Bloomberg News editor in chief John Micklethwait sent out the following to the staff:
To All in Editorial & Research:
At our executive editor meeting in New York earlier this year, one theme was the importance of getting “back to basics”: breaking news covering the issues where our clients expect us to lead the way, and owning stories across all our platforms.
The way we covered the fallout from the failure of Silicon Valley Bank over the past few days illustrates how powerful we are when we do the above. Our reporters broke news on the US rescue, the auction of SVB and the fallout in California. Our live blog has been essential reading. We delivered special editions of newsletters, podcasts, TV shows and revamped our home page, and we chronicled the reasons for the collapse well ahead of our competitors.
Continuing the “back to basics” theme, this week we are making some interrelated changes to several different parts of Editorial. For the full details, you can read the relevant memos from Heather, Stephanie, Jackie and Reto, which I have copied below but here are a few of the headlines.
We will create a new “this-just-in” group under Matt Miller that will consist of the current Breaking News team, Eco Data and the Today/Daybreak and Weekend teams. The Today team will now have regional leaders with a secondary reporting line into the News Desk.
Ros Mathieson will take over the News Desk in EMEA and Edward Evans will take over the Hub.
We will further integrate the Eco and Gov parts of Stephanie’s team, with the Washington Bureau Chief Peggy Collins taking over responsibility for the combined group in the US.
Heather is also reorganizing our Markets coverage so that Simon Kennedy oversees a new Macro team, including FX/Rates, Emerging Markets and Asian Markets.
As you will see if you read the full memos, these changes mean that we will soon post plenty of important jobs, including a new head for EcoGov in both Asia and EMEA, and a Managing Editor for the News Desk in Europe. Soon we will also get David Merritt and Roman Mackiewicz’s masterplan for Media and we will come back with more detailed plans for the News Desks too.
You may ask why, when we are doing so well, we need to alter our system. The basic answer is that we can always be better. The media graveyard is full of companies who thought they could be market leaders forever. As the arrival of ChatGPT reminds us, our industry keeps on changing. We need to keep on improving too.
Now over to the individual memos from Heather, Stephanie, Jackie and Reto.
John
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MARKETS
I’m delighted to announce that Simon Kennedy, Senior Executive Editor for Global Economics, is moving to Markets to oversee what I’m loosely describing as macro markets. There is huge potential in bringing our global markets coverage closer to the economy and government teams, as well as having a fresh pair of eyes on the stories and products. As most of you know, Simon has years of expertise reporting, editing and running economics and central bank coverage from Washington, Paris and London, as well as a stint as London Bureau Chief and Brexit Czar.
Simon’s location in London is also a bonus, since we don’t have one unifying force for markets in the bureau. He will be a valuable resource for the teams, particularly in the hours between Singapore and New York. As Kristine Aquino moves to New York to oversee the web blogs from there later this year, Simon’s London bureau network will be a huge asset as we build out the product.
Jenny Paris, Paul Dobson and Vivianne Rodrigues will report into Simon in this new constellation. This reflects the more obvious synergies between their groups and EcoGov. Chris Nagi, Celeste Perri and Dan Hauck will continue to report directly into me, given the more natural areas of collaboration between Finance/Legal and Credit, Deals and Tech/Global Business and Finance/Legal and Crypto, to name but a few.
I would emphasize, however, that I’m not approaching this in any hierarchical or strict org-chart fashion. Anyone can assign, write, edit or provide feedback on any of the coverage and anyone can talk to anyone without dozens of people needing to be CC-ed. Indeed, I expect to see us pushing collaboration at the reporter-to-reporter level and empowering the editors on David Papadopoulos’s team to deliver on stories from the ground up.
We have big ambitions for our markets coverage this year, ranging from the sophisticated and essential products we deliver to our Terminal clients to high-impact scoops and enterprise worthy of awards submissions. We have the equities and credit expansion to deliver on. Our Emerging Markets vertical is off to an excellent start. In short, there is a lot to do.
Our authoritative coverage on the collapse of SVB over the past few days has shown what we’re capable of when we drive collaboration across beat reporting, markets, News Desks and the bureaus as well as video, TV and audio.
As per Stephanie Flanders‘s separate memo, Simon’s move coincides with a broader reorganization of our economics and government coverage globally, with the groups merging in each of the three regions.
Please give Simon a warm welcome to markets and add him to your message groups.
Heather
ECOGOV
To: All in Economics and Government and Bloomberg Economics
After a stellar 5 years running International Government, Rosalind Mathieson is off to conquer new territory as EMEA News Director, where her news judgment and famed organizational talents will surely be put to good use. Simon Kennedy has spent a similar amount of time at the helm of global economics. His record of continually raising the quality of our coverage, plus a lifetime covering all things macroeconomic, have more than earned him a new job running the ‘macro’ parts of Markets for Heather Harris, a move which we hope will bring that part of the newsroom even closer to ours.
Ros and Simon have both made such a mark, it is difficult to imagine either economics or government coverage without them. That is one reason why I’m taking the opportunity to abolish their old jobs and move to a fully unified regional approach. The bigger reason is simply the world around us.
Inflation is back and what was cheap is now expensive, especially energy and money. Globally, policy makers and households are being tested by multiple crises and the basic geopolitical assumptions underpinning 30 years of global economic integration are being thrown into the air. We can’t do justice to these stories – breaking news and explaining why they matter – if our economics and government reporters are running in different lanes.
Happily, the lines between the two have been blurring for a while but it’s time to get rid of them altogether. From now on, economics and political coverage will be run by three regional leaders reporting directly to me.
In EMEA and Latin America, the teams are already largely integrated but they will now be led a single new Executive Editor for Economics and Government in EMEA and Latin America, a role we are posting today. Managing Editors Ben Sills, Brendan Scott and Juan-Pablo Spinetto will all report in to this person and will run the coverage for their respective regions in the period before the EE is appointed.
Coinciding with these changes, I’m delighted to announce that Sylvia Westall in Dubai is to become Managing Editor for Economics and Government in Russia, the Middle East and Africa. Sylvia has wide experience not just in economic and government coverage (here and at Reuters) but also energy and finance, and can now deploy her expertise on the topic of money and power across RAM as a whole. We will post for her replacement as Team Leader in due course. Sylvia will also report to the new Executive Editor for EMEA and LatAm.
In Asia, the change will be more dramatic, as economics and government teams are unified and regionalized under a new Executive Editor for Economics and Government in Asia, the second new role that we are posting today. The successful candidate will have two Managing Editors reporting to them covering North and South Asia, respectively.
Daniel Ten Kate in Hong Kong will be the Managing Editor for Economics and Government in North Asia. He will have two unified economics and government teams reporting in to him, one covering Japan and Korea, to be led by Paul Jackson, and the other covering China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. We are posting for someone to lead that team. Nasreen Seria will continue in Hong Kong as a Senior Editor, also reporting to Dan.
I have decided that the new Managing Editor for Economics and Government in South and and South-East Asia should be based in India, to reflect that country’s growing importance to the story and our clients. This is the fourth and final job being posted today as part of this re-organization. As in North Asia, the new ME will have two newly integrated teams reporting in to them, one covering South-East Asia and Australia, to be led by Clarissa Batino, and the other covering South Asia, led by Niki Koswanage. Malcolm Scott will be acting Managing Editor in South and South-East Asia until that position is filled. After six years of exemplary service running economics coverage in Asia, Malcolm will then take a new role as International Enterprise Editor working closely with Alan Crawford and all the regional editing hubs on enterprise and other special projects. Both Alan and Malcolm will report directly to me.
Dan Ten Kate and Malcolm Scott will be in charge of the coverage for North and South Asia respectively in the period before an EE is appointed.
In the US, the economics and government teams led by Scott Lanman and Michael Shepard will henceforth report to Peggy Collins, who will report to me. Peggy was an obvious choice to unify the coverage in the US after her previous success running US economics and most recently, a transformative first year as Washington Bureau Chief, a role she retains. In the interests of continuity the reporting teams in DC will not change right away, but I would expect them to become more integrated over time. How best to do that in practice I am leaving to Peggy, Mike, and Scott to consider.
Finally, Josh Robinson’s Eco Data team is moving back (!) to a newly expanded Breaking News grouping, reporting to Matt Miller. I am sorry to see them go, but as we move the two sides of our coverage together it makes sense for Josh’s team to break down silos in a different way, finding opportunities for collaboration and cross-pollination working with others who share their focus on this-just-in content for Bloomberg’s professional customers.
Changing all of these reporting lines and job titles will not change much if reporters and editors continue to think of themselves as ‘Eco’ or ‘Gov.’ The change has to go all the way down. But we are already a long way down this road and so is the world we cover. With the power of the terminal, Bloomberg Economics, and the wider newsroom, we also have an unrivalled capacity to describe and explain these new chapters in the ‘chronicle of capitalism’ in a smart and seamless way.
So congratulations to Simon and Ros. We will find a better opportunity to toast their amazing reign in the coming days. But good riddance to their old jobs. We are truly all EcoGov now.
Stephanie
NEWS DESK
To: EMEA Editorial
I’m very pleased to announce a new News Director and an Executive Editor of the Editing Hub for Europe, Middle East & Africa. Ros Mathieson, who brings three decades of experience as editor and manager across multiple time zones and has run our international politics coverage as Senior Executive Editor, will become EMEA News Director. Ros’s planning and management of coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues to set much of the global agenda. Her prior stints as News Director for Asia and regional head of Markets coverage at Dow Jones also speak to the global approach we want for news directing and round-the-clock coverage planning.
Edward Evans, who has run groups including Finance and Opinion from London, as well as Brexit coverage, and who most recently led EMEA’s News Desk as Managing Editor, takes over the Editing Hub from James Boxell, who will return in a senior editing role this spring. It goes without saying that the post-Brexit hangover — a story Edward deftly handled in a previous incarnation as Brexit Czar — remains a centerpiece of our strategic Bloomberg UK initiative and an essential part of storytelling across the region.
Both Ros and Edward will have the critical roles of directing cross-team coverage, cross-platform planning, promotion and editing. Their appointments are well timed to the barrage of news and events emanating from EMEA — war on our doorstep in Ukraine continues to exacerbate an energy and cost-of-living crisis throughout the world, while capital flows and investment in the Middle East, as well as political shifts across Africa, are changing all aspects of those economies and businesses.
Equally, it’s an exciting moment to better collaborate with our global video, digital, audio and graphic teams and Research groups. The combination of Ros as News Director and Edward’s oversight of Hub Editing will be a solid base from which we can, as a region, adjust course on everything from planning and editing to packaging and promotion, giving even greater visibility to all the incredible work we produce.
Please congratulate Ros and Edward on their new roles, which are part of a broader set of changes to appear in John Micklethwait‘s weekly note. In addition, I want to extend a huge thank you to Stuart Wallace for his leadership and work with EMEA teams over the past three years.
We will soon post for an EMEA News Desk Managing Editor to succeed Edward.
Thank you and best,
Jackie
BREAKING NEWS
All,
We are expanding and reshaping the Breaking News family and bringing everyone involved in “this-just-in” for our professional users under one roof. Matt Miller, who invented Daybreak and Bloomberg Today, will oversee the new pod, which will include Katherine Cho’s Breaking News empire, Josh Robinson’s Eco Data team (welcome back!), and Matt’s current 24/7 group.
As part of this combination, we’re reorganizing the 24/7 team along regional lines and merging the Bloomberg Today and Daybreak teams. In that reshaped group, Alison Ciaccio will be in charge of the Americas, James Ludden will return to the UK and manage EMEA, and Linus Chua will relocate to Singapore and oversee Asia. To integrate our mobile and desk top offerings even more, the three regional 24/7 heads will have a secondary reporting line into the News Directors. Pete Newcomb and Lars Klemming become Senior Editors for Today and Daybreak, with Pete relocating to Los Angeles.
Why are we doing this? Everyone in these teams is involved in the most urgent news, and everyone has a laser focus on the professional user. Yet due to our somewhat siloed approach, we are missing opportunities for cross-pollination and collaboration. This is going to change that, and it will make us more efficient. It will also make everyone’s job (even) more interesting. We hope to see Breaking News folks help out with Daybreak and Bloomberg Today, or maybe do a stint on mobile alerts and Eco Data, and vice versa. The opportunities for total football are limitless – just look at how we led the competition over the weekend on all things SVB.
The “this-just-in'” alignment is part of a broader set of changes that will be in John’s weekly note today. We will also post for some fun jobs, including: Executive Editor, Weekends, based in NYC; Senior Editor, Bloomberg Today, NYC, and Today/Daybreak Editor, Asia.
The best is yet to come, as we used to say around here. So let’s get going.
Reto
