News chief in Trust Principles pledge to staff after 'minor uprising'

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”. ■