scene I have ever experienced greeted me on my arrival outside the Homicide Squad Room on the third floor of Police Headquarters. Oswald was being brought in and out for questioning by cigar-smoking detectives wearing ten-gallon hats. Witnesses were besieged and pinned against the wall for interviews before police, armed with revolvers and shotguns, rescued them and took them away.” Harris established himself in a television transmitting-truck parked outside the building, “keeping one eye on the possibility of trouble from a large ill-tempered crowd outside and the other on the monitors in the truck”. He described his reaction upon seeing Oswald’s murder on screen. “The fatal shot fired by Jack Ruby into Oswald’s abdomen at point-blank range in the presence of armed police and reporters had such a stunning impact that the scene froze into a moment of paralysed amazement. Then pandemonium as Oswald dropped to the concrete floor... “I ran to a street telephone two blocks away, filed a snap to New York, dashed back to the TV truck, and then back to the phone to fill in some of the details... A crowd of about 200 people crowded around me to listen to what I had to say, and as I was talking to New York I could hear some of them shouting, ‘He should get a medal’ and ‘Let’s hope he shot him in the eye’ (this took place before Oswald died). “I included these remarks in my story, and then turned around to find a small scowling group threatening to express displeasure with what I had filed. It often happens, particularly in the violence-ridden South, that people do not like to be quoted, even anonymously, when they give vent to their feelings. But I was not interfered with, and the next problem was to find transportation to get to the hospital where Oswald was dying.” In 1979, Harris earned the singular distinction of becoming the first foreign-born journalist to be elected president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. At the association’s annual dinner, he described the traditional role of his office as “criticising the president's last 12 months and advising him on the next 12 months. “As a foreigner, I thought it would be impertinent...,” he said, as the rest of the sentence was drowned out by loud, prolonged applause from President Jimmy Carter. The next year, Carter did not attend the dinner. Harris suggested it was because “he was afraid I would introduce him as the 39th governor general of the Colonies”. A long-time member of the National Press Club, in retirement he spent many hours there playing gin rummy tournaments. Harris is survived by Ena, his wife of 64 years, daughter Fabia, son Stephen and four grandchildren. He lived in the Washington area for 60 years and became an American citizen in 1995. Photo shows Harris (centre) at the time of his retirement in 1986 with four White House press secretaries and (far right) Washington bureau chief Bruce Russell. The press secretaries (left to right) are Jerald terHorst (Gerald Ford), Ronald Ziegler (Richard Nixon), James Brady (seated, Ronald Reagan), and Jody Powell (Jimmy Carter). ● SOURCE Washington Post

Thomson Reuters looks abroad to make up for Wall Street

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-08T15:31:37+00:00

Thomson Reuters is facing a “significant reduction” in US business after the collapse of several Wall Street financial institutions, chief financial officer Robert Daleo said on Thursday. But the company is making up for it by focusing on clients abroad. “We have seen a significant reduction and lost business as a result of Bear Sterns and cutbacks in other areas, but many of our large accounts continue to hold up fairly well,” Daleo said at a media and telecommunications conference in Phoenix, Arizona. He said Thomson Reuters’ Top 25 accounts (also known as “focus group accounts”) represent about 13 per cent of revenues. However, an internal shift in perspective has helped soften the financial impact of some of the firms closing their doors. “We have seen, all year long, declines in sales to the focus group accounts, but we have been able to offset those with good performance in other areas,” he said. “We have continued through the first nine months to see strong performance in places like the Middle East, Asia, and certain segments of Europe.” Daleo declined to provide Q4 or 2009 forecasts. “We remain very encouraged by the continued performance of the business across all of our units, and I’ll leave it at that,” he said. Daleo said Thomson Reuters has about $8 billion in debt with an average maturity of about six and a quarter years and a 5.5 per cent interest rate. It has also paid off debt from Reuters. “We really don’t have to go back into the debt markets to refinance our long-term debt in 2009,” he said. In addition, the company has a credit facility of $2.5 billion which he said was “totally untapped”. Daleo also spoke about the difference between Thomson Reuters share prices in London and Toronto. The London shares trade at a discount of nearly 30 per cent to the Toronto shares and the company has been unable to close the gap. “We’re prepared to invest the time and energy and effort with our UK investors to help them understand the dynamics of the business,” he said. The London shares closed down two per cent at 1,458 pence. The Toronto shares closed 5.63 per cent at C$31.99. ● SOURCE The Guardian | The Canadian Press

FT speculates Thomson Reuters may de-list in London

editor@thebaron.info — 2009-01-09T15:25:52+00:00

More than 150 years after Paul Julius Reuter started to supply prices from the London Stock Exchange, traders there are beginning to ask whether Thomson Reuters might one day disappear from the UK market, the Financial Times said on Friday. The likely reason for the symbolic shock of a possible de-listing: the valuation gap between the shares in London and in North America, currently about 22 per cent. “North American investors are concerned the depressed UK price drags on their stock,” the FT said. “They ask whether further action, possibly including an end to the London listing, may be needed.” Analysts at TD Newcrest, a Canadian brokerage, summarised the dilemma last week, saying: “We are reluctant to continue recommending [the Canadian stock] when we know that investors can buy an identical economic interest in the company for 22 per cent less via [the London] shares.” Analysts attribute the discrepancy to hedge fund activity, currency exposures and differing views of the company’s assets on opposite sides of the Atlantic, but many have been startled by the extent of the gap, the FT said. “Thomson people think the old Thomson [which encompasses legal, healthcare and scientific databases] is greatly underestimated [in London],” said Patrick Wellington, a Morgan Stanley analyst. UK investors with memories of Reuters’ deep troubles in past market slumps have also been more bearish about prospects for its financial data business, Thomson Reuters Markets, which contributes 60 per cent of group sales and about 40 per cent of profits, the FT said. “We’re prepared to invest the time and energy and effort with our UK investors to help them understand the dynamics of the business,” chief financial officer Robert Daleo told a conference this week. Extensive investor relations efforts have made little difference so far, however. The FT said Woodbridge, the Thomson family investment company and the group’s largest shareholder, has attempted to tackle another factor behind the UK discount, providing liquidity to arbitrageurs who struggle to borrow the tightly held Toronto stock by swapping some of its Canadian shares for UK paper. The strategy has been modestly lucrative. By effectively buying about C$300 million of stock at about a 20 per cent discount, Woodbridge has made about C$60 million, but the sum is small set beside the family holding company’s wealth. Two rounds of such trades have yet to close the gap. The FT said Woodbridge, which had 70 per cent of Thomson Reuters Corp when the takeover closed, has so far amassed an eight per cent holding in Thomson Reuters Plc. The FT said it is thought unlikely that Woodbridge would seek to increase its overall holding beyond the current total, which has edged up from 53 per cent to 55 per cent with dividend reinvestments. A Thomson Reuters spokesman would not comment on the dual listed company (DLC) structure, it said. “People close to the company say it has no plans to change it in the next few months. However, board members review the structure regularly, aware that other DLCs, such as Reed Elsevier, have not seen such wide valuation gaps.” The London shares represent 24 per cent of the group’s value. North Americans now control more than 50 per cent of the UK stock. “One theory is that the group can wait until north American ownership is sufficiently high that the majority of London investors ask for Canadian or U.S. stock instead. What that percentage would have to be, however, is unclear,” the FT said. “Ending the former Reuters’ presence on the London exchange would be a symbolic shock to many.” ● SOURCE Financial Times