Reuters names social media editor, deputy online editor

The following announcement was sent out Wednesday by Reuters digital executive editor Jim Impoco:

I am delighted to announce two key additions to Reuters digital team.

First, Anthony De Rosa is the new social media editor for Reuters.com.

Alan Kay, an American scientist at the dawn of the personal computer age, once said: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” De Rosa, a product manager and technologist at Reuters, has taken that message to heart, turning a side project into one of the most potent social media platforms around.

Called “The undisputed King of Tumblr” by the New York Times, De Rosa is creator of soupsoup.tumblr.com, which is among the top 25 of the over 2.3 million tumblogs tracked by Compete. NBC New York has chosen him as one of the top 20 people to follow on Twitter.

In his new role at Reuters.com, De Rosa will integrate what he calls the “ambient wire” that exists on social networks, where news now breaks before anywhere else, into Reuters platforms. As part of his mission, he will help our journalists and editors use social media tools to monitor news, report news, and find leads.

Under Anthony’s direction, social media will extend our brand, bring more people to Reuters.com, and make Reuters the most recognizable name in news. De Rosa will report to Reuters.com global editor Kenneth Li.

On the op-ed side, Paul Smalera started on June 27 as deputy editor, reporting to Jim Ledbetter.

Paul comes to us from Fortune.com, where he was a senior editor, responsible for, among other things, the site’s tech coverage and special projects, including the online presentation of the Fortune 500. Paul is a gifted writer (he was already entered into the Reuters web site because we have reprinted some of his stories from other sites) and began his career designing and building Web sites, later becoming a staff writer at Conde Nast Portfolio. He will be commissioning and editing opinion and commentary pieces and, if we’re lucky, writing a few as well.

Please join me in welcoming Paul to Reuters and congratulating Anthony on his exciting new role.