WSJ opens Barcelona newsroom

Wall Street Journal editor Gerard Baker sent out the following announcement to the staff on Monday:

Earlier this month we marked an important milestone in our efforts to serve professional audiences when we opened a newsroom in Barcelona. The writers and editors on the Barcelona team are dedicated to producing content for Dow Jones Newswires, and will be involved in initiatives that support other specialized products. Importantly, the opening of our news operation will facilitate even greater cooperation with the Barcelona-based Data Strategy Team. In short, Barcelona will be a center for journalistic excellence and innovation.

The Barcelona newsroom is co-led by Sarah Sloat, who will oversee headlining and reporting for the Newswires on corporate and other disclosure news from Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and Jacques van Wersch, who will look after Newswires copy editing and office operations. Sarah recently served as head of the spot news desk in Frankfurt, while Jacques arrives from New York, where he worked on Newswires projects and strategy.

The news team in Barcelona includes journalists from nine countries, providing essential multilingual skills that will allow for coverage of press releases and other disclosure news from throughout the region. When fully staffed in the coming weeks, the Barcelona newsroom will comprise two dozen members, selected from more than 1,000 applicants.

Over the next several weeks the Barcelona team will receive training on standards, style, coding, workflow, publishing tools and more. The newsroom is scheduled to be fully operational in September, but will begin publishing certain Newswires items by next month.

In the fall, we also expect to fill a newly created data strategy position in the Barcelona newsroom. This person would work closely with the data researchers already in Barcelona as well as developers to leverage data that’s already being produced and also to increase automation of valuable content for Newswires. We expect many of the ideas hatched in Barcelona will be implemented globally, enhancing our professional offerings.

Many people deserve praise for the work they’ve done over the past several months to make the opening of the Barcelona newsroom possible. In addition to Sarah, Jacques and Ian Walker, who is moving from London to serve as deputy editor on the news desk, Jim Washburn and Adrian Kerr deserve particular recognition for their smart, diligent and tireless work. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Hannah Cross and Danae Balius from human resources and Rahul Patel from the technology team in Barcelona.

Please join me in thanking everyone who helped with the Barcelona launch and in wishing our new colleagues all the best in their exciting new assignments.

Gerry