Two more women bow out from Reuters editorial

Two more women are leaving Reuters editorial after long careers with the agency. Tiziana Barghini (top photo)​, a markets and economics editor in New York who coordinated coverage of the US municipal bond market, departs after 25 years, and Carole Vaporean (bottom photo), who covered commodities markets, is leaving after 26 years.

Reuters announced earlier this month that it would cut about five per cent of its editorial staff, or about 140 positions, worldwide. Earlier this month Claudia Parsons, a top news editor in New York for the last two years, left after 16 years with Reuters, and Catherine Bremer, chief correspondent in Paris, left after 17 years.

Barghini spent most of her Reuters career in Europe, working and reporting from different countries including Italy and Spain. In the mid-1980s, she started writing in Italian about Italy’s debt market, reporting on a lira and sterling crisis in 1992 and the Italian “Clean Hands” corruption scandal. She moved to Spain to join Reuters’ English-language team covering the expansion of the Spanish economy. On returning to Milan, she helped to launch a general news service in Italian for an online audience. She served as editor for Southern Europe from 2007 to 2010, overseeing coverage from Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.

Barghini moved to New York in 2010 to work as editor in charge for the Reuters Summits round-table interviews with key leaders in different industries, countries and topics ranging from Africa to technology companies.

“I consider myself very lucky to have worked with a great cast of excellent reporters and editors,” she said. “Now it is time to move on to something new.”

Vaporean said: “After 26 years slogging it out as a financial reporter for Reuters, I decided to move on to expand on my 10-year commitment to women’s global empowerment. Over the years, I covered Federal Reserve policy, US and international economics, developed an expertise in technical analysis forecasting of financial and commodity markets, that included a column on foreign exchange markets. I helped start two corporate bond market desks and covered Treasury securities, money market securities and Foreign Sovereign debt, as well as various stock and commodity markets, like gold, oil, industrial metals, and agricultural products.

“While I have conducted innumerable executive interviews, some of the most notable included a chat with Playboy CEO Christie Heffner, a brief Q&A with former Federal Reserve vice chair Alice Rivlin while smashed against each other in a packed elevator and a moment of truth when a female competitor chased New York Federal Reserve President Bill McDonough into the men’s room at the Waldorf Astoria, which is where I drew the line on how far I’d go to get the story. The irony, he gave me the interview when he emerged from the men’s room and a sea of disappointed journalists that had swallowed up my competitor.” After returning from a two-year sabbatical she moved to Reuters’ nascent TV operation to help develop and produce some of the shows that would become its bread-and-butter programming. Eventually, I returned to writing, reporting and editing.

“I’ve lived through Reuters’ many transformations, but was finally made an offer I could not refuse that allows me to create the next phase of my very active life. I see the rapid social and environmental change happening in the world and feel that I can make a greater impact writing about those issues and trends going forward. For the last 10 years, I have worked tirelessly with organizations committed to global empowerment of women and want to further those efforts, as well. Fate will dictate my steps from here, as I continue to practice gratitude, grace and generosity.” ■