WSJ’s Spector joining Reuters as corporate crisis reporter

Vanessa O’Connell, global industry editor for retail and consumer at Reuters, sent out the following announcement on Thursday:

I am very pleased to announce that Mike Spector will join Reuters as our U.S. Corporate Crisis Correspondent. In this new role, Mike will work with reporters in other bureaus and teams to break news and produce high impact stories about corporate scandals, legal troubles and regulatory or federal investigations.

Mike joins us from The Wall Street Journal, where he frequently reported on companies facing government investigations into misconduct, financial collapse– or both. A newshound with deep sourcing, Mike has broken news on some of the biggest corporate stories of the past decade, including the failures of MF Global, MGM Studios and Kodak,Borders, and Blockbuster, as well as the collapse of Energy Future Holdings, the largest-ever leveraged buyout.

More recently, Mike focused on the automobiles industry, reporting on self-driving cars and fatal Uber and Tesla crashes. He landed scoops on Volkswagen’s emissions-cheating crisis and a subsequent U.S. criminal investigation, and he revealed internal concerns among Takata employees about fraudulent test reports on air bags. A story he co-authored exposing dissent among engineers developing Tesla’s semiautonomous driving technology was part of a package honored with a SABEW award. 

Mike is based in New York, although he is a long-suffering Washington, D.C., sports fan. He will start on October 1. Until then, please welcome him at mike.spector@gmail.com.

Regards,

Vanessa O’Connell