Reuters Breakingviews marks 20th anniversary

Reuters Breakingviews, financial commentary brand of Reuters News is celebrating 20 years of agenda-setting insight.

Launched on July 17, 2000, the brand provides unique, agenda-setting insight on the major financial news stories as they break globally each day.

Below is an edited version of what editor Rob Cox said:

“On July 17, 2000, Breakingviews published its first edition of agenda-setting commentaries. The financial industry has dramatically changed since. The media business has been turned upside down. Politics will never be the same. But punchy, analytical journalism has only become more relevant.

“From the start, Breakingviews was established to deliver pithy insights without fear or favor, in real time, with a level of analytical depth that investors, bankers, lawyers, executives and beyond would enjoy reading. Those value propositions haven’t changed. If anything, they have become widely adopted across the industry. New media startups promise “smart brevity” of the kind Breakingviews has delivered for more than 4,800 days. Email newsletters, now all the rage, have always been our primary means of distribution. Those “views flashes” on our home page were Twitter-length years before Jack Dorsey dreamed up his social network.

“We’re no longer an independent startup, scrounging for spare dimes to make ends meet. A decade ago, Breakingviews became the global opinion arm of Reuters, the world’s largest news organization, which has granted its acquisition an editorial autonomy that allows it to thrive creatively. Thomson Reuters brought new resources and expanded readership to hundreds of thousands of professionals via Refinitiv’s Eikon. Each day a selection of our columns is read by many more on Reuters.com, which counts 55 million global users.

“With the support of subscribers, influential newspapers which paid to carry our columns back when they were flush with cash, and our shareholders, we expanded. We opened our U.S. operation from 2005 and built a team of top-notch writers, many of whom are still with us today.

“Breakingviews has added other bells and whistles. The cheap-and-cheerful TV clips once hand-recorded in our first office in New York – in a building known for its lingerie showrooms – have morphed into daily clips, slickly produced by Reuters video editors and distributed to new viewers on social media. Sophisticated graphics and easy-to-use calculators provide additional value. We launched a daily Asian edition in 2014.

“Two weekly podcasts, Viewsroom and The Exchange, satisfy demands for audio versions of our columns and conversations with leading executives, politicians, authors and even the Beach Boys’ genius Brian Wilson. Publication of our annual Predictions book is celebrated with live events in financial centers.

“On that note, we at Breakingviews are popping open a bottle of something bubbly and toasting you, our readers, for your continued support. We wanted to have a party, of course, but blame it on Covid-19. Here’s to another 20 years.”