Reuters to fold professional news division into regular news service

TALKING BIZ NEWS EXCLUSIVE

Reuters editor in chief Stephen Adler sent the following announcement out to the staff:

When I became editor-in-chief six weeks ago, I outlined six goals to help us achieve our mission of making Thomson Reuters the world’s leading source for news. Our vision, as Tom shared with you, is to place Reuters at the heart of our company and advance to new levels of journalistic excellence.

I’ve had the great opportunity to speak with many of you across the organization and others I trust in our industry about what it will take for us to succeed.

As a result of these discussions, I believe more than ever that the goals I outlined remain both essential and attainable:

• Making Reuters news a central asset of our entire company
• Stressing journalistic excellence
• Focusing more attention on the Internet and mobile processes
• Keeping bureaucracy at bay
• Promoting our journalism proudly, and
• Upholding the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles

With these ambitions in mind, I am pleased to announce our first step. Effective April 10, 2011, the Professional Division’s news team will join the Reuters organization. This alignment creates one single and powerful news source for all Thomson Reuters customers, adds immediate value and insight to our file, and positions Reuters as an essential resource for all the professionals we serve across the legal, tax & accounting, and healthcare & science industries.

The Professional Division’s news team will continue to report directly to executive editor Amy Stevens who will also be joining Reuters News, and New York-based journalists will sit together in 3 Times Square. We have immediate plans to add reporters and editors to expand coverage in these important sectors.

I hope you’ll agree that this is an important building block for our future. As I promised, I will be sharing my broader plans and Editorial structure with you in the coming month.

Once again, I want to commend our entire organization for producing such a strong news file during some of the most extraordinary times around the world.