Financial Times beefs up U.S. newsroom

The Financial Times announced Tuesday several U.S. appointments, including five new newsroom roles.

This is part of an effort to invest in and expand the depth of its coverage of America, home to its fastest-growing online readership.

U.S. news editor Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson adds the title of assistant editor. Under his leadership, the expanded New York news desk will assume a more powerful digital mandate across the global news agenda from the end of the London day. He has held a wide range of senior roles at the FT over the past 18 years, including media editor, New York correspondent and writer for the influential Lex column.

Other hires and moves in the U.S. include:

• Mary Childs left Bloomberg News after six years to join the Financial Times in New York as U.S. financial correspondent. She will begin her new venture in November, covering hedge funds and private equity.
• Alistair Gray is appointed U.S. banking correspondent, moving from London, where he served as insurance correspondent.
• Jake Grovum, recently brought on as a social media journalist on the audience engagement team. Prior to joining the FT, he worked as a reporter and social media editor at Stateline, a journalism project at the Pew Charitable Trusts based in Washington.
• Aimee Keane joined as interactive trainee in September, and currently coordinates all American-based podcasting operations, including the FT’s fast-growing program, Alphachat.
• Eric Platt has been appointed U.S. capital markets correspondent after writing for the FT’s breaking news vertical, FastFT.
• John Paul Rathbone relocates to Miami as Latin America editor beginning in January.
• Adam Samson has joined the Financial Times as a reporter for fastFT. In his new role, he will cover breaking financial news. Adam was previously a breaking news editor for Yahoo! Finance. Prior to that, he was a senior editor for Fox Business Network.
• Alice Ross is appointed fastFT reporter in DC beginning in January.
• Courtney Weaver is appointed U.S. political correspondent from November, and will be based in Washington, D.C. Prior to Washington, she was the FT’s deputy Moscow bureau chief, covering the war in Ukraine; Russia’s annexation of Crimea; Kremlin politics; and the Russian corporate world.
• The FT is additionally hiring two digital news producers and one data visualisation journalist, starting in 2016.

“I’m endlessly proud of and impressed by our team here in the U.S.,” said Gillian Tett, U.S. managing editor, in a statement.  “These moves and hires allow us to deepen our reporting in crucial areas like banking and U.S. politics. Further, they show a strong emphasis not only on what we report but on how we report it. We’re expanding our capacity to report news as it breaks, produce outstanding multimedia content like podcasts, and effectively and meaningfully engage with our audience on social media.”