Bloomberg consolidates markets coverage globally

Chris Collins, the senior executive editor of markets for Bloomberg, sent out the following announcement on Thursday:

To Markets Teams,

Today we are announcing significant changes to our markets coverage and organization.

At the center is a new vision for real-time markets journalism that cuts through the noise and plays directly to our audiences on all platforms.

By combining the First Word, Markets and Web teams, we will reduce duplication and create one global group under Executive Editor Madeleine Lim. The structure will be organized into the following areas: Equities and Equity Markets, FX/Rates, Credit, Emerging Markets, Cross-Asset, Curation and Blogs.

The goal is a modernized suite of coverage that reflects the sophistication of our readers — and delivers agenda-setting stories alongside immediate breaking news and analysis. These changes should broaden the audience for our fast-paced First Word content; make our longer narratives more nimble and actionable; and make our reporting from the regions more comprehensive and incisive.

We want to be bold and try new things, such as moving away from some of our more routine coverage and introducing more instant commentary. To successfully tell the story of markets, we need to reduce our reliance on columns and wraps, and get better at reporting color, interpreting behavior and connecting the dots.

We’re going to let editorial judgment, rather than our structure, dictate the right format for a story, and experiment with different ways of storytelling. We want to leverage technology and automation more creatively, and we want to add more curated content streams for specific markets participants.

Madeleine has done an outstanding job running First Word globally and, before that, building our FX coverage and teams. As you know, she combines an immense flair for markets coverage with a commitment to innovation in our content and products. I’m very excited about the future of this group under her leadership.

Reporting to Madeleine as Global Managing Editors will be Chris Nagi (Equities and Equity Markets); Jenny Paris (Currencies and Rates); Tom Freke (Credit); Sarah McDonald (Asia); Justin Carrigan (Emerging Markets); Clay Eltzroth (Curation and Blogs); Tracy Alloway (Cross-Asset analysis).

We also need a sharp focus on priority areas such as equity movers and leveraged finance, and have appointed senior editors to oversee these beats and others. The overall structure is flatter, and we want to encourage collaboration across teams and with the broader newsroom, and avoid silos or rigidity.

Among our new initiatives, we’re planning a global markets blog, called Markets Live. This flagship product will provide real-time, 24-hour commentary on what’s happening in the markets, and why, and what the future might hold. It will look a little like TOP Live, which has proven to be a remarkably popular format for analysis of events such as economic indicators, earnings and the recent U.S. election. Mike Regan, who’s worked on Gadfly for 18 months as a markets opinion-writer, will be the lead blogger on Markets Live. We’ll launch in the New Year.

Unfortunately, we’ve had to make some difficult decisions as part of this reorganization, and it’s sad for all of us to see colleagues leave the company.

For now, we need to start working together straight away on this integration while maintaining existing coverage for our readers. We’ve asked the MEs to work on an expanded vision for their areas in the coming weeks and we’re keen to hear your ideas on what else we can do. I know they will come thick and fast.

Please work with your managers, old and new, on this process. Training and HR will also support the team as you take on new roles and responsibilities. If you have questions, do reach out to Madeleine, the Managing Editors or me.