Reuters Breakingviews has concluded its investigation into its operations in the wake of a columnist forced to resign earlier this month after trading in stock in which he wrote about, and Reuters will conduct training for its staff to prevent the ethical issue from reoccurring.
The Baron, a site that tracks news about Reuters, writes, “Hugo Dixon said that, where necessary, appropriate action had been taken.
“Columnist Neil Collins resigned recently after multiple breaches of the Thomson Reuters code of conduct on dealing in shares he wrote about.
“‘Reuters Breakingviews is more used to commenting on other organisations’ behaviour than to having its own actions put under the microscope,’ Dixon wrote in an online letter to subscribers. ‘But in the last week, as a result of retroactive disclaimers we made to a series of articles in order to clarify potential conflicts of interest, we have rightly been under scrutiny.’
“He noted that Reuters’ Handbook of Journalism forbids journalists from dealing in ‘securities about which they have written recently or about which they intend to write in the near future.’ It also requires them to notify their manager before writing about a company in which they have a financial interest. The purpose of these rules is to avoid actual or apparent conflicts of interest.”
