Reuters names Kim its US elections editor

Tiffany Wu, Americas editor at Reuters, sent out the following announcement on Wednesday:

Colleagues,

I am delighted to announce that Soyoung Kim has been appointed U.S. elections editor to lead our 2020 campaign coverage. She will return to Washington D.C. and begin her role in late July.

Currently based in Seoul, Soyoung was appointed Korea Bureau Chief in early 2017, when North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was launching missile tests nearly every week and exchanging threats of nuclear war with U.S. President Donald Trump. She capably and creatively ran our multimedia news operation as fears of military conflict on the Korean peninsula gave way to a dramatic reconciliation. Soyoung was the only journalist from Western media to cover the historic inter-Korean summit at the Demilitarized Zone in 2018 – and she has a souvenir photo with the Supreme Leader to prove it. Soyoung began her career at Reuters in Seoul in 2005 and moved to Detroit in 2008 during the financial  crisis. She covered the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler, and their exit from U.S. government ownership, before moving to New York in 2010 to join our M&A team. Her mega scoops include Verizon’s $100 billion bid to take full control of Verizon Wireless and the merger of U.S. Airways and American Airlines. Soyoung became our deals editor in 2013, and the next year won the Reuters Journalist of the Year Award for the reporting team of the year. From 2015 to early 2017, she ran our corporate and financial regulation coverage in DC, leading the team to break numerous stories on antitrust policy, telecoms and transport regulators, lobbying and defense, and produce insightful stories on the intersection of government and big business. Soyoung will be joined in Washington D.C. by her husband Michael and their three-year-old son, Connor.

The 2020 U.S. election will be one of the biggest and most competitive stories in the world. Thus, I am very pleased that Colleen Jenkins has agreed to continue on our campaign team as deputy editor, after successfully overseeing our coverage since last November’s midterm elections. Joining Soyoung and Colleen on the team are Joey Ax, Amanda Becker, Sharon Bernstein, Doina Chiacu, Ginger Gibson, Trevor Hunnicutt, Kia Johnson, Jim Oliphant, Tim Reid, Jarrett Renshaw, Brian Snyder, Linda So, Letitia Stein and John Whitesides. This multimedia team will work closely with the Washington bureau, including our reporters at the White House and on Capitol Hill, Jason Lange and Grant Smith on data, Chris Kahn on polling, plus other colleagues in pictures, video, graphics and digital. We will also draw on the expertise of the many journalists who expressed interest in contributing to our election coverage (more than 100 people from bureaus around the world responded to my email in March). We expect to expand the campaign team after Soyoung has had a chance to review the applications, especially from overseas, and as we get closer to 2020.

In this age of horse-race coverage and dizzying news cycles, it is important for us all to understand our strategy and priorities when it comes to covering the 2020 election: Reuters is focusing on fast, substantive, unbiased coverage of what matters most to our audiences, as determined by our reporting and the exclusive Reuters/IPSOS Poll. On the premise that people need accurate information to make well-informed decisions, we will provide trustworthy news and insights to all those in the U.S. and elsewhere who have a stake in this election. With an eye to understanding what people care about the most, in terms of both issues and candidates’ character, we are committed to avoiding inconsequential, fleeting, or mean-spirited distractions. Trade, the economy, foreign policy, security, the environment, immigration, taxes, healthcare and urgent social issues will all be explored with intelligence, humanity, and fair-mindedness. We won’t ignore the campaign’s pageantry, but we will always remember the campaign’s purpose.

Please join me in congratulating Soyoung and the rest of the team.