Latest job cuts at Thomson Reuters hit 3,000 - report

Company spokeswoman Barb Burg, confirming the layoffs but giving no number, said last week Reuters was focusing attention on its global cost structure “as well as the need to simplify and ensure we have the skills and expertise within our organization so we can continue to contribute maximum value to the business and our customers”.

The New York Observer, reporting the 3,000 figure on Tuesday, said: “Thomson and Reuters merged in 2007 and have yet to nail their business strategy. The merged company sells content to subscribers through financial terminals and acts as a wire service with boots on the ground in far-flung locales (including Times Square).” A tipster who was let go wrote to the Observer to explain that part of the problem was that the company had been unsuccessfully playing catch-up with Bloomberg.

“Last year, Reuters introduced the new Eikon terminal, which received a lukewarm reception. Chris Roush, the director of business news initiatives at the University of North Carolina’s School of Journalism & Mass Communication, who broke news of the layoffs on Talking Biz News, attributes this to a combination of Wall Street’s struggles and tough competition from Bloomberg.

“Thomson Reuters overall is still trying to determine what it is,” Roush told the Observer. “They are still not fully integrated as a company.”

It said that although exact numbers for editorial layoffs were hard to come by sources said they were not as severe as they might have been. Still, some big names had left the company. It mentioned Peter Bohan, editor of Reuters America Service, Brad Dorfman, US retail and consumer products company news editor, and Lee Aitken, who had been in charge of political coverage since 2012.

“While most of the departures occurred at the managerial level, the majority of the Reuters TV team is out as well, after YouTube’s decision not to renew its one-year-old contract with the news service.

“I’d like to believe that the new management has figured out a strategy, but it’s still too early to tell,” Roush said. Editor-in-chief Stephen Adler appointed a number of former Wall Street Journal journalists to top positions in 2011 — including Paul Ingrassia, who has served as Adler’s deputy since then, the Observer reported.

“Mr. Roush noted that there has been a greater push toward investigative journalism, which, while impressive, has made some wonder if Reuters is straying away from its wire service roots.”

One company insider told The Baron there were redundancies in Europe including London and Brussels. ■