Reuters drops top sports editor from Olympics team

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.” ■