Reuters names two top news staffers

Martin Howell, top news editor and deputy editor of Americas for Reuters, sent out the following announcement on Thursday morning:

Please welcome two very experienced and talented journalists to the top news team in the Americas.

Sue Horton, who was Op Ed and Opinion Editor at the Los Angeles Times, started this week as our top news editor on the West Coast. Sue has a great track record as an investigative journalist and editor – her previous roles include Deputy California Editor for the LA Times, LA Weekly Editor-in-Chief, and investigative reporter on contract for Sixty Minutes and 20/20. She spent seven years as assistant professor of journalism at the University of Southern California and in 1989 was author of the book  “The Billionaire Boys Club,”  which was made into an NBC mini-series. Sue has already hit the ground running, working on story planning on everything from the measles outbreak to penal reform. She takes on the position previously held by Peter Henderson, who is now deputy companies  news editor.

Stuart Grudgings joins us from Asia where he was our bureau chief in Malaysia and acted as correspondent for Southeast Asia. During that assignment, Stuart contributed to the Pulitzer-prize winning series on the persecution of the Rohingya Muslims. Stuart is no stranger to  this part of the world, having been senior correspondent in Brazil from 2008-2011, and an editor on the then Washington World Desk between 2005-2008. Stuart also worked in the Philippines as deputy bureau chief and was a senior correspondent in Japan.  Stuart, who is based in Washington, started with us just over two weeks ago and has already been making a major contribution on foreign policy and health stories in particular.  Stuart takes on the position vacated by David Lindsey, who left us last May.