Fun Internet stuff died with Reuters Next - Felix Salmon

Terminating work on Reuters Next, a news operation aimed at the consumer market, was one of the first actions of Andrew Rashbass, who had only recently joined as Reuters chief executive from The Economist group, where he had led a successful print-to-digital strategy.

It was one reason why Salmon left Reuters after five years, he said in an interview two days after announcing his departure “to do exciting things on the Internet”. 

Salmon, 42, told The New York Times that, though he still believes Reuters does impeccable journalism, “when Reuters Next died, my opportunity to do fun Internet stuff died with it”.

Salmon said he will join the cable network Fusion as senior editor on Monday in a web-based role that runs across multiple media. Fusion is aimed at a younger audience, with “animations, videos, data visualization stuff, ways of using other platforms to convey information and tell stories”.

“The reason why I am going to Fusion is that they have the ability to help me communicate in the ways that people are going to consume information in the future. Which is not 1,500-word blocks of text.”

Freed from the constraints of having to attract people directly to a website, he said, “you can have a lot of fun”. ■